After Effect / Premiere Video Card

[tukulka]

Hi, with the advent of Windows 7 i have to replace my old ATI Radeon X1950, they have no driver for that.

I use the computer for two main thing:
1 - Working with Photoshop / Premiere / After Effect
2 - Gaming

Some question:
Where can I find some benchmark of workstation video card and wich one will be appropriate for my purpose in your mind?
How will a workstation card (Quadro / FireGL) perform in tasks like Gaming?

Thank you

 

[elconejito]

Photoshop doesn't need a lot of horsepower for it's GPU accelerated features (uses OpenGL, not CUDA). GPU accelerated features are limited to zooming, panning, rotating, and thumbnail creation in Bridge. That's it.

Premiere has some plugins available that use CUDA, and on their product website says it works best with Quadro cards. I don't know how much better it is with Quadro than a regular card. Video decoding (not encoding) is accelerated by GPU, but again you don't need a lot of horsepower.

After Effects uses lots of filters from the GPU (AA filtering & whatnot). Not sure if a Quadro will be any better here.

So you could spend $500+ on a workstation card that will be no better than a $50 "normal" card in Photoshop, will maybe give some gains in premiere, and might or might not give gains in after effects. It is also guaranteed to suck in all of your games.

Or you could spend $150-200 on a "normal" card. Get the same performance in photoshop, probably the same in premiere, and probably the same in after effects, and would totally rock in all your games.

Workstation cards are pretty exclusively only good for professional 3D software programs. In those cases they make HUGE differences.

 

[tukulka]

I'm sure that Quadro cards rock in After Effect.
I've seen that and they can help really o lot cause AE need a lot of rendering work and preview.

I know I will have almost no gain in Photoshop and Premiere.

I don't know how will they perform in game but from your word I can assume they suck

 

[palladium]

Agree with elconejito. Unless you are running AutoCAD or Maya, get the consumer-level card. I don't use Premiere and AE, but I'm gonna assume these apps ( like PS) will benefit much more from a beefier CPU and/or more RAM and/or ( esp. premiere) an SSD.

 

[elconejito]

I found a somewhat halfway decent review (didn't cover exactly what I wanted, but good enough) at hothardware, at least in reference to Premiere. It's a review primarily of the Quadro CX w/1.5G RAM (~$2,000 at the time of the article) and the QuadroFX 4800 w/1.5G RAM (~$1500), and a 9600GT w/512mb RAM (I'm guessing ~<$100).

http://hothardware.com/Article...station-Graphics-Card/

Benchmarks include Cinebench OpenGL Rendering, Premiere Pro H.264 encoding, 3D Studio Max, Maya, a whole bunch of Spec Viewperf OpenGL tests at various resolutions, and finally 3D Mark and Crysis benchmarks.

The two Quadros tested are based on the GTX200-series GPU, and the 9600GT is based on some older GPU (somebody else can chime in on that).

The 9600GT holds it's own in the H.264 tests (scores nearly identical). The exception is the QuadroCX which has the RapiHD plugin that is CUDA based and is nearly double the speed of anybody else. Clearly, this is CPU bound.

3DSMax is close enough where I wouldn't pay the $1400 premium for a quadro.

In Maya the 9600GT gets blown away, so the cost is worth it there.

All the Spec ViewPerf test crush the 9600GT, so the cost is worth it there if those benchmarks correlate to something you might do with the card (maybe CAD software?).

In Crysis, the quadros are better (about 25fps vs 35fps). I put that on the fact that the quadros tested are GTX200-based which it should only be expected would beat up on the 9600GT.

What I would like to see, which as far as I can tell no one has done, is a comparison of performance in Adobe programs using a cheapo GPU, a mid-range GPU, a high-end GPU, and their corresponding alternatives in the workstation class. Just looking at what it is the GPU is being asked to do I can't think there would be much difference between any of them in tasks like zooming, panning, decoding video. Some of the special effects filters like depth of field and blurs in After Effects I can see benefiting from a faster card, but not so much that I would rather pay a double, triple or even quadruple price premium for a workstation class card. Not for use in Adobe software. If you're doing CAD/3D work, then thats a whole 'nother story.

 

[sgrinavi]

I have tried many.. many... video cards with Photoshop and Premier over the years (since the late/mid 90's, as I recall) and have really not seen a huge difference in performance. If that is all I was doing I would be running a GTX260 or, maybe, a GTX285

On a small model a 9600GT would do fine in MAX, once you get into large and complex models then the WS cards shine in stability, visual fidelity and overall smoothness in the viewports.

As for gaming, the WS cards have come a long way in the past year or so. I have an FX4800 and a pair of V8700's, both setups run mirrors edge with everything on (8xAA HQ) at 1900x1200 without the slightest glitch.

 

[elconejito]

The FX4800 (according to that article) is GTX200-based chip so it should be pretty good at games (assuming drivers are up to par).

I think the main issue is so much hype has been built around Adobe CS4 and GPU acceleration, but the reality is the GPU doesn't influence much, except in very specific programs/tasks. For most Adobe users a low-mid range GPU is more than enough.

I'm sure in future versions of CS the GPU will become more important. Just not there yet. Even as a first step, it's pretty good.

I am still looking for some other benchmarks or reviews comparing performance in CS4 between the various levels of GPU.