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From: Smarty on 31 May 2010 15:29
I am using an nVidia GeForce 8800 GT video card purchased about 2 years
ago and have several programs which speed up rendering and filtering by
using the CUDA GPU.

I am wondering if a new video card would significantly improve my CUDA
performance? Since many of the rendering and filtering jobs I do take a
long time (several hours per job) on this Intel Extreme QX9650 quadcore
machine, I am trying to find a way to significantly shorten the renders
and filtering.

I have 1 PCIe X16 slot on this Dell XPS420 mainboard, so this may limit
my choices as to which, if any, nVidia card could be used as an update.

I very much appreciate any suggestions / comments.
From: YKhan on 1 Jun 2010 06:20
On Jun 1, 1:29 am, "Smarty" <nob...(a)nobody.com> wrote:
> I am using an nVidia GeForce 8800 GT video card purchased about 2 years
> ago and have several programs which speed up rendering and filtering by
> using the CUDA GPU.
>
> I am wondering if a new video card would significantly improve my CUDA
> performance? Since many of the rendering and filtering jobs I do take a
> long time (several hours per job) on this Intel Extreme QX9650 quadcore
> machine, I am trying to find a way to significantly shorten the renders
> and filtering.
>
> I have 1 PCIe X16 slot on this Dell XPS420 mainboard, so this may limit
> my choices as to which, if any, nVidia card could be used as an update.
>
> I very much appreciate any suggestions / comments.

I'd say, you'll very likely get a performance boost when going to a
newer card. The 8800 GT was top of the line about 3 years ago, and it
has been replaced by the GTX 285 from the last generation. The number
of processors (i.e. "CUDA Cores") has doubled since then.

NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT
"CUDA Cores 112"
http://www.nvidia.com/object/product_geforce_8800_gt_us.html

GeForce GTX 285
"CUDA Cores 240"
http://www.nvidia.com/object/product_geforce_gtx_285_us.html

GeForce GTX 480
"CUDA Cores 480"
http://www.nvidia.com/object/product_geforce_gtx_480_us.html

But don't bother with the GTX 480 as its power requirements are 2.5x
that of the 8800 GT, and you probably couldn't get one anyways as they
are rarer than a hen's tooth. Actually the GTX 285 has twice the power
requirements of the 8800 GT too, so you may not be able to run it
either. If you want to stay within the same basic power envelope as
your current card, then you may have to go with a GTX 260 (192 cores @
182W), or GTS 250 (128 cores @ 150W). But the GTS 250 is barely any
better than your 8800 GT already is.

Yousuf Khan
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