What's a really good Video card to get for Graphic Design?

[mlah384]

What's the smartest road to take for a video card for graphic design without breaking the bank? I use programs such as all of the Adobe CS4 (Photoshop 64bit, AfterEffects, flash, fireworks, illustrator, etc...) and I also use Cinema 4D and 3DS Max. I also do a lot of video work.

Thanks

 

[alcoholbob]

Budget?

 

[mlah384]

Preferably under $500? What would be a minimum "have to have" card for graphic design? What would be a mid range graphic design vid card? and what would be a high end Graphic design card?.... I know there are serious graphic design cards for like what? $2k?

 

[yh125d]

A modern something $50 or so. Graphic design isn't that demanding

 

[alyarb]

none of the programs you mention, except maybe 3d studio max (and not all aspects of this program, by any means) benefit from high powered cards.

"graphics design" is incredibly vague. in fact, it's meaningless, and a GPU isn't going to transform the performance of every program that involves drawing pictures.

 

[ChaiBabbaChai]

Disk speed and RAM size and speed is where your $$$ should go. The (software)drivers that work with the workstation cards and programs are supposed to be more stable for their intended applications, but you pay quite a premium. It's not horsepower you are paying the premium for with workstation cards. Make sure you understand that.

 

[faxon]

yea that and larger frame buffers for rendering large projects on the GPU. other than that the architectures of these cards are identical to what you buy in a gamer card. even the tesla cards you pay like $4000 a board for are based on the same GPU as the GTX285

 

[Modelworks]

I have used both pro and gaming cards and currently have a 8800GTS 640MB in a work machine if that tells you anything. Max 2010 has hardware textured viewports with lighting done in hardware but you don't need 60fps to work with max so most any current gaming card will work fine. If you use a lot of textures or programs like Mudbox then consider getting a 1GB ram card. I have hit 500MB texture usage on the 8800GTS using mudbox a couple times. SLI is not used at all so don't even worry about that. Cinema4d uses about the same graphics card features as Max, except it does so in OpenGL. I actually ran Cinema4d under linux using wine the other day and it ran very well. The biggest benefit you get with pro level cards is support. If you have an issue where your viewport is leaving behind artifacts or a texture display wrong you can go to autodesk or maxon and immediately get the video card dismissed as the problem. They test the cards and the drivers thoroughly so they know what works and doesn't and really that is why the cards cost more. With a gaming card they will say you are using unsupported hardware and they can't be sure of what the issue you are having is caused by.

I haven't had a problem with non pro cards that wasn't solved by a driver change or talking with other users. But if you are doing a major job that your livelihood depends on the official support can be a nice thing.

 

[mlah384]

Thanks for the reply's! Last night I was working in After Effects on a project and it was annoying how sluggish things got while I was working on it. So i guess cpu speed, disk speed, ram amount and speed are what I need over video card? So I guess I should look into duel Xeons, SSDs and DDR3? I'm running Q6600 with 8gbs of DDR2 and 7200 rpm drives now.....

 

[mlah384]

I guess those Quadro cards are really just hype these days?

 

[Schmide]

Originally posted by: mlah384
I guess those Quadro cards are really just hype these days?

The extra money that goes into them is for the cost of certain CAD driver development.

but yeah mostly hype.

 

[*kjm]

Mlah384 the tech college I work for only uses Mac's for Graphic Design...... maybe you could stop into a local tech school and ask some of the instructors? I'm sure they would love to show off their equipment and talk shop with you.

IF you would want to go Mac maybe you could get a good deal off Ebay/Craigslist?

Just a thought.

 

[mlah384]

Originally posted by: *kjm
Mlah384 the tech college I work for only uses Mac's for Graphic Design...... maybe you could stop into a local tech school and ask some of the instructors? I'm sure they would love to show off their equipment and talk shop with you.

IF you would want to go Mac maybe you could get a good deal off Ebay/Craigslist?

Just a thought.

Yeah, mac's are pricey but good for graphic design.. I think they use dual Xeons mostly....

