Mid Range to High End Graphics - Worth the $
Mid Range to High End Graphics - Worth the $
(OP)
Our workstations have nVidia FX1500 or FX1700 graphics cards. We are starting to have visualization performance issues with NX 6 and are considering upgrading to FX 3000 or 4000 series. Has anybody had experience with these cards that can comment on increased productivity with the higher end cards? How can you determine what the point of diminishing return on investment is? On the card specifications, is memory bandwidth the key characteristic to consider? We have played around with the visualization performance settings and nothing seems to be noticibly different with the cards we have. Is there a Minimum and Recommend spec for graphics cards to run NX?





RE: Mid Range to High End Graphics - Worth the $
32 or 64 bit OS? how much system memory do you have? processor? working on files locally or over the network?
In general, more system memory gives the most bang for the buck. You might search for other threads about hardware, I think there was one a while back that gave some info on a priority list of where to spend your money (memory vs processor etc).
RE: Mid Range to High End Graphics - Worth the $
RE: Mid Range to High End Graphics - Worth the $
RE: Mid Range to High End Graphics - Worth the $
This is a long link to Tom's Hardware and it is the only useful graphics card selection tool that I know of. I believe that the Quadro FX 1800 is a comparable newer replacement to the older FX1500 and 1700 series. I'd personally stop spending money right about there unless you are totally convinced that you need to have what appears to be almost double the performance at more than twice the cost keeping in mind that this is still dependent on all the ancillary components of your system keeping pace.
Best Regards
Hudson
www.jamb.com.au
Nil Desperandum illegitimi non carborundum
RE: Mid Range to High End Graphics - Worth the $
RE: Mid Range to High End Graphics - Worth the $
Best Regards
Hudson
www.jamb.com.au
Nil Desperandum illegitimi non carborundum
RE: Mid Range to High End Graphics - Worth the $
RE: Mid Range to High End Graphics - Worth the $
RE: Mid Range to High End Graphics - Worth the $
Other settings which help with performance with larger files are the use of Partial Loading and turning off automatic updates to wave geometry links. Neither of these have any great relationship to graphics performance, but it is ordinarily hard to tell the difference.
Best Regards
Hudson
www.jamb.com.au
Nil Desperandum illegitimi non carborundum
RE: Mid Range to High End Graphics - Worth the $
NX6.0.2.8 64-bit 6gb-1333mhz i7-920 overclocked to 3.2ghz SSD FX580
NX 6.0.2.8 MoldWizard
RE: Mid Range to High End Graphics - Worth the $
RE: Mid Range to High End Graphics - Worth the $
Best Regards
Hudson
www.jamb.com.au
Nil Desperandum illegitimi non carborundum
RE: Mid Range to High End Graphics - Worth the $
RE: Mid Range to High End Graphics - Worth the $
Best Regards
Hudson
www.jamb.com.au
Nil Desperandum illegitimi non carborundum
RE: Mid Range to High End Graphics - Worth the $
The only valid comparison is to say that the 1700 has 2/3 the speed of the 1800 when running NX.
"Wildfires are dangerous, hard to control, and economically catastrophic."
Ben Loosli
RE: Mid Range to High End Graphics - Worth the $
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Bill
RE: Mid Range to High End Graphics - Worth the $
1) The test results form Tomshardware guide use SPECopc VIEWperf for NX 1. That is what the test was written with and it basically plays back the test program _without_ utilizing your current installation of NX. Starting with NX 5, Siemens integrated a different graphics engine for doing frame rate, scene reduction, etc. and so you can't accuratly predict the results you will get with this test anymore.
2) I can confirm NXMolds findings that there is no significant difference in NX 6 graphics performance across those different graphics cards (although I did not test the FX 4600). So I began to wonder.... I tested this with SPECapc for NX 4. So I repeated the tests with NX 4 and there I found a major difference between different cards. SPECapc uses your installed version of NX and you have to set the visualization performance settings beforehand (basically turn all options off that would improve performance, like disable transluency, etc.).
Now, before you say "well the test written for NX 4 is not valid for testing NX 6". That is a good point, however when using my own native NX 6 assemblies to get a feel for the cards, I found no noticable difference in performance there either. I STEPed an assembly out and imported it into NX 4 and found that frame rate peformance is 2 to 3 times better (again with all performance improvement settings turned off in both NX 4 and NX 6).
Attached are some results of my findings. I have a couple of PRs open on the issue.
Also, in the NX 6 Visualization Performance large model tab, enable the fixed frame rate slider. Fast or Slow, I don't see a difference with NX 6. Please report back if you discover something otherwise.
RE: Mid Range to High End Graphics - Worth the $
Best Regards
Hudson
www.jamb.com.au
Nil Desperandum illegitimi non carborundum
RE: Mid Range to High End Graphics - Worth the $
RE: Mid Range to High End Graphics - Worth the $
Interesting. I just tried a couple of the sample IS&V files with my FX1700 and they look ok. Not quite as snappy as my old employers FX4600 but at only $280.00 it works pretty well since I'm paying the bills now <g>. I'm putting together a simulation today so I'll do some more testing there. Perhaps with a more complex part things get more sketchy? I'm going to be depending on IS&V since my wallet can't afford Vericut at this time.
--
Bill
RE: Mid Range to High End Graphics - Worth the $
Get a GeForce GTX 295 !
Sandro Anderlini
Mould designer
Macerata - Italy