Are workstation graphics cards worth it for CS4?

[Rachel Forma]

I am putting together a new pc and would appreciate any input from those that have experience with midrange graphics cards in CS4. I have looked at the gamer cards which to my old system seem quite amazing. But I have also looked at the Nvidia Quadro fx1800 which is there mid range workstation card. Of course they say its fast but they don't compare it to their gamer cards. Is a $150-200 gamer card that much slower than a $500 fx1800?

I will be using CS4 for photoshop. illustrator, premiere, and after effects.

Thanks!

Rachel

 

[IamDavid]

Go with the midrange card. won't be missing a thing... I spend most my days using CS4 on different PC's..

 

[akugami]

http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/405/kb405745.html

Adobe CS4 uses OpenGL 2.0 for acceleration of certain features. Pretty much any modern card supports OpenGL 2.0 so it's really hardware agnostic as far as what brand you should buy. There is pretty much no reason to go with a workstation class (or even high end) graphics card for Adobe CS4 since the benefits are near zero when comparing a high end video card to a mid range one.

As for GPU accelerated video encoding, it's not there yet. The only Premiere plugin requires an nVidia Quaddro card and is not flexible enough to be considered worth the cost. It might be in the future, especially if they get rid of the Quaddro bundling requirement but as of now and in the near future, no. ATI's Stream technology for GPU accelerated video encoding is not even as advanced as nVidia's solution so it goes without saying that will be of no use in the near future either.

As IamDavid suggested, just go with any mid-range card. You'll be fine.

 

[Rachel Forma]

Thanks so much for the info! I really appreciate the help.

Rachel

 

[Fox5]

Workstation cards are rarely worth it.

 

[Rachel Forma]

Ok, thanks all. I will just get a $100-150 card and call it good unless anyone else has an opinion on it.

Rachel

 

[jdkick]

As has been noted, no real need... unless you want/need specific certification and the application support that comes with it.

Depending on your work environment you may want to consider a card that features passive cooling (no fan) - depends on whether silence is important to you.