I'm curious if anyone knows if the quality of your graphics card effects the quality of your renderings? I don't notice a difference but was wondering if anyone else knows.
I'm curious if anyone knows if the quality of your graphics card effects the quality of your renderings? I don't notice a difference but was wondering if anyone else knows.
Thanks Anna. THat's what I thought. I have 4 different computers with 4 different GPU's (only one is SW "approved") but I see no difference in the renderings. Does the GPU effect speed at all? I'm not talking about rendering speed, but speed of moving from file to file, etc.? I benchmarked my computers via SW Rx and I noticed they give a GPU score....my "non-approved" GPU's seemed to do pretty good.
The video card helps with displaying your data in the graphics area.
Your cpu does all the calculations, then it must transfer that info to your graphics card so it can be displayed on screen. So if you have a very large amount of data (big assemblies, parts with a lot of features, surfaces and facets) a better video card will help manipulate the model on screen.
Your cpu is still the most important piece of hardware for SolidWorks performance. A big video card with a weak cpu will give you poor performance in SolidWorks.
For rendering a very fast modern cpu with a lot of cores, both physical and virtual, will be the best way to improve performance. Rendering in SolidWorks will use all the cores to a 100% capacity. The current top performers for rendering is the top of the line Core i7's, or the Xeon 3600/5600 series cpu's.
For you situation, since you spend the majority of your time rendering a dual socket system with a Xeon X5680 cpu may be worth the money with a good ROI with increased rendering speed.
Cheers,
Anna
Thanks for the help Anna. I am currently running 4 systems, each with an i7 950, each overclocked between 4000 and 4200 mhz. The systems are very stable and render 24 hours per day. We've had some bug issues that SW is trying to tell me is GPU related, so I replaced one GPU with an "approved" GPU but still experienced the same issues. They are fantastic systems and I built them for under $2000 each.
What are the bugs you are experiencing that are thought to be video card related?
What cards to you have in your systems? Approved and Unapproved....
Cheers,
Anna
Ahhhh..... those issues. I have a hard time beleiving those are video card issues myself, but you never know. I hope your VAR is escalating your issues to SW Corp offices.
Cheers,
Anna
SolidWorks rendering is cpu based. Your video card does not participate in the process.
As far as I know only Bunkspeed Shot and Catia V6R2011x takes advantage of gpu rendering with the Nvidia cards and the CUDA cores.
Cheers,
Anna