Need advice on Graphics card to run Resolve

[Mike]

Hi guys,

Have been reading through the threat and is a bit confused on the graphic card that I should get to run Resolve. What's the most cost effective card to get Resolve to run on my system?

I am currently using the Mac Pro '09 Nehalem, 8 core with ATI 4870 card.
But it seems like I could not run Resolve with the current graphic card.

Any advice on what I should get to get my system up and running ?
Hope that you can advice me on my options.
Thanks in advance!


Mike

 

[Simon Knight]

Depends on the size of the wallet and the footage being graded?

most folks I believe go wild over the Nvidia GTX 580.

im grading on a PC using 2x GT640 and my Scarlet footage is fine at 1/4 and 1/2 res... But then I've only spent $200 on the 2 cards. Spend $1000 on big cards and expect real time... I just don't need it, yet!

SK

 

[Will Keir]

You'll want fast Hard drives and to upgrade your graphics card.

Try 1TB SSD for the system or a RAID 0 with 7200 RPM drives.

 

[Mike]

Speed is not too important for us right now, we can't even run resolve on the current hardware. Just need to get it up and running first.. so i guess the GTX 580 will do the job?

 

[Rohit Gupta]

Speed is not too important for us right now, we can't even run resolve on the current hardware. Just need to get it up and running first.. so i guess the GTX 580 will do the job?

Get a K5000 for Mac, or a 680 (2x6-pin version power version). The 680 is faster but you don't get boot screens. Make sure you are on 10.8.3 latest CUDA. Another option is Q4000/Mac but its much slower card.

 

[David Collard]

Dude,
There's all kind of info on several threads regarding this topic.
Lazy.

 

[Chad Cooper]

GTX 580 classy ultra is the way to go

 

[Neil W. Smith]

EVGA TITANs .... pretty damn sweet!

EVGA TITANs .... pretty damn sweet!

We're running Windows Resolve on a couple of EVGA TITANs .... handles 5K RED and 4K DPX files super well .... we'll be showing the TITANs in action on a 4K monitor at NAB plus demoing our 4K FCP X EPIC workflow.

More details to follow shortly.

Cheers,
Neil

4K made easy!

 

[Nicos Ambatzis]

We're running Windows Resolve on a couple of EVGA TITANs .... handles 5K RED and 4K DPX files super well .... we'll be showing the TITANs in action on a 4K monitor at NAB plus demoing our 4K FCP X EPIC workflow.

More details to follow shortly.

Cheers,
Neil

4K made easy!

I would very much appreciate it, if you can give us more details of your system configuration with the Titans. Thanks a lot.

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

GTX 580 classy ultra is the way to go

That card doesn't even fit in a Mac Pro and you would need supplementary power to run it, even if it did.

Sorry to bust people's chops over this, but the GTX580, in any flavor, is the WRONG card to be recommending to someone with a Mac Pro.

Rohit Gupta already teed it up for you in his post above. K5000 Mac Edition or GTX680. The only other card I would recommend would be the GTX570, as it fits in the power profile of the Mac Pro. Also no boot screens, unless you buy one with a modded EFI ROM. I would just go with the GTX680 and be done at this point. OSX 10.8.3 and 10.8.4 beta are using the 680 just fine. No boot screens, pre-OS boot menus or anything like that due to the non-Apple ROM on the card. So if that's important to you, then your options are the K5000 Mac (expensive) or a modded 570. Let's not overcomplicate all this. Tons of threads on this around here and it seems like the information is cyclical.

If you're running Windows, the GTX580 is a great card. The GTX680 is a great card. The GTX Titan is starting to look like an AWESOME card. So is the GTX690. Titan drivers need improvement though, but I just grabbed a new beta release that is a step in the right direction. I would recommend dual 680's unless you have a lot of cash to burn, then go with Titans. ....That's for a PC running Windows, once again, not for the Mac.

