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williamc1123
Participant
January 22, 2019
Question

10 bit color graphics card choice

  • January 22, 2019
  • 1 reply
  • 2501 views

I currently have a Radeon RX 470 graphics card and an AdobeRGB enabled Benq monitor. The RX 470 is going to my grandson and I want to know what whould be a reasonable upgrade to it. Currently, I primarily use Photoshop CC 2019.  I've looked at the AMD Vega 64 and the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 8GB. I've read something about the Vega being only partly 10 bit color enabled? I'd consider other cardbut price is a factor I have to consider.  I'm not even sure I need 10 bit color (just because my monitor supports it). Almost all my work ends up as sRGB anyway. Open to any advice.

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    1 reply

    D Fosse
    Community Expert
    D FosseCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    January 22, 2019

    You don't need it - with a normal photograph you can't tell the difference. If you like to stare at test gradients you might...

    But if you want it, you need a NVidia Quadro, or an AMD Radeon Pro (formerly FirePro). Anything else won't support it - even if you may find "10 bit support" in the specs. In that case it's Direct X 10 bit, which is not used by Photoshop or any other professional grade software. They all use Open GL, and need OpenGL 10 bit support.

    Be prepared that 10 bit (AKA 30 bit color) is apparently not a priority anywhere, and it's not very solidly supported. An OS update, or a driver update, can suddenly disable it until next update or the one after that. I've seen it come and go, with no apparent pattern, and now I've just stopped checking. I've no idea what the current status is with my Quadro/Win 10/Eizo system.

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