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Author Topic: Can someone recommend a good Video Card under $150?  (Read 3916 times)

WalnutNid

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Can someone recommend a good Video Card under $150?
« on: January 18, 2015, 01:50:45 AM »
I just ordered an old HP Z600 dual Xeon X5670 workstation to help me handle my Photoscan projects. Can someone recommend a good Video Card? What would be good choices under $150 or perhaps more(assuming a higher price point offers a significantly better bang for the buck). I'd even be open to a used card. I've researched quite a lot, but I'm getting a bit fatigued trying to find relevant information. So much of the conversation is about high-end hardware. Is there a good rule of thumb for selecting a video card that will be used exclusively for Photoscan?

Thanks in advance! BTW, Photoscan is incredible, and it's completely transformed how I do my work, so thanks to the devs!

Alexey Pasumansky

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Re: Can someone recommend a good Video Card under $150?
« Reply #1 on: January 18, 2015, 03:11:22 AM »
Hello WalnutNid,

These Xeons seems to be rather slow due to low CPU frequency.

As for the graphic cards, we usually recommend high-end gamers cards.
nVidia GeForce: GTX 580, GTX 680, GTX 780, GTX TITAN, GTX 980,
AMD: Radeon HD7970, R9 290x.

Some of them are far above 150 dollar limit, but possibly you can get used card from the recommended for this price.

You can check the number of shader processors for recommendedd nVidia cards and compare with the number of the cards you are looking at (comparison between nVidia and AMD will not work).
Best regards,
Alexey Pasumansky,
Agisoft LLC

WalnutNid

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Re: Can someone recommend a good Video Card under $150?
« Reply #2 on: January 19, 2015, 03:38:37 AM »
Hello WalnutNid,

These Xeons seems to be rather slow due to low CPU frequency.

As for the graphic cards, we usually recommend high-end gamers cards.
nVidia GeForce: GTX 580, GTX 680, GTX 780, GTX TITAN, GTX 980,
AMD: Radeon HD7970, R9 290x.

Thanks for feedback Alexey!

Would you say that PassMark scores are a good indicator when it comes to selecting a CPU for Photoscan? I chose the pair of old Xeon x5670s because their dual CPU Passmark scores put them quite a bit ahead of single CPU i5 systems I was looking at building, and for a lot less $.

Alexey Pasumansky

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Re: Can someone recommend a good Video Card under $150?
« Reply #3 on: January 19, 2015, 01:06:36 PM »
Hello WalnutNid,

You can check Anandtech benchmarks based on sample set processing in PhotoScan:
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/CPU/1057
Best regards,
Alexey Pasumansky,
Agisoft LLC