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Graphics Card for New Mac Pro
Looking for advice regarding which graphics card(s) to put into my new machine. System for editing with FCP and AVID (will when UB is shipped), as well as effects/design with AE, CS, and Studio 8. Not certain how important the card will be and can’t find solid answers. I’m not doing any 3d, and only care about rendering/processing time savings.
These are my choices:
1 x NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT 256MB (single-link DVI/dual-link DVI)
2 x NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT 256MB [Add $149]
ATI Radeon X1900 XT 512MB (2 x dual-link DVI) [Add $249]
3 x NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT 256MB [Add $299]
4 x NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT 256MB [Add $449]Thanks in advance.
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9 Replies
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The graphics card is now hugely important for FCP & Motion. The continuing development of these programs will see more and more usage of the graphics card opposed to the CPU. For AE, CS & S8, I don’t know.
I’ve been saying for the last six months about the importance of the GPU especially in relation to FxPlug. I’m just finishing writing a plugin using FXPlug that the same effect in Shake took 10 minutes to render, but runs IN REAL TIME in Motion. Truly amazing.
As for the card, I have the ATI in my MP – its probably about the best trade off between price and performance.
Just a guess, but I’d expect to see some beefier cards at NAB.Peter
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We’re running the ATI card and it’s performing very nicely. Graphics card is not hugely important to FCP just yet, it will get more important with the next release of FCP, whenever that is. Yes, it does support FXPlugs now, but there’s not a lot out there for that yet.
As for Motion, yes, it does enhance the speed greatly. The other apps, I know After Effects only hogs the processors so I’m not sure the card is helping there.
But the ATI card is a solid performer on our end. We were running ATI x800XT in our Dual 2.0 where it was a solid performer there too so we stayed with that company.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Food Network’s “Good Eats”
HD Editorial for “Assignment Earth”“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters
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How does the video card effect editing performance? The processers handle the number crunching and most video is displayed by some sort of Kona/Blackmagic box or PCI card. Are you talking about using for example, dual Mac’s monitors for editing and video display? What advantages does a better video card give you?
Ernie Santella
Santella Film/Video Productions
http://www.santellaproductions.com -
[santellavision] “Are you talking about using for example, dual Mac’s monitors for editing and video display? What advantages does a better video card give you?”
Ok, just to clarify, we’re talking two different things here. A Graphics Card is something like the ATI 1900 which drives your Computer displays. A Video card is something like the AJA Kona series which are used for Video I/O.
The ATI 1900 speeds up applications like Motion which take advantage of the graphics cards on-board processors to speed up renders and provide some additional realtime features. Final Cut Pro’s architecture will now start allowing it to do the same thing, it’s limited in FCP 5.1.2 but I expect that will change dramatically with FCP 6, whenever that is released.
A video card like the AJA Kona allows Video I/O for your Final cut Pro workstation and also accelerates DVCPro HD and HDV editing by taking the scaling operation off the computer processors.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Food Network’s “Good Eats”
HD Editorial for “Assignment Earth”“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters
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[walter biscardi] “Final Cut Pro’s architecture will now start allowing it to do the same thing, it’s limited in FCP 5.1.2 but I expect that will change dramatically with FCP 6, whenever that is released.”
Not to have the same arguement over and over again here Walter, but FCP now uses FXplug and this is a HUGE HUGE step that has already happened. It is not limited, it is there already.
I suggest you take a look at the FXFactory set of plugins that were released last week and see how blurs can go 5, yes 5 times quicker.
Here is the link, they have a 2 week demo.
https://www.noiseindustries.com/fxfactory/Just to give you an idea of speed, a design that took ten minutes to render in shake & runs at 2fps in motion, runs in realtime using FXplug.
If you half a spare half an hour, give the demo a trial, they are not a replacement for Graemes filters as you implied, just different.
They just might change your mindPeter
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[walter biscardi] “But the ATI card is a solid performer on our end. We were running ATI x800XT in our Dual 2.0 where it was a solid performer there too so we stayed with that company.”
I agree with Walter… we have the same card and it performs perfectly… drives the 30″ very nicely. I intend to do as Walter suggests and stick with ATI in our next machine…
Mitch Ives
Insight Productions Corp.
mitch@insightproductions.comApple Certified Trainer: Final Cut Pro 5
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[Peter Wiggins] “If you half a spare half an hour, give the demo a trial,”
A spare half hour? What’s that?
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Food Network’s “Good Eats”
HD Editorial for “Assignment Earth”“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters
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[walter biscardi] “A spare half hour? What’s that?”
LOL Walter! Fair shot, I lie on the ground wounded 🙂
Peter
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[Peter Wiggins] ”
LOL Walter! Fair shot, I lie on the ground wounded :)”Hep, Hep, I’m being repressed!
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Food Network’s “Good Eats”
HD Editorial for “Assignment Earth”“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters
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