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which video card for Premiere CS4.1 editing (RED 4K)?
I have been researching a video editing workstation build for two weeks, and I’m about at wit’s end. I think I’m going with an i7 CPU on an ASUS P6T7 mobo with 16GB of 1600 DDR3 RAM. My final decision is the video card. I’ve been looking and looking, and I just keep getting more and more confused.
Most of what I’ll be doing is editing RED 4K footage in Adobe Premiere CS4.1. Not a lot of rendering involved, but I WILL be doing some stuff in Adobe After Effects once everything’s cut (so there will be a fair share of rendering power required there).
I know that what’s important for editing is the speed between my video storage (normally external RAID) and my workstation. My total data is just under 4TB, so I’m thinking I might forgo the external RAID array and just put 4TB of RAID 0 (4 drives) in the main workstation (don’t worry, my data is already backed up in three separate places, so redundancy isn’t my biggest concern). That way my data is traveling straight from the Hard Drive to the MOBO, and should thus be plenty fast. I know it’ll be a little hotter in there, but I’ve already got a couple of setups like this, and they do quite well.
So the VIDEO CARD…
The high end Nvidia cards are anywhere from $1500-$3000. Do I really need to spend that much money (not a problem if it’s a necessary purchase)? Will I be fine (preferably better than fine) with something like a $900 Quadro FX3700 (or is even that overkill?).
I was under the impression that the Nvidia Quadro CX ($1,600) was kind of the “end all be all,” so what’s up with the FX5800 ($3,000)?
Can somebody just tell me what card to buy so I can be done with this and get to work?! [smile]
Thanks in advance for your help and advice.
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4 Replies
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I believe that Quadro CX is no longer made (there may be some sitting in the retail channel)…the Quadro 4800 is the equivalent. The CX package was designed to be particularly cost effective with the inclusion of an accelerated H264 encoder.
Depending on how you color correct, a bigger display card could be beneficial. I know when I use Iridas SpeedGrade, all the Open GL power I can supply is helpful. Particularly useful in certain situations are the cards with HDSDI outputs…when you plan on final output to HD Video, it can be very useful to be able to monitor a Rec 709 output, both on an HD display and on HDSDI test equipment.
As far as how an Open GL card helps you, Premiere Pro doesn’t capitalize on Open GL to any large extent yet…and After Effects utilizes Open GL for PREVIEW only. After Effects renders with CPU power.
As you compare NVIDIA Quadro cards, (you can do so here: https://www.nvidia.com/object/IO_11761.html) one advantage that the bigger cards have is that it can maintain a greater number of UI layers simultaneously. When you switch between open software programs, the ability to see the new UI window immediately means that that UI window has been stored complete in the background. If you have to watch it redraw, it isn’t stored. In some workflows, many applications may be open at once
If you plan on working with RED footage and you’d like to drive a 30″ LCD display at full res, you’d want to be sure you have a Dual-Link DVI card of course…
Now…there is one more item to keep in mind. DVI is limited to 8 bits, even Dual-Link. Newer display cards with DisplayPort can drive 10 bits per color channel to a monitor like the HP DreamColor. The DreamColor is a 24″ 1920×1200 monitor, so viewing full raster 2K isn’t possible, but being able to see a full color representation can be very useful.
More on DisplayPort here: https://tinyurl.com/nrsupk
TimK,
Director, Consultant
Kolb Productions, -
Ahhhh… useful information!
Thanks, Tim.
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[Tim Kolb] “If you plan on working with RED footage and you’d like to drive a 30″ LCD display at full res, you’d want to be sure you have a Dual-Link DVI card of course…”
I assume this means a DisplayPort can’t drive a 30″ monitor at full resolution? Just want to be sure I have that right.
After spending some time researching, I think I’m going to go for the Nvidia FX4800. I’ve found it for $1300, and though it only has one DualLink-DVI, it has two DisplayPorts.
Thus, I’m really interested in the answer to my question above (DP driving a 30″ monitor).
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Now I’m really curious about the answer to this question, as most of the results I’ve seen regarding using DisplayPort to run a 30″ monitor state that there is no problem.
Could you please explain a little more, Tim?
Thanks.
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