 

[*kjm]

Originally posted by: mlah384

Originally posted by: *kjm
Mlah384 the tech college I work for only uses Mac's for Graphic Design...... maybe you could stop into a local tech school and ask some of the instructors? I'm sure they would love to show off their equipment and talk shop with you.

IF you would want to go Mac maybe you could get a good deal off Ebay/Craigslist?

Just a thought.

Yeah, mac's are pricey but good for graphic design.. I think they use dual Xeons mostly....

Maybe..... not sure what we use but even if you still want to go PC I'm sure they could give you some advice on what way to go. I'm only using Adobe Photo Elements/Premiere7 because a normal person can use it I went with the 5870 because LOTRO will be using DX11 next year and a couple of minutes to edit don't bother me at all. Like I said it would be up to your needs and wants as to what would work best for you.

I could have got the full blown Adobe equivalents but for my home photo's and video it was just to much to learn and way more than I needed.

 

[BenSkywalker]

Thanks for the reply's! Last night I was working in After Effects on a project and it was annoying how sluggish things got while I was working on it. So i guess cpu speed, disk speed, ram amount and speed are what I need over video card? So I guess I should look into duel Xeons, SSDs and DDR3? I'm running Q6600 with 8gbs of DDR2 and 7200 rpm drives now.....

It depends greatly on exactly what you are doing. In some instances, a faster single core will be much faster then an oct core setup(dual quad Xeons), in other cases the inverse will obviously be the case. Sometimes a screaming fast HDD is going to have the biggest impact, others it won't make one bit of difference. In some instances the amount of HDD space you have free can have a huge performance impact with Adobe products, other times it won't really matter at all. For certain tasks a vid card will speed things up enormously, in other cases it won't do much of anything to help you out. You gave us so many different things you do, and even amongst those particular applications it can vary hugely where your bottleneck is going to be. Honestly, without know particulars of exactly what types of filters you are using when, what type of viewport work you are doing, what type of rendering you are using for final output, any advice we can possibly give you is going to be wrong, or right, entirely depending on precisely what you are doing.

I guess those Quadro cards are really just hype these days?

Not in the least, they just aren't something you need. If you don't know why you would need a Quadro, then you don't need one. If you check out ProE or UniGraph performance you would likely be surprised at the rather staggering performance difference between the GeForce and Quadro series(like comparing a 4650 to a 5870).

 

[mlah384]

Originally posted by: BenSkywalker

Thanks for the reply's! Last night I was working in After Effects on a project and it was annoying how sluggish things got while I was working on it. So i guess cpu speed, disk speed, ram amount and speed are what I need over video card? So I guess I should look into duel Xeons, SSDs and DDR3? I'm running Q6600 with 8gbs of DDR2 and 7200 rpm drives now.....

It depends greatly on exactly what you are doing. In some instances, a faster single core will be much faster then an oct core setup(dual quad Xeons), in other cases the inverse will obviously be the case. Sometimes a screaming fast HDD is going to have the biggest impact, others it won't make one bit of difference. In some instances the amount of HDD space you have free can have a huge performance impact with Adobe products, other times it won't really matter at all. For certain tasks a vid card will speed things up enormously, in other cases it won't do much of anything to help you out. You gave us so many different things you do, and even amongst those particular applications it can vary hugely where your bottleneck is going to be. Honestly, without know particulars of exactly what types of filters you are using when, what type of viewport work you are doing, what type of rendering you are using for final output, any advice we can possibly give you is going to be wrong, or right, entirely depending on precisely what you are doing.

I just want a rig that will be ready for just about anything... I had a 3D logo scene we were working on that had a lot of particles (fluid) and the render took FOREVER and eventually locked up on a quad core q6600, 8gigs ram and 8800gts... I probably would need a render farm to do more intense jobs like that, but we more than likely will not have enough of those to justify sinking money into a farm at this point...

Originally posted by: BenSkywalker

I guess those Quadro cards are really just hype these days?

