How can I improve my PC for DAZ?

[iOtero]

How can I improve my PC for DAZ?

Well, I am not very expert in DAZ, but I would like to improve my pc, which currently has these components:

CPU: Intel Core i7-4790K 4.0 Ghz
Board: Asus Z97-A/USB 3.1
GPU: EVGA GeForce GTX960 4GB FTW ACX 2.0+
RAM: 32GB
SSD1: 240GB (Only Win10 and apps.)
SSD2: 1TB (Only DAZ)
HD1: 4TB (Data)
HDS: 6TB (Games and downloads)

A friend has recommended me to buy another GPU just like the one I have and mount an SLI, but I have never done that and I don't know if it is a good idea, or not worth it. He told me because then I would have a 2 GPU's with 8GB of memory in total.

The thing is that I have more or less 900 euros to improve it and I don't even know what to buy as a priority.

What would you do?

 

[recreation]

Usually a new grafics card would be the first thing I'd recommend, but with this setup you're probably better of with a new mainboard and cpu which means you'd also need new ram. With a bit luck you can get a 3060ti for the rest of the money...

 

[iOtero]

Usually a new grafics card would be the first thing I'd recommend, but with this setup you're probably better of with a new mainboard and cpu which means you'd also need new ram. With a bit luck you can get a 3060ti for the rest of the money...

I've been looking at the online stores in my country and there are no Radeon GTX 3060, 3070 or 3080 for sale. Only the GTX 3090 of more than 1500 euros. So the best thing will be that, for now, I spend the 900 euros in Mainboard, CPU and RAM. Can you think of any configuration? Would be a good idea to spend 250 euros in another card like mine to do the SLI in the meantime?
Thanks for your help.

 

[recreation]

Radeon GTX 3060

That made me laugh, thanks a lot, weither on purpose or not

I recently took the time to look for some parts for a friend with a relatively tight budget and this is what he got:
ASUS TUF GAMING B550M-PLUS Mainboard = 150€
AMD Ryzen 5 3600 Boxed = 224€
HyperX Fury Black 32 GB DDR4-3200 = 132€
~500€ for some really good parts

Disclaimer: This is just an example, you can obviously find cheaper stuff, but the above is quite a good deal for good hardware imo.

PS: Forget about SLI for the moment, you don't need it for rendering in daz even if you use two cards, it's only used for memory stacking, and honestly 250€ for that card is a way too expensive.

 

[31971207]

If 900euro is the budget in the foreseeable future then I would wait for a Nvidia card to fall into your budget. For Daz3D, spending 900 on a new Nvidia RTX GPU over the existing GTX960 will yield 100x the difference over spending the same amount upgrading your existing MB/CPU/RAM.

EDIT: 250 for GTX960 is ridiculous. I think a used GTX970 is like $50.

 

[Romirom]

Found this:

You must be registered to see the links

Maybe it helps.

You have to ask yourself the question what you want to do in rendering. I wouldn't recommend beefing up your machine with that amount of money. I think your's is just fine. The only thing I would change is the Gpu of course because 4GB of GRam is pretty weak considering the amount of action going on in one render. I have a GTX 1060 with 6GB and it's okay for what I'm doing but like I said you have to ask yourself because I don't know how complex your renders will be and if you're a beginner or not.

Cheers

 

[iOtero]

Well, if the most important thing is the GPU, now I will have to wait to see when the GTX 30x0 are available again in my country, Spain... Because not even on Amazon... Only the most expensive, like:

EVGA GeForce RTX 3090 XC3 ULTRA GAMING 24GB GDDR6X

Which would be a great GPU, but the 1900 euros it costs is out of my reach...

And yes, I am a beginner, I am trying to do my first renders and with my current equipment it takes me 4 to 6 hours to get out... And they are no wonder, they are basically a human figure and an environment...

