Graphics card spec summer 2024

[The Acro Shamans]

Hi all, I'm pretty new to Magic but loving it! I am reaching the limits of my current laptop (Dell Precision 5540: Core i7-9850H, 32GB RAM, NVIDIA Quadro® T2000 w/4GB GDDR5, 2TB SSD). It's a decent laptop but I am getting to the point of maxing it out with Magic, so I'm looking for something new. I will be getting a Core i9 (eg. Ultra 9 185H).

My question is around current graphics cards - between the NVIDIA RTX 4070 and 4090 am I going to notice much difference in Magic? 4090 seems to be a massive jump in price, if it's worth it I'll pay it, but is it worth it?!

[Sadler]

Screenshot 2024-07-17 190805.jpg (34.13 KiB) Viewed 3578 times

Almost anything would be better than T2000. A 4090 would be more headroom for sure but a matter of degrees over other cards. The only reason to definitely go for a 4090 is for the 24GB. I do quite nicely on a 2080 though I hit frame rate slow downs in some heavier scenes. For Magic, don't care too much about CPU and system memory - its GPU and SSD speed that count.

[The Acro Shamans]

That's super useful information, thanks so much

FYI I can't find any 4090's with 24GB, everything I'm seeing is 16GB. But still, double that of the 4070 with 8GB!

[Sadler]

It has been a little while since I looked but you're right, laptop GPUs are hobbled on memory now - very disappointing. I've had 24gb on my desktop for years, I'd just assumed they'd stay the same or even go up, even for laptops, especially for machine learning. Luckily, Magic doesn't have to be too hard on memory. Looks like there's no point upgrading here, at least for a while.