Graphics Card for Lightroom and also CS2 and Maybe CS3

Hi. I am still using a PC I build about 3 years ago with a ASUS P4PE mother board. It has been very good but I am wondering if it is best to now change to a later PC or, upgrade.
I have used 1GB Ram and just got another IGB to install, but my real concern is with the Graphics Card. At present I have a Matrox Millenium G550 which as I recall has just 32MB Ram. At the time this was considered one of the best, if not the best card for 2D Images. However, I now see 256 and 512 Ram cards as norm, but they always refer to being cards for games. I never have and never will wish to play any games on a PC. So advice needed please, what is considered the best Graphics Card for Photoshop CS2 and now Lightroom?
Incidently my Processor is just a P4 2.66 this has served me well so far, but!! I maywell get another PC but for now I feel I just want to try the best upgrades I can.
This is my first post here and look forward to your answers and advice.
All the best, Ron dps.

The high-powered graphic processors being sold today are fantastic for games but offer zero improvement for digital photo editing. What you have is more than enough. Increasing your SDRAM to 2GB will help the most.
Dave Huss

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How to properly configure a graphics card for Adobe Premiere Pro, SpeedGrade, and After Effects?

Alright, so I have the following system configuration:
2 NVIDIA Geforce GTX 970s
5960X CPU
MSI X99 Gaming 7 Motherboard
32 GB DDR4 RAM
256 GB and 1TB Samsung 850 Pro SSDs
Basically, although I have the whole system built together, I'm unsure how to check and know whether or not Adobe Premiere Pro is actually using the graphics card or not. I know that it has to be using some of it, otherwise it wouldn't launch properly (as I discovered from a recent experience.) However, I don't know if there are, perhaps, certain settings within the NVIDIA control panel that should be configured so that Premiere Pro can use the card to its full potential. Here is an example of what I'm talking about:
In other words, these are (I'm pretty sure) all of the default settings that the control panel applies to Premiere Pro. However, I'm not sure if there are any settings in here that I need to change or not. So what I'm looking for in a response to this question:
What settings, if any, should I change for Premiere Pro (as well as other adobe applications that can utilize all the strength of the GTX 970)?
How can I check the GPU activity to know that it's being used during a render? (For example, I can check the CPU utilization with the Task Manager while I render to see that it's being utilized to 100%).
If, perhaps, something else goes wrong and even with the right settings, let's say the card still isn't being fully utilized, what other settings might I have to change to make sure that the GTX 970 is being fully used by Adobe Premiere Pro/After Effects/SpeedGrade CC 2014?

If you want a benchmark to measure the performance of Premiere Pro's utilization of your: disk system, GPU and CPU use our Premiere Pro BenchMark (PPBM)
When you finish running the test and then run the script, you will get this report
This happens to be the result of my laptop (with SSD drives and a GTX 765M GPU)
The disk performance is self explanatory.
Number 2 is a seven layer very complex timeline with heavy CPU and GPU assistance, without GPU hardware acceleration (CPU only) it would take greater than 1350 seconds.
Three above is a measure of a exaggerated timeline using many, many GPU MPE accelerated effects and features that will use a GPU at 99% load (54 seconds above) and a CPU only export of the same timeline (802 seconds).
If you want to compare your results to others you have to register on the PPBM7 site to see the results.
EDIT! I corrected the number in 2 above originally I said 900 seconds but really it was greater than 1350 seconds

Looking for a Good Newer or at least better Graphics Card For M58 ThinkCentre

I'm trying to find a graphics card for my M58 ThinkCentre. I know it needs to be low profile. but i need something that will fit into my Pc. I got one of the low profiles before and found out the fan was to big even with the case off i couldnt fit it. Can anyone help me with this? Giving me some Links or Ideas on what will be able to use for my pc? Im trying to at least get a 1 gb one so i am able to play my steam games that i have. All i need is the updated Graphics card for them. Also something in the range of $30 to $70. if not possible thats okay at least ill get a idea. Just very lost and spent many hours trying to figure it out with no luck!

