Would going SLI help me crush Adobe Premiere?

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Mr.Diggler

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I am going to be working on "prosumer" (lowest level) quality video creation (producing DVDs, BR before year end, from raw HD content) and will be using Adobe Premiere to do so.

I also on occasion want the computer to be able to play Oblivion level games like ... Oblivion.

What video card should I get to maximize my Premiere usage? An 8800GTX should be enough for the games for me. Would anything more, like a pair of 9800GTX in SLI, be of any use in Premiere?

I am guessing SLI and anything above an 8800 would be wasted in Premiere, but I'm not sure.

For a processor, I'll definitely be going quad...just not sure which model yet. Probably something a step up from the Q6600.

Follow up thread = HDD Thread
 
The only way, it would ever work, would have to be a new release from Adobe that fully utilized GPGPU acceleration & features.

Edit: Posted after the post above. I've read about this rumor as well & hope that more applications will utilize GPU & x64 functionality & addressing.
 
SLI won't help at the moment. Video editing applications can get by with relatively low-end cards. I wouldn't recommend integrated graphics though.

There will supposedly be a commercial plugin coming out for Premiere later this year that uses the GPU to speed up H.264 encoding/transcoding. I thought that demo was with the GT200 series of cards, so I'm not sure if it will work with any card.

http://elementaltechnologies.com/how_it_works.php
 
If I remember correctly the biggest bottleneck for photoshop type apps is usually the hard drive. getting a raptor might be a better investment the a second video card. that of course would not do anything for the encoding or rendering as they are (until the talked about patch) CPU limited items.
 
If you really want to boost your performance in premiere, get a system with 2 quad core CPUs; video rendering apps love having the extra cores to play with.
 
Hi everyone,

Thank you for the answers and the tips about Premiere potentially using SLI in the future...I'll keep that in mind, but build my machine focused on now.


TerraPhantm said:
If you really want to boost your performance in premiere, get a system with 2 quad core CPUs; video rendering apps love having the extra cores to play with.
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Twin-Quads? Wow...hadn't even seen a board like that except for Xeons. I'm not sure my budget would stand up to that (this is all for charity actually), but I'll try to price out that option as well.


Valset said:
If I remember correctly the biggest bottleneck for photoshop type apps is usually the hard drive. getting a raptor might be a better investment the a second video card. that of course would not do anything for the encoding or rendering as they are (until the talked about patch) CPU limited items.
Click to expand...

Oh, good point. I hadn't thought of that area much...was focusing on the CPU and Video mistakenly. I'll go make a follow up post (HDD Thread) in the drive forum. Thanks.
 
Mr.Diggler said:
Twin-Quads? Wow...hadn't even seen a board like that except for Xeons. I'm not sure my budget would stand up to that (this is all for charity actually), but I'll try to price out that option as well.
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It's not too bad, but it'll definitely run you more then a single quad. Figure 400-500 for a mb, 300 for 4 - 2GB sticks of FB-dimms, and 550 for 2 E5410s. Then you'll just use what you would for the rest of the system, EATX case will be required as well. Obviously don't skimp on a PSU but a $100 - 120 Corsair 620 or 750 will do the job.
 
Mr.Diggler said:
Twin-Quads? Wow...hadn't even seen a board like that except for Xeons. I'm not sure my budget would stand up to that (this is all for charity actually), but I'll try to price out that option as well.
Click to expand...

There is always this.
 
Getting an 8800GTX would be a bad idea for video editing anyways since it doesn't have PurevideoHD (only Purevideo) for H.264 and other format decoding, leaving your CPU to do the work.

I am working in Premiere CS3 right now (and occasionally CS2). There are things such as GPU effects/transitions, but you don't need a beefy video card at all for that (can be done on a 6200LE).

Now, if you are going to use After Effects, get a Series 8 that has PurevideoHD such as the 8800GT, 8800GTS 512, or the 8600GTS/GT on down. I would recommend ATI, but their cards have some graphical issues when rendering 3D portions (only in After Effects). Also, OpenGL can be used to render portions of the 3D and the effects themselves.

http://www.adobe.com/products/aftereffects/opengl.html


As for the GPU encoding, RapiHD is coming out and is run by CUDA. The plug-in will do GPU encoding for H.264 and will only be (as of now) for Premiere and is OpenGL based.
 
We bought this Matrox system for our Premiere Editing system.

This allows most effects and transitions to be real time.
 
nightwalker said:
i really want that board but sod paying 650 bux for one lol, i was tearing my hair out enough about spending 230 on a X48 !!
Click to expand...

As I said in that article, the Skulltrail platform is far from a budget solution. Almost no one will find value in the solution and those few people who can really leverage that technology may find better solutions in standard Xeon processors and normal workstation/server motherboards.
 
Zepher said:
We bought this Matrox system for our Premiere Editing system.

This allows most effects and transitions to be real time.
Click to expand...
Whoa...I must have that.

Ouch...$1300+. Does that preclude the need to get monster processing power? If I could use that with a simple system, maybe the cost would be justified.


Dan_D said:
There is always this.
Click to expand...

Hmm...with twin-Xeons, that board isn't all that crazy of a price. I don't see Premiere on the list of programs that can utilitize the eight cores though. I wish I could find some real world evidence of how much that would make my life easier over say a simple Q6600 solution for a third of the cost.


Red Falcon said:
Getting an 8800GTX would be a bad idea for video editing anyways since it doesn't have PurevideoHD (only Purevideo) for H.264 and other format decoding, leaving your CPU to do the work.

I am working in Premiere CS3 right now (and occasionally CS2). There are things such as GPU effects/transitions, but you don't need a beefy video card at all for that (can be done on a 6200LE).

Now, if you are going to use After Effects, get a Series 8 that has PurevideoHD such as the 8800GT, 8800GTS 512, or the 8600GTS/GT on down. I would recommend ATI, but their cards have some graphical issues when rendering 3D portions (only in After Effects). Also, OpenGL can be used to render portions of the 3D and the effects themselves.
Click to expand...
Good info, thanks! I probably won't be doing much in the way of effects and all...mainly I'll be editing together footage from different performances into one cohesive show and trying to synch it to the soundtrack. The sound is being mastered by someone else. He's a pro, but I'm a complete newbie in the video editing field.

I'll probably want to get a card that has PurevideoHD though...just in case I get into effects.
 
Cyant said:
http://www.apple.com/macpro/

A Mac Pro? Install Windows on it and you can run all the programs/ games you need and you won't be limited to only premiere you can also use Final Cut Studio on OSX etc.
Click to expand...

We do this at my job with 8+ iMacs and Many Mac and Mac Pro's. :cool:

It works well for what it is. The only bad this that sometimes Windows XP will flake out while using certain DX programs such as Google Earth. If OpenGL mode is an option, changing it will normally fix it.

Final Cut Studio is a great video editing tool. The only bad thing about Macs is that they aren't upgradeable unless you go through Apple (unless you want to void the warranty).
 
If you're only doing consumer level stuff, an OC'ed Quad-core will do wonders... along with Raid-0 for writing/reading off of and atleast 4GB of ram, and set Premiere up to USE that extra ram.

I use Vegas personally, but yea :)

You really don't need to spend that much to handle decent video editing...
 
Apples are nice.
BTW Intel is Fighting against the Adobe using GPU.
They Claim that its a Job for the CPU not GPU.
So i would wait for the final punchout before following the rumors.
 
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