photoshop only uses OpenGL though i guess that there are some custom filters/plugins out there that use CUDA(which you have to buy to be able to use them). The thing is that photoshop uses the GPU mostly for rendering the images and not so much for filters which means that it’s very hard to record the performance of different video cards. I for one haven’t been able to find any review showing the performance difference between different video cards.
The advantage of workstation cards is that you’ll get better support and drivers for working with 3d compared to desktop cards. The cards are also supposedly more stable but my radeon 3850 never crashed on me once so i’d say that’s more of a marketing term to justify the extreme cost of these cards.
For personal use, just about any desktop video cards from the last generations(radeon 4xxx/3xxx or geforce 9xxx/gtx 2xx) will be good enough for you. You won’t see any difference in performance/stability/quality between a desktop and a workstation card
Thanks Jim and Zeno for responding. Jim I had read both of those Tech Notes, but for those who have not they have useful information to take a look at. What I am trying to determine is if ATI or NVIDIA’s design is better suited or has significant strengths that the other does not in terms of increased performance in Photoshop (CS4), as well as the capability to take advantage of future enhancements to Photoshop that utilize the GPU. If everything is done via Open GL then I guess any Open GL 2 compliant graphics card should be able to perform the functions that CS4 and possibly later versions of Photoshop hand off to it as long as it has enough memory. I have limited programming experience, and no Open GL or GPU specific programming experience so I am not sure how Photoshop is able to or not able to take advantage of the different GPU’s on the market.
"Photoshop CS4 leverages the graphics display card’s GPU, instead of the computer’s main processor (the CPU) to speed its screen redraw. For Photoshop to access the GPU, your display card must contain a GPU that supports OpenGL and has enough RAM to support Photoshop functions–at least 128 MB of RAM–and a display driver that supports OpenGL 2.0 and Shader Model 3.0."
To date it seeems like most of the time consuming tasks are not handled or assisted by the GPU. I am still using CS3 by the way, but I am in the process of ordering a new system, so I am interested in how this is being implemented and the extent to which ATI and NVIDIA’s designs have advantages if any and as I said might be more likely to offer additional performance going forward.
