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Time to start the planning for a new workstation.  PC-based, Windows OS, probably 3 monitors, web development, graphics (Affinity Ph, Des, Pub; Elementor Pro, some video production).  Looking for input from anyone who has experience with current graphics cards/accelerators.  Good, bad, benefits, limitations, monitors partnered with, insights; anything you think relative.

Thanks in advance.

RickyO
APhADe and APu user
New User as of Mar, 2018
(Still stumbling along given too many directions at any given moment)
Windows10 platform

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7 hours ago, Catshill said:

Thanks but again described as a “Gaming card”.

The majority of gaming cards are quite performant for creative workflows. Unless you need the double precision performance of a workstation card (and 10-bit output, although I understand nVidia's Studio Drivers unlock this capability for consumer cards now) you should find any mid-to-high end gaming card is a great addition to your setup.

I run an nVidia 2070 Super on my Windows setup and it's great, can't complain about OpenCL performance in Affinity Photo at all. It lets me work with 32-bit precision documents in real time, applying several live filters with no real dip in performance. Optix support in blender for accelerated ray tracing is also pretty awesome! The main reason I got it however was for its hardware video encoding. The RTX architecture received a real upgrade to the quality/efficiency of its hardware encoding—it's on par with the Medium preset of x264 except it can realtime encode 4K 60fps, which is impressive.

AMD's Navi cards are also pretty good, but unfortunately there's a driver issue that means kernel compilation currently takes a huge amount of time in the Affinity apps. Hopefully AMD will address that soon, because once you get past that initial roadblock the actual OpenCL performance is really good. I've tested with a 5700XT and it's not that far off the 2070 Super.

If you're incorporating video editing and encoding into your workflow I would probably lean towards nVidia. They just seem to have a stronger focus on video encoding/decoding tech—the enhancements of the RTX line are present and equal on all models, so you could get the same benefits from a 2060 as you would a more expensive 2080Ti for example. Same goes for the RTX 3000 models.

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1 hour ago, Hilltop said:

Interesting article, but is it relevant?  For video, the main advantage of a powerful graphics card seems to be improved rendering times as a result of massively parallel processing - AP, from what I've read, is more concerned with VRAM.  I'd assume that VRAM, CUDA cores and clock speed are all useful, but are there any guidelines coming out of the posted benchmark data?

AP, AD & APub user, running Win10

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7 hours ago, James Ritson said:

The majority of gaming cards are quite performant for creative workflows. Unless you need the double precision performance of a workstation card (and 10-bit output, although I understand nVidia's Studio Drivers unlock this capability for consumer cards now) you should find any mid-to-high end gaming card is a great addition to your setup.

I run an nVidia 2070 Super on my Windows setup and it's great, can't complain about OpenCL performance in Affinity Photo at all. It lets me work with 32-bit precision documents in real time, applying several live filters with no real dip in performance. Optix support in blender for accelerated ray tracing is also pretty awesome! The main reason I got it however was for its hardware video encoding. The RTX architecture received a real upgrade to the quality/efficiency of its hardware encoding—it's on par with the Medium preset of x264 except it can realtime encode 4K 60fps, which is impressive.

AMD's Navi cards are also pretty good, but unfortunately there's a driver issue that means kernel compilation currently takes a huge amount of time in the Affinity apps. Hopefully AMD will address that soon, because once you get past that initial roadblock the actual OpenCL performance is really good. I've tested with a 5700XT and it's not that far off the 2070 Super.

If you're incorporating video editing and encoding into your workflow I would probably lean towards nVidia. They just seem to have a stronger focus on video encoding/decoding tech—the enhancements of the RTX line are present and equal on all models, so you could get the same benefits from a 2060 as you would a more expensive 2080Ti for example. Same goes for the RTX 3000 models.

If I might:  (a) Can you share what monitor(s) you are using with it; and (b), What are you using for color correction, either in the system or at the monitor(s)?

Thanks.

RickyO
APhADe and APu user
New User as of Mar, 2018
(Still stumbling along given too many directions at any given moment)
Windows10 platform

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7 hours ago, Hilltop said:

Look at the OP's multiple graphics processing needs. A compromise between processing speed and accuracy will have to be made. 

I did find this article interesting:  https://www.cnet.com/news/best-graphics-card-for-gamers-and-creatives/

(I know.  It includes gamers as well.  But we all should admit, there are far more gamer butts in chairs than creatives....)

