After Effects : Intel Graphics HD 3000 vs. Nvidia GeForce GTX 560M.

[Stefan Antonescu]

Hi Guys,

I'm looking for a laptop to use with After Effects.
Nvidia supports CUDA which I have never used before. Would this make a huge difference ?

What's the best choice ?

Thanks

 

[Subhadip Sen]

The GTX 560M is roughly 10 times faster than HD 3000 if you have app that will fully utilize your GPU. After Effects is not - it uses a ton of RAM and CPU resources, but not GPU. So, performance shouldn't be impacted much. However, HD 3000 has flaky OpenGL drivers and GTX 560M should be more stable. Premiere Pro will benefit greatly from the GeForce.

 

[Stefan Antonescu]

Thanks Subhadip. I was hoping you or Jeff would chime in...

And how about the MacBook Pro's AMD graphics processors ? Would they be better than the GTX 560M ?

 

[Subhadip Sen]

Thanks Subhadip. I was hoping you or Jeff would chime in...

And how about the MacBook Pro's AMD graphics processors ? Would they be better than the GTX 560M ?

There's nothing in the entire Macbook Pro line-up that is as good as GTX 560M. The top MBP GPU, if I am not mistaken, is HD 6750M. The GTX 560M is two notches above, competing with the HD 6950M. HD 6750M is better matched by GT 555M and the like, I think. Once again, i.e. if the app utilizes the GPU completely. Crucially, for Premiere Pro, GTX 560M supports CUDA while AMD GPUs don't. For After Effects, which neither stresses the GPU nor uses CUDA, I don't think it matters.

 

[Stefan Antonescu]

Thanks, much appreciated.