Gtx 1650 or rtx 3050 for DAZ
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Gtx 1650 or rtx 3050 for DAZ
odastein
Posts: 606
in The Commons
Due to the sudden death of my laptop, I need to buy a new one. Basically the laptops I can afford come with either a gtx 1650 or a rtx 3050. Which one would best for DAZ studio?
Also how important would it be to have 16 gb of RAM rather than 8 gb? For instance is a gtx 1650 and 16 gb RAM better or worse than a rtx 3050 but only 8 gb of RAM?
Thanks in advance.
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Comments
The RTX 3050 is definitely the better of those cards for Iray (still very VRAM stretched, but at least it doesn't have to use some of that loading RTX emulation libraries), but the lesser system RAM might well end up being a pain in its own right; while common advice is to have twice your VRAM, having four times is definitely better given how much RAM can be used setting up a scene.
The amount of VRAM on the card is important, as if the scene doesn't fit in the VRAM then the GPU will not be used at all for rendering.
So if you typically render very big scenes with lots of different textures 8Gb might not be enough for you.
It's particularly important for a GTX card, as the same scene will take more VRAM on GTX cards since GTX cards need to emulate some of the new features handled by hardware on RTX cards.
I agree with Leana.
I could test a HP Omen with 16 GB RAM and a GTX 1660 Ti with 6 GB RAM.In Most cases of simple Renders (1 G8F with Hair, Clothes etc.) i reached the 6 GB from the GTX and had an CPU fallback (which means much longer rendertimes).
So I would recommend a Graphiccard with a minimum of 8 GB VRAM.
Depending on how much money you have to spend is the main thing here, but at the same time you will want to get the best bang per buck here.. You don't want to have a system that although it might be cheap, it may no be up to the task at hand, as Studio can be demanding sometimes..
Since you are looking for laptops less than a $1000 I can tell you that you'll not save a huge amount of money by buying a laptop with a GTX 1650 compared to one with a RTX 3050. I have a laptop from last year with a GTX 1650 and it's decent at rendering most 2K scenes in DAZ Studio in 2 - 4 hours but an RTX 3050 will be much faster, about on par with the RTX 2060 mobile GPUs from last year. The laptops with GTX 1650 can be had for about $600 - $750, the cheap ones; while you can find the laptops with RTX 3050 GPUs for $800 - $950. Eg, The HP Victus models for those GPUs are cheap entry level gaming / school laptops meant to be cheap and durable for student affordability and usage.
8Gb RAM and a 1650 is pure crap, you're better off rendering on a toaster, your best bet is to have at least 16 GB RAM and 8Gb VRAM, but you're going to have to spend more than $1k to get it, and I would not go the HP/Dell route as they have proprietary parts, meaning you cannot upgrade!
Cyberpower PC has much better choices, and you can configure how much RAM you get as well, they also offer a 16 GB sys RAM/3080 16Gb VRAM model, but you'll have to shell out over $2k, with HP, you'll have to pay close to what you'll get with CPPC, and they only offer useless 4-6 GB GPUs, 100% worthless for rendering!
The thing is, if you want to be able to render with 8-16 GB VRAM with 16 GB sys ram you have to pay money, but if you want a budget build for les than 1k, then you don't need to be rendering with it as 4 GB VRAM /8 GB sys ram is useless, unless you want to lock up your laptop for hours on end to come up with only one scene, then you'll get what you pay for!
+1
the 1650 cannot render worthwhile pics in Daz Studio. Don't touch it.
It sucks that you'll have to break the bank for this hobby, but that's the nature of the beast, I myself had to spend nearly a year withholding $250 out of my meager less-than-$1k-per-month check, but I'm glad I did as I'm able to multitask with my PC WHILE rendering scenes and even encode video/work in another 3D prog! !
Unfortunately they won't be open until Monday because of the holiday.
...this is the primary reason why I only use note books for more common uses like routine online stuff and managing data and not renering Component are smaller, , more expensive, and are extremely limited in expandability.
I have a 9 year old system that needs to be upgraded as I will be moving to W11.(from 7 Pro).
I currently have a 12 GB GPU but only 24 GB of DDR3 system memory (the total the MB supports) which is really cutting it tight (also keep in mind about 1 to 1.25GB will be used by the OS and system operations/utilities). I am looking to upgrade to a 10 core i9, 64 GB of DDR4 memory' (with provision for another 64 GB) and new MB. Even with the CPU cooler (best air cooler on the market) and an upgrade to a 500 GB M.2 SSD, the total cost comes to under 950$. I still get to use the same GPU (RTX 3060 12 GB), drives and PSU. Will only have to clean install Daz and other main programmes as the Runtime/Library drive and storage drives is are data only.
