So recently I’ve been wanting to upgrade my GPU. I’ve never really used Blender with a dedicated GPU and I guess I’m missing out on a lot of speed for just using my CPU, which is listed below. I’m really wanting to get the best bang for my buck when it comes to a card and I would prefer not to upgrade my PSU which is just whatever default one is in there (prob 300 w). I’m considering the GTX 1050 TI or the GTX 1060. I know the 1060 would probably require a PSU upgrade too. I’m looking to stay under $300 total and get the best rendering GPU now available for this budget.
I don’t care about performance for games and I only use my computer for Blender for the most part. You can see the link in my sig that goes to my portfolio. Please let me know if you think I would benefit from this. Main specs are below. I would appreciate the community’s expertise in this. There might be a much better deal I don’t even know about, please let me know if I’m overlooking anything here.
Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4770 CPU @ 3.40GHz
Intel(R) HD Graphics 4600
8.0 GB
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium
Hard to calc the power usage without knowing your full system specs, but I suspect that 450 watts would probably do it with a 1060. Would stick to Corsair or SilverStone in that regard.
Any one of the dual fan 1060’s should be quite suitable. You’re not going to see huge variations between the various models in render times.
I really wouldn’t bother with a 1050ti, no sense in missing out on those 2 extra gigs of vram for so little money.
Thank you for your help and advice. I’m trying to compare my i7-4770 CPU @ 3.40GHz CPU to the both cards. I’m afraid if I get the 1060 my single airflow fan at the rear of my pc might not be enough to vent? Could that be an issue or do I just upgrade my PSU and GPU and I’m good to go? If I do that should I get a 500 watt psu to be safe? Thank you again
if your going to lock it up in a little stock case, then use a program like msi afterburner or evga precision x to monitor your temps. you can also set custom fan curves.
dont cheap out on the psu. i had a cheap 600 watt blow up in smoke once. lucky no hardware damage was done.
the rule is 1.5x or 2x the wattage your computer uses under full load. i personally refuse to buy a unit under 800. the lighter the load, the longer it will last, and efficient it will be. 80 gold rated is minimum.
if you get a good oem (not brand), then wattage is less important.
Depends on the cooler of the card. A few GPUs use a direct heat exhaust system, where the heat is pushed out though the rear end of the card instead of being distributed in the case. Nvidia’s own 1060 Founders Edition is one example.
Well, I just last week upgraded my GTX750 ti 2GB to an EVGA GTX1050 ti SC 4GB, the card cost me 140 pounds (uk). I can tell you it provided a 30% speed up and with an overclock which still has the card running below 50 degrees, gave an extra 8% - 9% improvement over that without overstresing the GPU card. I am more than happy with the results, running on a very modest budget PC, (I3-4150 3.5ghz cpu with 16GB ram).
My system has a 500 watt PSU, but I have seen videos of this particular card installed in systems with a basic setup and 300W psu, it isn’t very power hungry, about 75W.
Put some money towards another stick of RAM too (skip coffee for a week or two if you have to). Not that it’s necessarily needed just for Blender right now, but as you start working on more complex projects there’s going to be bigger models, more side-applications loaded, reference images… it goes by pretty fast.
