I have Dell XPS 8930 and BenQ SW2700PT monitor. The XPS has an Intel i9 CPU. It is 8 years old, so soon it will no longer be able to use the security boot. I would like to be able to use an ONNX Runtime in order to get GPU acceleration in darktable. I currently have a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 GDDR5 8GB GPU sitting in one PCI-e x16 powered slot.
I am not knowledgeable about GPUs at all. I am wondering if a (Correction, AGAIN!) ASUS Dual NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 8GB GDDR7 OC Edition (PCIe 5.0, 8GB GDDR7, DLSS 4, HDMI 2.1b, DisplayPort 2.1b, 2.5-Slot Design would do the job.
Microsoft quietly extended the ESU until 2027 , so you can put off upgrading for another year. A RTX 5060 or even a RTX 3060 12GB card which would be enough to run Darktable and do video editing and comfortably game on a 1440p display if that’s your thing. You can also look into getting an Intel ARC B580 card as an alt to the 3060.
How much system ram do you have , I know some XPS systems only come with 8gb of ram.
I edited the post I spotted that typo after I posted. I would make sure any GPU you select can fit in the case because those dell xps cases can be cramped. You could do a partial upgrade buying a new motherboard , cpu , case and moving the ram , storage and gpu over which is what I did a few years ago due to my motherboard failing and it not meeting windows 11 requirements.
I put together a cheap guide to help if you want to upgrade which is a little expensive due to the ongoing ram crisis. But it will allow you upgrade to Windows 11 without an issue & you should be comfortable with this system for next 6-8yrs. Ignore the storage , I just have it as a place holder.
ONNX is not about GPU acceleration of darktable, it’s’only’ used by the AI features (masks, denoising, upscaling). General GPU acceleration is provided by OpenCL.
For ONNX, Nvidia may be better than Intel, but I’m not sure.
I can only encourage you to get a gpu with at least 16 gb of vram. All that new ai stuff needs a lot of vram… btw, I also have a 5060 ti, but with 16 gb vram.
I bought mine fĂĽr 550 euros, and to be honest, that not much for an nvidia gpu and its not even a really fast gpu - I mean really good ones cost 2000 and more. Anyway, I think getting a GPU with 8 GB VRAM these days is wasted money.
His pc might not support a higher end gpu , I was looking up the specs and he would have move into a new case with a new psu and better airflow to hand a gpu like that.
I think a rtx 5060 ti 16GB vram ist not that big, I have a smallish version, its definitely not high end. Well maybe my setup is not optimal either in terms of airflow, my machine is also 5 years old, but it seems to work, although I don’t use the GPU all the time. Using this card with darktable is definitely not “stressful” for the device, even in combination with a 4k screen. Ai things are more exhausting but I dont do things that last longer than 5 minutes.
I mean… changing the PSU is almost obligatory if you upgrade the GPU.
Edit: Well, actually, I think upgrading the GPU is wasted money with this PC - is it? It’s 8 years old…
You could probably get away with your current card as kofa said so an upgrade isn’t needed at all to use the AI features. And with the windows 10 esu deadline extended another year you don’t have to worry about that either. If you were doing other AI stuff then a card upgrade might be needed. I have run the AI denois and masking on my T480 laptop with a 2gb gpu without any issues aside from slower rendering times.
I used to have a 6 GB Nvidia 1060, and it was OK. Now I also have an 8GB Quadro 4000, not exactly bleeding edge, either. Both are at least 5 times as fast as my 4-year-old CPU. I use darktable with HQ preview on a 4K screen.
