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Video Card Advice for CS6 (Win)

Engaged ,
Apr 24, 2012 Apr 24, 2012

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I'm currently using Premiere Elements, but am looking to buy the CS6 Suite with Premiere Pro. While I do mostly SD editing, my son wants to get into AVCHD editing and especially using AfterEffects.

Given that I currently have a homebuilt PC (specs at end of post) with only integrated Intel HD2000 graphics, I guess


  • Question #1 is will I really need a dedicated video card, or is the HD2000 enough for what I want to do? Of course faster = better, but how much faster will it be for my money, i.e. bang for the buck.

  • And Question #2 would be... if so, which card? I really don't want to spend more than I need, but I also don't want to go cheap and end up with a solution that's not much better than what I have.


I'm especially confused with Mercury Playback, AfterEffects, SpeedGrade, and what is truly needed. Looking at this page, they really push the Quadro GPU and Quadro SDI Output cards. But on the "officially supported" page, it lists GeForce GTX, Quadro FX, and Quadro cards.

What the heck? Can somebody help me wade through this alphabet soup of cards, and what supports what?

Let's say I went with the GTX 570... is 1GB enough ($300 for the EVGA version) or do I need 2GB ($340)? Would the 570 be good enough?

Or do I need to go to the GTX 580? At $430 for the 1.5GB and $480 for the 3GB, it's signficantly more money than the GTX570 so it better be significantly better than the GTX570.

Or there's the the Quadro 2000 or 2000D for about $400. It seems to fall between the 570 and 580 price-wise, but it's a different line. Also, cards only seems to be made by PNY... what's up with that?

I can look at tech specs and marketing hype until I'm blue in the face, but it's not helping me decide what I really need - and how cheap I can go

TIA!!

System Specs

---------------------------------------------------------------

Win7 Home Premium 64-bit

Intel i7-2600 (not overclocked, stock cooler)

Intel DZ68BC motherboard

16GB G.Skill Ripjaws DDR3 1333

SeaSonic 620W Power Supply

WD Caviar Blue SATA III 500 GB (programs)

WD Caviar Blue SATA III 500 GB (data files)

WD Caviar Black SATA III 1TB (video files)

Antec 1200 case w/ 6 fans

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correct answers 1 Correct answer

LEGEND , Apr 24, 2012 Apr 24, 2012

Of the models you listed, I'd go for the 2GB 570 myself.  A 570 will give you great performance, and the extra 1GB of memory for $40 seems worth it.

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Engaged ,
Apr 24, 2012 Apr 24, 2012

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I think this thread might be helpful:

http://forums.adobe.com/thread/947698

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Explorer ,
Apr 24, 2012 Apr 24, 2012

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you need a nvidia graphics card for best realtime performance for effects, dissolves, color correction etc. This don't have to be an expensive quadro model it can be a GeForce, too. It#s important you choose a model which is listed as compatible on adobe's specs.

You have a fast CPU, maybe you don't need the GPU power in your projects. You can use CS5.5/6 in Software Mercury Engine mode, which processes very fast, too. Try it with the upcoming demo-version and then decide to buy a graphics card or not.

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Community Expert ,
Apr 24, 2012 Apr 24, 2012

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You will be able to edit AVCHD wihout a "CUDA" card, simply slower

http://blogs.adobe.com/premiereprotraining/2011/02/cuda-mercury-playback-engine-and-adobe-premiere-p...

For what you will do, do NOT buy Quadro! As Harm would say... over priced and under specced

Go to the CS5 Benchmark http://ppbm5.com/ and read the results

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LEGEND ,
Apr 25, 2012 Apr 25, 2012

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John T Smith wrote:

For what you will do, do NOT buy Quadro! As Harm would say... over priced and under specced

Actually, this may change with CS6: It may make excellent use of certain capabilities of the Quadro that are seriously lacking in the GeForce. But we will not know for sure until the first few batches of results appear on the PPBM6 results list. If what I stated proves true, then the performance ranking may very well go strictly by price, where a Quadro 2000 performs roughly equal to a current-gen GeForce of equal price.

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Apr 25, 2012 Apr 25, 2012

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The SpeedGrade guys are rather adamant about the Quadro being a better choice for their software. I'll dig into the details about why.

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Engaged ,
Apr 25, 2012 Apr 25, 2012

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Todd, just out of curiosity, is SpeedGrade like MPE where it can run in "GPU Accelerated" or "Software Only" mode, or is it kind of different animal that would die without GPU support?

I'm just now venturing from the "Elements" world into the "Big Boy" world, so some of this is new to me...