 

RickyO
APhADe and APu user
New User as of Mar, 2018
(Still stumbling along given too many directions at any given moment)
Windows10 platform

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I have worked with video production for 15+ years, where the GPU has been the main component I've upgraded for the majority of this time, as I've worked mainly with Davinci Resolve.

Any modern (gaming) graphics card will do the job for you. There is absolutely no need to burn your money on a Quadro. As everyone has pointed out, get a decent 'gaming' graphics card, and you're good to go.

The only reason to go for Quadro is;

  • you really need it. If you don't know if you need it, you most likely don't.
  • you have too much money to spend.
  • it will make you feel cool.

Joke aside; RTX 2070, 2080, 2080 Ti, 3060, 3080, 3090 are all excellent for what they do. The RTX 3000-series will be very hard to come by these days though, especially for a price that makes them worth it.

It's true, the more powerful card is usually faster when it comes to video production. There are other pitfalls though (storage speed and CPU speed especially) to take into consideration too. The 3090 won't necessarily spit out frames faster if the storage speed is slow.

Is a Quadro faster? Depends on the model. For the price of one of the cheapest Quadro (which still is on par with the performance of at least RTX 2080), you could probably get two, if not more, RTX 2080 cards... Just saying; spend your money wisely.. 

 

Re 10-bit output (if that's a crucial thing for you), you could do 10-bit output already on GTX 1080. RTX-series is no different. You need a 10-bit display of course.
As for video output to a dedicated video monitor, if you have one, that's a whole different thing; don't go through the GPU for that if you are working with color critical content. You want a clean signal out to monitor so you see the true image, not processed or compressed through the GPU output.
Depending on the software you use, you may have to decide between AJA or Blackmagic Design. Since I'm using Davinci Resolve, Blackmagic Design's own hardware is what counts.

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17 hours ago, Hilltop said:

Look at the OP's multiple graphics processing needs. A compromise between processing speed and accuracy will have to be made. 

Good point!  I was focussed on the Affinity requirements.

AP, AD & APub user, running Win10

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3 hours ago, Catshill said:

Useful advice, thanks. In my case however perhaps a (perfectly functional) i5 2500K processor is pushing it. Or maybe not.

That's definitely a bottleneck nowadays—I was previously using an i7 3930K and I put off upgrading for years believing that I wouldn't see a worthy increase in CPU performance. Finally moved to a 10850K and it became clear just how much the old CPU was holding my system back! GPU benchmark score in Photo went from around 4000 to 10,000—and everything else was notably snappier and quicker of course, including gaming. A new GPU can improve an old system, but ideally you would want to pair it with a modern setup that can drive it efficiently.

 

17 hours ago, IanSG said:

Interesting article, but is it relevant?  For video, the main advantage of a powerful graphics card seems to be improved rendering times as a result of massively parallel processing - AP, from what I've read, is more concerned with VRAM.  I'd assume that VRAM, CUDA cores and clock speed are all useful, but are there any guidelines coming out of the posted benchmark data?

VRAM requirement is dependent on your workflow and setup—screen resolution, document pixel resolution, number of pixel/image layers, bit depth etc. If you really push the envelope editing on a 4K screen with huge resolution documents for example it's better to have a minimum of 4GB, with 8GB giving plenty of headroom for multi-layer 32-bit work. It's clear from the benchmark scores (and real world usage) that the Affinity apps benefit from more powerful GPUs: they can deliver smoother performance especially with live filters, and can also result in quicker compositing times, especially for exporting/merging layers.

10 hours ago, RickyO said:

If I might:  (a) Can you share what monitor(s) you are using with it; and (b), What are you using for color correction, either in the system or at the monitor(s)?

Thanks.

An Acer XV273K 4K display for colour critical work (shared between Mac and Windows setups), and I have an Asus 280Hz gaming monitor for general use/gaming which feels incredibly smooth! I use an i1 Display Pro with displayCal (Argyll CMS) for calibration and profiling. I'm quite precious about colour accuracy so the Acer monitor was a nice surprise—I check every couple of months or so but it hasn't drifted at all yet.

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I REALLY DO APPRECIATE all the aforementionments!

So, to build a new workstation for graphic (and video) production from ground up, with priorities of color accuracy (on scale of 1 - 10, 10 being the best) rating of => 7 - 8, composition accuracy (=>8 rating), acceptable speed across the entire system; would like to hear your suggestions.

