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Author Topic: Is the AMD 7970 graphics card still the best option for PhotoScan?  (Read 24077 times)

Mason

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Any experience / observations regarding the AMD 7990?
How about the fancy new AMD R9 290X?
Any breakthroughs with NVidia drivers?

Thanks for any input....

chadfx

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Re: Is the AMD 7970 graphics card still the best option for PhotoScan?
« Reply #1 on: October 28, 2013, 04:22:34 AM »
I'm curious if the dual AMD FirePro gfx cards on the new MacPro are going to zip along nicely. Although I'm sure price/performance overall will still be far better on other platforms. They also max out at 64Gb for now.

Wishgranter

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Re: Is the AMD 7970 graphics card still the best option for PhotoScan?
« Reply #2 on: October 28, 2013, 02:30:18 PM »
Yes AMD solution is for now the better one. as have rad a lot on forums, NVIDIA is not interested in OpenCL too much. therefore drivers are "cripled" and this will not change in foreseeable future.....

The 290X - hard to say, but in few COMPUTE benches is a bit slower as 7970, but this can be because of drivers. But w need to test it.. the 290X should be released even with 8GB RAM so on your place would wait for it..... 8 GB - up tp 120-150 mil trias in AGI and other app can be edited very speedy...
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mr map

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Re: Is the AMD 7970 graphics card still the best option for PhotoScan?
« Reply #3 on: October 29, 2013, 12:43:25 AM »
 ??? Agosoft still recommend Nvidia cards in Recommended hardware;
http://www.agisoft.ru/wiki/PhotoScan/Tips_and_Tricks#Recommended_Hardware

This info about AMD being better for the purpose is new info to me. And of big interest too, since I have yet to do decide on my workstation investment...

Any comment from Agisoft reps. on this matter?

/Tom

Mason

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Re: Is the AMD 7970 graphics card still the best option for PhotoScan?
« Reply #4 on: October 29, 2013, 03:37:25 AM »
Yes - the Nvidia recommendation does appear out of date.  At least based on the discussions I've viewed here in recent months.

The AMD 7990 seems like the safe bet at this point, given that it's essentially two 7970 GPUs.

The AMD R9 290X is the real mystery to me. It's super new. The benchmarks I've seen makes it look better than the 7990 in some ways but not others. I'm uncertain how that translates to real-world usage with PhotoScan....

Wishgranter

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Re: Is the AMD 7970 graphics card still the best option for PhotoScan?
« Reply #5 on: October 29, 2013, 11:24:26 AM »
finished depth reconstruction in 458.607 seconds
Device 1 performance: 161.974 million samples/sec (CPU)
Device 2 performance: 176.341 million samples/sec (GeForce GTX 590)
Device 3 performance: 170.51 million samples/sec (GeForce GTX 590)
Device 4 performance: 615.622 million samples/sec (Tahiti)
Total performance: 1124.45 million samples/sec
Generating mesh...
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Diego

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Re: Is the AMD 7970 graphics card still the best option for PhotoScan?
« Reply #6 on: October 29, 2013, 02:42:38 PM »
finished depth reconstruction in 458.607 seconds
Device 1 performance: 161.974 million samples/sec (CPU)
Device 2 performance: 176.341 million samples/sec (GeForce GTX 590)
Device 3 performance: 170.51 million samples/sec (GeForce GTX 590)
Device 4 performance: 615.622 million samples/sec (Tahiti)
Total performance: 1124.45 million samples/sec
Generating mesh...

Hi, Making the comparison with the GTX 590, it's not fair. Personally I prefer Nvidia, the best Nvidia card for PhotoScan that I may have to try is the GTX 580.

finished depth reconstruction in 184.647 seconds
Device 1 performance: 653.119 million samples/sec (GeForce GTX 580)
Device 2 performance: 679.912 million samples/sec (GeForce GTX 580)
Device 3 performance: 241.034 million samples/sec (Quadro K4000)
Total performance: 1574.06 million samples/sec
Generating dense point cloud...


mr map

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Re: Is the AMD 7970 graphics card still the best option for PhotoScan?
« Reply #7 on: October 29, 2013, 04:43:41 PM »
Guys - very interesting comparision data!  :D

Wishgranter - what Tahiti card were you using, specifically? (7970 / 7990 / ...)

