Graphics Cards for SL

[Dana Kosrae]

I'll be gettinmg a new computer soon, and I want to be sure it runs SL viewers as well as possible.  It will be a Haswell-E, Socket 2011-v3, X99 chipset machine with 32 GB RAM, and one SSD for programs and the OS (Windows 7 or Windows 8.1) and another SSD for data.

I'm not sure what it would take in terms of a graphics card to assure the best possible performance.  Would there be an observable difference bewteen a GTX-580, GTX-780Ti, or a GTX-980?

[Ohjiro Watanabe]

That's going to be a sweet rig Dana!

I bought my last computer about a year ago and got a GTX 660. I have been very pleased with the performance in SL and run with graphics set to Ultra most of the time. If I was buying it again today I would probably go for the780 just to give it a bit more head room. I don't think that you would get any more benefit from the 980. SL just doesn't use that much GPU.

Make sure you get enough cooling for that bad boy.

[Nalates Urriah]

Observable difference... hard to say. SL has limitation as to what it can use. I know the difference from my GTX8800 to my GTX560 was minor. 

But, there is the problem of how you like your SL... with my 8800 I seldom turned shadows on. With the 560 I run them ALL the time. So, my FPS did not change much between the 8800 and 560.

Another point to think about is SL2... rumor is that the Lab is using Unity as the graphics & physics engines. If that is true, then the 900 series cards will be awesome and worth the cost, IMO.

[arton Rotaru]

Personally I would aim for the GTX 970 these days.

http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html

[Dana Kosrae]

Thanks, particurly, foir the heads-up about SL2.

[Dana Kosrae]

That link was really helpful.  Because of it, I decided to go with the 780Ti, which I already have, since it is so close to the 980, and both are well ahead of the 580 that I am accustomed to.

[AnukManeewong1260]

Me. I Have the Nvidia GeForce GTX 760 2GB From MSI. and Run on My Second Life Viewer with Ultra Setting without Bother. and I Got the Decent Framerate of 30-60 FPS. and My Nvidia Graphic Card is Had Shadow Setting that Operate the Second Life is No Problem for Me.

(Second Life Runs Well on Nvidia Geforce GTX with 6 is On Middle Digit of Model Number)