Which Nvidia card should I choose?

[Hoss Mcdonald]

Great Question but I don’t know the answer either. I’m going to upgrade my PC this year and can’t find any reliable video benchmarks comparing GeForce GTX cards to Quadro cards. I read that the floating point capability of Quadro’s are vastly superior (faster) as compared to GeForce GTX cards but if you can’t process video faster who cares about feeds and speeds.
I’m not even sure standard video cards tests give fair comparisons between GTX and Quadro cards as it relates to real world video editing. Most tests I see are geared to high frame rates for gaming and Quadro’s always come off poorly (for the money) in those tests. My SLI’d pair of GTX 480’s do a good job but I would like to know that a single Quadro I might buy is actually faster than what I already own when I am using Premiere CS6, After Effects CS6, etc. If not I’ll move these cards to my new PC.

Hoss the Volunteer Videographer

[Chris Borjis]

careful with modding the app to make an unsupported gpu work.

some have had success, others very odd technical problems.

Your safe bets are:

Quadro4000 – yes a bit expensive, but works and works well. CS 6 workhorse.

GeForce GTX 285 – cheaper if you can find one. works well, almost as fast as quadro4000

I was planning on the GTX 285, then decided the Quadro was worth the extra money.

After using it for 6 months in 2 different edit suites, I’m glad I got that one.

[Tom Daigon]

I have recently heard great reports from tests conducted with the GTX 570 for best bang for buck. Fast performance in both PrP and AE.
See for yourself..

https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/2/1019643

Tom Daigon
PrP / After Effects Editor
http://www.hdshotsandcuts.com
Mac Pro 3,1
8 core
10.7.3
Nvidia Quadro 4000
24 gigs ram
Maxx Digital / Areca 8tb. raid
Kona 3

[Chris Borjis]

I like the report, but its for Ray Tracing in After effects.

Does that equate to Mercury Engine performance on par in premiere?

[Tom Daigon]

Here you go Chris..

https://ppbm5.com/

Tom Daigon
PrP / After Effects Editor
http://www.hdshotsandcuts.com
Mac Pro 3,1
8 core
10.7.3
Nvidia Quadro 4000
24 gigs ram
Maxx Digital / Areca 8tb. raid
Kona 3

[Joseph W. bourke]

Here’s some more information which I just posted on my Blog yesterday, with links to some very useful tests done by Studio 1 Productions:

https://bourkemedia.com/cs6-nvidia-card/

It details my own experience with a GeForce GTX 260, and how I customized Adobe’s card list text file, plus it has links to very detailed information on performance of the various Nvidia cards. It was not difficult at all to do the file change.

Joe Bourke
Owner/Creative Director
Bourke Media
http://www.bourkemedia.com

[Sean Pollaro]

I bought the quadro 4000 and it was a huge piece of crap. the mpe in pp cs 5.5 only worked about half the time. the other half it would just freeze up. There was also weird shredding of the image in the canvas on playback in fcp 7. also a lot of colorista render errors started to occur after installation..I came running back into the arms of my factory ATI RADEON card and everythings been back to normal since but no GPU acceleration in Premiere ;(..So I returned the quadro and I’m now waiting for a better solution…

[Tom Daigon]

To offer a different perspective, I have the Quadro 4000 for the Mac. It has been a solid performer with no issues whatsoever. It is a bit over priced if you are just using it for PrP and AE.

As I leave Apple behind and switch to a HP Z820 PC, I will be running the Nvidia PNY GTX 570. Better performance and better BFTB.

Here are some helpful statistics.

For AE performance
https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/2/1019643

For Premiere performance
https://ppbm5.com/DB-PPBM5-1.php

Tom Daigon
PrP / After Effects Editor
http://www.hdshotsandcuts.com
Mac Pro 3,1
8 core
10.7.3
Nvidia Quadro 4000
24 gigs ram
Maxx Digital / Areca 8tb. raid
Kona 3

[Alex Gerulaitis]

[Chris Borjis] “I like the report, but its for Ray Tracing in After effects.

Does that equate to Mercury Engine performance on par in premiere?”

The short answer is “no”, and from what I am seeing, the GTX-680 is the fastest card for Pr purposes, unlike for Ray Tracing ones.

It also seems that PPBM5 focuses more on benchmarking whole systems rather than individual components, and thus isn’t a great source for figuring out which GPU is best for Pr.

E.g. all I see (on PPBM5 site) is the “MPE gain” chart (2nd one, “Mercury Playback Engine gain”) which while does help a little, is not really a proper GPU-specific bench test but rather a statistical table.

Studio 1 test is the proper test on a fixed system, and it shows the fastest card being GTX-680, the slowest – GT-240, with the delta between them in the 25% range for timeline render, and in the 100% range (twice as fast) in MPEG export.

To me it means, get the least expensive card suitable for your system if your don’t encode a lot; and if you do, the GTX-680 is the best choice by far.

Alex Gerulaitis
Systems Integrator
DV411 – Los Angeles, CA

[Cara Myers]

Hi There!

I appreciate this insightful thread so much!

I am working on a 2 x 2.4 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon Mac Pro with 14 gigs of RAM and the ATI Radeon HD 5870 1024 MB Graphics Card. As for displays I have been working with two 24″ Samsung Syncmaster B2430’s side by side. And, coming from working in Final Cut Studio 7 for 11 years, I am now doing all of my video editing in Adobe Premiere Cs6 and am really happy with it as my new platform.

The ATI Radeon HD 5870 1024 MB graphics card was doing great (absolutely no complaints) until I added a 55″ Panasonic TC-P50GT50 55″ Plasma television and a Black Magic Intensity Card to run HDMI out to it. Now, I’m getting quite of bit of lag/delayed lip sync out of the Plasma and have narrowed it down to the Graphics Card as being the issue, which was quite a disappointment because I bought it specifically to run 3 monitors out of! I am also hearing that the ATI Radeon HD 5870 1024 MB graphics card is not able to utilize Adobe’s Mercury Engine. Perhaps I just didn’t really notice it until now.

Needless to say, I am now looking for a graphics card that can power my video out to the 55″ Plasma and even 24″ Samsung at the same time, which makes this thread particularly interesting. Does anyone have any thoughts on whether the Quadro4000 or the GeForce GTX 285 would be the best solution or if there’s another card I’m not seeing?

Thanks in advance!

Cara

Cara Myers
Video Editor/Motion Graphics
vesperafilms.com
PLATFORM: Adobe Cs6
MACHINE: 2 x 2.4 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon Mac Pro
RAM: 14 GB 1066 MHz DDR3 ECC
GRAPHICS CARD: ATI Radeon HD 5870 1024 MB
PCI: Black Magic Intensity Pro
Displays: two 24″ Samsung Syncmaster B2430’s
VIDEO OUT: 55″ Panasonic TC-P50GT50 55″ Plasma television