Diego, obviously your Quadro K4000 is far behind the two GTX 580s at PS depth construction.
Are you keeping the Quadro for quad buffer stereoscopic 3D display feature or for other reasons?
(...asking because I consider a Quadro, mainly for the mentioned reason. Well, in parallel with one or two other "faster" GPU?s).
« Last Edit: October 29, 2013, 05:02:16 PM by mr map »

Wishgranter

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Re: Is the AMD 7970 graphics card still the best option for PhotoScan?
« Reply #8 on: October 29, 2013, 04:53:10 PM »
Diego depend on what dataset it was tested..... but im see similar results with 560Ti.

mr map - im using 7970, as its enought for my purposes ( +560 TI )

The NVIDIA cards are CRIPLED because of very old OpenCL driver, nvidia is pushing CUDA as the  "compute" platform. its ver well knwo "problem" that is here already 2+ years.....


So AMD is leading the perfomance in OpenCL at least with PScan
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Diego

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Re: Is the AMD 7970 graphics card still the best option for PhotoScan?
« Reply #9 on: October 29, 2013, 05:09:32 PM »
mr map, Nvidia Quadro is for quad buffer stereoscopic 3D display feature

Wishgranter, I have to say I could try the 560 Ti, and is far from equal in performance to the GTX 580, not comparable by far, with the same data set the GTX 580 wins by more than 60% of performance.


mr map

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Re: Is the AMD 7970 graphics card still the best option for PhotoScan?
« Reply #10 on: October 29, 2013, 05:18:16 PM »
Point taken regarding Nvidia OpenCL driver age/ support.
Wishgranter - Would you mind providing a few links of your recommendation where one could read up on this interesting subject?

Then has it been demonstrated / proven that this crippledness of Nvidia OpenCL has significant effect on PS computing performance? Or could it be that PS does not utilize the performance made possible by newer generation OpenCL drivers, and therefore work well with the older Nvidia drivers, still?

(Just asking and speculating, personally I know nothing about this subject. In persuit of the "truth"  ;)"

Diego, thanks for info.

Wishgranter

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Re: Is the AMD 7970 graphics card still the best option for PhotoScan?
« Reply #11 on: October 29, 2013, 05:57:25 PM »
Diego, try on same dataset - 560Ti should be approx 70-80 % of 580 - just from the "core"count inside GPU - try do the math - but a lot of benchmarks pointed that the 560Ti is in this perfromace realtion to 580.

we have run severeal time the benchmarks here - try to digg intro it. the performance difference on 580 - 680 was very small, if remember just 10-15 % and if remember 780 is just few % more than 680....

Nvidia OpenCL cripping - try search on google. im saving not bookmarks on thsi stuff, so cannot post it here right now...... but you will find it easy way... because people inteded to use OpenCL as the multiplatform solution for "compute"

Agi use all whats possible, but the OpenCL crippling is there present very long......

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Wishgranter

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« Last Edit: October 29, 2013, 06:56:47 PM by Wishgranter »
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Wishgranter

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Re: Is the AMD 7970 graphics card still the best option for PhotoScan?
« Reply #13 on: October 30, 2013, 10:42:56 AM »
So what you think then about NVIDIA ? Milking customers or ? 
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Diego

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Re: Is the AMD 7970 graphics card still the best option for PhotoScan?
« Reply #14 on: October 30, 2013, 02:35:36 PM »
So what you think then about NVIDIA ? Milking customers or ?

Hi Wishgranter,

You're right, it is absurd, it is capitalism, or milking customers as you say. But unfortunately for me, I work with many applications that is optimized for Nvidia, for example Nvidia Quadro 3D buffer. However I am very happy with the performance of my old Nvidia GTX 580, I had an opportunity of testing the 680 and 780 versions, and did not exceed my cards, that was disappointing. Let's see what happens with the AMD 290x. I will be attentive to the evidence that can be performed with this model.

Best regards,

Diego