An intrinsic part of using Blender is the creation of one or more graphically complex models. Making and altering these models requires a lot of input from your computer’s CPU, but when you preview or render your creation, a powerful GPU can be an invaluable addition if you need smoothness and speed when working.

If you're new to Blender and need a solid foundation before diving into exports, our Complete Guide to Blender 3D for Beginners will help you get started with the basics. This post is going to show you the best GPUs for Blender, ranging from the needs of beginners to those of professionals, so let’s jump in and explore the options.

Understanding GPU Requirements for Blender

Your computer’s GPU is its graphics processing unit and it comes in handy for any tasks that require graphical calculations, such as playing video games and decoding (typically high-resolution) video files.

Blender deals with 3D assets, which are graphical by nature. However, certain aspects of the workflow draw on your GPU more than usual, such as rendering scenes with Cycles, simulating physical phenomena, and seeing real-time previews with Eevee.

Key GPU Specifications

Your GPU has Video RAM (VRAM) which helps store graphical assets which are currently being processed, for faster access to them. The more VRAM you have, the more assets can be stored at once. In the Blender hardware requirements, you’ll find that it will work with as low as 2GB, but 8GB is recommended.

You also want to consider the number of shading units the GPU has; the more, the better. These are called CUDA cores for Nvidia GPUs and stream processors in AMD GPUs, but they are essentially the same. A GPU’s theoretical performance is measured in a unit called TFLOPS (or teraflops).

To ensure that your GPU is compatible with the latest version of Blender, it’ll need to support at least OpenGL 4.3, though older versions are always available for download, dating back to OpenGL 1.4. Anything in the GeForce 400 series (Quadro Tesla architecture) or newer, Radeon HD 8500 series (GCN 1st gen architecture) or newer, and integrated Intel chips on the Broadwell architecture and newer, should work fine with the latest version.

Best GPUs for Beginners

If you’re just starting off, you’ll want to get the right equipment for Blender, but you won’t want to use your life savings, especially as you’ll likely be able to produce anything that requires the most powerful GPUs right away. These GPUs fulfill the basic criteria and won’t set your bank account too far back. 

However, these are weak by modern standards and best fit the needs of someone learning Blender and making personal beginner projects. Anything more complex might struggle and you may need to optimize your assets for performance at this stage.

AMD Radeon RX 580

At the time of writing this, the AMD Radeon RX 580 can be snagged for less than $100 on Amazon and is bound to get cheaper. It’s hard to argue that’s not beginner-grade in the world of GPUs.

Released in 2017, this GPU comes with 8GB of GDDR5 VRAM, 2,304 stream processors, and support for OpenGL 4.6, OpenCL 2.1, and DirectX 12. It has a 185W TDP, which means it draws a lot of power. Performance-wise, you get a theoretical performance of 6.175 teraflops.

The biggest perk of this GPU is that it is very affordable for beginners while still being able to run Blender. However, it’s not that powerful and a consequence of its age is that it is not power-efficient.

Nvidia GeForce GT 1030

If you’re more of a Nvidia kind of person, the GeForce GT 1030 comes at a similar price to the Radeon above and will fit the needs of Blender beginners pretty well.

This graphics card was also released in 2017, with 2GB of VRAM (though the model linked above has 4GB) and 384 CUDA cores. It supports OpenGL 4.6, OpenCL 3.0, DirectX 12, and CUDA 6.1. It has a 30W TDP, so it is a very power-efficient GPU. However, its performance is restrained as a result, at only 1,127 gigaflops (roughly 1.1 teraflops).

This GPU is very affordable, especially as this is the best Nvidia card in its price range, and its low power draw means you likely won’t need to upgrade your PSU. However, its performance is certainly very limited so complex scenes won’t be handled well.

Best GPUs for Intermediate Users

Let’s say that you’ve gotten the hang of Blender and you’ve been using it for a year or two. It might be time to get a GPU that can handle the more complex scenes that you’ve started to design. You might have even started using Blender for work, exporting assets to other programs, at this point. As your 3D art aspirations grow, so should your GPU’s performance.

Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050

For just under $200, less than double the price of the GT 1030, intermediate 3D artists can step up to a more modern GPU, in the form of the GeForce RTX 3050.

Released in early 2021, this card comes with 6GB of GDDR6 VRAM, 3,584 CUDA cores, a relatively high 170W TDP (though there’s enough performance to make it worth it), and 12.74 TFLOPS of power. It supports DirectX 12 Ultimate, OpenGL 4.6, OpenCL 3.0, and CUDA 8.6.

Considering the major boost in performance and the rather sensible pricing, this graphics card is a great choice for Blender users who have started to explore relatively complex scenes and features. You may need to get a bigger PSU though, with its high power draw.

AMD Radeon RX 6600

The AMD Radeon RX 6600 costs a little more than the RTX 3050, but it still manages to sneak under the $200 bar. 

It was also released in 2021, though in the later part of the year. This GPU comes with 8GB of GDDR6 VRAM, 1,792 stream processors, and 8.928 TFLOPS of performance. It supports DirectX 12 Ultimate, OpenGL 4.6, and OpenCL 2.1. It has a relatively moderate power draw at 132W TDP.

