Can any CUDA cards encode 1080p H264 faster than real-time?

[MrCoyote]

I'm looking for a dedicated card to use for a video production workstation that can encode 1080p 10bit 4:4:2 uncompressed files to H264 for Blu-ray. I tried a GTX460, but it is barely fast enough to encode 720p at real-time to H264. Is my only option a professional add-on like Matrox CompressHD or other break-out box?

 

[tweakboy]

nVidia Quadro is what you maybe looking for. Their 1000 dollars and more.

 

[MrCoyote]

No the quadro cards are a joke, especially the 500 series. Overpriced for what you get. Basically the newer GeForce outpace the slightly older quadros. The problem is Nvidia intentionally breaks GeForce and doesnt allow them to run at full capacity in applications like 3DMax, etc. They want people to buy the overpriced Quadro cards instead.

I've been researching some more, and am going to go with a Matrox MXO2 mini with H264 hardware encoder for real-time encodes. It looks like CUDA performance is all over the map, with some software doing poor slow performance and others only a little better. I don't have time to mess with CUDA, so I'll buy a dedicated hardware solution instead, Matrox MXO2.

 

[nyker96]

1080p faster than realtime, damn that's tall order. maybe a prof encoding farm.

 

[exar333]

No the quadro cards are a joke, especially the 500 series. Overpriced for what you get. Basically the newer GeForce outpace the slightly older quadros. The problem is Nvidia intentionally breaks GeForce and doesnt allow them to run at full capacity in applications like 3DMax, etc. They want people to buy the overpriced Quadro cards instead.

I've been researching some more, and am going to go with a Matrox MXO2 mini with H264 hardware encoder for real-time encodes. It looks like CUDA performance is all over the map, with some software doing poor slow performance and others only a little better. I don't have time to mess with CUDA, so I'll buy a dedicated hardware solution instead, Matrox MXO2.

Nvidia pays a lot of money to do massive driver support for Quadro cards, just like AMD does with FireGL cards. You are not just buying the hardware, but also the software with professional cards. Don't like it? Well those professional cards (and the margin that comes with them) helps keep your graphics cards affordable. The hardware may be very similar, but the drivers and support are worlds apart.

 

[3DVagabond]

Nvidia pays a lot of money to do massive driver support for Quadro cards, just like AMD does with FireGL cards. You are not just buying the hardware, but also the software with professional cards. Don't like it? Well those professional cards (and the margin that comes with them) helps keep your graphics cards affordable. The hardware may be very similar, but the drivers and support are worlds apart.

Absolutely correct! People need to stop and think that, relative to consumer cards, the number of pro cards is very small. It still costs just as much though to develop drivers for these cards. The driver team(s) for Quadro doesn't make any less money than the Gforce team. The expense is just spread between far fewer customers. They (nVidia/AMD) offer more support for these fewer cards as well. If there was a game stopping bug with Maya, for instance, they wouldn't just wait til some future driver update to fix it. They would fix it ASAP. This costs a lot more than a few extra gig of RAM that you might find on the high end pro cards.

 

[Phynaz]

I'm looking for a dedicated card to use for a video production workstation that can encode 1080p 10bit 4:4:2 uncompressed files to H264 for Blu-ray.

Then you certainly don't want the low quality results of video card encoded video.

You should really be looking at "video production workstations" if that's really what you want, and not a pc with a consumer graphics card.

 

[Rifter]

Then you certainly don't want the low quality results of video card encoded video.

You should really be looking at "video production workstations" if that's really what you want, and not a pc with a consumer graphics card.

this x2