Video Card Advice for CS6 (Win)

Bill. since many PrP users are also AE users, it would be interesting to see how the various cards perform there as well. Many folks that got sneak peek access to AE CS6 report the Quadro 4000 dramatically speed up the new ray tracing mode that allows text extrusion/reflections/transparency/etc.

For now, that's your only option. At least on initial release, the Adobe list of supported cards in CS6 for Windows remains completely unchanged from CS5.5.

And it beats me that Adobe has certified the Quadro 2000 - a GPU that's based on a much less powerful GPU than the GTX 560 Ti (in this case, the Quadro 2000 is based on an underclocked GTS 450) - in addition to certifying the GTX 570 and GTX 580. (And as I noted, the GTX 680 is not included because it is still too new to have been tested sufficiently by Adobe engineers.)

Search the forums for "CUDA" and "hack". The GTX 560 Ti is not on the official list of supported GPUs in Premiere Pro CS5.5; however, you can make MPE GPU acceleration work with that GPU with the CUDA hack.

I do not believe a 620w PS is enough for you to go to an nVidia card

I've heard that from others, too.

But then again I've also read plenty of accounts where people had systems actually running - and running just dandy - with a 570 card and a good quality 550W PSU (here's one). And this Tom's Hardware article says a max-stressed 570 uses 330W, leaving 300W for everything else.

Of course, even with all of that, there's a lot of 12V rail amperage talk, overhead, effeciency, and just plain quality of the PSU that makes this whole thing sound one step above witchcraft and divining rods.

If I have to spend $100+ to replace my 620W PSU with a slightly larger one, I will. On the other hand, I certainly don't want to do that without some reason to semblance that there's actually a reason to. I don't want to fix what ain't broke, you know?

Hence my pondering how to go beyond estimating or guessing and actually proving a PSU is sufficient. Or not. I guess your system suddenly turning off would be a good indicator? But beyond that....??

You will be able to edit AVCHD wihout a "CUDA" card, simply slower http://blogs.adobe.com/premiereprotraining/2011/02/cuda-mercury-playba ck-engine-and-adobe-premiere-pro.html

That was *very* helpful - exactly what I was looking for in what (and what not) a CUDA card will do for me. One very interesting (at least to me) blurb was this: After Effects doesn’t use CUDA.

A 570 will give you great performance, and the extra 1GB of memory for $40 seems worth it.

So it seems like I might be able to get away with the integrated graphics, but if I'm doing the kind of things that CUDA will speed up, the GTX 570 2GB card would be a good choice?

There are a couple of things about your system: 1. A 620 W PSU. 2. 3 Caviar Blue disks.

Re: 620W PSU. I debated going bigger, but the budget/price factors limited me to the 620W. But here's the thing: I tried the eXtreme PS Calculator Pro version, and several other estimators, just for giggles and I got answers anywhere between 200W to 950W - all claiming to be right. That makes me think there's way too much subjectivity in "estimating". That got me to thinking - how can you prove how much power your rig is actually using? If my rig is humming along, how do I know if it's using 200W or 600W? I wrapped an amp meter around the power cord and total AC power used from the wall was < 100W. But I'm not sure if a PSU rating of 620W means 620W AC pulled from the wall, or 620W DC supplied to the box. Just curious as to how I'd know if the 620W was sufficient or a 750W was called for.

I actually have (2) Blues for programs and Word documents and whatnot and (1) Black for video source, scratch files, and rendered files. I'm sure there's a bottleneck on that Black drive and plus it's almost full, so my next buy will be another Black drive to separate the video stuff. Waiting for prices to drop back down and for my wife to not be looking

Edit: Corrected link to Adobe blog

John T Smith wrote: For what you will do, do NOT buy Quadro! As Harm would say... over priced and under specced

Actually, this may change with CS6: It may make excellent use of certain capabilities of the Quadro that are seriously lacking in the GeForce. But we will not know for sure until the first few batches of results appear on the PPBM6 results list. If what I stated proves true, then the performance ranking may very well go strictly by price, where a Quadro 2000 performs roughly equal to a current-gen GeForce of equal price.