Laptop graphics card advice
Cbird
Posts: 493
This may be a stupid question, but I'm trying to choose between a couple laptops, and I'm not sure which card will be most useful.
I do have a desktop workstation, so this won't be my sole computer. I will be running Carrara, 3d-Coat, and Photoshop--for animation and stills. The two cards in question are the GTX 980m and the GTX 880m. They have the same number of cuda cores for Octane. The 980 is clearly faster, but it would be the 4 GB version, while the 880 has a pretty nice 8 GB. Will I be better off going for speed, or is giving up some speed for the extra memory a good trade?
I'd appreciate any thoughts on this. I'm hoping to decide soon, in case my husband has picked up on the Valentine's hints, lol.
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Comments
I'm not an expert on this, but I would lean toward the higher VRAM -- I suspect that will be the limiting factor when using GPU-based render engines.
I'm pretty sure that this isn't an issue with those two cards, but some of the monster graphics cards are actually two or more separate "cards" in one, so the actual maximum VRAM you can use on a single scene is only half of the total.
Another thing worth checking for a laptop in particular is the heat output (and cooling capacity of the laptop if they're substantially different) -- laptops don't dissipate heat as easily as desktops do, so you'll want to make sure the system can handle the heat produced by running the GPU's full-bore for long periods.
That's all helpful, fixmypcmike, thank you.
The tip on the bigger cards will be something I should keep in mind when I look to replace the desktop too.
+1 on the cooling issues. Make sure the laptop has very good cooling - I have an older MSI GT70 with Cooler Boost - and it's excellent for keeping the GPu cool.
If your planning on using Octane, either card would be fantastic, but I would go for the one with more RAM, even if it is a bit slower (would still be light years faster than what I'm using with Octane). With 8Gb you'll have a lot more room for larger scenes. I have a GTX 670M with 3Gb of RAM and am quite happy with the performance, but having 3Gb can be a bit limiting, 4 would be better, but 8 would be awesome!!
Hope this helps
That's great dustrider! It's an MSI I'm looking at. NCIX has a sale on right now. Thank you!
The MSI's are great (at least mine is). With cooler boost on the gpu only runs a few degrees hotter than while browsing the internet, the CPU runs about 10 degrees hotter while rendering, but still well under the max temps.. I've run Octane for over 24 hours straight, and CPU renders for over 40 hours with no heating issues at all. The build quality is very good as well.
Is there some reason behind why they went to only 4G on the 980M? Maybe there's a design flaw in the 880M 8G, perhaps it overheats too easily or something? Might be worth making sure there's no inherent reason the newer generation dialed back the memory just to be certain.
My laptop has a little bitty 740M, so only 2G. 4G would be huge for me :)
What's funny is in Thearender I never seem to bump into the 2G ceiling, but in Octane I seem to hit it pretty quickly unless I seriously optimize my shaders. Most scenes I do fit pretty well inside of 2G though; I don't do a lot of hugely complex scenes I guess. Still, it would be nice to have more memory :)
Reviews for the 880m seem pretty enthusiastic. There is as 8 GB version of the 980m, but pricy and not available in the ones I'm looking at. Still, I expect it smoke the 880.