Which GPU for Rendering?

My Titan GPU (first generation) is causing grey screen when rendering. I suspect it is my GPU that is broken but I definetly need some GPU that is at least as fast as my Titan.

I already have a second GPU 1070, but it is not rendering as fast as the titan. I was told the reason is Titan has a larger bandwith than the 1070/1080 series. Which GPU would you recommend for rendering with Cycles that has at least the same bandwith and is at least as fast as the Titan I am used to?

Also, do I have to re-install Windows 10 if I get a new graphics card? I’m no hardware expert,

I don’t think memory bandwidth is the main limiting factor for the GTX 1070. The TITAN is simply a huge die with more CUDA cores, although thanks to architectural improvements the gap between the two shouldn’t be that big.
GeForce GTX TITAN - Kepler - 14 SMX - 2688:224:48 - 6GB GDDR5 - 384-bit bus - 288.4 GB/s
GeForce GTX 1070 - Pascal - 15 SM - 1920:120:64 - 8GB GDDR5 - 256-bit bus - 256.2 GB/s

I would recommend to investigate the issue with your card a bit further, update your drivers, check out the stable build of Blender, is there any issue in other applications as well?

There’s no point in buying older generation dGPU so if you want a new one have a look at the enthusiast class Pascal dGPUs - GTX 1080 Ti, Nvidia TITAN X, Nvidia TITAN Xp. Or you can go all out and grab the Nvidia TITAN V if money is not an issue. :rofl:

I used the same version of Blender I’ve always used. It all began with a black screen of death randomly (no matter if I used Blender or not, just leaving it with no applications). Then I had it tested at support and they found no problems, although no it gives me a grey screen of death upon rendering (not always though).

I’m on Win10. I already tried updating the drivers but there is still this problem.

Can it be some other problem than the GPU?

My Titan is 5 years old btw.

Also, if I decide to invest in a 1080 Ti, will that be faster for rendering than my Titan?

I see the 1080 Ti has more cuda cores…3584. Titan has 2688.

If I decide to get a new PC with 2*1080 Ti should they run SLI or not? I’ve read SLI makes them slower, is that correct?

1080Ti should be faster than Titan. In rendering PRO cards such as Titan doesn’t have a big advantage over mainstream ones. Where they are stroneg is refreshing a viewport, CAD apps or simulations. And as for SLI - you don’t need need in a blender and you don’t want - it will only make renders slower, as you mentioned.

Thanks. I already have a 1070, can I replace the broken Titan with 1080 Ti (so I have 1080 Ti default, 1070 2nd) without having to re-install Windows?

You don’t have to reinstall windows just to change your graphics card

That is no problem - in SLI yes, but no with rendering. :slight_smile: You should use some tool such as DDU (Display Driver uninstaller) before. Just to not mess with drivers. Maybe try same with Titan first. Download few versions of drivers, and try them with using DDU every time.

nvidia to nvidia, no driver clean needed. most of the time you can just use the one you already have if you got from the nvidia website.

not sure if the manufacturer cd drivers will work.

Well, I had problems with drivers when switching from 780ti to 1060 so it not that simple.

So, it seems like its a new graphics card. The question now is:

Should I go for one 1080 Ti + 1070, or 2*1080 Ti or just one Titan V?

  • in terms of render time.

I don’t have a lot of money but I need a graphics card that satsify my needs. The current Titan+1070 also is too slow rendering. It takes 2 hours rendering a 720p low poly animation of 30 sec. depending on scene.

Also, which PSU would you recommend for any solution here?

30 seconds * 24 frames/second is ~ 720 frames. 2 hours is 120 minutes, so that’s around 6 minutes per frame. That’s not too shabby, even for 720p, depending on how complex the scene is. I suspect you’re towards the upper limit on what improved desktop hardware can improve on (without going to a distributed system at least), where you’d get more improvements from management.