Not in the least, they just aren't something you need. If you don't know why you would need a Quadro, then you don't need one. If you check out ProE or UniGraph performance you would likely be surprised at the rather staggering performance difference between the GeForce and Quadro series(like comparing a 4650 to a 5870).

I hear mixed reviews on Quadro's... I hear that a lot of software is now becoming less dependent on GPU; that software is more cpu and ram focused. Although programs like Photoshop pop up a message on launch about GPU.. so... i might need to take the Quadro dive... I guess I'll never know unless I buy one and try it...

 

[elconejito]

Originally posted by: mlah384
I hear mixed reviews on Quadro's... I hear that a lot of software is now becoming less dependent on GPU; that software is more cpu and ram focused. Although programs like Photoshop pop up a message on launch about GPU.. so... i might need to take the Quadro dive... I guess I'll never know unless I buy one and try it...

Before you get ahead of yourself... please visit the Adobe Knowledgebase here and look through there to see exactly what is accelerated by the GPU.

You will find that there isn't much accelerated... and what is accelerated does not need very much horsepower.

For example, in Photoshop all the GPU accelerated features are related to zooming, panning, rotating. Any recent, low-level, <$50 GPU and many of the newer integrated GPUs will perform just FINE. Spending hundreds of dollars on those features is a huge waste as that $300 card will "zoom" just as fast as the $50 one. You will get much more performance for your dollar by spending that money on a faster CPU, more RAM, faster hard drive, etc.

After Effects has *some* filters that are GPU accelerated, and *some* of those filters *might* benefit from a faster GPU (but not much). Check the Adobe KB I linked to see which filters, and if they are ones that you use.

Premiere is the only one that benefits greatly from a Quadro, and that is ONLY during video encoding. You have to get the specific Quadro (about $2k) and it comes with a plugin that enables CUDA acceleration for specific file formats. So *if* you are outputting to that specific codec then it *might* be worth it to spend $2k if you will get a return on it (i.e. your work is done faster, allowing you to do more work, and get more money).

For Adobe CS4 all anyone needs is the most basic of GPUs unless you are in a very specific subset of users that could benefit from either a faster mainstream GPU or a Quadro. For proof (sorta), just look at the Macs described above... For a $2-3k system they come with the most basic of GPUs. They are shipping now with Nvidia GT 120 w/512mb, (the last version shipped with ATI 2600 but I think that was pre CS4?) and the upgrade is to the 4870 w/512mb.

I think the bottom line is if you really need a high-end video card OR a workstation card you would KNOW already that you need one. Everybody else just needs the basics.

 

[mlah384]

I think where I get frustrated is render times (which I know isnt GPU) and also when it lags really bad when I pan the camera around or move things in view port... Like in AfterEffects, you have to turn a lot of the fx off while you're working. Would be nice if it was fluid somewhat when there is a lot going on in viewport... I might just be too impatient though...

 

[Modelworks]

Originally posted by: mlah384
I think where I get frustrated is render times (which I know isnt GPU) and also when it lags really bad when I pan the camera around or move things in view port... Like in AfterEffects, you have to turn a lot of the fx off while you're working. Would be nice if it was fluid somewhat when there is a lot going on in viewport... I might just be too impatient though...

You can blame adobe for that. They are not using the GPU for a lot of task that they could use it for.

 

[sgrinavi]

Originally posted by: mlah384
I guess those Quadro cards are really just hype these days?

I keep hearing this from, mostly, folks that do not use 3dsMax or work with small models. Professional cards are different and not all that expensive anymore. I have tried many generations of gamer cards with and without being flashed or softmodded: It's pretty simple, they are not as reliable or as fast when working with big models.

If you are doing it at home, on occassion and/or just having some fun, get a decent gamer card. If you are making a living at it and need reliable performance then I would think about the professional solution. On ebay You can get new v8700 cards for under $400 and new quadro fx4800 cards for around $600.

 

[T2k]

There are certain areas where you have to get a Quadro to get your job done - I just got two 4GB 5800 for a new stereoscopic project, for example...