Thank you all for your help

 

[megaplayboy10k]

You might consider getting an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 6 GB. The support for raytracing and extra memory would definitely shorten your render times a bit. I'm not sure what you could get one for but if you go bargain hunting or look for a certified pre-owned/refurbished one, you might be able to get one for under 200 bucks. It should be the cheapest available Nvidia card with ray-tracing.
Otherwise upgrading your cpu and mobo would probably be a good investment.

 

[recreation]

Okay, let me clear things up a bit:

First: When you want to work in daz, you need a good CPU nd fast RAM for working with the scene, that is long before rendering. It's not as important as a fast GPU, but with your current setup you'll have a laggy viewport, lots of hiccups and long loading times. Not the best conditions if you want to work with Daz regularly.

Second: A good GPU is important, BUT!
If you only look at the GPU and don't care about everything else, you'll get in trouble soon. Your current hardware will be a bottleneck probably already for the RTX 20xx cards.
Also I've been rendering for a loooong time on a GTX 1060 and 1070 and it was absolutely okay. Sure the new cards are a lot faster, but that doesn't mean you can't get good render in a decent amount of time on an older card (not as old as yours though), so yeah, a RTX 20xx series card should be more than enough compared to your current GPU, but as with the 30xx cards the prices are BS at the moment, so it makes more sense to wait and invest in other parts.

 

[iOtero]

On ebay they have a new RTX3060 ti Gigabyte gaming OC 8gb card for 600 euros.
Is it a good card for that money?

I think maybe I will ask Amazon for one:
ASUS TUF-RTX3070-O8G-GAMING
(NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 OC Edition, PCIe 4.0, 8 GB GDDR6)
from January 10th that will be available for 757 euros.

My maiboard has only PCIe 3.0. Is this a serious problem?

 

[Romirom]

Okay, let me clear things up a bit:

First: When you want to work in daz, you need a good CPU nd fast RAM for working with the scene, that is long before rendering. It's not as important as a fast GPU, but with your current setup you'll have a laggy viewport, lots of hiccups and long loading times. Not the best conditions if you want to work with Daz regularly.

Second: A good GPU is important, BUT!
If you only look at the GPU and don't care about everything else, you'll get in trouble soon. Your current hardware will be a bottleneck probably already for the RTX 20xx cards.
Also I've been rendering for a loooong time on a GTX 1060 and 1070 and it was absolutely okay. Sure the new cards are a lot faster, but that doesn't mean you can't get good render in a decent amount of time on an older card (not as old as yours though), so yeah, a RTX 20xx series card should be more than enough compared to your current GPU, but as with the 30xx cards the prices are BS at the moment, so it makes more sense to wait and invest in other parts.

You don't need to have a good CPU for Daz. I have an i7 2600 (3,4Ghz) which is almost 10 years old from now on but I deactivated the CPU fallback rendering in Daz which then only uses 30% of the CPU while the GPU is mainly doing the work in the render. I render images always at a maximum of 2 hours in 4k. If the scene is a bit dark and noisy I use the Nvidia denoiser (you can get here on f95) which works like a charm. I sometimes managed to shrink down my render times to 20 minutes with a few tricks and they look absolutely fine.

Oh and I'm using lots of assets in a render. There are tricks and tips on the internet to greatly improve your render times with a slow machine and many assets.

 

[recreation]

You don't need to have a good CPU for Daz. I have an i7 2600 (3,4Ghz) which is almost 10 years old from now on but I deactivated the CPU fallback rendering in Daz which then only uses 30% of the CPU while the GPU is mainly doing the work in the render. I render images always at a maximum of 2 hours in 4k. If the scene is a bit dark and noisy I use the Nvidia denoiser (you can get here on f95) which works like a charm. I sometimes managed to shrink down my render times to 20 minutes with a few tricks and they look absolutely fine.

Oh and I'm using lots of assets in a render. There are tricks and tips on the internet to greatly improve your render times with a slow machine and many assets.

