High CPU usage but no GPU usage - get Intel CPU?

[ConnorTheDemon]

I tried to render something in After Effects, and I noticed in task manager that the CPU usage seemed to be high (as normal) but there was zero GPU usage! Now, my computer doesn't support hardware encoding because I have an AMD cpu (Ryzen 5 2600) which doesn't support that feature. However, I have a GTX 1070 Ti in my computer, and I was wondering if switching to an Intel CPU would enable hardware acceleration, which would reduce render times. If I were to get an Intel equivalent of the ryzen 5 2600 (an i7-8700), would I see a decrease in render times in AE? Or should I fork the cost of a CPU like that to a better AMD cpu (eg threadripper?)

PS: Even though I have access to the Mercury Playback Engine GPU Acceleration (CUDA) option in AME (Adobe Media Encoder) (which I sometimes use for rendering since I can change bitrate and stuff), it performs no differently than just using Mercury Playback Engine Software Only. Below are images of task manager, showing CPU and GPU usage, and my options in AME. In the third image, hovering over software encoding says "Hardware Encoding is unavailable. Please make sure this system meets hardware and minimum OS requirements for this functionality."

PS2: Yes, I am aware that rendering in adobe media encoder is a little slower than just rendering in AE.

[Mylenium]

Same old, same old: You need to understand how a) AE works and b) what GPU acceleration in this context does and is able to achieve. What would even be the point having an NVidia GPU help with encoding your MP4 and taking the encoding time per frame down to a few microseconds when actually rendering the AE frame could take minutes? I would suggest you do a web search or a search on this forum for the millions of "How do I optimize performance in AE" and similar threads. None of your (perceived) issues can be solved with throwing hardware at AE. Even getting the latest multi-core processors does nothing as you will find out looking up relevant info. It basically works as it should.

Mylenium

[Martin_Ritter · Accepted solution]

Unless you are using a GPU effects or plugins in AE, you won't benefit from an Intel CPU with GPU support.

Most of the stuff happening in AE are CPU based, still.

And don't mix up rendering and encoding. Yes, you can encode H264 with GPU and this is way faster than CPU, but before you can encode a frame, you need to render that frame. And rendering is - as said - CPU based most of the time.

For example: you need 10sec to render a frame and 0.5sec to encode it with CPU or 0.2sec to encode it with GPU. After all, it's still 10sec for a frame.

*Martin