Video editing: r9 290 vs 770 4gb

jamn805

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I use adobe premiere pro cs6 and after effects cs6

Which graphics card would be better in terms of video editing? I know Nvidia advertises CUDA cores but does AMD have something with the 290?

I am debating between the R9 290 or a gtx 770 4gb. If I go with r9 290 I will wait for non-reference coolers.
Need your guy's help. And yes I game.
I currently have the gtx 560ti and it does decent with video editing. But it stutters with bf4 on high.
Thanks!
 
Solution
Well, this is a rather late reply... However, if you had bothered to read the entire thread, you would notice that I mentioned that Adobe programs are using OpenCL in (what was) the latest version of CS7 for Premiere Pro...

If someone (OP) is debating about a R9 290 or a GTX 770, then it is logical to presume that they may not be using the latest and greatest versions of Adobe since it seems price is a concern. I'll go a step further and state the...

Prithwi2050

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Undoubtedly the R9 290 is the better option to go with. It's a much better card overall and with aftermarket cooling solutions it's gonna be way better as pointed out in Toms Hardware articles.
 

fuseplays

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The R9 290 will be better and here's why. Adobe apps are becoming more and more dependent on OpenGL in terms of getting using the absolute raw power of the GPU and getting the faster render speeds. CUDA still has the edge over OpenGL in terms of certain effects and settings within the applications but that list is getting shorter and shorter everyday as Adobe puts its efforts in providing a seamless process for AMD cards. OpenGL is significantly faster than CUDA as well. hence why big names like Adobe are putting so much effort in providing across all there applications and not just for professional FirePro cards (plus these cards are less of getting support from Adobe but more along the lines of it having its architecture and drivers being coded for it).

r9 2290. for video editing it wont matter, cpu and HDD speed matter with video editing.

I'm just going to go ahead and so no. Modern apps are being coded more often to rely on the GPU or coprocessor to handle heavy processes like editing large files like uncompressed footage and active renders in the background. CPU come in handy when you are working with multiple sources at once. Memory speed and size is much more important. A lot of processional workstations are still using generic quadcore chips because they are just right for the job. Hexacores come in handy with 3 rendering and having to switch back and forth from Premier and After Effects constantly or just have them both open at the same time. And by the looks of it, if you were planning on getting something past a quadcore and doing any sort of 3d work I'd recommend the FX 8320 and just overclock it. I say this because it looks like you are tight on a budget for high-end workstation and plan on playing games as well. 8 physical cores with 8 threads (FX 83xx) always beats 4 physical cores with 8 threads (Intel 2-4xxx). HDD speed does matter because of the active scratch disk in Premiere Pro and After Effects (speed as in RPM, SSD are terrible for this and constantly writing to an SSD is a terrible idea).

Now for gaming the R9 290 is better as well. Price/Performance ratio is off the charts, AMD shot a .50 from 3000m and hit the needle right on the tip with this one. You could by it now and get a aftermarket cooler or wait for something like the DCUII R9 290.
 

heatshiver

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Contrary to everyone's answer, I'd have to say GTX 770. Why? PREMIERE PRO ENABLES MPE (MERCURY PLAYBACK ENGINE) WITH A CARD THAT USES CUDA.

MPE allows specific effects to be added to clips without the need to render in order to preview.

You can use OpenCL cards in CS6, but you need to use a "hacK", which seems to be hit-or-miss according to some sources. Support for R9 290 was just added in Premiere Pro CC 7.2.1. In CS6, there are 3 blur effects that MPE isn't covered in OpenCL cards that is in CUDA...

If you use After Effects a lot, it can help when outputting as you can nest your AE project into your PP sequence and use MPE (check use previews).

With just a CPU for MPE I couldn't notice a significant difference with the effects I was using. So I tested by having the "Previews" option in the output window checked and watched how much time it took to output the same video with MPE enabled and disabled. The CPU was anywhere between 1/3-2/3 slower than when MPE was enabled. I did about 4 passes, deleting any present previews each time.