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LEGEND ,
Apr 24, 2012 Apr 24, 2012

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Of the models you listed, I'd go for the 2GB 570 myself.  A 570 will give you great performance, and the extra 1GB of memory for $40 seems worth it.

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LEGEND ,
Apr 24, 2012 Apr 24, 2012

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There are a couple of things about your system:

1. A 620 W PSU.

2. 3 Caviar Blue disks.

3. The integrated graphics card.

If you want a nVidia CUDA capable card for hardware MPE, consider anything from the GTX 560 Ti and upward. If your son uses multicam with his AVCHD material, consider the largest amount of VRAM available. If your video card runs out of VRAM space it will (very ungracefully) drop down to software mode MPE. But also consider that if you go beyond the 560 Ti, the PSU may not be enough, you may need a bigger PSU in the range of 750 W. Check the link to eXtreme Power Supply Calculator Pro v2.5 that Srukweza showed you in the link above. Finally, the Caviar Blue disks are not the best models to use. They are slower than the Caviar Blacks, but can do OK for starting out, as long as you keep in mind that eventually you want full speed 7200 disks like the Caviar Blacks and then you can use your Blues for back-up.

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Engaged ,
Apr 24, 2012 Apr 24, 2012

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You will be able to edit AVCHD wihout a "CUDA" card, simply slower http://blogs.adobe.com/premiereprotraining/2011/02/cuda-mercury-playba ck-engine-and-adobe-premiere-...

That was *very* helpful - exactly what I was looking for in what (and what not) a CUDA card will do for me. One very interesting (at least to me) blurb was this: After Effects doesn’t use CUDA.

A 570 will give you great performance, and the extra 1GB of memory for $40 seems worth it.

So it seems like I might be able to get away with the integrated graphics, but if I'm doing the kind of things that CUDA will speed up, the GTX 570 2GB card would be a good choice?

There are a couple of things about your system:

1. A 620 W PSU.

2. 3 Caviar Blue disks.

Re: 620W PSU. I debated going bigger, but the budget/price factors limited me to the 620W. But here's the thing: I tried the eXtreme PS Calculator Pro version, and several other estimators, just for giggles and I got answers anywhere between 200W to 950W - all claiming to be right. That makes me think there's way too much subjectivity in "estimating". That got me to thinking - how can you prove how much power your rig is actually using? If my rig is humming along, how do I know if it's using 200W or 600W? I wrapped an amp meter around the power cord and total AC power used from the wall was < 100W. But I'm not sure if a PSU rating of 620W means 620W AC pulled from the wall, or 620W DC supplied to the box. Just curious as to how I'd know if the 620W was sufficient or a 750W was called for.

I actually have (2) Blues for programs and Word documents and whatnot and (1) Black for video source, scratch files, and rendered files. I'm sure there's a bottleneck on that Black drive and plus it's almost full, so my next buy will be another Black drive to separate the video stuff. Waiting for prices to drop back down and for my wife to not be looking

Edit: Corrected link to Adobe blog

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Community Beginner ,
Apr 25, 2012 Apr 25, 2012

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Power supplies are rated for DC output whereas most reviews measure the AC input. There used to be a big difference between the two but with the advent of Gold and Platinum rated PSUs the difference can be 10% or less.

Since you have a SeaSonic 620W PSU who are one of the top manufactures (retail and ODM) I suggest that 620W is more than adequate to run a GTX 570.

To be certain I suggest checking what the 12V rail is for your PSU.

You would be unlikely to pull more than 400W DC at peak and typically under 350W DC at load so a high quality 620W such as you have gives a lot of headroom.

There are a lot of people that are seemingly ‘scared’ of power supplies and think you need a 100% headroom to be safe. A quality PSU such as you have is designed to run at its rated output safely. If you had a cheapo unit that would be different. You have a very large margin anyway so even the scared crowd would need to be particularly paranoid to be scared here. 350W load versus 620W rating equals 56% of the maximum rating for the PSU.

To make a car analogy:

If you buy a $30k car (analogous to a 620W PSU) and drive it to 56% of the 7,000 rpm red line (~3,900 rpm) is it any less reliable than a $60k car (analogous to a 1.2kW PSU) driven only to say 28% (half the rating) of the same red line (~1,950 rpm)?

If both cars are reliable brands then it’s really not an issue surely.

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LEGEND ,
Apr 25, 2012 Apr 25, 2012

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eclipse_crow wrote:

Power supplies are rated for DC output whereas most reviews measure the AC input. There used to be a big difference between the two but with the advent of Gold and Platinum rated PSUs the difference can be 10% or less.

