Advice for Graphics Card upgrade

[Daniel5C36]

I'm looking to upgrade my graphics card to improve Adobe Premiere performance. Any advice on what I should consider in the £100-200 bracket?

I don't use the PC for gaming, so just looking for a reasonably priced graphics card that plays well with Adobe CS and my current setup, for light personal use (HD, not 4K editing).

SYSTEM SPECS

GPU: AMD Radeon R5 430 (2GB GDDR5 @1150mhz)

CPU: i7-7700 @3.60GHz

HD: WD Green M.2 SSD (240GB / 50% free)

RAM: 16GB (4x4GB 2400mhz DDR4)

Small form factor desktop w/half height PCIe

Adobe Premiere 2020

[Peru Bob]

I've moved this to the Video Hardware forum.

@RjL190365 

[RjL190365]

The half-height slot in your PC's case will be the limiting factor. Most such cards use old or obsolete chips. Among very recent GPUs, the best that you can do in this form factor would be a half-height GeForce GTX 1650 (the GDDR6 version, not the inferior GDDR5 version). It has 4 GB of VRAM - the minimum that's recommended (as opposed to required) by Adobe for Premiere Pro. Performance-wise, that GTX 1650 GDDR6 would be the best match for that i7-7700 CPU (though still a bit underpowered, as a GTX 1660 would have been an excellent match for that CPU).

[Daniel5C36]

That's really helpful advice, thank you.

Anything else I should be considering? The machine is an older Dell Optiplex 5050, so the PCIe is v3.0 and the PSU is only 180W. Would I be better off getting an older refurbed GPU or do you still think my current system will make the most of the GTX 1650 GDDR6?

[Peru Bob]

The recommended system power for that is 300W:

https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/graphics-cards/gtx-1650/

[RjL190365]

In this case, then you're very much stuck. There is absolutely no current-gen or decent-performing GPU at all that will work well with that PSU. In fact, the only ones that are compatible with that PSU are either obsolete or is no better than a sideways-grade from your current R5 430.

Worse, the only other low-profile GPUs that do not require such a higher-wattage PSU are those that fall far below minimum GPU performance requirements for Premiere Pro or completely lack a hardware H.264 or HEVC encoder.

At this point the only fix would be a completely new PC.