550ti for Graphics Editing?

LHarding

Distinguished
Jan 29, 2012
4
0
18,510
My Specs are:

FX 6200
8GB RAM
Asrock 880GM-LE
Zotac GT 430

The problem is, the GT430 is not really cutting it. I'm curious if getting a 550ti would dramatically improve my workflow. I don't game on my computer, so this is purely for Graphics and Video editing.

I primarily work in After Effects CS5, but also a little in Premiere. So I'm only looking at an Nvidia Card because of Mercury Playback in Premiere.

I'd like to know if you guys have any experience with the 550ti in AE, or any other Adobe Suites. I just want to make sure that spending the money won't be a waste. I don't have enough money to make a mistake, so I need to be sure about the upgrade. I've seen benchmarks for the 550ti but I'd like to hear some real world examples of it.

Thanks in advance.
 

chris674

Honorable
Sep 13, 2012
25
0
10,540
Hello,

I recently bought the ASUS 550TI version of the card and I am very satisfied. I understand you won't be doing any gaming, but I will give you my personal feedback of how it performed with some labor-intensive games. I am going to reference the NVIDIA site to give some tech specs on each:


NVIDIA GT430: 550ti

CUDA Cores: 96--------------------------------------------------------192
Graphics Clock (MHz): 700-------------------------------------------900-950
Processor Clock Tester (MHz): 1400-------------------------------1800
Texture Fill Rate (billion/sec.): 11.2--------------------------------28.8

MEMORY:

Mem. Clock (MHz): 800-900-----------------------------------------4.1 GB/SEC
Standard Mem. Config: 1GB GDDR3-------------------------------1GB GDDR5
Mem. Bandwidth (GB/sec): 25.6-28.8-----------------------------98.4
Direct 11, OpenGL 4.2, CUDA, 3D, PhysX.------------------------same *SLI available^^*

Just by looking at the above data, you are going to benefit tremendously in the memory department. Everything in that area is pretty much 3x more of what you currently have.

In the graphics department:

You also will benefit, but not as much as the memory portion. CUDA cores, are from my understanding, basically what processing intensive programs use to get the graphics processing done faster. (ex. AE, AutoDesk drafting softwares, graphics editors, etc.) You can see that exactly doubles your processing potential from 96 to 192. You also want to look at the texture fill rate. Your current in 11.2 bill. per sec and the ti is 28.8 bill. per sec. This is just about 2.5x more than what you have now. This will be very beneficial for programs that have to load a lot of textures just like your programs. This can happen at about double the rate. As far as the graphics clock/processor clock, you are basically just going to benefit 200-500 MHz more with the 550ti.

As far as my personal experience with the card, I am very pleased with the results. I had an old GT240 Graphics card which was about half of everything that the 550ti has. I can play Star Trek Online on every setting being on high flawlessly. (Star Trek Online is a very detailed and labor intensive game) As far as your graphics technologies, (Direct X, OpenGL) everything is the same version.

Well I hope this helped,

CC

P.S. If anyone would like to elaborate more on CUDA cores, they are more than welcome to, because I would like to learn more about them. I believe I am correct to the most part. (NOTE: IN THE CHART ABOVE THE NUMBERS AND INFO TO THE RIGHT OF THE DASHES PERTAIN TO THE GTX 550TI.)