Since you have a SeaSonic 620W PSU who are one of the top manufactures (retail and ODM) I suggest that 620W is more than adequate to run a GTX 570.

To be certain I suggest checking what the 12V rail is for your PSU.

You would be unlikely to pull more than 400W DC at peak and typically under 350W DC at load so a high quality 620W such as you have gives a lot of headroom.

There are a lot of people that are seemingly ‘scared’ of power supplies and think you need a 100% headroom to be safe. A quality PSU such as you have is designed to run at its rated output safely. If you had a cheapo unit that would be different. You have a very large margin anyway so even the scared crowd would need to be particularly paranoid to be scared here. 350W load versus 620W rating equals 56% of the maximum rating for the PSU.

To make a car analogy:

If you buy a $30k car (analogous to a 620W PSU) and drive it to 56% of the 7,000 rpm red line (~3,900 rpm) is it any less reliable than a $60k car (analogous to a 1.2kW PSU) driven only to say 28% (half the rating) of the same red line (~1,950 rpm)?

If both cars are reliable brands then it’s really not an issue surely.

Bravo. The power supply calculators have to account for the fact that there are many mediocre-quality PSUs still sold today that cannot handle more than about 60 to 70 percent of their rated wattage (for example, a few cheap "700W" PSUs can't really handle more than 500W). In fact, a few PSU calculators take into account really bad-quality PSUs that could barely handle even half of their ratings (for example, a "650W" PSU that barely handles 300 to 350W under realistic conditions).

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Engaged ,
Apr 25, 2012 Apr 25, 2012

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I'm glad to hear somebody else likes Seasonic. When I was building my rig, Seasonic was not a brand that came up a lot in the various builder forums. But I did a lot of homework and it seemed like a good choice so I went for it.

To be certain I suggest checking what the 12V rail is for your PSU.

It has (2) +12V rails, each at 24A. Doing the math real quick seems to mean 576W DC.


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Community Beginner ,
Apr 25, 2012 Apr 25, 2012

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You can’t just add the numbers like that as sometimes having dual rails means that the actual combined voltage is significantly less than the value you get when adding the two. What model do you have?

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Engaged ,
Apr 25, 2012 Apr 25, 2012

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LEGEND ,
Apr 25, 2012 Apr 25, 2012

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Ed,

The M12II 620 is as I described in my last post: For all practical purposes, it is a 80-Plus Bronze certified PSU with a single +12V rail rated at 48A (576W). It should be enough for most Premiere Pro hardware configurations although it will consume slightly more AC wattage from the wall than PSUs with a Gold or Platinum rating at the same DC wattage output.

As for SpeedGrade, there is no software-only mode. If it detects a non-CUDA GPU or a GPU that doesn't support it, SpeedGrade is simply disabled.

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Engaged ,
Apr 25, 2012 Apr 25, 2012

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although it will consume slightly more AC wattage from the wall

No problems there... I have plenty of AC power

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LEGEND ,
Apr 25, 2012 Apr 25, 2012

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Ed.Macke wrote:

I'm glad to hear somebody else likes Seasonic. When I was building my rig, Seasonic was not a brand that came up a lot in the various builder forums. But I did a lot of homework and it seemed like a good choice so I went for it.

To be certain I suggest checking what the 12V rail is for your PSU.

It has (2) +12V rails, each at 24A. Doing the math real quick seems to mean 576W DC.


Actually, with most "multi-rail" PSUs, never add up the two rails together. However, in the case of both the S12-II and M12-II 620W PSUs, the two "24A" rails do add up. In this case, both of the "rails" are connected to a common +12V output transformer whose maximum capacity just happens to be 48A (576W). And each of the two "rails" have an OCP (Over-Current Protection) circuit set at 24A. However, someone else dissected that Seasonic PSU, and actually found it to have just a single 48A +12V rail. No separate rails, no separate OCP circuit. Thus, for all practical purposes, the Seasonic 620W PSU is a single-rail PSU with 48A on the +12V.

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Community Expert ,
Apr 24, 2012 Apr 24, 2012

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>620W Power

What I built is linked at http://forums.adobe.com/thread/652694

The nVidia 285 I use (no longer sold) has TWO power connections... and, with everything else in my computer, I think would quickly kill a power supply that small

I do not believe a 620w PS is enough for you to go to an nVidia card

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Engaged ,
Apr 24, 2012 Apr 24, 2012

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I do not believe a 620w PS is enough for you to go to an nVidia card

I've heard that from others, too.

But then again I've also read plenty of accounts where people had systems actually running - and running just dandy - with a 570 card and a good quality 550W PSU (here's one). And this Tom's Hardware article says a max-stressed 570 uses 330W, leaving 300W for everything else.

