Graphics cards for Premiere

Tyson Persall · May 13th, 2009, 11:54 AM

I am wondering, Whats better for Adobe Premiere CS4 - Im only looking at Geforce cards;
9800GT 1GB ( or ) 9800GTX+ 512mb
The 9800GT has 1GB memory but GTX is supposedly the "faster or better performance" card.

Of course I ALWAYS WONDER how much any of these factors matter as far as Video editing playback is concerned. I mean, these are primarily gaming cards but were only video editing here, so i wonder, am i wasting money on memory i wont use? - Or money wasted on performance that doesn't factor in for video editing work?

Harm Millaard · May 13th, 2009, 03:27 PM

For video editing is makes no discernable difference in performance, but....

Are you on a 32 bit OS? In that case it may make more sense to go for 512 variant, because the memory of the graphics cars is shared with the allowable memory of the OS. If you have 4 GB RAM, the amount available is usually around 3.3 GB, because the video memory is reserved by the OS, apart from other housekeeping tasks of the OS. If you go for bigger video memory space, it takes more memory away from the OS, at least AFAIK.

If you are using 64 bit OS this is not the case, at least not visibly. Don't know about the internals however.

My gut feeling is to choose the GTX with 512 MB. More than enough video memory for video editing, marginally higher performance and a lower impact on available RAM.

Somebody please correct me if I misunderstood these issues.

Graham Hickling · May 13th, 2009, 10:03 PM

Some useful plugins for premiere (e.g. Colorista, Magic Bullet Looks) make heavy use of the graphics card, so the answer may depend on whether or not you might be wanting to use any of those at some point?

Jiri Fiala · May 16th, 2009, 04:57 PM

Go for faster card, editing and FX or compositing apps wont make proper use of 1 GB RAM unless you work in extreme resolutions (think 4k).

May 13th, 2009, 11:54 AM	#1
Tyson Persall Major Player Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: North Hollywood, Atlanta Posts: 437	Graphics cards for Premiere - what really matters?? I am wondering, Whats better for Adobe Premiere CS4 - Im only looking at Geforce cards; 9800GT 1GB ( or ) 9800GTX+ 512mb The 9800GT has 1GB memory but GTX is supposedly the "faster or better performance" card. Of course I ALWAYS WONDER how much any of these factors matter as far as Video editing playback is concerned. I mean, these are primarily gaming cards but were only video editing here, so i wonder, am i wasting money on memory i wont use? - Or money wasted on performance that doesn't factor in for video editing work? __________________ Tyson X

May 13th, 2009, 03:27 PM	#2
Harm Millaard Trustee Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: Rotterdam, Netherlands Posts: 1,832	For video editing is makes no discernable difference in performance, but.... Are you on a 32 bit OS? In that case it may make more sense to go for 512 variant, because the memory of the graphics cars is shared with the allowable memory of the OS. If you have 4 GB RAM, the amount available is usually around 3.3 GB, because the video memory is reserved by the OS, apart from other housekeeping tasks of the OS. If you go for bigger video memory space, it takes more memory away from the OS, at least AFAIK. If you are using 64 bit OS this is not the case, at least not visibly. Don't know about the internals however. My gut feeling is to choose the GTX with 512 MB. More than enough video memory for video editing, marginally higher performance and a lower impact on available RAM. Somebody please correct me if I misunderstood these issues.

May 13th, 2009, 10:03 PM	#3
Graham Hickling Trustee Join Date: May 2004 Location: Knoxville, Tennessee Posts: 1,669	Some useful plugins for premiere (e.g. Colorista, Magic Bullet Looks) make heavy use of the graphics card, so the answer may depend on whether or not you might be wanting to use any of those at some point?

May 16th, 2009, 04:57 PM	#4
Jiri Fiala Major Player Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: Brno Czech Republic Posts: 453	Go for faster card, editing and FX or compositing apps wont make proper use of 1 GB RAM unless you work in extreme resolutions (think 4k).