video card advice

Egg Born Son

Egg Born Son

Veteran
Getting a graphics card in the next week or so, would appreciate some input.

My choices are narrowed to:

2xSLI GTX560Ti (A$470)
single or dual SLI GTX570 (A$350/700)
GTX670 ($A520)
Quadro 2000 (A$600)
Quadro 4000 (A$1000)

Aside from personal recommendations my questions are:

1. Does SLI even get utilised by premiere pro? Or is it just for games (splitting the graphics/physics processing)?

2. Does the SLI bridge mean the 192-bit bus doubles to 384-bit or do you just get double the cores?

I haven't been able to find any decent comparison of GTX and Quadro cards (later than GTX430 vs Quadro anyway) that was specific to video production. I found plenty of CAD comparisons though. The brief video-specific reviews seemed to suggest that Quadro is only really of value in the 10-bit environment, such driving a Dreamcolour monitor. The thorough CAD comparisons demonstrated that GTX was significantly better on half the tasks, particularly 3D orientated tasks and Quadro much better on some tasks, especially 10-bit rendering. The conclusion was that overall they are pretty even to their pricepoint.

3. So is the Quadro worth it if I don't have a high end monitor?


My first intent was to get a Quadro but they are really low specced (I know that is misleading) and my research suggests they don't seem to offer $300 extra value. My next intent was to get the dual 560Ti's if I will be restricted to a 192-bit bus then the price advantage is less evident. The dual GTX570 is really good value and might be the fastest option but temperature is a concern and the power draw might test my current power supply.

So my current inclination is to go for the GTX670 because it has the biggest bus, fastest clock speed and most cores (individually) and is also runs slightly cooler than the single GTX570 and a lot cooler than either SLI option. Or the single GTX570, lowest performance but the best dollar value. Is my logic sound? Or have I missed something? Thanks in advance.

EDIT: just checked and found a price drop on the more expensive cards, the GTX670 is looking more even attractive now. But the Quadros have come down too...
 
Last edited:
SLI is usually over-kill. You probably won't use all that power, and the extra you spend on the SLI setup can just be kept for your next card as the newer generation cards usually out-perform expensive SLI set-ups for cheaper.
 
Nvidia, will open a Chat for you and/or their page is full of info. That said, don't fall for what I call the 'marketing hyperbole'. I have a quadro FX3800 and in no way shape or form was it worth the $1k laid out for it. In fact, at the time, a $300.00 ati card kicked it's azz! I suspect the high end ones with 5GB DDR5 Video ram would work better, but then, their a bit on the pricey side. In Adobe, AE which is where I work most often, RAM is the only thing used. Get the GTX card.
 
For cuda and mercury playback the GTX580 will soundly beat the Quadro 4000.

Considered the new GTX680?
 
Thanks Noel, that's all I needed to hear. With the price drop I'm pretty sold on the GTX670 at this point. I've been so impressed with the on-chip GPU on my i7 I'm even tempted to cheap out and go with a single GTX570. The on-chip GPU has held up to almost everything I've thrown at it and even under 100% CPU and GPU usage temps only get up to 50C. I'm only really going with the GTX670 to save buying another down the track, I'm expecting this machine to hold up for at least 3 years to catch the next tick-tock cycle.

I ruled out the GTX680 due to heat and minimal performance boost for the price. The bus-width, DDR5 memory and power consumption where my three key elements informing my decision. The whole theme of my ivy bridge build has been low power/low heat for longetivity, so no overclocking. GTX570/GTX670 hit the key markers at the right price so now I've ruled out Quadro it's just a matter of deciding how much to spend. I expect either of them are overkill (and run the danger of me being tempted to put games on my computer in order to utilise the POWER!!!).
 
I undertstand that Adsobe aps cannot use SLI, and that it might even degrade them a bit. Not sure where I saw that. Maybe the next link? Or PPBM5.com?

I like reading this to compare cards:

http://www.studio1productions.com/Articles/PremiereCS5.htm



I also like to look in the PPBM5.com database. It does have timing in there for CS6 now - you can select just on that.