Demonthi3455 wrote:
So this one? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150711
Unless you have a tower case this won't work. It's a full-size card. Your original post said you needed low-profile, and this is not such a card. I assume you have a SFF case if you wanted a low-profile card.
That's why I suggested the low-profile Sapphire R7-250, which is single-slot, low-profile, low-power, and still GDDR5 memory with a 72GB/s bandwidth. Also, the retail carton contains BOTH (a) full-size bracket if you want to use this low-profile card in a full-size case, and (b) low-profile bracket if you want to use this low-profile card in a SFF case. As I mentioned, there are three digital connectors: DVI, miniDP, and microHDMI, and the retail package also includes two adapters for those smaller connectors so you can use normal full-size DP and HDMI cables to connect to your monitor
The earlier posted link (by Toruk-Makto) to a 250e is broken, so I don't know what that card that's describing. But any low-profile R7-250e card I've found myself (e.g. this one from XFX) has two bad things going for it:
(1) it's memory is DDR3 instead of DDR5, which right away sets its bandwidth to about 1/3 that of the Sapphire R7-250. You want DDR5 memory if you can get it.
(2) it doesn't indicate that it comes with a low-profile bracket as well as a full-size bracket (as the Sapphire R7-250 does), so even though the card itself appears low-profile in size you won't be able to install it in a SFF case unless you have a low-profile bracket (as the Sapphire R7-250 does). Maybe it's just the writeup for the R7-250e which overlooked the second low-profile bracket also included, but the picture shown is with a full-size bracket.
Note: the full-size bracket on the XFX R7-250e supports full-size DP and full-size HDMI as well as DVI. The low-profile bracket on the Sapphire R7-250 supports mini-DP, micro-HDMI and DVI. The retail carton also includes two adapter cables so that you can connect full-size DP and full-size HDMI cables, connecting them to the adapters. Personally I would buy a separate straight-through cable with the proper desired connector at both ends, as I don't like adapters. So for example I use a miniDP->DVI cable (from Monoprice) in one of my machines that has this card and two monitors, to connect to a second monitor which only has DVI, as I was already using the DVI connector on the card to go to my first monitor which also only has DVI.

Will 3rd party graphics card for MacPro1.1?

Hello, all! ^^
I'm looking for a replacement graphics card for my MacPro 1.1 and now narrowing down to:
NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT or 8800 GT now.
I'm looking at used ones now and wondering if 3rd party cards with those chipset above will work or,
if it has to be exactly Nvidia Geforce cards.
Can anyone help, please?
Thanks! ^^

Upgrade OS X to Snow Leopard and replace the GPU with Apple's ATI 5770.
Upgrading to Snow Leopard
You can purchase Snow Leopard through the Apple Store: Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard - Apple Store (U.S.). The price is $19.99 plus tax. You will be sent physical media by mail after placing your order.
After you install Snow Leopard you will have to download and install the Mac OS X 10.6.8 Update Combo v1.1 to update Snow Leopard to 10.6.8 and give you access to the App Store. Access to the App Store enables you to download Mountain Lion if your computer meets the requirements.
     Snow Leopard General Requirements
       1. Mac computer with an Intel processor
       2. 1GB of memory
       3. 5GB of available disk space
       4. DVD drive for installation
       5. Some features require a compatible Internet service provider;
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       6. Some features require Apple’s iCloud services; fees and
           terms apply.
Upgrading to Lion
If your computer does not meet the requirements to install Mountain Lion, it may still meet the requirements to install Lion.
You can purchase Lion by contacting Customer Service: Contacting Apple for support and service - this includes international calling numbers. The cost is $19.99 (as it was before) plus tax. It's a download. You will get an email containing a redemption code that you then use at the Mac App Store to download Lion. Save a copy of that installer to your Downloads folder because the installer deletes itself at the end of the installation.
     Lion System Requirements
       1. Mac computer with an Intel Core 2 Duo, Core i3, Core i5, Core i7,
           or Xeon processor
       2. 2GB of memory
       3. OS X v10.6.6 or later (v10.6.8 recommended)
       4. 7GB of available space
       5. Some features require an Apple ID; terms apply.

Recommend compatible PSU and graphics card for P35D3?

