nVidia or AMD for Photoshop & Lightroom work

flaminllama · Jun 25, 2013

Hi,

I'm building a new Haswell system in the next 2 weeks.

http://pcpartpicker.com/user/flaminllama/saved/1Pzp

I can't decide which graphics card to get. I play games maybe once or twice a year, so high FPS in games is not important.

However, I do need something powerful enough to run 3 monitors (2560x1600, 1920x1080 and 1920x1080). Also, whichever card will improve performance in Adobe Premiere pro, Photoshop cs6 and Lightroom 5.

I'm leaning towards a 2GB GTX 660 ti for now.

Any advice?

RaisingTheBarHD · Jun 25, 2013

Get a AMD 7950 for photoshop, amd has been making OpenCl which amd had been using for longer than Nvidia, photoshop mostly relies on a cpu but some factors do use the Gpu

DarkSable · Jun 25, 2013

Nvidia, but a 660ti is going to be a waste of money. Running three monitors is extremely easy if you aren't gaming on them.

I know that lightroom for sure, and I believe both Adobe Premiere and Photoshop, take advantage of CUDA cores, which means you want an nvidia card. The highest I would possibly consider is the new 760, which will be more powerful than the 660ti and cheaper. That being said, you don't even need that - a 650ti would be your best bet.

RaisingTheBarHD · Jun 25, 2013

"Starting with Adobe Photoshop CS6, there is a new Mercury Graphics Engine (MGE) that will use your video card's GPU to improve Photoshop's performance. This new Mercury Graphics Engine will provide near-instant results when working with certain key tools, such as Lighting Effects, Liquify, etc.

The best thing about the Mercury Graphics Engine is, it uses both OpenGL and OpenCL. Which means, you do NOT need a CUDA enabled video card from NVidia.

Let me repeat that, Photoshop CS6 itself, does not use CUDA, it uses OpenGL and OpenCL for GPU acceleration. So there are no hacks, mods, etc. to get your video card to work. All you need to do is setup PhotoShop CS6 to your your video card."

DarkSable · Jun 25, 2013

^+1, good to know.

That being said, lightroom still does, and there's absolutely no need to buy a $300 card of either brand when a $150 card will do fine.

flaminllama · Jun 25, 2013

So basically, Photoshop does NOT take advantage of CUDA cores that nVidia provides, but does use OpenCL/GL.

Lightroom, on the other hand, does take advantage of the CUDA cores.

80% of my work is accomplished in Lightroom, and that's honestly what's slowing me down right now (i7-920 system with a Radeon HD4800 series card).

I think I'll go with NVidia if it can improve my lightroom performance.

Appreciate the advice and cost savings!

Madn3ss795 · Jun 25, 2013

The formula of Lightroom : cpu with high single core performance. GPU does almost nothing expect in some mods from users.
Photoshop: same as Lightroom on the CPU part, but the GPU can have its OpenCL/GL used.

Conclusion : Intel CPU ( unlocked one, if available ) and AMD graphic card is the way to go. My advice? Get a HD7970ghz edition and blast out all those nvidia cards.

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nVidia or AMD for Photoshop & Lightroom work

flaminllama

Honorable

RaisingTheBarHD

Honorable

DarkSable

Judicious

RaisingTheBarHD

Honorable

DarkSable

Judicious

flaminllama

Honorable

Madn3ss795

Dignified

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