I don't think you can go wrong with the GTX 570 or 670. I just bought a GTX 560 with 2GB DDR5 and twin fans. Mostly because I had some gift cards given to me at a shop that had somewhat limited selcection. I think it was around $180?

I probably should have gone 560 TI, but too late. I looked at the relative speeds at Tom's Hardware. Surprising variation for the same base card. I can't remember where the video and editing bechmarks are right now:

http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/graphics-cards,1.html


Good luck! Let us know what your benchmark timings are before and after.


I spent the day yesterday testing disk speeds with a few configurations, I'll post those when I get a chance. Basically the PPBM5 "Disk" test for CS6 went from about 165 seconds on an older 640 GB 7200 C drive, to about 120 on a 1.5 TB Caviar Green Western Digital, to 83 on 2, 2 TB Seagate Barracuda in RAID 0, to 81 on a 120 GB SSD (OCZ Agility 3, a 550 Mbps SSD)

So the disk time on export was about 1/2 the time on the RAID 0, but no faster really on the SSD.

I have a GT 430 graphics card in now, I'll post the timings once I swap out to the GTX 560. I also need to install a new power supply. The 560 needs 2 x 6 pin PCI power - I would assume that the 670 will also, just in case you have an older power supply.

Have fun!

Best,
Michael
 
Just to follow up on what Noel said, this is about the Quattro from the studio1 site:

*******************************************************************

Quadro or GeForce Video Cards

The only reason to use a Quadro video card with Adobe Premiere is if you are using a 10 bit monitor like the HP Dreamcolor or similar or you need SDI output. Otherwise, the Quadro’s are under powered and over priced.

Let’s take a look at some of the Quadro cards.

The Quadro 2000 - This video card only has 192 CUDA cores and a 128bit memory interface. Basically, it is just an GTS 450 with a slower clock speed. In other words, the GTS450 would be slightly fast. Also, the GTX 550 Ti, with it’s 192 CUDA cores and 192 bit memory interface would be faster than the Quadro 2000, due to the wider memory interface and slightly faster clock speed.

The Quadro FX 3800. This card is now 3 generations old and is based on the GTX 260, but with only a 256 bit memory interface. The GTX260 has a wider memory interface at 448 bit and would produce faster results than the FX 3800.

The Quadro 4000 - This video card is based on the same GPU that was used on the GTX 470. However, it performs much slower than the GTX470. In fact, the performance level is like the GTX 460 SE. Even a regular GTX 460 (not the GTX 460 SE version) would give you better performance due to the Quadro 4000 have only 256 CUDA cores, while the GTX 460 has 336 CUDA cores.

Quadro 5000 - This is based on a GTX 465, with a wider memory interface 320-bit memory bus giving it an edge over the GTX 465. However, it would be slower than a GTX 470 or GTX 570..

Quadro 6000 - This video card is on par with the GTX470, although the Quadro 6000 is much more expensive.

I do not recommend a Quadro video card, unless you have a specific program that requires a Quadro video card or if you have the HP Dreamcolor monitor or similar 10bit monitor or you need SDI output from the video card.

You will get better performance for a lot less money with the GeForce cards.
 
Thanks unadog, I was sure I had read that quote about the SLI but couldn't find it again. I've pretty much ruled out SLI anyway, just on extra heat generation. A GTX670 will outperform SLI GTX560Ti and produce less than half the heat and with the price reduction, for about the same price. The clock speeds, bus bandwidth, memory, cores and price just seem to add up in this card. Now I just have to wait for payday.

I had checked out both those website before, and the studio1 quote. Just wish I'd kept a record of the other sites I found good info. Will definitely try and give some before and after benchmarks, heat as well. It will be interesting to see how removing the graphics function from the chip affects the temperature dynamic. In another thread I reported my i7-3770 CPU was running below 30C. Now that I have been using it regularly I can report that under hard gaming (using the in-built GPU) the chip temps reach 50C (30-40C under normal usage, alarm at 80C), can't get it to go over and the board reaches 30C. This is with a simple case with two fans and an ambient room temp of around 20C. The real test will be in the middle of summer when the room temps hover around 40C for days.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top