Radeon HD 7970

[QBobWatson]

I'm thinking about a computer build, and I wanted to see how it would actually look before pulling the trigger, which led me naturally to my first luxrender project. Here's the GPU, a Radeon HD 7970 with an EK full-coverage waterblock on it. The small components on the PCB are all done using microdisplacement; the PCB itself has five levels of mix materials. I wrote some Python scripts for the GIMP in order to partially automate the process of placing all of the millimeter-scale components on the board. I'm going for the tech photographer's studio look in terms of lighting and background, so it's lit by three largish area lamps and a solid-color environment lamp.

Any comments or suggestions are welcome. I'm not entirely satisfied with the black acetal on the waterblock, and the steel on the PCI bracket looks a bit flat. Otherwise I'm quite happy with the result.

I'm currently working on the motherboard; I'll post it to this thread once it's done.

[luxRoot]

I have a child trauma coz of an ATi card, so I'd stick with nVidia, other than that good render Oh sh*t that's a shizzles ton of moneyz they has ask for dat ting, my godieness ffs...

[zeealpal]

That is an amazing render

[paco]

That is an amazing render

+1

I agree, very photoreal!

[J the Ninja]

You could probably make the PCIe bracket look better just by dropping the roughness, most of the ones I've seen are a lot shinier than that. Maybe same for the water block? PCB is amazing though, damn.

[B.Y.O.B.]

Very realistic render, and thanks that it is that clean instead of noisy

The material of the DVI-output doesn't look that good to me, and aren't those pins on the PCIe-connection out of gold usually? I'd use the gold-preset with very little roughness there I think.

[QBobWatson]

You could probably make the PCIe bracket look better just by dropping the roughness, most of the ones I've seen are a lot shinier than that. Maybe same for the water block? PCB is amazing though, damn.

Excellent advice, thank you. Looking at a PCI bracket close-up you can see that the surface is not very smooth; I was trying to simulate that with a rough material, but you're right that it makes it look less realistic. Maybe I should add a slight noise bumpmap to a shiny metal instead. The waterblock is already .025 roughness, which I think is about right:



Right now it's a glossy texture with a very dark (.02) diffuse channel and a lot of spectral absorption to get the shadows dark, but I don't know if that's the right way to do things.

The material of the DVI-output doesn't look that good to me, and aren't those pins on the PCIe-connection out of gold usually? I'd use the gold-preset with very little roughness there I think.

You're 100% right about the PCIe pins being gold, thanks! I thought they were just dirty copper. Do you mean the inside of the DVI-output, or the steel outside? The inside is the same generic black plastic as the power headers on the back, and the outside is the same dirty steel used on the other connectors.

[B.Y.O.B.]

Do you mean the inside of the DVI-output, or the steel outside? The inside is the same generic black plastic as the power headers on the back, and the outside is the same dirty steel used on the other connectors.

Ah, that material is steel? I thought it was white matte... now I see the little reflection
Then it's just the lightsetup in this specific case.

[J the Ninja]

You could probably make the PCIe bracket look better just by dropping the roughness, most of the ones I've seen are a lot shinier than that. Maybe same for the water block? PCB is amazing though, damn.

Excellent advice, thank you. Looking at a PCI bracket close-up you can see that the surface is not very smooth; I was trying to simulate that with a rough material, but you're right that it makes it look less realistic. Maybe I should add a slight noise bumpmap to a shiny metal instead.

You might not need the bump, I've seen PCIe brackets that were pretty smooth. Maybe just the metal/metal2 mat with .15 or so roughness?

[Pilchard123]

I honestly thought that you had posted a promo picture of a real HD7970 for some reason. Great job!