Recommend compatible PSU and graphics card for P35D3?
This weekend I’ll be taking my rig to a PC repair shop and ask them to swap out my PSU and my graphics card.
Because I’ve RMA’d all the components (see signature) several members of different forums, and the tech support of the various components, seem to think that my boot problem is because of a compatibility issue with either my Ultra X3 600W PSU or my XFX 8600 GT and my P35D3.
I need to be ready to make decision, without having time to research, if the repair tech recommends a replacement.
Here’s my considerations:
I selected the Ultra because it's both modular and 85% efficient (it also has the required 8-pin cable to power the P35D3's CPU and it has SATA power cables.
I selected the XFX 8600 GT card because it is dual-link (2 DVI outs -- Dell 30” & Viewsonic 19”) and it has no fan, and is DX10 ready. I’m not attached to the idea of no fan. I’m a speed freak but not a gamer or an over clocker--I like the option of trying out games.
Both the Ultra and the XFX are somewhat medium priced.
If the repair tech discovers that other PSUs or graphic cards work then I might be able to get Ultra or XFX to accept a return. Neither company accepted my offer to pay extra to exchange mine for another better model.
Suggestions please.
Thank you,
Kerry

Thanks Boss,
Quote
Look here for good PSU suggestions:
https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=112039.msg836246#msg836246
About VGA any should work, you can see MSI Test Report for your board here:
http://global.msi.com.tw/index.php?func=prodtestreport&prod_no=1230&maincat_no=1&cat2_no=&cat3_no=#menu
lots of good info.
Wish me luck today (Thu), that the tech finds out my XFX or Ultra is not compatible.
Kerry

What's the best graphic card for FCP X and a Mac Pro (early) 2008?

I have a Radeon HD 3870 in my Mac Pro, it seems that I cannot use this configuration with Final Cut Pro X. Then what's the best graphic card for FCP X usable in a Mac Pro (early) 2008?
Thx,
Phil

You can get a 5770 radeon ATI MAC card
Avoid the 5770 cards on ebay and Amazon - many are black market or manipulated cards.
Buy it from Apple online store or B&H photo or Macconection
And in my case, I was able to sell my old 2600 XT card on ebay for $65 and put that money toward a 5770 card (Which was about $230 minus the $65)
I installed the 5770 in my early Mac Pro 2 x 2.8 and it works great

HT5621 I often use credit card for iTunes but also use iTunes but systems won't let me change back to my iTunes. I have redeemed and gives me a balance but I am unable to access.

I often use credit card for iTunes but also use iTunes but systems won't let me change back to my iTunes. I have redeemed and gives me a balance but I am unable to access.

If you can't find anything for exactly that amount then you can try contacting iTunes support and see if they will remove the balance for you : http://www.apple.com/support/itunes/contact/ - click on Contact iTunes Store Support on the right-hand side of the page

I have an early 2008 Mac Pro, 8 gb ram with a Dell 27" display and a 42" LG TV. I am thinking about upgrading the stock ATI Radeon 2600 graphics card for better resolution, preferring 2 dvi outputs. Does anyone have any suggestions on the best card?

I have an early 2008 Mac Pro, 8 gb ram with a Dell 27” display and a 42” LG TV. I am thinking about upgrading the stock ATI Radeon 2600 graphics card for better resolution, preferring 2 dvi outputs or 1 dvi and 1 vga vs 1 dvi and a mini. I don't do a lot of Final Cut Pro, gaming, etc. I am interested in best value for the graphics card.
Does anyone have any suggestions on the best graphics card for these larger displays for the best value?
Thanks,
Kevin

I recommend you install nothing older than the Apple-firware 5770, about US$250.
RE: Mac Pro Replacement Graphics cards
1) Apple brand cards,
2) "sold in the Apple store" cards, and
3) "Mac Edition" cards ...
... show all the screens, including Boot up screens, Safe Mode, Installer, Recovery, debug screens, and Alt/Option boot screens. At this writing, these choices include:
1) Apple brand cards:
• Apple-firmware 5770, about US$250** works near full speed in every model Mac Pro, Drivers in 10.6.5
• Apple-firmware 5870, about US$450
2) "sold in the Apple store" cards
• NVIDIA Quadro 4000, about US$1200
• NVIDIA Quadro 5000, about US$2500
3) "Mac Edition" cards -- REQUIRE 10.8.3 or later:
• SAPPHIRE HD 7950 3GB GDDR5 MAC Edition, about US$480** Vendor recommends Mac Pro 4,1
• EVGA GTX 680 Mac Edition, about US$600
The cards above require no more than the provided two 6-pin aux power connectors provided in the Mac Pro through 2012 model. Aux cables may not be provided for third-party cards, but are readily available.
If you are Meet ALL of these:
• running 10.8.3 or later AND
• don't care about "no boot screens" etc AND
• can re-wire or otherwise "work out" the power cabling, THEN:
You can use many more cards, even most "PC-only cards"

