GPU - 3ds max

[arnonrs]

Hi everyone,

I’m currently building a new workstation (Threadripper 7980X / 256GB RAM) and could use some advice on choosing a GPU. My main goal is to get something powerful enough to handle max viewport performance smoothly.
I’ve been looking at Nvidia’s 5000 series, but the 4080 and 4090 are either hard to find or way overpriced. Is the AMD 9070xt a good alternative?, or should I stick with Nvidia for this kind of workload?
Also, I’m curious—what GPU specs are most important for viewport performance? Is it mostly about VRAM, or are there other factors I should prioritize?

Any suggestions or insights would be really helpful! Thank you!

[James Vella]

In my experience it doesn't really matter much in regards to the viewport, my 1060GTX is on par with my 3080RTX. Probably some 3dsmax bottleneck. (both Laptop variations by the way)

If you are doing other things that are GPU heavy, then get the card that suits your needs, a 4070/4080 should be enough (equivalent or better). I hear the 5xxx series isn't a huge leap in raw performance if you are not gaming with frame generation but still 2x better than the 3xxx series basically. If you work in Unreal Engine, more vram is better for example, not sure how that much helps 3dsmax viewport though since my card has 16gb and runs like dog poo.

Cant help you with AMD since I just don't use them, I need CUDA for lots of things so I don't even consider it.

Not sure if you follow the tech news but lots of the 5xxx series cards are melting and have really high power/watt usage, I am personally skipping this generation but maybe Nvidia will address this soon.

[arnonrs]

Thank you!
Yep, I've been following the news about the 5000 series, doesn't look good.
What are your thoughts on choosing between an RTX 4080 and a Quadro A4500?

[James Vella]

Ive used Quadro cards in the past, depends on your needs.

From memory they work a little bit differently, for example when working in wireframe mode Quadro were faster, when working in textured mode they were much slower. I think they are designed for CAD software, not sure but that's my hunch.

Personally I prefer these days to stick to commercial GPU cards, but that's just my niche. I do 3D offline rendering and real-time, so I want the best of both worlds, which means 3070RTX+ cards at this point in time. If I was to pick something right now it would be a 4080+ (super, ti, or super + ti or equivalent). If you have time maybe wait for the 5xxx series to work out the issues and release the super or ti cards. If not try to find a 4xxx series card - if viewport performance is your only concern. As I mentioned, it wont be much different even from a 3xxx card but its probably better overall for everything else you do.

[Nejc Kilar]

If your workloads don't necessarily demand CUDA support imho AMD can be a really good cost effective solution which will give you loads of VRAM for a good price. Unfortunately there's _a lot_ of workloads where CUDA is, at the moment, necessary. Plus you could imho argue that if you do have a CUDA vs HIP (<- AMD) choice inside your software of choice then the Nvidia solution will probably be quite a bit faster and energy efficient. It isn't always the case though but overall CUDA is the way more versatile choice right now.

Personally, but feel free to disagree, I'd also avoid professional GPUs and stick to consumer ones just like James Vella said.

If you don't know why you'd need a "pro" GPU then you probably don't need it anyway unless you're buying it for two reasons - you want the form factor (2 slot card aka you can fit more of them into your case) or the VRAM.

That A4500 is Ampere generation whereas a 4080 is Ada. Ada is quite a bit faster and energy efficient so unless you need the 20GB VRAM buffer I'd definitely rather go with the 4080 imho. It'll be better in every way imaginable (except for VRAM and a couple of pro features) and cheaper probably.

Also, the 5xxx series seem to be having more issues than we've seen in a generation of cards possibly ever :) Besides the cable issues, missing ROPs and slightly faulty drivers you probably can't even buy one because the stock is nowhere to be found it seems. You'll also get a fairly mediocre performance boost compared to the previous gen and with some cards (like the 5090) a proportionally higher power consumption as well. Truly an "interesting" situation Nvidia created here.

[arnonrs]

Found a great deal for an RTX4070 TI Super 16gb, just bought it. 4080s are so overpriced now and difficult to find.
I think it will do the work for now then I can wait for the Nvidia 6000 Series

Thank you for the valuable info shared here!

[mase]

A little late to the party but could you elaborate on the 256GB RAM that you chose for your setup? I'm curious about the specific set you got, and perhaps an update later on how it performs.

[arnonrs]

Hey! I'm still buying the parts but the build is this one:

CPU: AMD Threadripper 7980X

CPU cooler: Noctua NH-U14S TR5-SP6

Motherboard: Gigabyte TRX50 AERO D Motherboard REV 1.2

Memory: 256gb 4x Kingston 64GB 4800MT/s DDR5 ECC Reg CL40 DIMM 2Rx4 Hynix A

Storage: 2x Samsung 990 EVO Plus 4tb + 16tb HDD

GPU: 4070 ti super 16gb gigabyte

Case: Fractal Design North XL Full Tower E ATX Gaming PC Case Chalk White

PSU: Corsair HX1500i (1500W)

[marchik]

Also, the 5xxx series seem to be having more issues than we've seen in a generation of cards possibly ever :)

btw, Intel GPU AI interactive denoiser doesn't work on rtx 5090 with Corona 12 update 1 hotfix 1
Juraj, if it's not too much trouble, pass this on to the developers

[Nejc Kilar]

Also, the 5xxx series seem to be having more issues than we've seen in a generation of cards possibly ever :)

btw, Intel GPU AI interactive denoiser doesn't work on rtx 5090 with Corona 12 update 1 hotfix 1
Juraj, if it's not too much trouble, pass this on to the developers

Aye, we are aware of this but from what I've been told its up to Intel to first update the denoiser on their end and once that is done we can get the changes over to our users. Should be already in the works :)

[Okmijun]

In my experience it doesn't really matter much in regards to the viewport, my 1060GTX is on par with my 3080RTX. Probably some 3dsmax bottleneck. (both Laptop variations by the way)...

Could you write on more this please?
What kind of scenes do you work on, so those 2 video cards work similar?
Interiors or some heavy tree exterior?
3dsmax use CPU, single thread, for viewport as well as GPU
in ratio, lets say 40-60, roughly said...

Also, D3D 11 is much slower than D3D 9.
Which version on Max do you use?

[James Vella]

What kind of scenes do you work on, so those 2 video cards work similar?
Interiors or some heavy tree exterior?

Interiors, Exteriors and Aerials with hundreds of houses/cars/people/forests/rivers/buildings, the works.
You can see some projects ive worked on here.

Which version on Max do you use?

2021 (for legacy projects) and 2024 now.

[Namik Pirkic]

any news about Intel updating their end of deonoiser :D

[James Vella]

any news about Intel updating their end of deonoiser :D

Can you explain what this means, share the source?

[TomG]

It's about the Intel Denoiser not working with Blackwell series GPUs (the 50 series) - the fix was released along with RC1 for Corona, "Added support of Intel Denoiser for Blackwell (NVIDIA 50-series) GPUs." in https://forum.corona-renderer.com/index.php?topic=43295.msg232607#msg232607

(We had to wait for Intel to make OIDN compatible with Blackwell :) )