Which Graphics Card for Photo Editing

I’m looking to get a graphics card to use the capabilities of my BenQ SW2700PT monitor. A Spyder5pro will be used for monitor calibration. My sole interest is photo editing (Photoshop) in a color managed workflow. Currently I’m running an Intel Core I7-477K processor and the motherboard has PCI expansion slots available: PCIe 3.0/2.0 x 16. Any recommendations on a graphics card? Would this graphics card be overkill: EVGA GeForce GTX 1060 SC GAMING 3GB? Is there a better option in a graphics card?

 

Thanks.

How things seem to operate with intel display adapter? You seem to have fourth generation processor so Adobe practically recommends adding dedicated graphics card. Any current card with 2GB memory should be enough. Example mentioned should work fine. If You want to future proof for 4K or 5K display, then graphics card might be better off with atleast 4GB memory.

I'm no expert. - Last time I tried to understand that stuff they told: Nvidia's GeForce series is for 8 bit (per channel) color output; the (more expensive) Quadro series for 10 bit.

My local computer store could not tell or guarantee me if a basic Quadro for 10bit color viewing and a higher end GeForce for 4K gaming would work well, if stuffed together into the same PC.

If You want to take advantage of 10-bit color precision, we must wait for experts to arrive. Or You could google for some recent 10-bit color chain tutorial. I have read from internet that such workstations exist, but never have met in real life. Edited June 7, 2018 by hapien

You do not need a high-end gaming card for 2D image processing. It would be a complete waste of money. What's more important is the flexibility of the driver software, to allow easy customisation of gamma, colour balance, LUTs, profiles, etc.

 

In the past, ATI cards had poor software control over those important parameters, while nVidia cards were much better in that respect. However I believe the companies have now merged and offer little real choice, except in 3D rendering performance.

 

Most Photo manipulation software makes little use of GPU processing power, and the graphics card simply shows you the image file you're working on. The saved file content is entirely independent of the graphics card used to view it. So ignore textel rendering speed and suchlike - it's largely irrelevant. Look past those specifications to the colour-depth ability and driver sophistication of the card.

You do not need a high-end gaming card for 2D image processing. It would be a complete waste of money. What's more important is the flexibility of the driver software, to allow easy customisation of gamma, colour balance, LUTs, profiles, etc.

 

In the past, ATI cards had poor software control over those important parameters, while nVidia cards were much better in that respect. However I believe the companies have now merged and offer little real choice, except in 3D rendering performance.

 

Most Photo manipulation software makes little use of GPU processing power, and the graphics card simply shows you the image file you're working on. The saved file content is entirely independent of the graphics card used to view it. So ignore textel rendering speed and suchlike - it's largely irrelevant. Look past those specifications to the colour-depth ability and driver sophistication of the card.

 

First of all, ATI and nVidia remain separate companies. There also technically ISN'T a company called ATI anymore. After AMD bought them, they kept the ATI name alive for a while but now sell exclusively under the AMD name.

 

Second, there's more to a GPU than just its ability to draw images on the screen. GPU power has been accelerating astronomically(much more so that CPU power) and Adobe is smart enough to leverage that for vector processing operations. As a general rule, CPUs aren't that great at vector operations, while that's the bread and butter of a GPU. Photoshop continues to add support for GPU-accelerated operations.

 

So, I'd argue that the best bet for longevity is to buy one of Adobe's listed supported GPUs, and ideally buy to the top of the list. They have committed to continuing to shift as much as possible over the GPU.

If You want to take advantage of 10-bit color precision, we must wait for experts to arrive.

For a high bit video path, all the following items must support high bit fully:

OS (Mac now does)

Applications (Photoshop, Lightroom do)

Video card

Display

To check all are operating, you need to examine a special built gradient in the application you wish to test:

http://digitaldog.net/files/10-bit-test-ramp.zip

There should be NO banding on-screen when viewed at 100% (1:1).

In Photoshop under Mac OS 10.13.5 in latest version of PS CC, smooth as a baby's behind.

What's more important is the flexibility of the driver software, to allow easy customisation of gamma, colour balance, LUTs, profiles, etc.

Except when all that good stuff takes place electrically in the display panel, which is something very few displays (like my SpectraView) provide.

And no, many software products DO provide functionally for image processing through the video card.

And no, many software products DO provide functionally for image processing through the video card.

 

We have a cluster at work that has probably 30 separate GPUs in it, and I doubt there's even a display connected to it. Of course, it's separate from the main cluster with a few thousand cores.

 

Then you have folks who run bare-bones boxes with low energy CPUs and light builds of Linux and as many high performance GPUs as they can cram in for one purpose-crypto currency mining.