 

[Nicos Ambatzis]

If you're running Windows, the GTX580 is a great card. The GTX680 is a great card. The GTX Titan is starting to look like an AWESOME card. So is the GTX690. Titan drivers need improvement though, but I just grabbed a new beta release that is a step in the right direction. I would recommend dual 680's unless you have a lot of cash to burn, then go with Titans. ....That's for a PC running Windows, once again, not for the Mac.

Hi Jeff.

I am about to order a Supermicro workstation 7047GR-TRF with X9DRG-QF motherboard, 2 x E5-2687W, 64 ram, the RedRocket (which I have allready), a Quadro 4000 for GUI and either one GTX 680 or one GTX Titan. Then, later on I plan to increase the ram to another 64gb and another GTX card. I know that you are running some test with the Titan, and I would like to know your opinion and advice either to wait for the test results of the Titan or to go for a 680 to start for now. At the moment I have a Mac Pro v 2.1 for which as you said in our previous contact '' I can't do much with it'' . I can't even run Resolve Lite for training. Thanks in advance for your advice.

 

[Mike]

That card doesn't even fit in a Mac Pro and you would need supplementary power to run it, even if it did.

Sorry to bust people's chops over this, but the GTX580, in any flavor, is the WRONG card to be recommending to someone with a Mac Pro.

Rohit Gupta already teed it up for you in his post above. K5000 Mac Edition or GTX680. The only other card I would recommend would be the GTX570, as it fits in the power profile of the Mac Pro. Also no boot screens, unless you buy one with a modded EFI ROM. I would just go with the GTX680 and be done at this point. OSX 10.8.3 and 10.8.4 beta are using the 680 just fine. No boot screens, pre-OS boot menus or anything like that due to the non-Apple ROM on the card. So if that's important to you, then your options are the K5000 Mac (expensive) or a modded 570. Let's not overcomplicate all this. Tons of threads on this around here and it seems like the information is cyclical.

If you're running Windows, the GTX580 is a great card. The GTX680 is a great card. The GTX Titan is starting to look like an AWESOME card. So is the GTX690. Titan drivers need improvement though, but I just grabbed a new beta release that is a step in the right direction. I would recommend dual 680's unless you have a lot of cash to burn, then go with Titans. ....That's for a PC running Windows, once again, not for the Mac.

Thanks Jeff for the information, have been getting a lot of different infos through the thread, so now I'm clearer, guess GTX 680 may be more suitable for me. Will check this out.

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

You don't want the Quadro 4000, waste of time/ money at this point. It's still an OK option for a Mac Pro as it's a reasonably capable GPU that is officially supported and only takes up one slot width and power connector. In a Windows PC, it's yesterday's news. Get dual GTX680 cards. The Titan is very promising, but also very expensive. I did a bunch of testing with the Titan when it first arrived and drivers were so flakey I didn't get a good feel for it. I actually have the Titan in my Z820 still and intend to do more rigorous testing again with the latest drivers, but don't have the time for it now. I will probably take another look at it after I return from NAB. Even if the Titan is up and running at full capacity, it's only about 25 to 35 % faster than a GTX680 for CUDA operations and that comes at a 250% increase in price. At least that's how the pricing works out here in the USA. I would put 3 X GTX680's in a system for not a whole lot more than a single Titan and that would provide all the GPU power your workstation needs or could handle for Resolve anyway.

Titan is attractive as an all-in-one solution a system like the Z820 where dual GPUs is already a hassle with space and power being limited. OTOH, the GTX690 (dual GTX680s on one card) has already proven to be a wonderful solution in the Z820.

When you install more than one GPU, Resolve uses the first/GUI GPU as GUI only. But the GUI doesn't degrade performance for CUDA by that much in my tests. So in terms of the Z820 or most other workstations to see a noted improvement over a single fast GPU like a 680 or Titan, you can add a second and maybe gain a total of about 5% because the primary becomes GUI only. You have to install a third GPU to really gain another GPU's worth of performance!

Apps like Premiere only use one CUDA GPU, so stacking more than one or two GPUs doesn't help there. If you only can fit two GPUs, you're almost better to go with something like the Titan and save yourself a slot. The 690 is nice as a two for one approach, however it only has 2GB per GPU on the card and they are clocked a bit lower than standard 680s. Think of it more as a space-saving solution. Dual 690's would be a killer configuration to have, if you have the power to support it. Each 690 takes 2 x 8pin power connectors.

