Please help me buying a NVIDIA Graphics Card for my computational works

[Abir]

Hi,

I'm new to the GPU world. I want to learn and use CUDA programming for my research work and thats why I'm planning to buy a good NVIDIA graphics card. Could you please help me in buying one? I'm giving the specifications of my desktop computer for which I want to buy it.
1. Motherboard - ASUS P8Z77-V LX LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel
2. Power supply - Corsair Builder Series CX 500 Watt ATX/EPS 80 PLUS (CX500)
3. Processor - Intel Core i7-3770 Quad-Core Processor 3.4 GHz 4 Core LGA 1155
4. Cabinet - Cooler Master 690 II Advanced - Mid Tower Computer Case with USB 3.0 Ports and X-Dock

My budget is around $200. I have seen some of the following GPUs. Could you please tell me if these are compatible with the specifications I provided (in the sense that the motheborad and cabinet fits the graphics card, the power is adequate etc.)
a) GeForce GTX 750 Ti -- 2 GB GDDR5 Standard Memory, 640 Cuda cores, Minimum power required 300 watts ~$ 145
b) GeForce GTX 660 -- 2 GB GDDR5 Standard Memory, 960 Cuda cores, Minimum power required 450 watts ~$ 180
c) GeForce GTX 650 Ti Boost -- 2 GB GDDR5 Standard Memory, 768 Cuda cores, Minimum power required DON'T HAVE AN IDEA ~$ 169 - BUT IT SEEMS OUT OF STOCK

If everything is compatible, then my choice (again being a newbie) would be c), b) a) in order of my preference. The reason being a) is third in preference, is that our lab is going to have one 750 Ti and so for myself I want to buy something else.

Please let me know if you need any information. Your help is highly necessary and will be appreciated much.

Abir

 

[Devon68]

Everything is compatible and you should go for the gtx 660 because it has the most cuda cores and is the fastest of the three you mentioned.

 

[Tallencor]

Everything is compatible and you should go for the gtx 660 because it has the most cuda cores and is the fastest of the three you mentioned.

Agreed.

 

[Abir]

Everything is compatible and you should go for the gtx 660 because it has the most cuda cores and is the fastest of the three you mentioned.

Hi Devon68,

Thanks for your quick reply. My concern for 660 was that my power supply is 500 Watts. Considering all the other components (like CPU, HDD etc.), will the power be sufficient? In that case, I will go for 660. Also I have a question, regarding 'boost'. Is there any advantage of using a GPU with boost technology for my computation works?

Thanks again,
Abir

 

[Devon68]

Thanks for your quick reply. My concern for 660 was that my power supply is 500 Watts. Considering all the other components (like CPU, HDD etc.), will the power be sufficient? In that case, I will go for 660. Also I have a question, regarding 'boost'. Is there any advantage of using a GPU with boost technology for my computation works?

No worries about the PSU a friend of mine is using the GXT 660 on a 500W psu without problems. The part about the bost technology I don't know maybe someone else can answer that.

 

[The Von Matrices]

As a card to learn how to code in CUDA, the GTX 660 is great.

Just be aware that with a GTX 660 you may not see a speedup over using all cores of your i7-3770 if your code heavily uses on double-precision floating point numbers (FP64). The i7-3770 and GTX 660 both get about 75 GFLOPs on FP64 code.

 

[Abir]

As a card to learn how to code in CUDA, the GTX 660 is great.

Just be aware that with a GTX 660 you may not see a speedup over using all cores of your i7-3770 if your code heavily uses on double-precision floating point numbers (FP64). The i7-3770 and GTX 660 both get about 75 GFLOPs on FP64 code.

Hi The Von Matrices,

Thanks for your input. As a beginner I'm not that much in search for speed up. Also I have to keep my budget in mind . One of the major factors I have to consider is that to run some of the existing codes in web, I need a cuda enabled GPU. I hope that purpose would be served by any NVIDIA gpu. So, I'm in search of some balance where I can run the existing codes (and customize them according to my need) and run them with reasonable speed.

Thanks again for your inputs. Seeing the trends in this forum, I might finally go for GTX 660.

Abir

 

[Abir]

Hi All,

I have the GTX 660 delivered today to me. I'm setting this up at the moment. My computer is running Linux Fedora core 16. Could you please give me some advice on how to properly make the graphics card running. I mean it will be of great help if you can provide a step by step guide to install the proper drivers for this card. Please let me know if you need any other information.

Many thanks,
Abir

P.S. -- After some Googling I found this video in youtube. Is it the way to proceed? Any advice will be appreciated guys.

 

[Devon68]

Sorry with this I cant help, I never used Linux before.