You didn't deactivate cpu fallback, that's not even possible in daz. What you did is deactivating CPU default usage during rendering.
And of course there are ways to improve rendering speed and performance, heck I'm probably the biggest advocat of scene optimization here on f95, but it simply makes no sense to buy an expensive GPU if it creates a bottleneck with your current hardware.

 

[Romirom]

You didn't deactivate cpu fallback, that's not even possible in daz. What you did is deactivating CPU default usage during rendering.

I'm not a technician so let me ask that question. If the option is there why shouldn't it doing what it says?



I unticked the CPU in advanced render settings for both photoreal mode and interactive mode.
My CPU was running on 35% instead of 100% while rendering an image and it was 3 times faster than before. I guess it's a classic case of "it worked for me".

but it simply makes no sense to buy an expensive GPU if it creates a bottleneck with your current hardware.

I agree. You definitely don't need a high powered killer machine especially if you're a beginner. I suggest to buy a used 1060 which is 70% faster + more GRam than the 960 (

You must be registered to see the links

) and start to learn the basics of 3d rendering and photography which is pretty hard on it's own.

You can have a 10.000$/€ machine but if you don't understand the basics of photography your images will always look like garbage even if you can render in no time and are able to throw hundreds of assets in one scene.

Cheers

 

[recreation]

I'm not a technician but let me ask that question. If it's there why shouldn't it doing what it says?

It's wrongly labeled, if it's ticked, it will always use CPU and whatever else is ticked for rendering. If CPU is unticked it will still "fallback" to CPU if the GPU doesn't have enough ram to hold the scene, but it will not use CPU by default.

 

[Romirom]

It's wrongly labeled, if it's ticked, it will always use CPU and whatever else is ticked for rendering. If CPU is unticked it will still "fallback" to CPU if the GPU doesn't have enough ram to hold the scene, but it will not use CPU by default.

Thanks, that explains why my render times were a lot faster than before.

 

[31971207]

On ebay they have a new RTX3060 ti Gigabyte gaming OC 8gb card for 600 euros.
Is it a good card for that money?

I think maybe I will ask Amazon for one:
ASUS TUF-RTX3070-O8G-GAMING
(NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 OC Edition, PCIe 4.0, 8 GB GDDR6)
from January 10th that will be available for 757 euros.

My maiboard has only PCIe 3.0. Is this a serious problem?

Even RTX 3090 will be fine with PCIe 3.0. The current usage case for PCIe 4.0 is for new generation NVMe SSD drives coming to market in 2021. RTX 4xxx might need PCIe 4.0.

For Daz you don't need OC edition, they are for gaming. You can save a few euro if non-OC cards are available.

RTX 3xxx cards are notoriously power hungry cards. You should check your PSU. 650W might be OK if it's from a good brand but 750W is preferred for 3070.

 

[iOtero]

Even RTX 3090 will be fine with PCIe 3.0. The current usage case for PCIe 4.0 is for new generation NVMe SSD drives coming to market in 2021. RTX 4xxx might need PCIe 4.0.

For Daz you don't need OC edition, they are for gaming. You can save a few euro if non-OC cards are available.

RTX 3xxx cards are notoriously power hungry cards. You should check your PSU. 650W might be OK if it's from a good brand but 750W is preferred for 3070.

Thanks for your help.
My PSU is a Nox Urano VX 650W I hope that's enough.
Right now it's not like I can choose the card to buy, in Amazon.es there is what there is, and now there is nothing, but from day ten, they put that one on sale...
At least under the conditions I'm looking for, Amazon Prime, known seller, not coming from China, etc..

 

[Deleted member 1121028]

And of course there are ways to improve rendering speed and performance, heck I'm probably the biggest advocat of scene optimization here on f95

lol n.i.g.g.a pls.

 

[OhWee]

So this card leaked...

You must be registered to see the links

12 GB of VRAM for $449 US sounds pretty awesome to me. This might be the new Daz budget king card, but of course it'll probably be unobtanium when it launches, between the scalpers and crypto miners hoovering them all up.