What you're probably starting to see here is that there are lots of options to consider. GTX690 and GTX Titan are the same price here in the USA. They both have their advantages and disadvantages in relation to one another. It comes down to your needs. GTX690 is actually the superior gaming card so far in all my tests, since most all use SLI these days. Titan wins out for apps/games that only use a single GPU.

I would stick with GTX600 series and newer GPUs at this point. The older Fermi based cards like the Quadro 4000, GTX570, GTX580, etc.. are being phased out.

 

[Nicos Ambatzis]

You don't want the Quadro 4000, waste of time/ money at this point. It's still an OK option for a Mac Pro as it's a reasonably capable GPU that is officially supported and only takes up one slot width and power connector. In a Windows PC, it's yesterday's news. Get dual GTX680 cards. The Titan is very promising, but also very expensive. I did a bunch of testing with the Titan when it first arrived and drivers were so flakey I didn't get a good feel for it. I actually have the Titan in my Z820 still and intend to do more rigorous testing again with the latest drivers, but don't have the time for it now. I will probably take another look at it after I return from NAB. Even if the Titan is up and running at full capacity, it's only about 25 to 35 % faster than a GTX680 for CUDA operations and that comes at a 250% increase in price. At least that's how the pricing works out here in the USA. I would put 3 X GTX680's in a system for not a whole lot more than a single Titan and that would provide all the GPU power your workstation needs or could handle for Resolve anyway.

Titan is attractive as an all-in-one solution a system like the Z820 where dual GPUs is already a hassle with space and power being limited. OTOH, the GTX690 (dual GTX680s on one card) has already proven to be a wonderful solution in the Z820.

When you install more than one GPU, Resolve uses the first/GUI GPU as GUI only. But the GUI doesn't degrade performance for CUDA by that much in my tests. So in terms of the Z820 or most other workstations to see a noted improvement over a single fast GPU like a 680 or Titan, you can add a second and maybe gain a total of about 5% because the primary becomes GUI only. You have to install a third GPU to really gain another GPU's worth of performance!

Apps like Premiere only use one CUDA GPU, so stacking more than one or two GPUs doesn't help there. If you only can fit two GPUs, you're almost better to go with something like the Titan and save yourself a slot. The 690 is nice as a two for one approach, however it only has 2GB per GPU on the card and they are clocked a bit lower than standard 680s. Think of it more as a space-saving solution. Dual 690's would be a killer configuration to have, if you have the power to support it. Each 690 takes 2 x 8pin power connectors.

What you're probably starting to see here is that there are lots of options to consider. GTX690 and GTX Titan are the same price here in the USA. They both have their advantages and disadvantages in relation to one another. It comes down to your needs. GTX690 is actually the superior gaming card so far in all my tests, since most all use SLI these days. Titan wins out for apps/games that only use a single GPU.

I would stick with GTX600 series and newer GPUs at this point. The older Fermi based cards like the Quadro 4000, GTX570, GTX580, etc.. are being phased out.

Thanks again Jeff. You have been very helpfull once more. To conclude my case, according to you, the best way to go at the moment is to replace the Quadro 4000 with a GTX 600 or ( do you mean the Quadro 600? because I couldn't find any GTX 600) and buy the GTX 680 4gb now and double it later with another one or another two to get a better performance for Resolve and CS6 Premiere. Did I get it right? Thanks again.

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

By GTX600, I meant the current GeForce GTX series in general, so the GTX680, 670, 660, etc..

Premiere CS6 only uses one CUDA GPU. Doesn't matter if you have 10 of them installed, it's only going to use one.

Resolve/ Premiere will use your primary GPU as both GUI and CUDA. If you add a second GPU, Resolve will use it as CUDA and your GUI GPU as GUI only. So you don't really gain any benefits by adding that second GPU, just a very small performance bump since it's not also doing GUI tasks. You have to add a third GPU to actually see the performance benefit of two CUDA cards in Resolve!

