What would be a good budget GPU for a modest system setup for premiere pro / after effects?

[Dan1549]

My system is using a E5 2670 2.6GHz 8 core CPU, 64GB DDR3 , 500 GB SSD, Win 7 64 pro, it came with a Quadro 5000 someone suggested a GTX 1650 Super  with 4 GB of VRAM.......

[RjL190365]

What you heard does not apply, in your case. Windows 7 support had already been terminated by Microsoft itself this past January. And all currently available versions of Premiere Pro and After Effects now require Windows 10 just to even run at all. The last version of both programs that were compatible with Windows 7, the 2018 versions, is now no longer officially available anywhere.

In other words, as long as that PC continues to run Windows 7, you're stuck forever.

[Dan1549]

I can run a duel OS with win 10 so that's not an issue any thoughts as to my question concerning a GPU?   Thanks for input

[RjL190365]

Although your CPU has 8 cores and 16 threads, your system's throughput to the GPU will be limited by its PCI-e 2.0 connection. Sandy Bridge EP CPUs still supported only PCI-e 2.0. PCI-e 3.0 is not supported until the advent of the v2 versions of those Xeons (Ivy Bridge EP).

With that said, the GTX 1650 SUPER is a good starting point; however, I would prefer a GTX 1660 SUPER with 6 GB of VRAM if you're going to do 4k frequently. Don't overspend on a higher-end GPU as it will be bottlenecked by the PCI-e 2.0 bandwidth: If anything, the overall performance of that now-eight-year-old 8-core CPU-based PC will be no better than a 5-year-old quad-core CPU-based PC in Premiere Pro given identical GPUs and disks.

The Quadro 5000 is now no longer supported by Adobe at all, except in the super-slow-mo software-only rendering mode, as all support from Nvidia itself for that GPU had ended in January of 2018.

[Dan1549]

 since I'm buying a refurbished system through amazon prime ( I'm off grid in Hawaii and that's my only option ) I can change my system to a newer i7 quad, I'm not finding specs for the PCI connections but the processer speeds are higher but ram would be 32 Gigs.

I was told,  CPU is first consideration, then Ram, SSD, lastly the GPU

Your imput would be very helpful and much appresiated

[RjL190365]

The newer i7 quad would almost certainly use PCI-e 3.0 for the connection between the CPU and the primary GPU slot. That old 2011/12-era CPU still used the lower-throughput PCI-e 2.0 for that connection.

And the GPU being (relatively speaking) last recommendation no longer holds true. In fact, a severely underpowered GPU will bottleneck the CPU's performance, while a GPU that's severely overqualified for the CPU will also fail to function at its optimum performance capability. With video editing programs these days that offer a significant amount of GPU-based hardware acceleration, you will want a slightly overqualified GPU - but not seriously so. This is why I am suggesting the GTX 1660 SUPER as the best match for that 8-year-old CPU that's restricted to PCI-e 2.0 bandwidth.