Low end CUDA card

[Gilbretto]

Hello all

I'm in the process of upgrading my desktop for a bit of video editing using premier pro. Memory is sorted, large hard drive is in place.

I've got about £70 left over and was wondering if there is any point buying a low end CUDA gfx card to give the process a bit of a boost?

If the gains are tiny then I guess i'll just pocket the money.

Thanks,

Gil

 

[An Exception]

From my experience encoding video, the GPU (CUDA) doesn't do as good job as the CPU and the quality is no where near as good, it's as if the GPU simply takes short cuts to speed up the process.
Not sure how well premier performs with CUDA though, the quality 'may' be just as good as when using the CPU?

 

[HardwareGeek]

I saw a review for sandy bridge with video editing benchies, might be the same thing were thinking of here, 1 sec.

found it, here: http://www.anandtech.com/show/4083/...-core-i7-2600k-i5-2500k-core-i3-2100-tested/9

To sum up afai remember quality was ranked:

x86 - normal cpu path
new sandy enhanced path
followed by cuda and ati paths which were pretty far behind in quality

Edit: This may all be software dependant etc.

 

[Gilbretto]

Thanks for the replies.

I'm using an E2200 @ 2.2GHz if that makes any difference to the issue?

 

[pingu666]

looking at that test result, maybe your best bet is to get a quad core if you can

 

[An Exception]

Thanks for the replies.

I'm using an E2200 @ 2.2GHz if that makes any difference to the issue?

Overclock your current CPU, then Save up, sell up and spring for a quad sandy bridge, or maybe a cheaper second hand Nehalem from the MM, or you could get a cheap q6600 so you don't have to upgrade your board and ram, but you probably want to overclock it to realise a noticeable performance benefit.

From those Anandtech results, the 460 transcode quality was unusable imo and the 6870 was usable but still nowhere near as good as the sandy bridge decodes.

GPU transcoding is currently pointless imo until it can offer the same quality as the CPU and do it faster. As of now it's just another marketing tool to bag another unsuspecting customer.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Quick Sync is only functional with the H67 chipset ATM and this means you cannot overclock the CPU.

ATM, Quick Sync is also disable if you use a discrete card although this may change:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4113/lucid-enables-quick-sync-with-discrete-graphics-on-sandy-bridge

The future Z68 chipset will enable you to use Quick Sync and overclock too.