 

More and more processing-intensive software is starting to leverage the GPU whether or not the output is image related. Heck, since about 2005, Mac OS X has been smart enough to shift a lot of core system functionality where possible over to the GPU where possible. It's amazing how much of a difference swapping cards in something like a PowerMac G4 can make. macOS Mojave-announced Monday-has deprecated support for computers without a GPU that supports Metal. I haven't installed it yet(I'm usually fresh out of the gate, and even downloaded it on Monday) because the only Metal-capable GPU I currently have is the one in my MacBook Pro and my main system never gets updated until at least the .1 release of a new OS is out-I'm shopping for either a 2012 Mini or a Metal-capable GPU for my 2010 Mac Pro.

I'm well aware that many graphics cards have more raw processing ability than the average CPU, but in practical terms, how does that translate into performing standard day-to-day 2D image manipulation tasks? It might well speed up, say, performing a pseudo tilt/shift correction on a trapezoid building, but that's not a task most photographers do many times a day.

 

Wouldn't the OP's money be better placed in increasing system memory or a larger SSD for example?

 

I know things have probably moved on a little, but the last time I upgraded to a faster (gaming) graphics card with more video memory, it made no perceptible difference to the processing of my image files.

Thank you all for posting. I appreciate that people at photo.net are generally civil, unlike that other big site.

 

I got the idea to buy a GeForce GTX 1060 SC from the recommendation pages over at Puget systems (for their photoshop editing builds) and figured that the 3G option would suffice, and would cut costs. However, I may go for the 6G option. It sounds like this choice is probably OK for my needs.

 

If the graphics card is able to crank things up to speedify my photo editing through leveraging their GPU, all the better.

 

A larger SSD is indeed on my radar, but currently I squeak by, as long as I don’t load up too much more programs.

 

Adobe does provide some guidance on selecting GPU’s on this page in case anyone is interested:

 

Photoshop graphics processor (GPU) card FAQ

 

Adobe’s recommendation tend to be high end from what I could see.

 

Regards,

Over the years I've had several PCs built for me by Puget, who are good people, but it annoys me no end that they suggest GeForce cards for use with Photoshop. Eight bit displays won't bother you at all until you get banding effects that drive you crazy. I've accepted that because thus far, the Quadro cards all seem to make much more acoustic noise, which I can't have because I often work with sound. If quiet is not a consideration, and the rest of your computer hand handles 10 bit displays, I suggest one of the Quadro cards. Edited June 8, 2018 by Hector Javkin

Hector, thanks for your views. NVidia isn’t forthcoming in some of their spec sheets whether cards are 10 bit color or not. Their Quadro 5000 spec sheet makes no mention. I’ll look around.

 

Can someone tell me if Windows 7 64 support 10 bit color?

I'm well aware that many graphics cards have more raw processing ability than the average CPU, but in practical terms, how does that translate into performing standard day-to-day 2D image manipulation tasks? It might well speed up, say, performing a pseudo tilt/shift correction on a trapezoid building, but that's not a task most photographers do many times a day.

You don't really know. Point is, just examine what Adobe provides in Photoshop (facts from them) instead of guessing:

 

Photoshop graphics processor (GPU) card FAQ

Features that require a GPU for acceleration

 

• Artboards
  
• Camera Raw (more information)
  
• Image Size – Preserve Details
  
• Select Focus
  
• Blur Gallery - Field Blur, Iris Blur, Tilt-Shift, Path Blur, Spin Blur (OpenCL accelerated)
  
• Smart Sharpen (Noise Reduction – OpenCL accelerated)
  
• Perspective Warp
  
• Select and Mask (OpenCL accelerated)
  

See just about pseudo tilt/shift correction?

Edited June 8, 2018 by digitaldog

A larger SSD is indeed on my radar, but currently I squeak by, as long as I don’t load up too much more programs.

IF you have sufficient RAM such you never hit scratch disk, the SSD will only help in opening and saving the documents.

Andrew, I tried your gradient and on my 2014 MBP its quite smooth.

A gaming card isn't necessary, but (in Nvidia terms) having a higher number of CUDA cores will help with any operation that uses GPU offloading. As some folks above have noted, some Photoshop features are now using it. A 1060 is a fairly mainstream card - it's not especially over the top. As software makers push more and more to GPUs it'll be even more useful. I don't think you'll be unhappy with it.

 

I've got the same BenQ display you have.

 

I was building a new computer about a year ago, somewhat for me, but also so the kids' games would play. The 1070 based cards were hard to come by so I ended up going up to a 1080, luckily just before the prices shot up due to demand from cryptocurrency miners. I wanted to make sure I wasn't going to have to touch the hardware for a few years. It's worked well for Photoshop (much better than the old GT 610 in the previous computer), plus it's given me some flexibility when playing with rendering applications like Blender.