Real world difference - Old GPU vs New GPU?

[mark_kesper]

<p>Hello! <br>

I'm wondering if anyone who is using Capture One (or Lightroom) as well as Photoshop has noticed a really big difference after upgrading the graphics card to a newer one?<br>

Background: <br>

I use C1. <br>

At the moment I have a (old) nVidia GTX 260. It's OK but according to Phase Ones website it's not supported amonst the OpenCL GPU-accelerated cards. As well as too little on-board memory (has to be 1 GB or more). <br>

So therefore I'm thinking of upgrading.<br>

What I'm interested in is if the adjustments in raw-capture development get done alot quicker with a modern GPU? Instead of waiting for a couple of seconds. Ideally it would of course be nice if the adjustment were more or less "real-time" while moving the sliders. <br>

Kind Regards<br>

Mark Kesper</p>

[Wouter Willemse]

<p>Mark, I'm curious to learn the answer, as I'm also using C1. While my current system is fast enough (Core i5-3570 with lots of memory, using the Intel integrated GPU), gaining a bit more speed is always welcome. If I've understood the C1 documentation properly, the main gain in C1 is with conversion from raw to tiff/jpeg, as well as redrawing the image while zooming. Some tools (dust/spot correction tool) disable any GPU-accelerated processing, though.</p>

<p>It would help to understand what the rest of your current specifications are like, though. Even if getting a graphics card that is faster at OpenCL calculations may speed up things, if adjustments are currently taking seconds while editing, I'd be first looking at the CPU and memory. I hardly have delays with editing, without any GPU assistance.<br>

As for GPUs, I'd be primarily looking at AMD cards at the moment, they tend to be faster at OpenCL than equivalent priced Nvidia cards at the moment. So my reasoning is that they'd have to give more value for money in C1, though the mid-priced (and low power) nvidia GTX750/750Ti also would make a fine choice probably.</p>

[mark_kesper]

<p>@Wouter Willemse<br>

Ah, I see. Well, for me it's the same use, raw to jpeg conversion with adjustments. <br>

I kind of miss the old C1 (v4) work method where you stacked first all the images and adjustments in a que and then pressed "batch" and the computer worked 100% for like 30-60 min (did freelance work then). Now the computers starts converting as soon as possible (and sometimes with some sort of strange delay). <br>

Where I'd like to have instant redrawing and adjustments is the basic adjustments like exposure, contrast etc (they are quite good thought) but also sharpness and noise reduction as well as hue and such, they can be rather laggy.</p>

<p>I have looked both at AMD and nVidia cards, but not choosen any "side" yet. </p>

<p>My computers specifications are in general:<br>

AMD X6 (six-core) 1100T 3-4 GHz.<br>

16 GB 1600 MHz ram (can go up to 2400Mhz)<br>

Asus 890FX motherboard. Some sort of high-end throughput gaming (don't remember the name).<br>

Intel 120 GB SSD (OS)<br>

An array of various disks from Server to low-powered Green types. <br>

So in general the computer should be pretty quick.<br>

Windows 8.1 64-bit. </p>

<p> </p>

[Tim_Lookingbill]

<p>Some of these speed issues with redraws and real time slider adjusts depends on how each converter draws the updated edits at one particular zoom view level not to mention megapixel count influences on page outs, swap files and disc>CPU>Ram>GPU pipeline strategies that add more questions than answers.<br /> <br />Depending on what version of LR used there are differences in speed due to LR's improved non-100% zoom previews that draw the overall image much more closer to how it will appear in Photoshop. Past versions prior to v4/PV2012 I believe truncated the previews for faster zoom in/out redraws by turning off rendering Chromatic Aberration/Noise/Sharpening.</p>

<p>I'm not familiar with how C1 handles zoomed view preview redraws.</p>

<p>I can tell you from past discussions going back a decade at least sorting out issues like this mostly all end up as speculation, no consistency between different and even similar systems with similar/different versions of OS and editing software.</p>

<p>I gave up concerning myself over redraw speeds and just read Adobe's Optimization tips list for LR/Bridge/ACR/Photoshop, etc. You might check out C1's site for a similar list. Each Raw converter deals with it in their own way under the hood and we haven't even addressed thumbnail and main preview update caching which may or may not influence how all that works.</p>

<p>Oh, just remembered. Try updating your video driver first.</p>

[mark_kesper]

<p>I changed from a nVidia 260 GTX to a newer AMD HD5870. And well the difference is quite big. Especially when using the sliders things go faster, but overall response is better. So there is a gain, but I suspect it will be dependent on the power of the GPU and the amount of VRAM. </p>