On paper, this graphics card is more expensive yet weaker than the Nvidia RTX 3050. However, if you’re in need of a Radeon and you want one that’s power-efficient, you certainly can’t go wrong with the RX 6600.

Best GPUs for Professionals

Now then, what if your work is used in film and TV, you’re well-known on the internet for breathtaking 3D art, or you make extremely detailed assets for video games? What if you also need reliability and as few crashes as possible? You’re a professional, and you’re going to need a GPU that matches your professional status. Get ready to spend more, but here are two fantastic choices.

AMD Radeon RX 7900XT

The AMD Radeon RX 7900XT is one of the most powerful graphics cards that you can get from AMD at this very moment, and unsurprisingly, it costs a lot, with a price close to $700 at the moment. However, you get a lot of power.

This card launched in late 2022 and comes with 5,376 stream processors and 20GB of GDDR6 VRAM. Everything comes together for an insane 51.48 TFLOPS of power, so rendering even the most complex scenes shouldn’t be a problem with this. It supports OpenGL 4.6, OpenCL 2.2, and DirectX 12 Ultimate. It has a 300W TDP, so it is certainly power-hungry.

The obvious disadvantage of this GPU is its high price and heavy power requirements — you may need to upgrade your PSU to handle this one. However, you get an insane amount of graphical power for your creative work.

Nvidia Quadro RTX A6000

Now, the Nvidia Quadro RTX A6000 is a very unique card. The first thing you might notice is that it is incredibly expensive. You could buy all other GPUs on the list twice over for its price. However, when it comes to professional-grade GPUs, the Quadro options stand tall, primarily because of their power, reliability, and driver support. That means you can expect a negligible number of crashes, bugs, or driver issues. Not everyone needs that level of reliability, but if you do, you have to pay for it.

The GPU has an insane 10,752 CUDA cores, 48GB of GDDR6 VRAM, and an unsurprising TDP of 300W. You get support for DirectX 12 Ultimate, OpenGL 4.6, OpenCL 3.0, and CUDA 8.6. It pushes out 38.71 TFLOPS at its peak.

You get extreme reliability and great performance for almost all types of Blender workflows, but the massive trade-off is very obviously the card’s prohibitive price. However, if you’re a professional in the field, it just might be worth it for you.

Pairing Your GPU with Other Hardware

Now, when upgrading the GPU in your system, you’re going to want to make sure that it is paired with an appropriately powerful CPU. This is because a CPU that is too slow could cause what is called a bottleneck because it simply can’t process at a comparable speed to the high-end GPU. 

At the same time, you want to prioritize faster storage and RAM so that your GPU can take up and offload data without being limited. You should prioritize SSDs in a performance-oriented build. Here’s a guide to make sure that you can build the best PC for Blender.

Finally, we’ve been talking about TDP, and that’s essentially the power draw of your GPU. Every computer has a power supply rated for a certain maximum wattage. If you have a 300W GPU, that’s only the average power it takes in. Under load, it goes higher than that, so a 450W power supply unit won’t suffice. You will need a PSU that can handle the GPU in your system, and thermal management that can keep the GPU from throttling because of heat.

Conclusion

If you’re a beginner, intermediate, or professional in Blender, your GPU needs will certainly differ by quite a lot, and consequently, so should your budget. There’s an AMD and Nvidia option for every tier though, and you need to make sure that the rest of your system’s hardware matches your level of intended performance.

It is important to get a GPU that fits your specific needs. Always remember that it is better to get something that is more powerful than your needs rather than something that is less powerful. There’s no harm in future-proofing.

However, you can save yourself the trouble of shopping for expensive high-performance GPUs when a cloud solution like Vagon can let you use Blender on a cloud computer with a professional-grade GPU at a fraction of the cost. With Vagon, you can even run high-powered Blender on an iPad.

FAQs:

1. What is Blender 3D?

   • Blender 3D is a free and open-source 3D creation program. It can be used for 3D modeling, animation, rendering, and more. Blender has tools for video editing and game development and supports Python scripting, amongst others.

2. Do I need a good GPU for Blender?

   • There are a lot of complex graphical calculations occurring during rendering, physical simulations, and animation. Having a GPU provides a dedicated piece of hardware for these calculations, which can speed up these processes by a lot.

3. What are the minimum hardware requirements for Blender 3D?

   • The latest version of Blender requires at least Windows 8.1, a quad-core CPU with SSE 4.2 support, 8GB of RAM, and a GPU with 2GB VRAM and OpenGL 4.3 support.

4. Can I use an older GPU for Blender?

   • You can certainly use an older GPU for Blender, but you’ll require older versions of the application, which are readily available on Blender’s official website. Going back as far as Blender 2.76 brings back Windows XP and OpenGL 1.4 support, giving you one way to use Blender on low-end devices.

5. Does Blender support multi-GPU setups?

   • Blender has multi-GPU support for certain tasks, such as rendering. However, you will need to ensure that your GPUs, motherboard, and other hardware are compatible.