If you are still wondering about getting a GPU card that supports cycling, I’d like to say that I rendered an image from this file at blenderguru months ago without a GPU card in cycles and it took 1 hour and 4 minutes to do it.
I just acquired a gigabyte gtx 650 2gb card and rendered the same image in 7 minutes, 6 seconds.
The card is not the greatest one, but it’s fairly low cost, installed easily and doesn’t require a high output power supply to operate. It’s running fine on my 450 watt ps and I’ve heard of one running on a 400 watt ps.
a few things ive thought of getting for christmas were:
a new computer with a good graphics card to support GLSL.
some green screen materials
camera that shoots at 24 fps
eastwest quantum leap symphony orchestra or Reaktor.
a violin or viola.
One copy of my book
A Macarthur study bible.
pthis is to name a few. I still am hesitant on a few things due to financing and so etc.
My Citizenship membership back on Blender Cookie (expired beginning of December without me knowing!)…
A lot more Blender Knowledge / Patience…
Oh, and some socks maybe…you can never have enough socks…
EDIT : The GTX650 was also on my list…among everything else…Although I was thinking of going for a GTX680. Care you show us a sample of the finished article?