Hello. First off, I fully understand that Nvidia is the recommended way to go, and that non-Nvidia cards do not take advantage of the GPU rendering. I know that this makes non-Nvidia cards underperform, compared to supported Nvidia cards. I am specifically looking to see how people are doing and feeling with their non-Nvidia cards despite the fact that they're kind of crippled.
Long story short: I am considering upgrading my license from Standard to Professional next year, mainly to get my hands on Visualize Standard for personal and freelance side-gig reasons.
The computer it would run on would also be my personal gaming computer and digital art computer, and personally I would be prioritizing not lagging in my online games of choice over saving time on rendering. I know that there is a world of difference between workstation cards and gaming cards, but for my home-use case, rendering time isn't an issue. I don't anticipate doing enough side-gig business that longer rendering times would actually hurt me.
I am not looking to create the "best" computer for rendering, but rather one that is "good enough." With CES coming up in January, several companies are poised to make some announcements, and I'm currently more interested in AMD's progress than Nvidia's.
Non-Nvidia users, are you satisfied with your performance despite the drawbacks? Have you had any real major issues or hangups definitively due to your card?
Maybe I don't understand your question, but if you don't have an nvidia card, you're limited to CPU-based rendering, in which case, the card issue is moot. If that's the case, then you're rendering options expand greatly since you're no longer limited by using (only) the Visualize/Nvidia package.
If you've more of a "gamer" mentality, maybe you're better off rendering with Blender. It's way cheaper than upgrading SW just to get Visualize standard, and some of the stuff those guys produce is, frankly, stunning. Perhaps you want to google an apples to apple CPU-based rendering comparison of different rendering software. I'm curious too.