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  1. Home
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  5. OctaneRender 2020 – NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070, 3080 & 3090 Performance

OctaneRender 2020 – NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070, 3080 & 3090 Performance

Posted on October 29, 2020 by William George
Always look at the date when you read an article. Some of the content in this article is most likely out of date, as it was written on October 29, 2020. For newer information, see our more recent articles.

Table of Contents

  • Introduction
  • Test Setup
  • Benchmark Results
  • Performance Analysis
  • Are the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070, 3080 & 3090 Good for OctaneRender?

TL;DR: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 RTX Series Performance in OctaneRender

The raw performance of these new GeForce RTX cards is amazing in OctaneRender! Both the RTX 3070 and 3080 provide similar performance per dollar, but the 3080’s 25% additional VRAM makes it the better value. Folks who need the fastest rendering times, though, will want the GeForce RTX 3090’s top-tier performance and its 24GB of onboard memory for working on complex scenes with more detailed geometry & textures.

Excerpt from “Labs Open Office Hour: Labs Lads Discuss the New RTX 3070” live stream on 10/30/2020

Introduction

NVIDIA has launched their new GeForce RTX 30 Series video cards in a set of rolling releases during the fall of 2020, and has touted major advancements in performance and efficiency with this "Ampere" architecture. While gaming is almost always the media's focus during these kinds of launches, professional applications like OTOY's OctaneRender should see significant per-card improvements as well. Now that all three of the initial cards – the GeForce RTX 3070, 3080, and 3090 – are available, we can test them against each other and a wide range of previous-gen models to see how they perform.

OctaneRender Performance Review for NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 8GB, 3080 10GB & 3090 24GB
Image
OctaneRender Performance Review for NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 8GB, 3080 10GB & 3090 24GB
Open Full Resolution

If you want to see the full specs for the new GeForce RTX 3070, 3080, and 3090 cards, we recommend checking out NVIDIA's page for the new RTX 30 Series. But at a glance, here are what we consider to be the most important specs:

VRAM CUDA Cores Boost Clock Power MSRP
RTX 2070 Super 8GB 2,560 1.77 GHz 215W $499
RTX 3070 8GB 5,888 1.70 GHz 220W $499
RTX 2080 Super 8GB 3,072 1.65 GHz 250W $699
RTX 3080 10GB 8,704 1.71 GHz 320W $699
RTX 2080 Ti 11GB 4,352 1.55 GHz 250W $1,199
RTX 3090 24GB 10,496 1.73 GHz 350W $1,499
Titan RTX 24GB 4,608 1.77 GHz 280W $2,499

While specs don't always line up with real-world performance, it is a great sign that NVIDIA has roughly doubled the number of CUDA cores compared to the GeForce RTX 20 Series cards at similar price points. At the top-end of the new line, NVIDIA appears to have also combined the roles of the previous-gen RTX 2080 Ti and Titan RTX into the new RTX 3090. It has as much VRAM as the Titan did, but for $1,000 less – putting it in the same ballpark as the 2080 Ti, but with more than double the memory and CUDA cores.

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Test Setup

Listed below are the specifications of the system we used for our OctaneBench testing:

Test Platform
CPU Intel Core i9 10900K 10 Core
CPU Cooler Noctua NH-U12S
Motherboard Gigabyte Z490 Vision D
RAM 4x DDR4-2933 16GB (64GB total)
Video Card NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 24GB
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 10GB
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 8GB

NVIDIA Titan RTX 24GB
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti 11GB
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER 8GB
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER 8GB
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER 8GB
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti 11GB
Hard Drive Samsung 960 Pro 1TB
Software Windows 10 Pro 64-bit (Ver. 2004)
OctaneBench 2020.1.5

For this test, we used the latest version of OTOY's OctaneBench 2020.1.5. This edition was the first that worked properly with the new GeForce RTX 3080 video card – our attempts to use the older 4.00 and earlier 2020.1 variants did not recognize the new card as a viable render device. This likely means that all RTX 30 Series cards will not work properly on previous releases of OctaneRender.

