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Graphics Card For 3D Workstation


mc86
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Hi folks! I'm in the process of selecting my hardware for a workstation build for 3D rendering and video editing. I'd like it to run Maya, 3DS Max, Cinema4D, Blender, Premier, After Effects, Final Cut Pro, etc, as well as have support for multitasking, virtual machines and dual monitors, plus some gaming in my spare time. I've been doing some graphics card research, and it looks like the best ones for my needs (according to the benchmark tests I've seen) are the AMD Firepro and Nvidia Quadro series. However, most user builds I've seen (as well as the configurations in the Buyer's Guide of this site) just use the Radeon or Geforce cards. Are these good enough for 3D rendering? I want to make sure I get the right hardware for the job, but I don't want to get something incompatible (I'm leaning towards the Firepro W7100, which I've heard works with Clover). I also plan on dual-booting with Windows, so it's not the end of the world if I can't get full graphics acceleration in the Mac OS X partition. So basically, I have 2 questions:

1) Are the Firepro and Quadro cards hackintosh-friendly? Can I get full performance out of them? Are there any I should avoid?

2) Do I really need a workstation card, or can I get similar results with a consumer card?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

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Hi there

 

Not sure on compatibility on Hackintosh of the Firepro or Quadro cards,I was thinking go with W8100 which is very similar to R9 290 although W8100 is 8GB card,but few people modded Firepro drivers to support R9 290 or consumer range of the GPU on Windows which do works,now about the Hackintosh I  think W8100 or W7100 are very similar to R9 2xx series and should be supported via patching kexts as D500 used in MacPro is in many ways W8000 GPU and D700 is W9000 series GPU

 

And if you are really need workstation GPU or you will be OK with consumer GPU,this really depends on more factors as I'm using in 3DS MAX,C4D and Blender Sapphire R9 290 TRI-X OC which seems is perfect for my needs,my scenes are pretty large and my poly count is pretty high and card perform very nicely,but I do use this SW mostly in Windows environment not in OSX as I rather use OSX for Logic Pro,only due this SW I've installed Yosemite OS

 

I didn't tried to use Blender or 3DS MAX in OSX,I've used only Maya and C4D in few projects in OSX and performance has been bit slower in OSX than Windows,3DS Max is not supported in OSX as OSX doesn't support DirectX and 3DS Max as you probably know using DirectX and probably due the 3DS MAX is used mostly in archviz where you can take advantage of the plugins like is V-RAY which is not supported in current form in OSX..

 

If you are building graphic workstation then you have few choices what renderer you want to use and what SW which you want to use as most of renderers are CUDA and most of them are supported too via OpenCL too,I've used like CUDA or OpenCL renderers and there are small differences in performance,mostly depends on developers how they managed port those features 

 

I remember I've used older GTX780Ti in 3DS MAX where are I've got several issues with performance and drivers mostly which has been bit disappointing for me as I thought so nVidia drivers are better than ATI/AMD drivers

 

Really you need to decide what SW you want to use and where OSX or Windows

 

What CPU and RAM you will be running on yours and I would suggest have as main HDD SSD

 

Hope this helps

 

Thanks,Jura 

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Thanks, Jura! So, if I understand correctly, does this basically mean I can use any card as long as it uses the same GPU as another supported card? And I haven't completely settled on a card yet; I'm just going with what I've read from benchmarks, though if it's possible to get similar results with a consumer card, I might as well go that route.

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Thanks, Jura! So, if I understand correctly, does this basically mean I can use any card as long as it uses the same GPU as another supported card? And I haven't completely settled on a card yet; I'm just going with what I've read from benchmarks, though if it's possible to get similar results with a consumer card, I might as well go that route.

 

Hi there

 

Those cards(W8100 or W9100) not sure if they work with kext patching as I've not seen them in Hackintosh builds.In Windows I know you can mod Firepro drivers which will recognize R9 290 as W8100,not sure if this is possible in OSX... W9100 is dual GPU and those dual cards does have issues in OSX what I've read in past,not sure how this does works in Yosemite 

 

Benches are OK,really depends on the SW,in some apps like 3DS MAX you can gain  with Firepro or Quadro due the drivers are much better on those Pro cards as on consumer cards,in Maya or in 3DS MAX you can gain several FPS,not sure what is yours plan,but for my needs as I do use my GPU for rendering too in OpenCL Luxrender or in V-RAY and there is my performance is very good and I'm very happy there with my card,although I still thinking get other card(GTX970) for CUDA only rendering or adding one more R9 290

 

You can get similar results with consumer cards,just in some apps like is Revit/AutoCAD you can have few issues,for those apps I would go with Firepro/Quadro card.If you are planning to use GPU for rendering,then I would have look which SW what using and then I would decide,new Fury cards are OpenCL kings right now although Titan X is not bad too,but price for Titan X is very high

 

Hope this helps

 

Thanks,Jura

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