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annastac93
Participant
July 23, 2018
Answered

Ideal GPU for AE performance? Is a good one necessary?

  • July 23, 2018
  • 2 replies
  • 540 views

Hello,

I am looking into building/ getting a PC for mainly render only purposes.

I have been trying to figure out whether a good GPU is much of use on After Effects (and ideally on Premiere as well). I am a bit of a beginner in terms of computer structure, but so far I've been looking into the other elements being CPU i5 8600k, 16-32 GB DDR4 RAM and in terms of GPU was looking at 1080 GTX, but is it necessary?

I want to also mention that a variety of budgets would be ideal, just so I know what the potential is out there.

Any advice on what would work best for a pc for best render on AE and Premiere overall would be much appreciated! Thank you, and I apologise for my little knowledge.

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer RjL190365

For After Effects, a high-end GPU is unnecessary, especially since almost all redering in AE is solely through the CPU. CUDA is only used in the now-depreciated Ray-Tracer feature. But as long as you don't get an el-cheapo GPU whose memory throughput is lower than that of your system's main RAM, you should be OK.

On the other hand, for Premiere Pro, a good GPU is desirable, especially if you're going to apply stuff like GPU-accelerated effects, scaling, frame rate and/or color space changes to your project's timeline(s). However, a balance between the CPU and the GPU is still important. In your case, a GTX 1080 is a bit overkill for your planned 6-core, 6-thread non-hyperthreadable CPU: That i5-8600K CPU barely outperforms a previous-generation 4-core, 8-thread CPU such as an i7-7700K. As such, a GTX 1070 or 1070 Ti would be more appropriate. You do not want a GPU that's significantly more powerful than your planned system's CPU. Otherwise, you may get render errors/corruption.

2 replies

R
RjL190365Correct answer
Legend
July 24, 2018

For After Effects, a high-end GPU is unnecessary, especially since almost all redering in AE is solely through the CPU. CUDA is only used in the now-depreciated Ray-Tracer feature. But as long as you don't get an el-cheapo GPU whose memory throughput is lower than that of your system's main RAM, you should be OK.

On the other hand, for Premiere Pro, a good GPU is desirable, especially if you're going to apply stuff like GPU-accelerated effects, scaling, frame rate and/or color space changes to your project's timeline(s). However, a balance between the CPU and the GPU is still important. In your case, a GTX 1080 is a bit overkill for your planned 6-core, 6-thread non-hyperthreadable CPU: That i5-8600K CPU barely outperforms a previous-generation 4-core, 8-thread CPU such as an i7-7700K. As such, a GTX 1070 or 1070 Ti would be more appropriate. You do not want a GPU that's significantly more powerful than your planned system's CPU. Otherwise, you may get render errors/corruption.

    Peru Bob
    Community Expert
    Peru BobCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    July 23, 2018

    Moved to the Hardware forum.

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