What is a recommended Graphics card for G4MDD running tiger and sometimes..

What is a recommended Graphics card for G4MDD running tiger and sometimes 9.2.2
I really need to have both in accelerated mode, looking at my stats I currently have 9000 PRO with 64mb ram... don't need it for games but high end graphics applications currently using Starta Pro 2.5.3 on 9.2.2 which for my current purposes is afficient

The 9600 runs like crap in OS 9.2.2 with any ATI software you can find because ATI never wrote OS 9 drivers for the 9600. OS 9 ATI software does not recognize the card. You get a basic 2D monitor output that is soft, dull, slightly off-color, and cannot be enhanced with the Monitor's Control Panel calibration utility.
If you spend any amount of time in OS 9.2.2 or you want to use OS 9.2.2 for any of your old games (even 2-D video clip type games), don't get the 9600.
I have a 9600 installed in my MDD G4 and now have an original Radeon for Mac PCI video card installed as well. When I want to use any of my OS 9 games, I move the DVI cable from my LCD monitor over to the old Radeon card and restart.

While opening pdf files the menu bar, navigation bar cracks unobviously and also close and minimise buttons goes hidden..Facing the problem for last one month. Please help.

while opening pdf files the menu bar, navigation bar cracks unobviously and also close and minimise buttons goes hidden..Facing the problem for last one month. Please help.

The latest Kaspersky software version is 15.0.1.415 or 15.0.1.415ab.

Best graphics card for the MAC Pro 4,1

I am using the 4870 card, but, is there a better graphics card for doing photography with Adobe CS5 Extended and Lightroom 3?
Thank you.

While recently discontinued, you can probably get your hands on an nVidia GTX 285 fairly easily. It's not only faster than your Radeon HD4870, it has double the video memory, and more importantly it's on the shortlist of cards that are support hardware acceleration of the Mercury Playback Engine in Adobe CS5. That's a HUGE feature, if you use Premiere or After Effects, it's probably worth the price of admission right there. I've got one in my machine, works wonders. Aside from a zippy system, lots of basic stuff that used to have to be rendered in order to preview no longer require it.
The nVidia Quadro FX 4800 is also a bigger/faster card, and provides even more powerful support for the Mercury Playback Engine in CS5, but it's also vastly more expensive. As I type this the price is $1799 at Apple, and $1399 most everywhere else (Apple store managers, if you're seeing this you might want to check for a price drop).
That's the current max, but it's possible that new graphics cards are right around the corner. In the spring nVidia introduced their next generation of GPU, there are a range of new GTX 4xx series cards on the mainstream line, and just last week new Quadro cards were launched for the high end. Adobe does not support either of them for CS5's Mercury Playback Engine hardware acceleration at this moment, but Adobe employees have said that it's coming in an update soon.
It's also likely that the ATI Radeon HD 5770 & Radeon HD 5870 will be released for the Mac. My understanding is that the 5770 performance is on par with your HD 4870, and the 5870 will blow it away. Both the new ATI cards also boast two mini displayport plugs as well as a DVI out. Neither card is likely going to get support for hardware acceleration in CS5 anytime soon (not really Adobe's fault, ATI are still in their infancy on the high performance/OpenCL front compared to nVidia).
My advice, if you need something now, chase down a GTX 285 and you won't be disappointed (especially in CS5). Otherwise, you may want to wait it out and jump on the next generation if/when it becomes available.
Hope that helps!