A multi-core unit may make a difference for 3DSMax , I don't recall it being a huge issue when I used it, but I wasn't paying attention either. However, After Effects is a RAM hog! The more RAM the the longer you can preview in better quality, which can make all the difference. If you are dealing with an IDE HDD, then scratch disks may become an issue. Buy two identical IDE HDD's and do a software RAID to fix that. If you have a SATA disk it shouldn't be an issue, but if it is the same trick applies. I don't use my SSD as a scratch disk, but Hybrids would likely run fine.

@jamn805 - If you have already bought your hardware, sorry for the late reply. And if you are in the 805 area code, check out sbfilmmakers.com for a community of filmmakers close to you.

If we were talking just speed, then the R9 290 would take the cake. It will definitely be better for some games in terms of FPS, but I find my 680 runs fine for most games (including Crysis 3). You could get higher resolutions with the 290 as well, but I doubt most will need it for that. I would likely recommend the 290 over the 770 if you were using Premiere CC 2.7.1, but if you are on CS6 the 770 would be a better bet in terms of working. (I have yet to see an article or post about the 290 in CS6, good or bad.) The 770 will also be a lot CHEAPER, save you a bit of power, and in the tests I saw you should get only around 10-15FPS less on games.
 

alenko

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I just saw first few lines, but oh well mate, somone above you already mentioned that Adobe Programs are using OpenCL in latest version that is CS7(CC), so this doesnt make MPE better, this it where it comes OpenCL and support of AMD Card just to let you know.
 

heatshiver

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Well, this is a rather late reply... However, if you had bothered to read the entire thread, you would notice that I mentioned that Adobe programs are using OpenCL in (what was) the latest version of CS7 for Premiere Pro...

If someone (OP) is debating about a R9 290 or a GTX 770, then it is logical to presume that they may not be using the latest and greatest versions of Adobe since it seems price is a concern. I'll go a step further and state the obvious, the OP even posted that he is using CS6...

If you know anything about PP and MPE, then you would already know that MPE will ALWAYS be better than not having it. I know this because I have used Premiere in every variation since 5.0, non-CS.

I can only assume you don't actually know what MPE is, as it is (now) both for NVIDIA and AMD cards. To be a bit more specific, yes, MPE enabled by graphics hardware is ALWAYS better than MPE enabled by just software (CPU).

If it were solely for video games, I would obviously have chosen the R9 290. I hope that clears up any confusion for you, or anyone else who wants to reply half-a-year down the road with misinformation on the subject.

P.S.
To top it all off, there are a couple tricks I recall for AE with OpenGL to get better performance. And this is an article describing the performance of (mainly) the R9 290 in terms of OpenGL.
 
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heatshiver

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The information should be relative, and the support for cards should have increased during that time. I believe the officially AMD supported cards have at least 1GB VRAM. I have seen threads where an AMD card that was supported was not working until new AMD drivers were installed, so be aware of that.

I have never had an issue with NVIDIA cards, supported or not (Google "premiere pro hack" for help on unsupported cards).

On a different note, if you intend on doing something like SLI, it will not work properly for Adobe products. It is recommended to turn SLI off when using multiple cards with Adobe products. It has been shown that there will be an increase in performance, albeit only marginally.

CUDA in general just seems to have more support in products over OpenCL. This may change with all the new things happening, but for myself, I ensure I use a NVIDIA card when using Adobe products. Likely, you will be able to get an equivalent AMD card for a better price, but I cannot say it will outperform its NVIDIA counterpart in Adobe products.

As far as one being stronger over the other in Adobe products, I do not think it is the right question as they could both potentially work great. From what I have seen from some tests ran (by common users), they seem to get about the same performance. It may also help to know that Mac users have had issues with CUDA but not OpenCL, in the past. Whether this remains an issue is unknown to me as I have not used a Mac for editing in a long time.

Hope that helps!