Nonetheless, once supply catches up with demand, yeah... or if you are particularly brave and can find a place to pre-order it, just make sure the seller has a decent return policy just in case some issue pops up...

As to how it relates to your build, others have given some good advice already. You can 'make do' with your existing board, but if you can afford to upgrade ATM, say to the Ryzen 5 3600 build as suggested by recreation , well it's a thought.

The main thing I'd look at with Nvidia cards, as others have suggested, is the amount of Ram first (as it relates to the cards within your budget range), then the generation of card. I'm using a 1080 Ti. The RTX 20 and 30 series cards are faster, but a lot of my more complex scenes hit the 11 GB of VRAM wall pretty quickly, and a CPU based render in Iray is MUCH slower. Yes, you can optimize, but that takes extra time, and some of the time I end up doing multiple passes with say 1/2 or 1/3 of the total characters in the scene in each pass, then merging them in Photoshop... the point here being, the more VRAM you have available (to a point), the less likely your more complex renders will exceed the available VRAM...

The 24 GB RTX 3090 would be awesome, except for that $1500+ US Price range. Which is why that 'leaked' 12 GB card in the linked article above looks so promising...

If for some reason you decide that you aren't going to be doing Iray rendering (most people around here using DS are on the Iray bandwagon, myself included), at that point the GPU becomes much less important, as 3Delight and probably Filament are CPU based rendering engines. 3Delight has less support than Iray does these days. But if 3Delight is the way you want to go, at that point more CPU cores good! At that point, the 8, 12, or 16 core AMD options start looking pretty good... but for Iray, yeah 6 cores is probably plenty... But for 3Delight, pretty much any modern graphics card should do fine running the desktop and the Daz (non-Iray) viewport.

My personal advice is definitely arrange for at least 2 TB of drive space, as Daz Studio files plus your own saves add up space wise pretty quickly. For Daz Studio, HDDs are perfectly fine, and an SSD isn't going to speed things up inside of Studio all that much, and there are a number of 4 TB HDDs available in the roughly $100 range US (some more, some less). A suitable SSD for the boot drive is also a good idea, size based on budget (personally I'd suggest no less than 512 GB if you plan to install a fair amount other stuff on the C: partition), but you could install everything Daz Studio related on your HDD. 2 TB SSD's are around (I use these along with a HDD), and even larger ones, but as the GB increases the prices really start to jump up...

Food for thought!

 

[darkhound1]

Your cpu and other current hardware is more than fast enough to support a better GPU.
You don't have to built a new PC to be able to render a lot faster in DAZ.
Try to get a RTX 3060ti or RTX 3070 and put it in as an additional GPU. Any normal user does not need SLI for DAZ, so just put it into a free slot.

Attach your monitor(s) to the GTX960.
Use only the new RTX card for rendering and disable the GTX960 in DAZ.

A new PC for 1000+ EUR or USD will only render marginally faster than your current hardware bundled with one of the above RTX cards.
You only need a better/faster PC if you want to do taxing other things with your PC while DAZ is rendering (especially working on a new scene in another DAZ session). You can still surf the web or use word or watch a video with your current CPU though.

If the RTX 3060 ultra is a good buy or not - it's hard to say. I almost never need more than 8 GB of RAM. Also the price probably means nothing if there is no general availability. Same problem as with all other RTX cards.
If the RTX 3060 ultra really has only 3840 cuda cores, compared to the 4864 of the 3060ti or the 5888 of the 3070, I wouldn't buy it.

EDIT:
If you want to stay with your 650W PSU, you might not be able to use the GTX960 together with the new RTX card.
If that is the case, attach your monitor to your internal GPU of your intel CPU.
In case you have some money to spend, I'd suggest to buy a 900 or 1000 Watt PSU which you can use witch a new PC too. It would also allow for a second RTX card.