Graphics card for video editing

GravitateMediaGroup

I just had a computer built in preparation of the BMCC. I went with the newest 690 4gig for resolve, and I hope it's capable of doing the job. also got the newest intel i7 6core, 32gig ram, and 2x 2TB HD In the past I have only had a computer that can "get me by" when it comes to editing, this time around I decided to get something that should be able to go above and beyond what I need. I already know my current PC will not be able to handle raw BMCC footage and resolve.

mintcheerios

I just upgraded too from my i7 laptop from 2010. I got the 580 though since I found it for a good price. These graphics cards are huge these days! I'm coming from the days of 3dfx Voodoo and Nvidia TNT cards, so this was quite a surprise.

mee

+1 for the 400 series cards @sage I am still rocking my MSI 465GE some of the 465's are actually 470's in disguise if you install the 470 bios (count the chips first before you brick it). 5000 cores are just around the corner, and prices should start settling shortly after. I may go 2 way sli, if I stumble on another 465 for $50 or so to carry me through. Yes a bit power hungry, but with my all copper twin fan cooler it is quiet and very very cool. Unless you are doing some serious time consuming rendering or heavy 3D save some money and wait for the settling in prices that is just around the corner. I was testing neat on AE the other day and rendering was pretty fast once I found the "Use all cores at once" function, or whatever it's called. I do have a hex core and 16gb of ram though.

Vitaliy_Kiselev

@mee

Any reason to get old card instead of much cooler and smaller modern alternative? I don't see any.

As for "wait", it is universal advice that never works. Next generation even in today optimistic news will be available in second half of 2013, most probably in the end of 2013 or even 2014. Delays become more and more.

mee

@VK If nothing else buying whatever the last series is at the time can save allot of cash. I have allot of patience lately, but then there is little that my system can't handle currently. If I made allot more from film and needed the extra power I am sure I would change my tone, I really just meant this for those that are not at the level I know some of you are, and would not see the improvement from a 400 series to 600 series simply because nothing they run is that intensive, plus for $60 to $100 it is a very cheap test for a card you can turn around and sell for the same price after a week if you're not happy. I'm also a bit sleep deprived this week so may be talking in circles.

kronstadt

I've just bought my own vcard. I would strongly advise reading this article http://www.studio1productions.com/Articles/PremiereCS5.htm before making your informed decision about which one to get. The most important factor in PPro is the Bus width (memory interface width, measured in Bits), that's why some on tight budget might even settle for a GT 240 (as an entry level card). After reading this article I realised that the best card for me would be GTX 580 3Gb with 384 Bit (and 512 cudas), but because it costs too much, I decided to settle for the next best thing - GTX 480 again with 384 Bit, 1.5Gb (and 480 cudas). That's my sweetspot in terms of what is needed for improved performance in Adobe PPro, as well as in terms of price. Got mine from eBay for £120. From what I've read it is quite power hungry (250Watt) and can get quite hot and noisy, but we'll see... I'm guessing that that happens only when the graphix card is on full power.

Another aternative to conside might be GTX275 and other such cards. I wonder what people think about that?

flaschus

yo... for what its worth;

the gtx560 works like aces for me..

its not that expensive anymore either.... $200 on amazon

LPowell

@kronstadt The other factor to consider in data throughput is the RAM clock speed. Since memory bandwidth is the product of bus-width times clock-speed, the GTX 480's wide bus-width falls behind the GTX 660's high clock-speed:

http://www.hwcompare.com/13326/geforce-gtx-480-vs-geforce-gtx-660/

The GTX 480 is nevertheless a very fast video card, though its 250-watt power drain requires a beefy power supply.

Another factor to consider is that GDDR5 memory clocks at twice the speed of GDDR3 memory. That effectively doubles the bus-width of GDDR5 cards, which is what makes the 192-bit GTX 660 faster than the 512-bit GTX 280:

http://www.hwcompare.com/13380/geforce-gtx-280-vs-geforce-gtx-660/

kronstadt

@LPowell , I totally agree with you that RAM clock speed has it's role to play too, although I suspect that CPU power comes into the picture when rendering. After reading that article and some other articles in relation to PPro performance, it was primarily the bus-width and the price that led me to determine the sweetspot. I'd really want to get a second hand GTX580 from eBay, but simply couldn't afford it. I know that GTX480 is power hungry, gets hot and loud, which is a pity cause I've put a lot of thought and resources into making the PC extra cool and extra silent - but that heat and noise take place only during the intensive usage, like gaming and (to some extent) rendering. So I guess it should be relatively cool and silent on a normal day.

GTX480 uses 250 watts only when it is supercharged, not on a normal day (although I might be wrong there and should expect a dramatic spike in my electricity bill) My PSU is Seasonic 860w '80 Plus Platinum, so that should suffice.

Regarding GTX280, I see your point. It is nevertheless interesting to see the user with GTX275 come 2nd (out of 1100) in PPro5 benchmarks http://ppbm5.com/DB-PPBM5-2.php

DrDave

My Asus gt 240 was fanless, so no noise issue there, but I like to swap out gear after three or four years so I put in the Asus 650. Neat video does not really run faster, since the i7 runs it faster than the GPU. Speedgrade is slightly better but I don't use it. The BF sales are mostly over, but you can't go wrong with a 240 for a starter card for $35 on eBay, and you can't go wrong with a $100-$135 Asus 650 or higher--the new Asus cooler design is very quiet. Either way, cheap as chips. I spent a few $$$ more for the DDR5 because ppl told me it was better, and it looks better on paper, but I tested it against DDR3 and it isn't better. So whatever, I have it and it was still cheap. Spend more on the graphics card? Maybe not....

