Redshift 2.6.41 GPU Roundup: NVIDIA GeForce RTX SUPER Performance

Introduction

Redshift is a production-quality, GPU-accelerated renderer. Traditionally this type of rendering was done on CPUs, but graphics processors (GPUs) are ideal for highly parallel tasks like this – and it is easier to fit multiple video cards in a single computer, to boost performance, than multiple CPUs.

It was written to use NVIDIA's CUDA graphics programming language, and since NVIDIA recently refreshed their GeForce series with new 2060, 2070, and 2080 "SUPER" cards we thought it would be a good time to re-test the whole RTX lineup.

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Test Hardware

Here is a list of the hardware we tested Redshift on. Everything except the video card was kept the same throughout all the test runs, to ensure that no other specs could impact performance. The operating system was a fully updated installation of Windows 10 Pro.

Benchmark Details

Redshift has a handy benchmarking tool which tests how long it takes to render an included scene. We ran this three times on each card, and used the fastest (shortest) time for each card in the graphs below.

Benchmark Results

Here are the Redshift 2.6.41 benchmark render times all of the GeForce RTX video cards, along with the TITAN RTX for good measure, sorted from most to least expensive – with the new SUPER series cards in a darker shade of green:

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And here is another way of looking at the results, as percentages relative to the GeForce RTX 2060's performance:

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Analysis

The new RTX 2070 SUPER and 2080 SUPER cards are just incremental improvements, but since they are the same price as the cards they are replacing that is nothing to complain about. However, the RTX 2060 SUPER is a different story: it is a little more expensive than the vanilla 2060 – but it is also over 25% faster! Moreover, it has 8GB of memory instead of 6GB (just like the 2070 and 2080 models).

Nothing changed at the top-end of NVIDIA's line, though. The TITAN RTX is still the fastest card overall, but considering that it is twice the price of the RTX 2080 Ti, only about 5% faster, and isn't available in a single-fan (blower style) card it isn't really a good deal. Seemingly the only reason to go for the TITAN in this application would be if you needed the larger VRAM (24 vs 11GB) and you only wanted to use a single GPU (or maybe two at most, in a system with tons of airflow). If you need lots of memory space but also want multiple GPUs, take a look at the Quadro RTX line instead.

Conclusion: What Are the Best Consumer GPUs for Rendering in Redshift?

Because of the Titan RTX's cooling limitations, and how well Redshift and other GPU rendering applications scale across multiple cards, the best choice for most users is going to be the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti. The new RTX 2060 SUPER also offers great performance for the price, and the other SUPER series cards provide modest increases in rendering speed for the same price as previous models.

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