Nvidia Geforce 745 GTX 4GB
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Nvidia Geforce 745 GTX 4GB
Strixowl
Posts: 301
in The Commons
Will this card (Nvidia Geforce 745 GTX 4GB) do a decent to good job with Iray?
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Ummm....is it in a Dell or is this a used card?
That isn't a 'real' card, it's just a Dell OEM card, so I'm not quite sure what the specs are....
http://www.geforce.com/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-gtx-745-oem/specifications
A little low on the CUDA cores.
Will it work? Yes. Will it be fast? Not particularly.
The main advantage of this card lies in the fact that it has 4 GB of onboard memory, which means that larger scenes will fit in its frame buffer without defaulting back to the CPU rendering. It is also inexpensive compared to alternatives with that amount of memory. However, it uses slower GDDR3 memory as opposed to the faster GDDR5 memory found in more expensive cards. For comparison purposes, the memory bandwidth of the GTX 745 is 28.5 GB/sec as opposed to 224 GB/sec for something like a GTX 970 ( or 336.5 GB/sec for the king of the hill Titan X).
As Tobor said, the GPU has 384 cuda cores, compared to 1664 for a GTX 970 ( or 3072 for a Titan X).
That should give you some idea of where you sit performance-wise. Again, the card will do the job, and should be faster than pure CPU rendering, just don't expect miracles.
I don't have any experience with that card, but based on its woefully low number of CUDA cores and low memory bandwidth I'd say probably not. My 660 GTX has almost 600 more CUDA cores and it struggles quite often with Iray (admittedly it only has 2GB of memory, but the bandwidth is much higher). I'm frequently looking at 1-2 hour renders for reasonably basic scenes.
One info I've seen while checking GPU reviews, too : Cuda cores are not the same between generations, for example one cuda core on a Maxwell card is 1,4x more powerful than a Kepler core. So you have to take this into account when comparing GPUs, too (numbers can't be compared straight, between Maxwell and previous GPU architectures, they need to be adjusted following this rule).
Looks a lot like a Dell branded GT740....so, if it's more than $90, no, not worth it.
Thanks for the info. Yes it's more than $90 and it is Dell OEM but I really can't afford a more expensive card and buy a new PC at the same time. I just fried my motherboard with a 12 hour Iray render and am looking for another affordable PC. Any suggestions on a Dell package? I have an account there :) If not, any suggestions would be appreciated. I am a hobbiest, retired and not big in the $$$$ department.
Thanks for your help and any suggestions.
What's your budget?
There's a number of Dells that could work, but need to know what you can afford to spend.
About $1500 MAX Really? Which ones? :) I was looking at Dell Catalog Number: 29 DDCWGS209B
Looking at Dell's prices...that is probably the best bet. I'd have thought some of tha Alienware line would have been a better choice, but they all seem to be limited in the video card area.
Thanks for looking. And it seems the more expensive ones run AMD. I couldn't find anything better "card wise" on there site no matter what the price
That's the card that came with my i7 Dell XPS 8700 , but I paid $850 + Tax from Costco when it was on sale... If the machine you are looking at is of recent manufacture,the card is new so like mentioned before that skews scores... The different generations are very confusing...
Nobody really gives full specs matched to the different generations... I believe my machine has a Maxwell card (so might the one you are looking at), but I was only able to find that info one site that had card generation info.
It's really a consumer nightmare trying to confirm specs... It's almost a shell game when you purchase a pre built machine.
I mostly model, so I don't really, at the moment need a $1200 card and this one is good enough for me.
Sorry for any bad grammar and mispellings... I'm in a hurry- check this: http://www.geforce.com/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-gtx-745-oem/specifications
The best low end card right now is a Nvidia Tesla m2090 has 6gb of ddr5 ram and 512 cuda cores. It is not a video card it just does computation. Consequently you need a board with built in video or a cheap video card to run your monitors. I have seen this card as cheap as $65 dollars on ebay but if you are going to use for Iray I would suggest putting a aftermarket cooler on it. This is the cheapist solution on the market right now if you want to do full scenes. I should warn you it needs 225 watts of power a 6 and 8 pin power connector. If your power supply can't supply this go with a 4gb geforce 740. Iray does not need a high end cpu just more cuda cores. My suggestion is get a motherboard with plenty of pci e slots for more tesla cards.
I believe Tesla cards wil not mix with standard nVidia cards/chip sets, only with Quadro cards. I don't know how they would work with a totally non-nVidia G
It has 384 cuda cores according to geforce.com but it also says the 745 GTX has UP TO 4GB. Also checked out the XPS 8700 which says it has 4G but I'd want to make sure--looks good though. I'm using my fifth XPS as I type.
To compare, my current Dell nVidia card has only a total of 1G and only 144 cuda cores. But if I render something small enough to fit in about 600M it's speedy with only 144.
The 745 when compaired to cards in the $150 - $200 range gets pounded. So while having 4 GB headroom is great you have little power up front to push it.
@Strixowl
Yes, I have used it to do iRay renders, but nothing artsy... Just to test effects, lights, materials etc... It's faster than what I had before, and I still have a lot to learn about using iRay, so it's hard to compare it to anything... It works for my purposes, but it might not be the best for your needs...
It was the cheapest prebuilt unit with the best features I could find at the time. When I bought it, the next step up graphics card-wise was $500 more... And that was not in my budget.
I would suggest Alienware at Dell because for some reason Dell decided to remove almost all options from their core line. Going Alienware lets you at least tweak things a bit.
I'm hoping to get a new Alienware machine by Christmas or so...
My advice is to get the cheapest Alienware Area 51. Yes, it has a limited AMD card and you'll have to rely on CPU.
But you have a decent machine, and can save up to get a 970 or 980 or Titan or something.
(I'm sure people would advice 'build it yourself it's totally easy and you will totally not be looking at a pile of smoking parts through a haze of tears', but meh)