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Need to Speed Up My Render Significantly!

Tags:
  • Graphics
  • Quad Core
  • RAM
  • Xeon
  • Nvidia
  • SSD
  • Speed
Last response: in Graphics & Displays
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August 8, 2013 9:35:56 PM

We need to render simple 6-minute videos with music. The calculations might
include speed ramps for smooth slowmo of video, ramps for lowering sound for
voice/interviews, fadouts on the songs included, crossfades between all the clips, and adjusted sound-level across tracks. They will mainly be rendered to .mp4, NTSC Wide, and 720p.

System:

3.6 GHz Quad-Core Xeon
16 GB RAM
300 GB SSD
NVIDIA NVS 510

Software:

Sony Vegas Pro 12 build 670

What part of our system would you upgrade? Graphics card? NVIDIA or AMD? Quadro, GTX, FirePro, Other?

More about : speed render significantly

August 8, 2013 9:48:25 PM

The graphics card, IMO. I would grab something like the 560TI. It should speed up render times SIGNIFICANTLY. Also, it can be obtained for cheap, compared to a Xeon.
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August 8, 2013 9:55:43 PM

expl0itfinder said:
The graphics card, IMO. I would grab something like the 560TI. It should speed up render times SIGNIFICANTLY. Also, it can be obtained for cheap, compared to a Xeon.


Nvidia Geforce cards are terrible at rendering. He needs a Workstation card, but I need a budget to recommend the right one.
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a b Î Nvidia
August 8, 2013 10:08:35 PM

downplay said:
We need to render simple 6-minute videos with music. The calculations might
include speed ramps for smooth slowmo of video, ramps for lowering sound for
voice/interviews, fadouts on the songs included, crossfades between all the clips, and adjusted sound-level across tracks. They will mainly be rendered to .mp4, NTSC Wide, and 720p.

System:

3.6 GHz Quad-Core Xeon
16 GB RAM
300 GB SSD
NVIDIA NVS 510

Software:

Sony Vegas Pro 12 build 670

What part of our system would you upgrade? Graphics card? NVIDIA or AMD? Quadro, GTX, FirePro, Other?


Sony Vegas Pro 12 has support for CUDA and OpenCL. You can use either an NVidia Quadro GPU, an AMD Radeon GPU, or an AMD FirePro GPU. I would avoid using NVidia GeForce GPUs because some of them have crippled compute capabilities.

The most cost effective solution would probably be a Radeon HD 7970, but you would have to look at some Sony Vegas Pro 12 benchmarks to be certain.

EDIT: http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/vegaspro/gpuacceler...

AMD has a pretty reasonable lead with an older card, I imagine that GCN cards will widen that lead while GK104/GK110 based desktop cards will fall short.
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August 8, 2013 10:12:09 PM

A FirePro is likely the best option but price is an issue and if he plans to use Adobe Software, it's a minor set back.
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August 9, 2013 7:19:24 AM


Thanks for the replies so far.

Money is not really a giant deal as it is for a business. I was looking at the Quadro K4000 which is not cheap
but I cannot tell that is is fastest for our purpose. I am doing simple 2D video rendering, not 3D models
etc.

I'm pretty sure our manager would spend for dual cards if they cost less than the K4000. Any good 2D cards
that are made to split the load?
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a b Î Nvidia
August 9, 2013 9:17:28 AM

downplay said:

Thanks for the replies so far.

Money is not really a giant deal as it is for a business. I was looking at the Quadro K4000 which is not cheap
but I cannot tell that is is fastest for our purpose. I am doing simple 2D video rendering, not 3D models
etc.

I'm pretty sure our manager would spend for dual cards if they cost less than the K4000. Any good 2D cards
that are made to split the load?


Not really. 2D only cards aren't manufactured anymore.
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August 9, 2013 9:36:38 AM

Ugh, please think outside of the box with me. I'm not saying I need a 2D card, I'm saying that 2D rendering is all I'm asking of the card and that is what I need it to be good at.

And, there seems to be some confusion in the industry about how the term render is used. What I mean is what happens
when I ask Vegas to encode a file, when I ask it to "Render as..." a video file.
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a b Î Nvidia
August 9, 2013 9:44:31 AM

downplay said:
Ugh, please think outside of the box with me. I'm not saying I need a 2D card, I'm saying that 2D rendering is all I'm asking of the card and that is what I need it to be good at.

And, there seems to be some confusion in the industry about how the term render is used. What I mean is what happens
when I ask Vegas to encode a file, when I ask it to "Render as..." a video file.


Right, encoding a video then. That's what I thought that you were doing which is why I linked to the GPU acceleration page above

http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/vegaspro/gpuacceler...

The hardware components used to encode a video to h264 or any other coding scheme which can be accelerated using a GPU are the same components used to draw 3D scenes and play games. Both AMD and NVidia use only a small handful of different chips to create all of their different product lines. The top end FirePro and top end Radeon cards differ only in testing and firmware.

The AMD HD 6000 series graphics cards are old news now, but you can see that they still have a 3-4 fold increase over what I presume is straight software rendering. With a 7970 I'd expect upwards of 6x. A 7970 can be had for only a few hundred dollars. Well under the price of a K4000 anyway. If you are using other professional tools from Adobe though I'd go with a FirePro/Quadro card though because they can be picky about drivers.
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August 9, 2013 1:11:09 PM

This will definitely do the job http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168... or http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

Either one will meet your requirements, they are both the best performance to dollar cards. I think Toms even recommended them. You will be guaranteed tons of support for drivers. My uncle works for a private studio and has used both cards for 2k video. They're pretty decent and for 720p video, they'll be excellent. Either one will work really, and I'd anticipate your light renders to be under 10 minutes and heavy ones under 20.

Hope it helps, if you need anything more, please ask. Cheers.
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August 9, 2013 5:40:14 PM

That is great guys. I have discovered a little insight myself that may help someone in the future. I turned off GPU acceleration with the NVS 510 today. It was on by default in Vegas. My render times improved by over 58%! I may
not even need a new graphics card if we can still edit reasonably while rendering. Good thing we hooked up liquid
cooling for the Xeon :) 
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August 9, 2013 8:13:39 PM

downplay said:
That is great guys. I have discovered a little insight myself that may help someone in the future. I turned off GPU acceleration with the NVS 510 today. It was on by default in Vegas. My render times improved by over 58%! I may
not even need a new graphics card if we can still edit reasonably while rendering. Good thing we hooked up liquid
cooling for the Xeon :) 


Hope that works, if not also consider a k2000 which is only about 350 to 400 dollars.
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