Technical question about how Gpu and Cpu co-exist

[jsteph]

Hi all,
This may seem elementary, but I'm a bit curious about the division of labor between a graphics card and the main cpu.

My question really goes at how to get the best performance when editing HD video. Now I hear all the ads about how graphics cards help gaming alot, but video gaming graphics seems to be a different animal than pure uncompressed HD video. So will a better graphics card help at all while editing video?

My gut tells me a better graphics card isn't the answer, that it's all on the cpu and memory here--sure, the card is displaying the video, but it's not rendering polygons or anything--it's just pure pixel moving. So as long as I've got a good pipe to the card (pcie16x) then once the data is on the card, the card can't really do anything special, can it?

The system is an amd phenom (1) quad core 2.5 ghz, with 4 gig ram and an nVidia 7600 with 256mb. I want to make the video editing smoother. If I had $200 to spend to speed up this particular task, would that money be better spent on a faster cpu or a faster graphics card?
Thanks very much,
--Jim

 

[Nelviticus]

At the moment it would be better spent on a faster CPU as the bulk of the hard work is the encoding stage. Most encoders run on the CPU; you can now get encoders for both ATI and nVidia cards which use the GPU but the last time I read up on it, which was about a year ago, these were still at an early stage and the results weren't very good. They weren't much faster (sometimes slower) and the quality wasn't great.

This article explains a lot about about GPU video encoding but bear in mind it's pretty old and things have moved on.

A better question to ask is: what needs improving in my current video editing process?

If the answer is that encoding takes too long then a faster CPU sounds like the solution. If the answer is something else then, well, you get what I mean - in order to throw money at the problem you need to know what the problem is.

Regards

Nelviticus

 

[BadBigBen]

Here is a basic guideline, though commercial it offers some insight...

Videoguys' System Recommendations for Video Editing

http://www.videoguys.com/Guide/E/Vi...iting/0x4aebb06ba071d2b6a2cd784ce243a6c6.aspx

and here a little demonstration:

GPU Acceleration Demo! HTPC vs Video Edit CPUs

http://www.eggxpert.com/forums/thread/607403.aspx

Ben
"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."
How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.
Only ask questions with yes/no answers if you want "yes" or "no"

 

[tf1]

Processor and disk access are the key priorities. If you have a weak graphics card, you may see dropped frames or similar problems, but that won't directly affect the resultant work you are creating.

Regards: Terry

 

[jsteph]

Thanks everyone! That definitely clarified and verified what I was asking.

It looks like I'm not $200 but more like $500 away from a system with the horsepower needed. Hmmmm...new dress for wifey or an i7...I know where I'm leaning.
--Jim

 

[BadBigBen]

Yeah, but that i7 will still be at the back of your mind all the time, while you buy that new dress for the wifey...

he he he...

or go with an i5 instead and at the same time buy that dress for your wife... ;-)



Ben
"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."
How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.
Only ask questions with yes/no answers if you want "yes" or "no"