Looking at this some more, I would recommend a couple options.

1> If you run Maya, SolidWorks or other application that needs high-end OpenGL features of a Quadro card, then get a K4000 or K5000 as your GUI / primary GPU. Use a GTX680 as your secondary GPU / Compute card in Resolve.

2> Start off with a single GTX680 and see how it goes. If you decide to add a second one, it's only going to boost your GPU performance in Resolve by another 5% or so because the GUI one becomes GUI only and the second card is GPU/CUDA only in Resolve. So what that really means is if one GPU isn't enough, you need to add two more to actually double up on GPU performance.

 

[Nicos Ambatzis]

2> Start off with a single GTX680 and see how it goes. If you decide to add a second one, it's only going to boost your GPU performance in Resolve by another 5% or so because the GUI one becomes GUI only and the second card is GPU/CUDA only in Resolve. So what that really means is if one GPU isn't enough, you need to add two more to actually double up on GPU performance.

Thank you again Jeff, you have been so helpful. I think I will follow your advise starting with one GTX 680 4gb and take the next as it goes. But, on the other hand I couldn't understand why in the building a Resolve for Win manual for the Supermicro 7047GR-TRF with 2 GPUs indicates a nVidia Quadro 600 (for 2D only) or a Quadro 4000 for GUI, plus 2 x nVidia GeForce GTX680 for CUDA GPU? giving also with a diagram the positions of the cards to be placed in the slots?

http://www.blackmagicdesign.com/media/4805318/Resolve_Win_Config_Guide_2012-08-30.pdf

My original thought was to use the Quadro 600 for displaying the OS and the two GTX 680 for the Resolve acceleration plus of course the Redrocket.
Where I got it wrong?

 

[Kevin Marshall]

Jeff - going along with Nicos' post, I find it interesting you would recommend getting 3x 680s for a resolve system, when one of those will simply be relegated to GUI. That seems like a waste of money/power when you could use something like a GT640 for GUI, and then one or two 680s (or 690s) for GPU processing. Or were you only recommending that as a solution for people using things such as Premiere, etc, that only use one GPU? Though now it looks like Premiere will have some support for multiple GPUs.

To chime in on OP's question about the Mac Pro - the people over at the liftgammagain forums seem to be having luck with GT640 for GUI and GTX680 for GPU being the best combo without supplemental power or PCIe expanders. Next notch down being a single GTX680.

 

[Nicos Ambatzis]

Thank you again Jeff, you have been so helpful. I think I will follow your advise starting with one GTX 680 4gb and take the next as it goes. But, on the other hand I couldn't understand why in the building a Resolve for Win manual for the Supermicro 7047GR-TRF with 2 GPUs indicates a nVidia Quadro 600 (for 2D only) or a Quadro 4000 for GUI, plus 2 x nVidia GeForce GTX680 for CUDA GPU? giving also with a diagram the positions of the cards to be placed in the slots?

http://www.blackmagicdesign.com/media/4805318/Resolve_Win_Config_Guide_2012-08-30.pdf

My original thought was to use the Quadro 600 for displaying the OS and the two GTX 680 for the Resolve acceleration plus of course the Redrocket.
Where I got it wrong?

Welcome back to the forum Jeff. Since you are back in, could you please be so kind to help me answering and clarify the above questions of mine? Thanks in advance

 

[Robert Ruffo New]

FOr Resolve you can use any old cheap card for the GUI. We have a Gt130 - no issues. Likeley on a Mac Pro even 12 core using 5K Epic material the bottleneck will lie elsewhere 80% of the time

 

[Timo Teravainen]

For Win7, my experience is that it matters quite a lot which GPU is used for GUI. I've tried several - GTX 285, GT 440, GTX 560ti - and by far the best performance has been with GTX 285. And there's a definite performance boost when using a dedicated GUI card especially when using the internal scopes.

BTW, just got a EVGA GTX 670 SC 4GB for CUDA processing to replace my old GTX 580 1,5GB, it's a bit faster and no more issues with "Running out of GPU memory"