GTX 680 or Quadro 4000 for Premier and AE CS 6

[LWRCJohn]

the 680 has well over 1500 cuda cores, while the Quadro has 256 per.  Im not very hip to the new video in computers but do understand that the purposes of these cards are very different.

Would it be better to buy a Quadro or a gtx 680? going in to a  SR-X mobo w/48 gb ram and  4( by 4) HDD arrays on independant sas raid cards.

Im building a new system cuz my SR-2 isnt cutting it, keeps crashing after adding the second raid card to it.

thanks in advance.

[Bill Gehrke]

The 680 is the current best performance card available unless you need 10-bit output

[AdamChathamLight]

How about for After Effects CS6?  Would there be enought of a noticible difference to go Quadro over 680?

[Harm_Millaard]

Only if you want to spend more for lesser performance.

[AdamChathamLight]

That's the kind of answer I like to hear!  All that talk of Quadro and AE CS6 is hoopla I guess.

[LWRCJohn]

OK , thats what it looked like on paper, but I thought I was issing something... the Quadra is hyped pretty hard on Nvidias site for Adobe CS6 and no mention of the gtx series.  probably cuz they want you to spend more....

thansk for the response.

[Guest]

could u plz explain more about 10 bit?

[Colin_Grigson]

I've been researching Quadro4000 vs GTX for some time. Harm/Bill and many others here are really anti-Quadro from what I can understand. However they've a lot more knowledge than me in this area.

Personally I've been corresponding with 3 people building machines based on VideoGuys DIY9 but with GTX cards.  They've had endless stability problems with the graphics drivers and everything has been solved by switching to Quadro4000.  Sure, the speed may no longer be breaking records, but the joy of reliability has sure returned.

I'm currently building a P9x79 / 3960x / Quadro4000 system myself so will be able to tell you first hand in a couple of weeks more about this.

Maybe I'll be eating my words?  Research lots.

[Bill Gehrke]

We are not anti-Quadro by any means, it is just the both of us believe the extra money that you spend for a Quadro does not pay off, out of the 900 results submitted for the PPBM5 benchmark only 75 are using Quadros.  Those people using Quadro cards all have benchmarks that are appreciable lower than those using GTX cards.  And is a waste of money unless you also acquire a very, very expensive 10-bit monitor to pair up to it or have other software that requires a Quadro.  I personally have never experienced any stability problems with the proper drivers. Just for users of our benchmark I have acquired 8 different CUDA cards that I use in comparison testing.  I strongly expect a new generation of Quadro cards to be available soon.

Here is my current list in order of performance

1. GTX 680
2. GTX 580
3. GTX 480
4. GTX 560 Ti 448
5. GTX 285
6. GTX 260
7. GTX 550 Ti
8. 9500 GT

[RjL190365]

Bill,

Thanks again for the ranking. The small difference in performance between the GTX 480 and the GTX 560 Ti 448 boils down to the differences in the memory throughput (177 GB/s for the GTX 480 versus 152 GB/s for the GTX 560 Ti 448). A similar pattern occurred between the GTX 260 and the GTX 550 Ti (in this case, despite both GPUs having 192 CUDA cores, the memory throughput is 112 GB/s on the GTX 260 versus only 98.5 GB/s on the GTX 550 Ti).

On the other hand, the GTX 285 ended up being slower than the GTX 560 Ti 448 despite the former's slightly greater (159 GB/s) memory throughput because the 285 has significantly fewer CUDA cores (240 versus 448).

No wonder why my particular reference GTX 470 (which I have since sold off) is barely faster than my GTX 560 (non-Ti) in CS5+: Both GPUs have more than 300 CUDA cores, and the memory throughput is barely higher on the GTX 470 than on the non-Ti GTX 560 (134 GB/s versus 128 GB/s).

[timtro]

nVidia support says that the Quadro 4000 was specifically designed for CS6. They provided this chart:

http://www.nvidia.com/content/PDF/product-comparison/product-comparison-master-revised.pdf

I'll find out tomorrow when mine is delivered from B&H. Stay tuned...

[jmichae1]

I am spec'ing a new CS5 (and may run a later version like cs6 or cs7) box but was thinking of an EVGA GTX 660ti SC 3GB or FTW or GTX 680 4GB.

the proc only does PCIe 2.0, the mobo does PCIe 3.0 and the cards do PCIe 3.0.  so I am not sure how well this is going to work.