Yeah, you're right, ultimately it is much better to have a PC rather than a laptop for doing anything as heavy as rendering 3D scenes, I plan on waiting 'til AM5/zen 4 as I don't want to block my upgrade path for future builds by staying with the DDR4 format... That will also be the time I'll finally upgrade to win 11 as I'm in no hurry in getting that crappy OS with its truncated features and crappy mac-fueled design!
It might be advisable to tell us what GPU your dead laptop has. If you were rendering on an old and limited laptop, it is possible both of these are sizeable upgrades for you already. Most people are going to look at it from their perspective, and everyone has their own idea of what is good enough.
The 3050 has dedicated ray tracing cores. These have proven themselves to be a force when it comes to Iray, allowing even low spec GPUs to render Iray as fast or even faster than the top GPUs that lack these ray tracing cores. So while a 3050 might not seem like much to gamers, it is faster than a lot of best 1000 series cards at rendering Iray, if not all of them. My sig has a link to the Iray benchmark thread, though most of it is dedicated to desktop, it can give you some idea of performance. There are some laptops in there.
The memory is the bigger question. If you get a laptop, try to see if it has the option to add more RAM later. It is usually easy to upgrade most laptops with more RAM, spit is not a huge concern as long as it is ungradeable and not soldered down. But you can never add more VRAM, and as you know if you run out of VRAM the GPU just sits idle and you drop to CPU rendering. So VRAM can often be a premium for Daz Iray users. How much you actually need just depends on what you are rendering, but 4gb is restrictively low IMO. In this regard, a 2000 series laptop might an option if you can get used or refurbed 2070 or 2080 that offers 8gb of VRAM, or a 2060 that has 6gb because these will give you more VRAM (and are probably faster, too).
Thanks for the answer. I didn't know if there was a significant difference between the two cards, and since it's the case, I took the 3050 with 8Gb RAM on a laptop where additional RAM can easily be installed.
Thanks. 8 Gb was the RAM, not the VRAM, unfortunately.
I can't afford that. It's 4 Gb VRAM or nothing.
Since both cards had the same VRAM ( 4Gb) I didn't know if there was a significant difference. Either I could buy a GTX 1650 with 16 Gb RAM or a RTX 3050 with 8 Gb RAM. Since you and others mention that the 3050 is significantly better, I bought this one and will add more RAM when I'll be able to. Thanks for your answer.
I'm familiar with rendering on a toaster, as I was previously rendering on a laptop that was, if anything, worst. I've lost my job and 2/3 of my income, so I can't spend $ 2000 on a computer, the € 800 I spent were already a strech.
My choice wasn't between rendering on a toaster and rendering on a moped, it was between rendering on a toaster and not rendering at all.
Given that DAZ Studio iRay render do CPU renders, GPU renders without GPU ray tracing hardware, and GPU renders with ray tracing hardware and all results are identical what you say is not true.
It's up to the buyer to decide how much money they want to spend on a GPU and how much time they want to spend waiting for a render but all the renders will look identical when the render is finished.
I was indeed using a laptop poorly suited for this task, so from what I read it should be an upgrade. I had bought a PC frame and intended to buy a better video card to render on it, but the death of my laptop twarted this plan, so I'll have to do with the new laptop for the times being. Hopefully, one day, I'll be able to resume it.
Following your comments and that of others, I bought a laptop with the 3050 card where additional RAM can apparently easily be added. I looked for refurbed laptops, but cheap ones with a good nVIdia video card were non-existing (in fact, even a 4 Gb Nvidia video card was exceedingly rare). Plus, I was hesitant to buy a refurbed laptop anyway because it will have to last.
Thank you for youre advice.
By the way, when you do render with any laptop, keep it plugged in to AC power with the laptop power management set to give maximum power/quality to the CPU/GPU, so that during the rendering you get the best render times the laptop can manage, if you can. Yeah, that's a run on sentence for something better suited to be presented as a set of technical instructions, sorry.
Sorry to read about you losing your job, I was not aware of your finances, I was going by the perspective from my pitiful monthly income compared to people that are employed, I hope you can find another job soon, as Omicron is a ssahole!
Clear enough. Thank you for the advice.