When it comes to 3D rendering, the most expensive graphic card one can buy from a shop is not always the best graphic card. Not many people knows that graphic cards are divided into 2 categories – Gaming and Workstation. Having said that, Nvidia’s GeForce and AMD’s Radeon are build for games, it can be used for 3D renderings too but these cards are not designed specifically for AutoDesk’s 3D Max rendering engine.
The correct graphic cards to use for your workstation are AMD FirePro Workstation Graphics and Nvidia Quadro Professional Workstation Graphics. There is a long discussion at Reddit on the difference between workstation and gaming graphics cards.
Build Your Own Render Farm [ BYO Build Your Own ]
Image Source: Nvidia.com
I believe the maximum number of gaming graphic cards a person can stack on a high performance desktop motherboard is 3, this can be seen on the Dell’s Alienware Area 51 desktop. As for Workstation, it can be unlimited when you use the Grid server system. This Grid system makes perfect sense for a 3D rendering company, instead of buying a few high performance rendering machine, the Grid system allows resources to be shared and concentrated depending on needs.
Image Source: Gizmodo.com
Image Source: Nvidia.com
Always use the right tool for the job. What about smaller office that doesn’t have the resources to set up their own server farm? The good news is, we live in the age of Cloud Computing. For those not familiar with the term, Cloud is more than storage, it is about the practice of using a network of remote servers hosted on the Internet to store, manage, and process data, rather than a local server or a personal computer.
Amazon Web Service Render Farm [ Rent]
If you are into web services, you will know that Amazon AWS is the biggest cloud computing company in the world. How big? They own 50% of the cloud computing market share, the remaining 50% are more or less equally divided among Google, IBM, Microsoft and Salesforce. That is how big Amazon AWS is.
Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) is a web service that provides resizable compute capacity in the cloud. Together with the Octane Cloud Workstation software, for $1.68 per Hour, you get to render your 3D with 32 Virtual Processor and 60GB RAM. Cloud computing makes perfect sense because you save times, and if there are any mistakes, you can easily re-render the 3D again.
Rent vs BYO
Depending on your needs, budget and resources. Build your own system is cool, it makes sense for a big office with 10+ artist, for start-ups and small offices, renting is a better solution.
AutoDesk Certified Hardware
Visit the official site and use the web tool to find recommended system hardware or graphics hardware and drivers. Autodesk tests system hardware, graphics hardware and drivers for a number of Autodesk products and suites. Please note that not all Autodesk products (Autodesk 3ds Max, AutoDesk Maya, AutoCAD, and Revit) participate in hardware certification.
OK what abou t card that is good for Sketchup and Vray rendering? What would you suggest? What about card that is mix of both fields and does good job (not best) for games and also for 3D ? Thanks for advice
If you want the best of both worlds, I suggest Nvidia 900 series. They are good for games and fast enough for 3D renderings.
Thanks for that answer. Isn’t it CPU that handles rendering? I mean I have i7 quadcore with 8 threads and if I hit render in Vray I have 8 squares that are rendering. On other computer I have single core with 2 threads and therefore I have 2 squares calculating render at same time. So that is why I think processor is handling the render process. Am I correct? What is graphic card doing in rendering process?
CPU can handle rendering, but it will never be faster than the best GPU. A good GPU is faster than a good CPU. What’s the difference between a CPU and a GPU?
https://www.quora.com/Whats-the-difference-between-a-CPU-and-a-GPU
If your motherboard supports SLi, you can purchase 3 high end GPU and allows the GPU to handle the rendering.
https://docs.chaosgroup.com/display/VRAY3MAX/Set+Up+V-Ray+RT+GPU
I dont wand to gaming. only I want Architectural rendering. I want most good laptop for this purpose. Which is good for this?
Rendering is powered by Graphic Cards, and NVIDIA Quadro and AMD FirePro are specifically designed for 3D rendering instructions from 3D Max and more. The closest consumer available card is NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN, which have instructions for handling 3D renderings.
Since you are looking for a laptop for rendering, you will have to look for one that comes with Titan card, which is none existence. Gaming laptop with the fastest card is your best bet.
My daughter just graduated from university after studying animation. She now needs a more powerful computer for 2d and 3d animation. A computer builder recommended the GeForce GTX 1080 card but I heard that a Quadro M4000 graphics card would be better. Is this correct? Also, can the Quadro M4000 be used for playing games?
Yes actually yes. Rendering is producing while gaming is nearly “reading”. If a card can render it is certainly buffy enough to handle games. Since your daughter is an animator, I suggest using Quadro. GTX 1080 is famous among the pc gamers but I’m pretty sure they mostly use Quadro to render in 2D and 3D. Me myself have 2 separated PC, one for gaming with GTX 1060 and one with Quadro (not sure what series it is) to render VFX videos.
You have no clue what you’re talking about. This is horrible. Please never post again without consulting an expert.
I am into rendering… maybe you have your own method, this doesn’t mean you are wrong in my point of view. Different way, same results.
You really shouldnt leave a comment like that without backing up your accusations. Even then there are better ways of putting it. Personally I think your just trolling.
I got to know that 3ds Max 2019 using Arnold does not rely on the graphic card and relies more on the processor and RAM. However, it seems from this blog it is not the case. … would you confirm again