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GFX hardware for film editing

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  • 11-07-2010 3:48pm
    #1
    Xios
    Registered Users Posts: 2,073 ✭✭✭


    Hey guys, looking for some advice for a gfx card to help with editing film, and running sfx editing software such as Adobe After Effects, 3D studio max.
    It must be able to support the new adobe mercury engine which is a quite new technology.
    Been looking at the gtx 470/480 and the ati 5970/5850, in that sort of price range. I know those are gaming cards, but can they be used for this role of editing? All other hardware is up to date, 8gb of ddr3 ram, quad core 3.2ghz processor.
    This is for my brother who's starting up his digital fx company, he's running windows 7 and Adobe CS4 (gonna upgrade to CS5 when funds permit), right now he's using my gtx 275, which is alright, but it's still a huge pain in the ass cause he has to wait an hour to render a scene before he can check if he's done it right or not. (that's where the mercury engine comes in, but the hardware needs to keep up too)

    Please don't say "buy a mac" or i'll internet slap your ass.


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    #2
    marco_polo
    Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 10,079 Mod ✭✭✭✭marco_polo


    Gotta be the GT 470 / 480 in this case as Adobe Mercury Engine is built for NVIDIA CUDA parrell processing technology.

    http://www.brightsideofnews.com/news/2009/12/14/adobes-mercury-playback-engine-for-cs5-is-cuda-only!.aspx

    Were you a gamer I would reccommend the exact opposite.


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    #3
    Xios
    Registered Users Posts: 2,073 ✭✭✭Xios


    Alright thanks for the info and the article, i'm gonna build him the perfect machine on paper, see the cost of it, and then chip away at the non essential parts to make it realistic to purchase.

    Looked up the sys req. for the mercury engine.
    OS: needs to be 64 bit, so windows 7
    Proccessor: 64 bit, quad core, i5/i7
    Ram: Min 8gb, recommended 16gb.

    So in this dream machine, it has an i7 875k 2.93ghz.
    16gb ddr3, 4x4gb corsair dominator
    3x nVidia GTX 480's SLi crossfire
    Asus Extreme II x58 with crossfire support.
    and a 256gb SSD drive, for fast access to working files.

    I'm looking into overclocking the processor and gfx cards. But that'd need some serious cooling, was looking into liquid cooling, but i've no idea how that works as i've never looked into it. but maybe it's not something that's needed this early with those 3 gfx cards.


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    #4
    Xios
    Registered Users Posts: 2,073 ✭✭✭Xios


    doing a little research, i found this thread. It's saying that the gtx480 will be limited in rendering only 3 layers of effects at a time. I'm trying to find more info on it, but can't seem to find any so far.
    Would this be 3 layers per gpu or is it just 3 layers for the program. It seems like a ploy by nvidia to sell their quadro 4800's as they're prices are marked up by 3 times :(

    /edit : forgot the link, lol


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