CPU:  (model, speed, whether any additional cooling is required)

Memory:  (model, amount, characteristics)

Motherboard:  (mfgr, model)

Graphics card(s):  (mfgr, model, how many needed with multiple monitors)

Monitor(s):  (mfgr, model, size, inputs required)

Any other equipment beyond the workstation.

Best coffee: 

RickyO
APhADe and APu user
New User as of Mar, 2018
(Still stumbling along given too many directions at any given moment)
Windows10 platform

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5 hours ago, BofG said:

One thing to bear in mind, fast graphics cards mean more heat, which means more fan noise. If you value pace and quiet there are fanless options available, Palit do some good options with older generation Nvidia cards.

True, to a degree.. It depends on a lot of factors; cooling and airflow in your case, and what cooling solution the card has.
I have a Asus TUF RTX 3090, it is more quiet and about 15+ degrees cooler than my Gigabyte RTX 2080 Ti. It was a positive surprise to me. The 3090 is Noctua kind of quiet most of the time. Only in very extreme cases have I barely heard the fans ramp up to an audible level, yet far from annoying. The 2080 Ti on the other hand sounds like a jet is taking off.

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6 hours ago, BofG said:

One thing to bear in mind, fast graphics cards mean more heat, which means more fan noise. If you value pace and quiet there are fanless options available, Palit do some good options with older generation Nvidia cards.

Not necessarily—single blower fan cards can be quite noisy but there are various designs that are cool and quiet even with higher end models. On my 2070 Super the fans are actually off most of the time (it’s a triple fan intake design). It takes strenuous activity like gaming to actually activate them—using Photo, video editing and even rendering in blender doesn’t tend to spin them up very often.

I would tend to avoid older generation cards just for the sake of noise or heat—they’re more likely to use less efficient and older architecture so you might find it’s the opposite...

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@JamesR_Affinity for tutorial sneak peeks and more
Official Affinity Photo tutorials

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3 minutes ago, BofG said:

Good to know the newer cards have improved in their noise output. I'm probably odd in how much those little noises get to me.

Not at all, there’s nothing better than a quiet workstation! I had a 5700XT with single fan blower design and it frankly drove me barmy. Same with the latest MacBook Pro models that have Navi GPUs—fans that take off if you dare to do anything remotely taxing. I ended up disabling turbo boost on the CPU and taking a performance hit just so the fans weren’t so obnoxiously loud. It becomes a big issue if you’re trying to record audio as well.

Using a Mac Mini M1 now and I can’t recommend it enough! The thing is basically silent and I’ve never heard the fan at all. In most situations it’s basically as fast as a MPB four times the price..

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It's always also a matter of casing housing volume size and used cooling technology for more powerful components, which when stress tested for longer periods do correspondigly heat up. Of course a right software coordination and adjustment (heat sensoric and fans control) also plays a major role in this regard, for a halfway correct cooling control. Microelectronics and the laws of physics also impose limits here.

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I just had a new computer built with the idea to use as must of Affinity Photos capability as reasonable.  The result was:

Graphics Card: Nvidia Quadro P2200

Processor:  i7-10700, 8 cores, 16 threads, Base Clock 2.9 GHz

Main Drive:  Pioneer 1 Tb M.2 NVMe SSD

Memory:  Patriot 3000 series, 32 GB DDR4

Motherboard:  Asus Tuff Gaming Z490

Power Supply and Box:  Thermaltake PSU, 600 W, One Clear side, 3 extra fans in front

All of this was under $1900 and included Windows 10 Pro.

Hope this helps

David

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16 hours ago, PhotoCat said:

I just had a new computer built with the idea to use as must of Affinity Photos capability as reasonable.  The result was:

Graphics Card: Nvidia Quadro P2200

Processor:  i7-10700, 8 cores, 16 threads, Base Clock 2.9 GHz

Main Drive:  Pioneer 1 Tb M.2 NVMe SSD

Memory:  Patriot 3000 series, 32 GB DDR4

Motherboard:  Asus Tuff Gaming Z490

Power Supply and Box:  Thermaltake PSU, 600 W, One Clear side, 3 extra fans in front

All of this was under $1900 and included Windows 10 Pro.

Hope this helps

David

Thank you for sharing!

Any reasons you went with the intel CPU instead of the AMD?

 

RickyO
APhADe and APu user
New User as of Mar, 2018
(Still stumbling along given too many directions at any given moment)
Windows10 platform

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