[Bill Gehrke]

I have the same CPU/motherboard situation and even a non-Ti version GTX 660 and it works well. Not quite as good on the acceleration as with the better boards but I am very satisfied.  (I also have a GTX 680 in another system)

[flbreen]

Which brand of GTX 680 is best? I just read an article in PC Magazine saying that the Asus version is better and cheaper.

[Harm_Millaard]

Francis,

Let your choice be dependent on warranty, price, installed memory and clock speed. Nearly all A-brands, Asus, EVGA, Gigabyte, PNY, Point of View, Zotac etc. are good cards. I now use EVGA and it is reliable and comes with great utilities to overclock plus a lifetime warranty.

[JEShort01]

Harm,

For purchases in the USA, some EVGA cards still retain the lifetime warranty if you register your purchase. Other cards, like the one you have in your "Monster" (Classified GTX 680 4GB), only seem to have a 3 yr. wtty. now in the US.

Jim

[RjL190365]

Jim,

For that matter, no consumer electronics product sold in Europe has a lifetime warranty. The European Union requires a discrete (and thus finite) warranty period of no less than two years.

[Harm_Millaard]

The EU requirement of 2 years is a minimum requirement. Not a maximum. Take for instance Seagate with their Barracuda 7200.14 line of drives. They give a one year manufacturer's warranty, so the seller has to give the 2-nd year of required warranty himself and that is why a lot of sellers took Seagate Barracudas off their list. It was just too big a risk.  The manufacturer warranty on the EVGA Classified, that I have is 3 years now, but when I bought it, it was still a lifetime warranty.

[Alain-Van-Haecke]

about: GTX680 vs K2000 for Premiere Pro CS6 (XDCAM EX files AND Lightroom 4)

Hi experts,

not sure about the right discussion to post here...

considering building a new system: i7-3930K - P9X79PRO LGA2011 - WIN8 PRO 64 - 2xSSD 256GB 840 PRO SAMSUNG (one for system+softs + the other for render exports) - 2x4TB Caviar Black WD in RAID0 (source files) - 8x4GB DDR3 Kingston 1866MHz PC3-15000 CL9 XMP PREDATOR - OCZ ATX 750W - ATX Fractal Design Define R4 BP - Sata Blu-ray B Lite-On (IHBS112-115) - +... fans, external backup (NAS)...

I've some hesitations concerning the GPU : GTX680 or K2000 ?

as a professional photographer-videomaker, I will be working these two distinct universes on the same machine...

some questions:

1. will the GTX680 do realtime rendering of my ppro (cs6) timeline when xdcam ex (mp4) files are fitted with adjustment layers like opacity, black&white, fast color corrector and other video effects my Quadro FX3800 actually does (green and yellow bar) ?
2. What about realtime rendering of extra: neat video noise reduction, proDAD Mercalli stabilizer, Twixtor ?
3. Does this video system seems be effective for my photography work ? (Lightroom 4, raw Nikon D800E files, lots and lots of adjustments with noise reduction and lens distortions+CA, scale, rotation, masks and gradients + Photoshop: Google Nik plugins and lot of others working in 16bit) : intensive cpu, doesn't seem gpu helps actually here

any advice very appreciated,

thanks

[Harm_Millaard]

Alain,

1. The GTX 680 does everything the FX 3800 does, only significantly faster.
2. Neat, Mercalli, Twixtor are all CPU bound and are not accelerated.
3. Same for PS and LR.

Only AE and PR profit from hardware accelerated MPE.

[Alex_-_DV411]

Only AE and PR profit from hardware accelerated MPE.

Pretty sure GPU acceleration in PS, however minor it may have been, existed for at least a decade. It's more than minor now, see Mercury Graphics Engine and GPU-enhanced features in Photoshop CS6 GPU FAQ.

[Harm_Millaard]

Alex, thanks for showing me the difference between MPE (Mercury Playback Engine) and the MGE (Mercury Graphics Engine). However, I was talking about MPE, not MGE.

[Alex_-_DV411]

However, I was talking about MPE, not MGE.

And the difference in terms of GPU acceleration is...?

What's in a name? That which we call a rose,

By any other name would smell as sweet;

(Romeo and Juliet)

[Harm_Millaard]

Tell me.

[Alex_-_DV411]

Tell me.

Shakespeare just did (well, 416 years ago): "By any other name would smell as sweet".