-
After Effects Video Card- Speed vs. Cost
I’m in the process of choosing the best parts for a Mac Pro geared for After Effects (7.0 and soon CS3). The current configuration is 2x 3ghz Quad Core CPUs, 16gb ram, 2x10000rpm 74gb HDD, 2 x 750gb 7200 rpm HDD. We’re torn between one of 2 video card configurations:
a) 2x ATI X1900XT
b) Nvidia Quadro FX 1500
c) Nvidia Quadro FX 4500Its been difficult to find any real benchmarks comparing these cards and I have no real world experiance using After Effects on this kind of system. This is a big upgrade for our company so any feedback would be wicked.
-
5 Replies
-
ATI has shown a huge delay in shipping third party cards for Mac, so that delay may bleed into OEM cards. Apple states on its site that there may be a delay if you want to include an ATI card in your box. Just sayin’.
Apparently, OpenGL is currently not supported for OSX and CS3, and good Open GL is the only reason to spend bucks on a graphics card nowadays, except maybe for dual 30″ monitor support. And OpenGL wasn’t that great in AE anyway.
So. Only spend big bucks on a nice graphics card if you want to use a 3D app or Apple’s Motion or Color apps, as they will benefit from it. That’s what I’ll probably do, since I expect to need good OpenGL it with Cinema 4D.
Just my opinion … 🙂
-
if you can hold off on getting a new system, you might want to. once adobe and apple work out the opengl issue you’ll start to hear how well the video cards perform in cs3 and you could make an informed decision then.
also, since (i think) the quadro fx 4500 is only available as a bto option, you may not be able to get it later (after your system is purchased). however, if ati isn’t going to ship any more cards for mac, i would expect third party vendors (like pny, etc.) to start making mac versions of their nvidia cards (currently, i think apple makes the only two mac nvidia cards and drivers).
i’m curious about your 1500 option… last i saw for mac there wer only 2: the geforce 7300 and the quadro 4500… is there a third party 1500 available for macpro?
Kevin Camp
Designer – KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW -
What if you run your Mac with Windows? Does this Open GL issue still pose a problem?
-
that’s a good question… have you tried posting in the adobe’s ae forum?
Kevin Camp
Designer – KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW -
I posted on Adobe’s site, but am waiting for replies.
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up