Nvidia GeForce GTX 650 Ti Mecury GPU Acceleration CS5.5

[Gammarik]

Hi all!

I am having problems with my GTX 285, so i am looking to upgrade it. I have found the GeForce GTX 650 Ti card quite cheap, but i need to know, does the Premiere Pro CS5.5 Mecury GPU Playback engine support this card? It ain't listed in the list of supported cards, but it's an Nvidia card so i just wanted to be sure I also need to know: is the new cards on the list, that was added in CS6 also supported on CS5.5?

Thank you in advance

/gammarik

[Jeff Bellune]

[moved to hardware forum]

[Bill Gehrke · Accepted solution]

No, it is not on the list but yes, it would work.  But my suggested minimum card is the GTX 660 which has 70% more memory bandwidth.  I own a GTX 660 and it works very well with the small change to the Adobe "cuda_supported_cards.txt" file.

[Gammarik]

Okay thanks Yeah i have been looking at the 660 too but i don't really have the extra money

[John T Smith]

Would your 285 problems happen to be with the 306.97 driver?

http://forums.adobe.com/thread/1084197

nVidia Hack http://forums.adobe.com/thread/629557 - which is a simple entry in a "supported cards" file

[Gammarik]

Yes, but it ain't Premiere that is crashing. It is the whole driver.. I have already tried downgrading to the original drivers, but it still crashes. Not as much, but sometimes. Would this hack make AMD cards work too? Just curious

[John T Smith]

Some AMD cards work with a Mac... no AMD card accelerates with Windows

http://forums.adobe.com/thread/773101

[RjL190365]

Gammarik wrote:

Would this hack make AMD cards work too? Just curious

No. The hack is CUDA only - and only fairly recent Nvidia GPUs support CUDA at all. No AMD GPU supports CUDA.

[medeamajic]

I have a GTX 650 Ti with 2 GB of RAM. It is much better than my GT 240 for real-time previews. I think it offers a very good bang for the buck.

[RjL190365]

That is because the GT 240 is a relatively feeble card by current standards to begin with. Only 96 CUDA cores and no more than 54.4 GB/s memory throughput even with GDDR5 memory. Compare that to the 768 CUDA cores and 86.4 GB/s memory throughput of the GTX 650 Ti, and you've gotten a nice improvement in performance. However, I'd still agree with Bill that the GTX 660 (non-Ti) is a better value (bang-for-the-buck) for Pr, especially if you have at least an overclockable quad-core Sandy or Ivy Bridge i5 CPU (i7 is better). 2GB of 192-bit GDDR5 RAM (versus 1GB of 128-bit GDDR5 RAM on the base GTX 650 Ti), 960 CUDA cores and 144.2 GB/s memory throughput - all for $80 (retail) more than the GTX 650 Ti.

[Gammarik]

I have been looking at the 2 GB version of the 650 Ti, and i think that will be the one i'll go for, as a don't have the extra money for the 660. It should be a big enough jump from my 285, as it runs the games and premiere fine, but the driver crashes once in a while. Thank you all for the help and tips!

Have a nice day!

/gammarik

[RjL190365]

The GTX 650 Ti would, if anything, be a performance downgrade (however small) from your current GTX 285. This is because the GTX 285's memory throughput is over 86 percent higher than that of the GTX 650 Ti, and that a CUDA core in Kepler does not run at as high of a speed (relative to the nominal GPU clock speed) as a CUDA core in Fermi and older GPUs. However, since you're having stability issues with the GTX 285, I would have to make an exception: The GTX 650 Ti's performance falls just shy of that of a GTX 285 in practice--in other words, its performance is close enough to your current card so that it would not leave you feeling very frustrated.

[Gammarik]

RjL190365 wrote:

The GTX 650 Ti would, if anything, be a performance downgrade (however small) from your current GTX 285. This is because the GTX 285's memory throughput is over 86 percent higher than that of the GTX 650 Ti, and that a CUDA core in Kepler does not run at as high of a speed (relative to the nominal GPU clock speed) as a CUDA core in Fermi and older GPUs. However, since you're having stability issues with the GTX 285, I would have to make an exception: The GTX 650 Ti's performance falls just shy of that of a GTX 285 in practice--in other words, its performance is close enough to your current card so that it would not leave you feeling very frustrated.

You sure? Because on Nvidia's own site the benchmarks of the 650 Ti ranks above the 285. Or is that something else?

