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CUDA vs OpenCL – What’s it all mean?
Currently drowning in tech jargon I don’t fully understand!
I am looking to purchase a new computer for Vegas editing from Puget Systems. They recommended I get the PNY Quadro P4000 (VCQP4000-PB), which is apparently comparable to a GeForce GTX 970.
However, according to John Rofrano’s assessment, Quadro cards aren’t the way to go. Also as explained by John in a different thread, this is due to NVIDIA’s bias towards their proprietary CUDA technology, whereas AMD puts more effort into something called OpenCL.
So, my question, what are CUDA and OpenCL? Why does OpenCL “work better”, and how exactly does it work better? Is the card that Puget mentioned going to speed up my work in vegas at all?
Thanks,
Sean -
3 Replies
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I would forget them – they are different interfaces for using GPU acceleration – and just get the fastest modern 6-core processor.
GPU acceleration causes lots of problems and exposes lots of bugs.
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Not exactly true. Most blame GPU accell for a wide range of issues with their machines, OS load, or workflows.
If you are building for Vegas, buy AMD for the OpenCL support. Make sure the rest of your system is up to the task you are asking it to do.
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Some applications are made to work better with openCL and some with CUDA.
CUDA is technology developed and used only by Nvidia, though they also use the openCL technology but they focus on their own, CUDA. That said, AMD’s GPUs are better when it comes to openCL performance.As for the program Vegas Pro, it supports both CUDA and openCL, but works better with openCL than with CUDA. The best CUDA based cards that work with SVP are the Nvidia GTX 500 series. This is because MainConcept and Sony AVC havent updated their support ( well at least for rendering ) since 2011, which is why those 2011 cards are the best ones when it comes to CUDA rendering.
I havent done tests on my own because I dont own an AMD card, but as far as my research goes, you can get much better performance ( both previews and rendering ) from openCL than with CUDA.In short, openCL works better with Vegas Pro because it has better support than CUDA has in this software. So if you wanna buy a GPU to get a better performance in Vegas Pro, I’d recommend you to buy openCL based card.
Have a look at this.
https://images.anandtech.com/graphs/graph7481/59491.png
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