Gpu info ?

Question

Asked these questions in the PS forum and got no replies , think I might do better here . I need to purchase a new GPU for a new Asus PA279Q monltor. I can't see not taking advantage of it's 30 bit ability . I want a card that will not be a bottleneck ln PS CC .
Gpu's that do 30 bit in PS CC ? Are the mid-range cards better than the lower end cards for PS CC ? My old card is a Geforce GTX 260 with the latest drivers , I do no gaming , PS CC seems to work fine what little I have played with it . Am I correct in thinking that only Quadro or FirePro cards do 30 bit in PS CC ? How much does the amount of memory in the card play in performance ? Why do these cards cost so much compared to much better performing gaming cards ? Can LR 5 do 30 bit ?  Thanks !!

Answer 1

JEShort01 wrote:
Grousehunter,
Wow, you've asked a lot of questions here. Let me try to help with what I can, and then I will plead ignorant on the rest.
Regarding 30-bit color, both ATI FirePro and nVidia Quadro offer this feature. I would not suggest going less expensive than either of those product lines offerings than their cards with GDDR5 memory. Years ago I actually upgraded to a GTX 260 just to get 2D memory speed to speed up the culling photo step for shoots where I had 500 or more phots to go through. Without pouring over specs., I would expect that today's GDDR5 offerings would be plenty fast, whereas the lower price point DDR3 cards may not even be as fast with memory bandwidth as your older but gamer's series GTX 260.
So, this would be putting you into the $350 and up video card catagory just to get the additional "bits". Regarding your question do other cards offer 30-bit, I would say probably not, but even if there were you should stick with one of the major two due to driver quality.
Why are the "workstation" cards so much more expensive than gamer's cards? There are many theories on the www: marketing, supply and demand, needless markup, etc. My belief is supply and demand -- they sell so many less of the workstation cards that they have to charge more for those models. Regarding bang-for-the-buck, clearly the gamer's cards provide much more, but no they do not have EVERY feature of the workstation models.
Finally, does LR5 support 30-bit color, I don't know for sure, but I would suspect that it does. The 30-bit compatibility link seems to be between the Operating System, the drivers, the GPU hardware, and the monitor.
Regards,
Jim
Thank You. I would not even consider other cards . I just don't want to wind up with a card that is a bottleneck in the editing of 24-36 mega-pixel files . In these earliest stages of research AMD's FirePro v7900 is looking good . Someone here might be able to comfirm if this is a good choice . I found one source that said LR5 did 30 bit in develope mode only , that would work just fine for me .