[RjL190365]

That's in games. Premiere Pro, on the other hand, makes extensive use of the graphics card's memory in GPU accelerated mode. Premiere Pro does not fully utilize the GPU itself yet relies fairly heavily on the graphics card RAM. Games, on the other hand, make the most use of the GPU but relatively incidental use of the graphics card RAM.

[Gammarik]

RjL190365 wrote:

That's in games. Premiere Pro, on the other hand, makes extensive use of the graphics card's memory in GPU accelerated mode. Premiere Pro does not fully utilize the GPU itself yet relies fairly heavily on the graphics card RAM. Games, on the other hand, make the most use of the GPU but relatively incidental use of the graphics card RAM.

Oh, i see. As far as i can see the 650 Ti memory is 200 MHz slower than the 285, but the double the amount of vRam so it shouldn't be a too big of a drop should it?

[RjL190365]

I was talking more in terms of GB/s, not MHz, for the memory throughput between the two GPUs. The GTX 650 Ti has a memory bandwidth of 86.4 GB/s while your current GTX 285 has a memory bandwidth of 159 GB/s. Also, the GTX 650 Ti's GDDR5 RAM has only a 128-bit bus width while the GTX 285's DDR3 RAM has a 512-bit bus width.

[Gammarik]

Ah, i see. Maybe i should see if it was possible to raise my budget a little bit Would the 660 be an improvement from my 285?

[RjL190365]

Yes, the GTX 660 would be an improvement over your current GTX 285: Although the GTX 660 has slightly less memory bandwidth than the GTX 285 (144.2 GB/s versus 159 GB/s), the 660 has far more CUDA cores (960 versus 240). Plus, Premiere Pro CS6's MPE GPU acceleration works best with GPUs that have more than 300 Fermi or older cores or 600 Kepler cores. (Your original choice of the GTX 650 Ti has 768 CUDA cores, all right, but is limited by its mediocre memory bandwidth.)

[Gammarik]

Hi again

I am not sure if i will be able to get the money for the 660 any time soon. I have beforehand been looking at the 470 card, but just recently discovered the 650 Ti, so i was wondering if the 650 Ti faster than the 470? And how much slower would the 650 Ti be compared to my 285? Also, do Premiere use the CPU? I have a quite fast CPU (6 cored 2.7 GHz AMD chip), so if it does, i am pretty sure that it would be able to cover performance the loss from the GPU.

Thanks

/Gammarik

[Harm_Millaard]

The Phenom X6 is definitely not fast in comparison to an i7 quad core for use with PR, in fact it is at least 2 times slower. If you have a GTX 285, keep it if you are on a tight budget. If anything, get a new motherboard and a new Intel CPU. That will give you a far better performance boost than a new video card.

[Gammarik]

The thing is that i need the card for mainly gaming. I am not editing huge 1080p .avi files, and most of my projects are quite small, so i don't need super fast hardware. That's why i would be able to go for a 650 Ti, but i just want to know if it would completely ruin my editing experience if i switch to a 650 Ti and if a 470 would be faster than the 650 Ti.

[Harm_Millaard]

Any new video card over an existing 285 in combination with an AMD Phenom X6 is a waste of money.

[Bill Gehrke]

Gammarik wrote:

Also, do Premiere use the CPU? I have a quite fast CPU (6 cored 2.7 GHz AMD chip), so if it does, i am pretty sure that it would be able to cover performance the loss from the GPU.

Thanks

/Gammarik

Sorry to say this but your AMD CPU is not a fast CPU when it comes to video editing.  If you search around on our 1100 record data base of PPBM5 benchmarks the fastest AMD single chip unit ranks at 502 out of those 1100 tested configuration.  This is because AMD does not have some of the latest SSE 4.2 instructions on the chip.  This is why Intel is so highly recommended for video editing.  If you are using any of the MPE accelerated effects or features an you want the highest quality encoding with minimum encoding time you need an nVidia GPU

[Gammarik]

But again, this is mainly for gaming. I was just posting here to be sure that the 650 ti could run Premiere, GPU accelerated. Now i just need to know if the 650 Ti is faster than the 470, and if i would get a huge performance drop with the 650 Ti compared to my 285 in premiere.

[RjL190365]

The GTX 650 Ti is slower than a GTX 470. You see, 768 Kepler cores (as in the GTX 650 Ti) are effectively equivalent to only 384 Fermi cores in CUDA operations (the GTX 470 has 448 CUDA cores in the Fermi architecture). Plus, the GTX 470 has a memory throughput of 134 MB/s versus only 86.4 GB/s for the GTX 650 Ti.