Thing is, the place to put those extra $$$ is maybe for a six core i7, giving you 12 virtual cores. Then you rocket.

qwerty123

I foolishly started a new thread to ask the following question... but I think it belongs here, and Vitaliy asked that I repost here, so here goes:....

So, I have a gigabyte 660 ti 2gb ram card that is currently doing double duty as both GUI for two dual link dvi monitors and as the processing CUDA card for premiere (and resolve). I hope to free up the 660ti just for processing and run my GUIs out of a cheap second card that can handle two 27" monitors. (I could also, maybe, live with one dual-link dvi and one vga, although this isn't optimal--I see some people recommend the gt120).

Does anyone have suggestions for a 2nd card like this? I imagine that others are going to be in a similar situation to me so hopefully this question helps others. Thanks!

mee

at qwerty123, I think even the old 8800's can handle that, but I am not certain. I know my 465 and the 460's can, and again those are as low as $50. I saw 8800's locally in a bin for something like $10 each!

tinbeo

I bought this card from thie first post link http://www.amazon.com/MSI-GeForce-DDR3-Video-Card/dp/B008AXRODA/ It has one VGA port, one DVI port and HDMI. Could I use an adapter make VGA to DVI so I could use two DVI for IPS monitor ?

Vitaliy_Kiselev

Could I use an adapter make VGA to DVI so I could use two DVI for IPS monitor ?

What do you mean under "two DVI for IPS monitor"? Two DVI outputs for two monitors?

You can always get HDMI to DVI adapter, or, better HDMI to DVI cable.

tinbeo

@ VK from those Korea Sellers on ebay, all ips monitors required dual link DVI, my graphic card GT 640 only have 1 DVI and not in their list like this one: http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-YAMAKASI-CATLEAP-Q270-SEi-27-LED-S-IPS-2560X1440-WQHD-6ms-DVI-D-PC-Monitor-/140853868709?pt=Computer_Monitors&hash=item20cb8b78a5

So I could use hdmi to dvi cable for this purpose?

Vitaliy_Kiselev

@tinbeo

:-)

You got this wrong, monitor require dual link DVI, not dual DVI cables or dual connectors.

As far as I know all DVI connectors on NVidia based cards are of dual type.

Just connect card and monitor with proper DVI cable.

Micah

Just happened across this thread and thought I'd contribute my experience:

I got the 560 Ti early last year and it has eaten up everything I've thrown at it. Everything in PP CS5 and CS6 preview all accelerated effects in real time, and render them out to h264 or mpeg at real time or better. This means titles and still image layers and every stock effect that shows an icon to indicate it's accelerated.

Anything that's NOT accelerated will slow things down to 10 FPS or worse. With two passes of unsharp mask and an non-CUDA-accelerated color plugin it was rendering more like one FPS.

As long as it sticks to CUDA stuff, it's fast enough to just get out of the way and do whatever I need.

This is working with a mix of footage from my D7000, D300s, and GX1. (AVCHD on the GX1. Very light bitrate bump with hack)

My system: AMD 8150, 32GB 1300 RAM, 120GB SSD system drive (usually dump footage here to work), and two old 75gb raptors for caching. Oh, and of course the 560 Ti 1024 (first gen with 384)

tonalt

Just replaced 8800GTS with GTX 660. Sony Vegas is as fast as before, and After Effects is dead slow as before. I guess there's nothing (graphics card related) really that boosts normal color correction effects in AE, only 3D-stuff can be accelerated.

It's really weird for me that AE cannot even play raw GH2 .MTS files without rendering. Using that software is usually just waiting for something.

But at least I'm now able to use my new 2560x1440 resolution dual link monitor :)

tinbeo

you got me right tone :-)

Micah

@tonalt Find "raytracer_supported_cards.txt" in the AE folder and add the line "GeForce GTX 660" to it.

...then report back and tell us how it works out. Oh, don't forget to bump up the texture memory in the previews panel.

EDIT: also check your multiprocessor settings if you've got a multi-core processor.

tonalt

@Micah I had CS 5.5, that didn't even have that file. Now updated to CS 6.0.

Added "GeForce GTX 660 Ti" to that file and AE recognized the card.

I have played with memory & multiprocessing settings.

Conclusion. Rendering simple video file didn't speed up at all. I had some ColorGHear adjustment layers applied to it.

qwerty123

Question for graphics-card savy folks:

if I want to run two of 2560x1440 27" monitors, would there be a benefit to getting a second cheap video card with two dual dvi ports that are simply for the (GUI) monitors, and then leave my main graphics card (660ti) just for processing (via CUDA in premiere, etc)?

I was thinking of this one if so: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130788&nm_mc=KNC-GoogleAdwords&cm_mmc=KNC-GoogleAdwords--pla--NA-_-NA

P.S. I'm on a 3370k hackintosh gigabyte z77 board

mee

@tonalt are you sure you have the "Render Multiple Frames" option checked under preferences/memory and multiprocessing ?

kronstadt

I heard this from a friend, so wanted to confirm: Is it true that if you have one graphics card of one type, and if you want to stack up a second one, then you will have to get the exactly same type??? So, for instance, if I have MSI GTX480, does that mean that my second card will also have to be MSI GTX480 ? or can I add whatever I like, like GTX580 or GTX680?

tonalt

@mee Yes, what makes you think I do not have?

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