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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Any benefit to adding a second Quadro card?

Tom Dowler

Tom Dowler

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Hi everyone,

Struggling to find a definitive answer to this elsewhere online so hoping the RU braintrust can step in.

On my main machine I have a Quadro K2200, which works pretty well. I love having the 10-bit out to my Eizo, all is well.

I also have a second machine that was being used by a full time editor who no longer works for me, so it is sitting idle, and it has a Quadro K4000 in it.


So my question is this:

for Premiere and Resolve stuff (occasional AE too) is there any benefit to me taking the K4000 out of my other machine and putting it in my main machine?

My main machine's PSU can handle it and I have a spare slot, so the real question is, will I see any benefit.


From what I've read, it seems to be the case that PPro will only use one GPU's CUDA cores for real-time playback, but is capable of using more than one for rendering out. Not that rendering stuff is slow right now, but everything helps, right?


I also wondered if there would be any benefit to having different monitors on different cards. Currently I have 3 monitors all running off the K2200 and it works fine, but wondered if I'm missing a trick here.


Any thoughts?
 
Jarek Zabczynski said:
Someone else can chime in here, but if you're just adding cards for CUDA, something like a GTX1080 or TITAN X is a better bang for the buck.
Click to expand...

Right, but I don't have either of those, sitting next to my desk gathering dust.

I have a K4000 sitting there doing nothing when I could be using it.
 
Quadro adds accelerated readback, which apps like Scratch and Resolve should use. In the past it was also the way to get 10-bit. I think other NVIDIA cards offer 10-bit now, not sure. I mean 10-bit on the desktop. e.g. My Qudaro card in my laptop coupled with the LG31" 4K display goes into 10-bit mode when I launch Scratch. 10-bit ramps look nice and smooth vs. 8-bit mode. Not sure if it is true 10-bit or 8+2 FRC.
 
to clarify:

I *have* a second Quadro card in my possession, sitting around doing nothing.

My question is if someone categorically and decisively knows for a fact whether adding the K4000 into my machine that already has a K2200 will give me any tangible improvements in either PPro or Resolve.
 
Yes. It will work for you, but only really in resolve. Add in the K4000. Use your K2200 as your UI card in Resolve and the K4000 as the compute card. Make sure they can both run the same driver version. Premiere can only really use the one GPU. The K4000 would be the better one to use, but then you'd physically need to plug in your monitor to it to get it driving Premiere, which would break, the Resolve settings. Ho hum!
 
Simon Dunne said:
Yes. It will work for you, but only really in resolve. Add in the K4000. Use your K2200 as your UI card in Resolve and the K4000 as the compute card. Make sure they can both run the same driver version. Premiere can only really use the one GPU. The K4000 would be the better one to use, but then you'd physically need to plug in your monitor to it to get it driving Premiere, which would break, the Resolve settings. Ho hum!
Click to expand...


Thanks Simon. I'll give it a try!
 
Resolve loves resources, so I'd try Simon's suggested config of K2200 for UI and K4000 for compute, then just live with the K4000 sitting idle when running PPro. If you're willing to invest the time you could benchmark the difference between the K2200 and the K4000 for Adobe PP/AE tasks you typically do. If it's a pretty small delta, and you use Resolve a lot...

FWIW, I've often run two or more computers simultaneously and just wheel my chair from one to the other while one of them is rendering/ingesting/etc. YMMV.

Cheers - #19
 
You will need at least Resolve studio for the second Nvidia GPU, as others already suggested just add it and enjoy the new performance. Cheers!
 
Yes, Resolve Studio (paid version) for multiple GPU support. Other than that, the K2200 and K4000 are not very powerful GPUs. The K4000 being the somewhat more powerful unit here. Depending on which version of each, or more to the point if your K4000 also has all the monitor hookups you need, make it your primary GPU. That will allow you full use of it in Premiere and should give a boost (although small) over the K2200. In Resolve, just use both, don't worry about making one a GPU card and the other one compute. They are both Kepler series Quadro GPUs and will use the same driver set and support all the same rendering and compute functions. Premiere will use both (or whichever you specify) for rendering. For playback or Mercury Engine accelerated timeline stuff, you can only use one and it defaults to the one driving your primary edit display unless you start digging into config files and that usually is asking for trouble.
 
AFAIK, the lite version of Resolve is fine for 2 GPU's, as long as 1 is for UI and the other is for Compute, you're good :)
 
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