Best Graphics Card for Photo Editing

Hello All,
I am a professional photographer. I currently use Photoshop CS5 and Lightroom 4.1. I am in the process of having a new computer built just for editing my photography. The board will be an ASUS P9X79 with an intel Core i7-3820 and 16 GB memory. The technician building the computer would like a recommendation of the fastest and or best graphics card for editing still images.
All of my work is done in RAW from a 5D MII. 21 megapixel.
Processing speed has always been a bottleneck for me and Lightroom 4 has not helped.
Can anyone please recommend the best or fastest graphics card for this system?
Thank you, Jim

I would focus on your PS CS5 requirments. If you intend on using a wide gamut display at some point I'd give serious consideration to graphics card that will truly support 30 bit display data (10bit/color) in PS CS5/6.There are only a handful of graphics cards that actually support a 30 bit data path with PS CS5/6. Some links:
http://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/kb/photoshop-cs6-gpu-faq.html
http://www.amd.com/us/products/workstation/graphics/software/Pages/adobe-photoshop.aspx
http://www.nvidia.com/object/photoshop-cs6.html
http://forums.adobe.com/message/4487697
You may also want to read this concerning limitations of using a wide gamut display with non-color manged applications (i.e. browsers, MS Office, etc.):
http://www.gballard.net/photoshop/srgb_wide_gamut.html

HT4664 What is the best graphics card for FCPX?

In the nonstop anti-FCPX propaganda is an article of interest — posted 7/9/12 — comparing the benchmarks of FCPX and PP6.
http://www.streamingmedia.com/Producer/Articles/ReadArticle.aspx?ArticleID=83582 &PageNum=1
The system used was a 2 x 2.93 GHz Quad-Core Mac Pro from early 2009 running MacOS X version 10.7.4 with 12 GB of RAM and an NVIDIA Quadro FX 4800 graphics card with 1.5 GB of onboard RAM.
In most cases PP6 outperformed FCPX with this configuration. However, in the comments Ben Balser pointed out that FCP X's A/VFoundation engine wasn't ideal on the NVIDA card:
"Quadro is actually not the best card for FCP X's A/VFoundation engine, but great for CS6's Mercury engine, so the test is amazingly flawed right there. Try both on a 5780 card and watch things drastically change. I've done that test myself. Exporting to Compressor uses a MUCH more sophisticated encoding engine meant for higher level, professional transcoding, not simple outputs, which are faster using Export Media…"
Apple lists this card on its support page: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4664
So,
What is the best graphics card for FCPX?

Ben,
Thanks for chiming in on that article. It would be good to have a benchmark comparison with the two systems each with a preferred card.
I'm hoping to see some other comparisons on this thread. Also, some links to other articles about best practices and configurations.

Is nVidia Geforce GT640 good graphics card for PrE10 despite low memory bandwidth?