We ran the test twice on each GPU, with the best result being included in the graphs below. If you wish to compare performance to your existing system, you can download OctaneBench 2020.1.5 directly from OTOY. They also maintain a database of results that you can reference and contribute to.

Benchmark Results

Here are charts showing the performance of the new GeForce RTX 30 Series (in dark green)compared to the other cards we tested:

OctaneBench 2020.1.5 Performance on GeForce RTX 3070, 3080 & 3090
Image
OctaneBench 2020.1.5 Performance on GeForce RTX 3070, 3080 & 3090
Open Full Resolution

Performance Analysis

The raw performance of the new GeForce RTX 30 Series is amazing in OctaneRender! Lets break it down for each card:

NVIDIA's RTX 3070 is faster than any RTX 20 Series card was, making it an excellent budget option though it is limited by its 8GB of onboard memory.

NVIDIA's RTX 3080 is and more than twice as fast as the RTX 2080 Super for the same price. Combined with a 25% increase in VRAM over the 2080 Super (and the 3070), that increase in rendering speed makes it a fantastic value.

NVIDIA's RTX 3090 is 75% faster than the RTX Titan, which was the top consumer video card from last generation, while costing $1000 less and maintaining the same amount of VRAM. Moreover, the RTX Titan was only available from NVIDIA with their dual-fan cooling solution, meaning it could not be used effectively in multi-GPU configurations. The Founders Edition RTX 3090 that we tested for this article won't be well suited for that either, but other manufacturers have announced blower-style versions of the 3090 which should work in that type of configuration. At 350W of draw per card, though, current power supplies may not be able to run a full set of four.

When comparing these new cards to each other there are many trade-offs to consider. The RTX 3090 is about 20% faster for rendering in Octane than the 3080, which is not bad, but considering it also costs more than twice as much that isn't fantastic either. However, the 24GB of VRAM on the RTX 3090 is more than double what the 3080 offers (10GB) and the 3090 is also the only 30 Series card announced so far which supports NVLink. The RTX 3070 puts in a good showing, but for only $200 the 3080's ~40% faster speed and 25% additional memory make it less appealing. So for raw price:performance the RTX 3080 wins, but in terms of maximum performance, features, and support for rendering more complex scenes the GeForce RTX 3090 is clearly superior.

Are the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070, 3080 & 3090 Good for OctaneRender?

Yes, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070, 3080, and 3090 are fantastic cards for OctaneRender! Which one is right for you will depend on several factors:

  • RTX 3070 8GB – This is a solid budget card, for those who are just getting started with GPU rendering or on a limited budget.
  • RTX 3080 10GB – This card is more affordable than the 3090 and offers better rendering performance-per-dollar if you consider the card alone. However, its lower amount of VRAM may limit the complexity of scenes you can render and it lacks NVLink support as well. If you aren't working with very complex scenes, though, one or possibly two of these would give great results for their price.
  • RTX 3090 24GB – This card is about 20% faster for rendering than the 3080, with 140% more onboard memory and support for NVLink. That means it will be much better suited to working with large scenes and detailed geometry. Moreover, Gigabyte has released a dual-slot, single-fan version of this card which should allow multiple GPUs in a single system for increased performance.

As always, please keep in mind that these results are strictly for GPU-based rendering in OctaneRender. If you have performance concerns for other applications in your workflow, we highly recommend checking out our Hardware Articles (you can filter by "Video Card") for the latest information on how a wide range of programs perform with various GPUs, CPUs, and other hardware.

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Tags: GPU, GPU Acceleration, GTX 1080 Ti, Hardware Acceleration, NVIDIA, Octane, OctaneBench, OTOY, Render, Rendering, RTX 2060 SUPER, RTX 2070 SUPER, RTX 2080 SUPER, RTX 2080 Ti, RTX 3070, RTX 3080, RTX 3090, Titan RTX, Video Card

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