Which Nvidia card should I choose?

[Alex Gerulaitis]

Hi Cara,

[Cara Myers] “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!”

Is your plasma connected to the ATI card, or to Intensity?

How did you determine that the graphics card was the culprit? (From what I hear, an add-on video I/O card like Intensity is the one usually lagging behind preview on your main displays, and the issue is not graphics card related.)

[Cara Myers] “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? “

Quadro 4000 is the best of them although it may not solve the lag problem, and will not drive three monitors.

Alex Gerulaitis
Systems Integrator
DV411 – Los Angeles, CA

[Cara Myers]

Hey Alex!

Thank you for your reply and poignant questions. I am running the HDMI out to the TV via the Black Magic Intensity Pro. The way I came to the tentative conclusion that the video card was the culprit is because a knowledgeable buddy of mine has virtually the same machine, video card and all, and a slightly older model of the same TV but has the Matrox (I need to find out exactly which model–it was around $500) to run video out instead of the Black Magic and is having the same issue.

I opted to go with the Black Magic Intensity Pro card because I don’t need all of the capture options the Matrox offers and was looking to save a chunk of change.

Any additional ideas?

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

[Alex Gerulaitis]

This may be a Blackmagic issue.

So for that reason alone, I wouldn’t change the graphics card.

Alex Gerulaitis
Systems Integrator
DV411 – Los Angeles, CA

[Cara Myers]

I wanted to send an update as to my findings in regards to the lag and choking through running video out of the Black Magic Intensity card in the hopes that it can help someone else.

To put it simply, I was running my video output through the Black Magic Intensity card and running my audio through my line out, through the mixer and out through the speakers. Once I switched BOTH my audio and my video through the Black Magic Intensity card and started running audio of the the tv, I found that the video output playback was more efficient and the lip sync was spot on. I guess this should have been pretty obvious from the get-go (running both video and audio out of the same place), but for some reason I didn’t realize. I also do want to note, though, that the card ran better with both audio and video running through it.

So, now the playback monitor in Premiere and the video output to the Plasma is very close, not perfect but close.

Also, once I called Black Magic, I learned that the Intensity Pro card by default has about a 3 frame processing time lag and HDMI has about a 2 frame lag also by default, which can add up to about a 5 or 6 frame lag.

I sincerely with Adobe Premiere Cs6 had a Frame Offset function in the preferences like Final Cut Pro did to make it all match, but from what I am seeing, it doesn’t seem to. (Has anyone found anything different?)

Also, a friend was telling me that an HDSDI connection as with the AJA cards does not have the 2 frame lag that an HDMI connection has. Is this true?

Thanks in Advance

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

[Tom Daigon]

Cara, I am running CS6 on a PC. I send HD-SDI video out of the Kona 3 card to a Panasonic engineering monitor. I take the analog audio out of the Kona 3 breadk out box and send to my speaker preamp which outputs stereo to studio speakers. I am running the 2 most recent AJA drivers on my system. I get NO delay between the playback on Premieres timeline montior and the external montior. It works perfectly.

I share that as an example of what you desire being possible with CS6.

Tom Daigon
PrP / After Effects Editor
http://www.hdshotsandcuts.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRIg6h-LIm0
HP Z820 Dual 2687
64GB ram
Dulce DQg2 16TB raid

[Fernando Lopes]

Hey Tom,

If is not asking to much, and I know that this is an old post, but your system is very similar to mine and maybe you can help me make a very informed decision here.

I am have a macpro 3.1 SSD120 will upgarde to OWC SSD 240GB 16gb ram running a gt120 with a gtx285 video card on OSX 10.6.8. will upgrade to mountain lion in the next few days. May dilemma is, I would like to run AE CS6, Davinci Resolve 9, Final cut Pro but looking to change either to Smoke2013 or Premier Pro CS6 and also will be going to school to learn and use Maya. I was ready to buy the QUADRO 4000, but I call Blackmagic today to get an idea if the Quadro was the best for it and the Support person suggested the GTX680 according to him it runs without any need for change on macpro and is faster then the quadro.I look at the specs on NVidia site and the GTX Seems more powerful, but i am concern with compatibility issues is a gaming card and is it really faster when it comes to After effects, because I pretend to be using After effects more then any other program. What is your advice if I am to run all this program should I get the GTX680 or the Quadro 4000? and if possible please let me know why you think that is the best option. Thank you in advance.
Regards

[Tom Daigon]

Hi Fernando. Ive actually moved on to an HP Z820 from the old Mac Pro.

But in making the move I was faced with a graphics card decision as well.
After studying some benchmarks using various cards with AEs raytrace engine, and comparing costs. I choose to go with the GTX 570. It runs faster then the Q4000 and is at least half the price. Now I dont know about Maya, but Im using it with Blender 2.65 and the software is greatly accelerated. Again, I know nothing about what Smoke needs so I would say do some research there. But all things remaining the same. the 680 seems like a better bang for buck then the Q4000.

Heres some more info that may help you in your decision. Good luck!

https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/2/1021085

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

Tom Daigon
PrP / After Effects Editor
http://www.hdshotsandcuts.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxPrG3WUyz8
(Best viewed at 1080P and full screen)
HP Z820 Dual 2687
64GB ram
Dulce DQg2 16TB raid