Can anybody confirm that the nVidia Geforce GT640 is a reasonable graphics card for Premiere Elements 10 and Photoshop Elements 10?
The person who assembled my Core i7 3770K desktop with 16Gb of RAM at 1600mHz installed the nVidia GT640 card with 2Gb of DDR3 memory. He said that this was a good (fairly low cost) card for video editing because it has 384 CUDA cores - very helpful in video editing. I am pretty ignorant about graphics cards, but like the low power usage, 65 watts, and reputed cool operating temperatures. I have since read that DDR5 memory would have been much faster because of greater memory bandwidth - say 80-90Gb per second compared with 28.5Gb per second for the DDR3 memory on the GT640 card. I was after economical power use. DDR5 cards use 110 watts upwards and run much hotter than DDR 3 cards, all other things being equal. The really fast cards require special power units and cooling.
Does anybody know whether limited memory bandwidth is important in video editing? Is speed much more critical in gaming than in video editing? Are other attributes such as 384 CUDA cores, nvenc syncing, dedicated encodment, 28nm Kepler architecture, 2Gb memory frame buffer, 1.3 billion transistors, plenty of texture units - more important than memory bandwidth in video editing? Does bandwidth limited by DDR3 memory affect quality of image?
I read that the GT640 would be much faster (producing better image quality?) than the HD4000 integrated Intel graphics of the Core i7 Ivy Bridge processor. Is this so?
Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit and all programs are installed on a 120Gb OCZ Agility 3 solid state drive. My data drive is a 1Tb Seagate SATA 3 at 7200 RPM. I have a beautiful 21 inch ASUS vs228n LED monitor and LG blu-ray burner.
I did lots of editing with PrE 3 with a Dell 3.06 gHz hyperthreading desktop and Win XP. The output and even the preview monitoring was clear and stable. I am still capturing standard definition mini dv tape by firewire from a 3MOS Panasonic handycam, but plan to upgrade to HD 3MOS with flash memory. I make the preview monitor really small - about 7cm wide - in PR10, because the quality of the preview picture is much poorer than the quality that I experienced with the Premiere Elements 3 program with Win XP. Is this just an indication of memory-saving in PrE 10 previews? I expect output to be much superior, although still mpeg2-DVD quality until I upgrade my camera. I have set rendering on maximum bitrate.
Anyway, despite these reservations with preview quality, the GT640 seems to be performing fine. Picture quality in Photoshop, online and elsewhere on my computer is excellent.
I updated the nVidia display driver only yesterday to version 306.23.
Nearly all graphics cards forums are about gaming. I hope to see more forums about graphics in editing here.
What do you think of the 2Gb nVidia GT640 for editing with PrE 10 and Photoshop Elements 10? What would you say about picture quality in the PrE 10 monitor versus quality of output? Was picture quality in the PrE 3 monitor sharper and more stable, as I imagine?
Regards, Phil

Sheltie,
Thank you for the kind words. We all work very hard to help others with video-editing. Some of us also show up on other Adobe forums, depending on the products that we use most often.
Besides helping out, I also find that I learn something new every day, even about programs that I have used for decades. Heck, I just learned something new about PrE vs PrPro (my main NLE program), when I went to try and help a user. I probably actually use PrE more to test my theories, or to replicate a user's problem, than I do to actually edit my videos. Still, when applicable, I do real work in the program.
With about a dozen "regulars" here, if one of us is not around, several more usually are. Personally, I do not understand how Steve Grisetti and John T. can dedicate so very much time here. Steve is a noted author of books on PrE, PSE, Sony DVD Architect, and others, plus helps run a video/photography Web site, Muvipix.com, that is very active, and has so very much to offer. John T. is always under the watchful eye of The JobJarQueen, and gets dragged, kicking and screaming, out into the yard, or up on his roof, so can be gone for a bit.
Neale usually beats us all, since he's in the UK, and normally answers all the questions, that come in too late for us to see. He is also a PrE power-user, so beats me hands down.
I travel a great deal, but no one ever misses me. Was supposed to do a trip to Sydney last Dec., but had to cancel. Have not gotten details on the reschedule of that trip, but it would have been my first jaunt south of the Equator. Gotta' make that happen.
Good luck, and happy editing,
Hunt

Graphics Card for Xserv G5

Please help!
Apple can't.....
We have a G5 Xserv, that we desparately need a Graphics Card for. Apple say they can't supply it (their most useful suggestion was to buy one of the new core-duo machines as they ship with a graphics card as standard!).
Xserv G5
2GHz PowerPC G5
2GB DDR400 ECC SDRAM - 2x1GB
1000GB ADM (2x500GB Serial ATA)
I believe we need a PCI-X card?
Any ideas where I can get one or what the alternatives are? It can be a very basic card - nothing hardcore required in terms of graphics performance. If it could only draw the desktop in black and white, it would do!
Thoughts?
Xserv G5/2Ghz G5 Mac OS X (10.4.8)

The Radeon 7000 PCI card is based on the same GPU that Apple once shipped as the BTO Xserve video option - ATI RV100 - so it is worth a try.
http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Hardware/DeveloperNotes/Servers/XserveG5/2Architecture/chapter_3_section7.html
Any basic ATI should be supported by the OS because ATI was Apple's default video provider for much of this time period.
Note that using a PCI video card will limit the speed of any PCI-X cards you also have installed, but that shouldn't effect your actual performance probably.
=Tod
G5/2.0x2, Dual XServes x2, XRAID, beige G3 501Mhz

Graphics Card for Lightroom and also CS2 and Maybe CS3

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