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Participant
January 7, 2025
Question

What are Specs for a graphics card for my new PC?

  • January 7, 2025
  • 3 replies
  • 930 views

Or, because I'm not very knowledgeable about these things, mayve even a specific recommendation or two for a graphics card.

 

After years of warnings from Premiere Pro and limitations of my 5-year+ old PC , I finally bought a new PC from Dell.  Although I'm an experienced filmmaker (yes, film -- remember that?) with some video editing experience, I'm not going to do any extremely demanding video editing.  (Nor, by the way, am I a gamer.)

 

Here are its specs as far as I can gather them, and I'd like to buy a card before my computer guy comes by to help me set it up and move over my programs and data.  (Unfortunately, he doesn't have much experience with graphics cards, although he's a whiz with computers, having left IBM several years ago.)

Dell Inspiron Desktop 3030

Intel Core i5 processor (14 gen)

10-core, 16 CPU Threads, L2 20 MB Cache Memory

8GB memory (I'm going to install 16GB)

512GB SSD (We're going to move one of my HDs over)

Intel UHD Integrated Graphics (730??)

 

 

3 replies

John T Smith
Community Expert
Community Expert
January 21, 2025
gregewAuthor
Participant
January 21, 2025

Wow, John.  This is a great resource.

Now all I have to know is whether I can straight-line extrapolate the
percentage efficiencies to the standard video frame rate which is
basically 30fps.  In other words, the chart says this for one of the cards:

1080p Ultra
1080p Medium
1440p Ultra
4K Ultra

<>
83.9% (129.3fps) 91.5% (179.1fps) 72.4% (105.8fps) 54.4% (62.3fps)


So if I work in 1440p Ultra (I have no idea what "Ultra" means) using
this graphics card example which is effective 72.4% at 106fps, at my
30fps the card would work at (more than if that were mathematically
possible) 100%?  This entire study was done as though the cards were
used for gaming, and I'm assuming that gaming is more processing
intensive than plain old live action video, but as you can see I need a
bit of a primer to fully understand these measurements. I see
tom'sHardware has a Forum as well, so I suppose I should move my
question over there?

Best,
Greg
--
Greg EplerWood
PRIVATE INFORMATION REMOVED FROM THIS PUBLIC FORUM, BEWARE SPAMMERS!

John T Smith
Community Expert
Community Expert
January 21, 2025

My NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 works well for me, but I only edit 1280x720 30fps video

John T Smith
Community Expert
Community Expert
January 7, 2025

Nvidia is better for video editing - use the STUDIO driver, not the gaming driver
https://community.adobe.com/t5/video-hardware-discussions/4070-ti-super-vs-7900-xtx/td-p/14584297

 

Not 100% current, but may help... NOTE - go to the Puget site to see their CURRENT information
https://community.adobe.com/t5/video-hardware/premiere-pro-hardware-articles-to-read-before-you-buy-or-build/m-p/11557686

gregewAuthor
Participant
January 8, 2025

Thank you, John, but I'm gobsmacked when seeing the prices of these cards.  Gosh, even my old computer allowed Premiere Pro to run, after acknowledged and accepted that my integrated graphics were inadequate.  (I'm not a "pro" and just use PP as a hobby.)  Unless I can find a card that costs less than $190 I'll just wait to see how this new computer handles PP.  Does anything like that exist?

Do you suggest I post another question giving my budget limitations?

Legend
January 21, 2025

Unfortunatrely, the sub-$200 range of discrete GPUs are now nearly extinct. All you can find in that range are old- or older-generation GPUs that either lack hardware encoding support whatsoever or are obsolete due to the "latest" meaningful driver version update being years old. You'll have to spend closer to $300 just to even find the cheapest relevant discrete GPU at all that can be utilized in Premiere Pro for years to come.

Kevin-Monahan
Community Manager
Community Manager
January 7, 2025

Hello @gregew,

I'll move this to the Hardware forum for you.

 

Thanks,
Kevin

 

Kevin Monahan - Sr. Community &amp; Engagement Strategist – Pro Video and Audio