Of course, even with all of that, there's a lot of 12V rail amperage talk, overhead, effeciency, and just plain quality of the PSU that makes this whole thing sound one step above witchcraft and divining rods.

If I have to spend $100+ to replace my 620W PSU with a slightly larger one, I will. On the other hand, I certainly don't want to do that without some reason to semblance that there's actually a reason to. I don't want to fix what ain't broke, you know?

Hence my pondering how to go beyond estimating or guessing and actually proving a PSU is sufficient. Or not. I guess your system suddenly turning off would be a good indicator? But beyond that....??


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LEGEND ,
Apr 24, 2012 Apr 24, 2012

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What do you prefer, when going on a trip with 4 adults and 500 lbs of luggage in hilly terrain:

1. A FIAT Cinquecento, or

2. A BMW 530i

and both doing around 80 Mph? The FIAT has to run at 100% power, the Beamer has a leisurely time. I can guarantee the FIAT is running flat out and disaster is ready to strike, overheating the engine, using more oil and not half as efficient in fuel consumption as the Beamer. The FIAT will also make a lot more noise.

Same with a PSU. A PSU of 1700 W does not consume more energy than a 500 W PSU, it will run quieter, more reliable and cost more, just like the two cars mentioned above. There are numerous lousy power calculators around, think Asus, Newegg etc. but the only one recommended, also by Tom's Hardware worth looking at, is eXtreme Power Supply Calculator Pro v2.5

You also have to take into consideration that a marginal PSU will cause huge headaches, first in finding that the PSU is at fault when you have all these mysterious hangs, then when you have to replace it with all those hard to reach cables connections.

IMO it is absolutely penny-wise, pound-foolish to skimp on a PSU.

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LEGEND ,
Apr 24, 2012 Apr 24, 2012

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Actually, that also depends on the PSU itself. There are numerous astronomically expensive, ultra-high-powered PSUs out there that simply waste electricity no matter what. At less than 20 percent of maximum capacity, a PSU is much less efficient than a PSU that's at 50 percent of maximum load. This is because a PSU's circuitry, like a car's engine, needs to be run at a certain minimum just to not waste power. And what good is a 1700W PSU if it's going to be outputting less than 350W most of the time that it's powered on?

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Engaged ,
Apr 24, 2012 Apr 24, 2012

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When I was building my box, I used the PSU calculator you mentioned (actually, I believe I used in because of another thread you had posted that I was reading at the time).

I even got the pro version so I could see the 12V rail spec, but it's expired now so I can't remember exactly what it said, but even today when I plug in everything with a GTX 570 it says: 550 min and 600 recommended. Maybe I'm doing something wrong. FWIW, my PSU has 48A on the (2) 12V rails.

And this STILL all leads back to my question of how to determine what the REAL usage is: whether Newegg or the eXtreme calculator, it's all still guessing.

To use an analogy of my own: basically I'm listening to the weather forecast instead of looking out the window to see what the weather actually is. All our PSU capacity discussion is academic - is there a way to (easily) get actual amperage being used?

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Apr 24, 2012 Apr 24, 2012

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BTW, After Effects CS6 does use CUDA---though just for the new ray-traced 3D renderer.

Details are here:

http://www.video2brain.com/en/lessons/system-requirements-for-gpu-acceleration-opengl-cuda

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Community Beginner ,
Apr 25, 2012 Apr 25, 2012

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Harm Millaard

“What do you prefer, when going on a trip with 4 adults and 500 lbs of luggage in hilly terrain:

  1. A FIAT Cinquecento, or
  2. A BMW 530i

and both doing around 80 Mph? The FIAT has to run at 100% power, the Beamer has a leisurely time. I can guarantee the FIAT is running flat out and disaster is ready to strike, overheating the engine, using more oil and not half as efficient in fuel consumption as the Beamer. The FIAT will also make a lot more noise.”

Harm, I’ve noticed before that your analogies are terrible and this is especially bad.

Swapping out a PSU is akin to getting an upgraded engine and not using a completely different car from a cheaper manufacturer of a smaller format!

The OP has a Seasonic PSU and they are Mercedes class let’s say so I suggest a better analogy is this:

Take a C class Mercedes and compare one with an entry level engine and one with an upgraded engine.

Is the entry level engine less reliable? No.

Is the entry level engine less efficient? For the same engine type it’s generally more efficient.

Is the entry level engine noisier? For the same engine type generally not.

Your analogy is the roughly equivalent of changing the case, fans, CPU and power supply which is meaningless when only looking at one component.

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