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View Full Version : suggestions for video card for 2D, NLE, encoding (no gaming)


jfcarbel
24th June 2011, 18:44
My needs:
I don't play any games, but am very much into movies, encoding, and video editing. I often use BD-Rebuilder, ProShow, and Vegas Video. I plan to eventually edit HD video from consumer camera, but will not do much special effects so not much rendering needed. Just cutting, editing, and then will probably use x264 to encode the edited HD file.

With that in mind what are some suggestions for video card for my system? Current system is GA-EP35-DS3R with Intel Q9650. Also should mention that I plan to upgrade in 2012 to Sandy Bridge-E chips with the planned Intel six-core chips. This will have the X79 chipset which will be PCI Express 3.0, so not sure how that might effect my card buying decisions today, that is, will a PCI Express 2.1 card work in PCI Express 3.0.

I have been looking at HD5450 and GT 220. Both have good power consumption. Both support DXVA 2.0, but there looks to be more grumbling from ATI users with a quick Google

Seems there were some issues with audio crackling, etc on the HD5450, but I am not sure if those are now resolved or not by driver fixes, etc.

I certainly do alot of encoding but often its using x264 which I believe is heavily CPU dependent and not GPU. But Vegas I believe does use GPU for rendering, but I believe the rendering is only if adding transitions and effects editing.

I plan to do some OSx86 (i.e Mac on the PC) so not sure which of these or another candidate would have better driver support for OSx86.

Your feedback would be much appreciated.
My current card is 8600 GT and not sure how this would compare in terms of performance to these proposed cards.

I have also seen suggested GTX460/470 for editing. But again I think this is for rendering needs. I refer to this article (http://www.cameralabs.com/PC_Hardware_reviews/Edit_HD_DSLR_video/Best_PC_software_for_editing_HD_DSLR_video.shtml)for good indication of how significant hardware is in the equation so I think a GT220 is enough if its comparable to 8800.

Then again upgrading to Win7 from XP, I guess I might benefit from upgrading from my 8600GT to the GTX460. Anyone here can supply Win7 WEI numbers for these cards?

Of course I would imagine the power savings from a GT220/HD5450 vs GTX460 would be significant. I think the HD5450 is like 7W idle and only 20W load. I would imagine the GTX460 at over 100W at idle.

Blue_MiSfit
27th June 2011, 08:39
Don't worry about PCIe 3.0. It will definitely be backwards compatible.

I'd suggest going with an nVidia card, since CUDA is nice to have in your back pocket. Since you're not gaming, your GPU will be used for the following things:

1) Rendering your desktop in Windows 7
2) Decoding video. This applies to playback and possibly transcoding. Also note it doesn't technically use the GPU, but rather the PureVideo ASIC.
3) Rendering / presenting video on playback (a-la MadVR)
4) Any GPU accelerated effects in Vegas

#4 above is the only one where you might want to future proof a bit. MadVR is GPU intensive, but it's amazingly awesome. If you start cutting multiple streams of HD video, you might see a nice benefit in Vegas from having a faster GPU. The GTX460 is a fantastic card (I have one), and couldn't be happier.

I'd advise you don't bother with OSx86. I've been there and done that. It's a total nightmare to get 100% working unless you pick and choose every single piece of hardware, and even so you're bound to have all kinds of annoying little bugs / problems. Don't even get me started on software updates!

If you've got the budget, a small-ish SSD (120GB works really well for me) for boot and a few apps will make the most significant difference in performance you can possibly imagine. I got a Patriot Inferno a few months ago, and it made a bigger subjective difference than going from a Q6600 to a 2600K, which I just did a few weeks ago.

Derek

Good luck!

rtjnyoface
2nd July 2011, 23:18
I second the gtx 460. You would need a good power supply though. You may want to take that into consideration when choosing whether or not to upgrade as well. Otherwise, if you have a good power supply already I'd suggest the 460.

jfcarbel
3rd July 2011, 09:36
I second the gtx 460. You would need a good power supply though. You may want to take that into consideration when choosing whether or not to upgrade as well. Otherwise, if you have a good power supply already I'd suggest the 460.

I have a PC Powering and cooling Silencer 750 so that is not an issue.

I just feel bad sucking down all that juice when most of the time my machine will be doing browser and encoding. I don't often do that much rendering in video editing programs.

However, seems like more and more is making use of the video card like OS and now even the browsers.