Graphics Card Specs best suited to Enscape

    My architecture firm is looking at upgrading a few graphics cards in our machines, and I have a question about which aspect of card specs is better for Enscape.


    Right now we've narrowed it down to GTX 1070 versus RTX 2060. While the RTX 2060 is a better overall card with generally higher performance and clock speed, it only has 6GB of VRAM. The GTX 1070 has slightly lower clock speed but has 8GB of VRAM. Which will ultimately cause smoother experiences in Enscape? A higher clock speed or more VRAM?


    Our firm uses Revit as the base, and we handle very large and complicated models (multi-tower designs, 600+ units) and have noted some slowness with GTX 1660S cards. We are not upgrading the 1660S cards, as we are generally happy with their ability to handle Enscape, but for a couple other computers where we're upgrading from older cards, we want to make sure we can handle these larger models.


    Any advice from anyone who has gone through a similar search?

  • Rick Marx

    Approved the thread.

    GregU , thanks a lot for your request.


    The GTX 1070 is (in benchmarks at least) really not even that much slower than the RTX 2060, but keep in mind that the GTX 1070 would not support either Raytracing or DLSS which is actually the reason you may want to go for the RTX 2060 after all if you can get it for a decent deal - DLSS, in case you aren't aware, makes Enscape run at a lower internal resolution then upscales it using artificial intelligence, which does in fact save VRAM, offers better performance, and the Quality difference really isn't huge compared to DLSS turned off.


    So overall summed up, if you do not work with really large projects I'd say go with the RTX 2060.


    I hope that helps! :)

    Quote from jnurnberger

    Like a $, $$, and $$$ options? Any suggestions would be great, thanks!

    $/3070 --- $$/3080 --- $$$/3090


    It really depends what you can find. At the announced retail prices the 3xxx series is generally a no-brainer compared to any previous generations. (Looking at $500, $700, $1500 price points for Founders Edition cards.) But if you need to upgrade a fleet of workstation, you aren't going to be able to go out and buy quantities of -any-card until well into next year probably. So either hold out and use what you have or pay inflated secondary market prices. Older card prices are inflated as well, and it is especially painful to spend too much on outdated tech. The most economical way to get a new GPU is to buy a whole new PC, since system integrators get priority over consumers for GPU allocation.


    If availability wasn't a concern and I was trying to be economical, the 3060 is an interesting option since it has 12GB VRAM. Also the 3080Ti bumps to 12GB. Those would be worth considering for working on larger models.


    Note that standard towers from Dell, HP, etc aren't going to have a sufficient PSU for anything more than a 3070, maybe. So you need to consider what machine you are putting it into as well.


    If the RTX A4000 cards ever ship (~$1000), those will be great for enterprise as they doubled the VRAM to 16GB (from 8GB on the Quadro RTX4000.) And with a single 6-pin power connector they will slot into pretty much any off-the-shelf tower.

    jnurnberger , definitely check out what rifkin posted just above ^.


    Basically reinforcing what he is saying - the 3xxxx lineup, in general, offers fantastic price to performance ratio MSRP prices but of course, lately, they are being sold for 2-3x the initial asking price. As he mentions, either you could still go for one even though you'd be paying extra, or you can usually get great deals on whole machines already prebuilt that include one of the 3xxxx cards. Some research is definitely required but should be rather worth it - with a bit of luck you may even get a 3xxxx card for around the asking price, but they are often bought out quickly. Here it's important to just keep an eye on things.


    And just to add instead of only reinforcing what rifkin already stated: If you would be going for Enscape VR, I would recommend going with the 3070 or up instead of a 3060 - that extra performance boost could help especially when the Rendering Quality is being increased or the project is on the larger side.

    Quote from GordonBuildingDesign

    RTX3080 v RTXA4000

    A4000 has more VRAM, will handle slightly larger models better, I've found it to be comparable to a 3070 in performance testing.

    3080 will be better for VR.


    Although at this point the next gen 4000 series (thanks for making things confusing Nvidia...) sounds like it is due to launch in a couple months if you can hold out a bit longer. Supposed to be another significant leap in performance. Though with GPU prices tanking I wouldn't be surprised if they hold off the new release to sell off 30xx stock first.