Radeon HD 7970 CrossfireX for Rhino and Vray Rendering?

[TekMann]

Hey guys, so I am building a new computer and I need it to basically do everything for me (gaming, HD movies, render pretty well, ect). The thing is I do not want to buy a workstation card because I've feel they wont be that great for gaming as they're meant for one thing and only does that one thing well.

 

How well do 2 HD 7970s (combined with a i7 3930K Processor) fair with Rhino and Vray rendering? I tend to use other programs too such as AutoCAD, Sketch-up, Photoshop, Illustrator, Indesign, grasshoppper, and a few more but I think for the most part they will handle these programs just fine (I am most concerned on how well this set up will render my designs). I might start to render in 3ds Max too (as well as explore other programs to render with), but for now I mainly render in Rhino Vray.

 

I am aware that I wont get top of the line quality from the 7970 for rendering, but I am hoping that it will work just fine overall for my needs. I was torn between the 7970 and the Geforce 680 GTX, because of Nvidia's CUDA cores. However I've been reading that the 680's card architecture doesnt fare well for anything other than gaming? Can someone give me their two cents on this matter? Thanks!

[TekMann]

Can anyone help me on this? It would be a great help!

[PotGuy]

This would have been better placed in the General - Hardware Sub-Forum as you're requesting help with hardware, with Rhino as a need. While I am an avid gamer, I don't use CAD at home.

[tzframpton]

I'd stick with the nVidia cards. nVidia drivers play very well with Autodesk based CAD software applications. Can't speak for Rhino. You'll find that anything set up in SLI is usually for very specific rendering scenarios. I don't think SLI works for "actively" designing in most CAD software applications, as it's usually unsupported until very recently.

 

Most CAD applications are taking advantage of gaming cards, too. Apparently, Microsoft's DirectX drivers are constantly being supported and updated, where as the full OpenGL drivers are lacking. So in the CAD industry we're finding that gaming cards are doing as good, if not better, in a lot of cases nowadays.

 

And as a last word of thought, if you're doing any intensive 3D modeling and/or rendering, I don't care what card you have, it will bow down and buckle to the performance resources needed to do any extensive 3D modeling and rendering. Workstation or gaming card - doesn't matter. But those specs are just fine, other than the fact that one of those cards probably sucks 300W or more.... sheesh.... lol

 

- Tannar