ATI or Nvidia

PB
Posted By
Paul Burdett
Apr 5, 2010
Views
352
Replies
3
Status
Closed
Hi all,

I’m planning on getting a new desktop PC for use with CS5 Extended. (Currently using CS3…but my Pentium 4 PC is seriously ill!!). I’m going to go with Windows 7 64bit, I7 CPU and 8Gb ram. I’m getting a headache reading info on various sites where some are saying ATI is better, others that Nvidia is better. So..assuming either is ok what are the opinions here? The computer will also be using Sibelius and Cubase VST software (I’m a music teacher)..but I use Photoshop a lot and would like to use its 3D capabilities with Open GL etc. I have the list of "tested" cards fom the Adobe site…but even some of thes are causing trouble for some users according to what I’m reading on forums.

Cheers,

Paul
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JP
John Passaneau
Apr 5, 2010
On 4/5/2010 9:35 AM, Paul Burdett wrote:
Hi all,

I’m planning on getting a new desktop PC for use with CS5 Extended. (Currently using CS3…but my Pentium 4 PC is seriously ill!!). I’m going to go with Windows 7 64bit, I7 CPU and 8Gb ram. I’m getting a headache reading info on various sites where some are saying ATI is better, others that Nvidia is better. So..assuming either is ok what are the opinions here? The computer will also be using Sibelius and Cubase VST software (I’m a music teacher)..but I use Photoshop a lot and would like to use its 3D capabilities with Open GL etc. I have the list of "tested" cards fom the Adobe site…but even some of thes are causing trouble for some users according to what I’m reading on forums.

Cheers,

Paul
Hi Paul:

I’m doing much the same as you. I have an older computer that I "up-graded" to a Nvidia card a bit ago. It’s been my observation that it’s all in the drivers. I’ve seen more forums problems with Nvidia drivers than any other brand. I’ve had Nvidia drivers I’ve had to roll back because they "broke" my system. Probably worked just fine for a gamer but I don’t do games, mostly Photoshop. I would go with the ATI card if I was doing it over. By the way I don’t think the Adobe video card list has been updated in a long time.

John Passaneau
G
gowanoh
Apr 5, 2010
If you are not a gamer I would not break the bank on a video card. Higher end cards have enormous power requirements and generate excessive heat. If you understood how truly anemic the video systems in brand new Macs are you would get this: they are low end notebook video systems in brand new desktop machines.
ATI and Nvidia have proprietary languages for tapping the GPU and some higher end video editors tapped into the NVidia model.
Adobe says it will be brand agnostic with regard to GPU applications. In its CS4 iteration the use of the GPU is not much more than a demonstration with little practical impact. Hopefully CS5 will have a way to distribute the multiple parallel tasks involved in static image processing to the GPU.
CS4 performance, like all prior versions of Photoshop, scales to the throughput of but one core on your multi-core processor. Hence there is no difference in performance between 32 and 64 bit versions of CS4 regardless of RAM. Some software routines are better optimized for the 32 bit version. The Apple 64 bit version is technically somewhat crippled due to a lack of Apple software development tools and it is not yet clear that CS5 will be much different.
ATI cards have some advantages for multi monitor support and pass through of Bluray data to an HDTV. Otherwise there is not much to distinguish Photoshop performance between Nvidia and ATI as similar price points.

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PB
Paul Burdett
Apr 7, 2010
"c_atiel" wrote in message
If you are not a gamer I would not break the bank on a video card. Higher end cards have enormous power requirements and generate excessive heat. If you understood how truly anemic the video systems in brand new Macs are you would get this: they are low end notebook video systems in brand new desktop machines.
ATI and Nvidia have proprietary languages for tapping the GPU and some higher end video editors tapped into the NVidia model.
Adobe says it will be brand agnostic with regard to GPU applications. In its CS4 iteration the use of the GPU is not much more than a demonstration with little practical impact. Hopefully CS5 will have a way to distribute the multiple parallel tasks involved in static image processing to the GPU.
CS4 performance, like all prior versions of Photoshop, scales to the throughput of but one core on your multi-core processor. Hence there is no difference in performance between 32 and 64 bit versions of CS4 regardless of RAM. Some software routines are better optimized for the 32 bit version. The Apple 64 bit version is technically somewhat crippled due to a lack of Apple software development tools and it is not yet clear that CS5 will be much different.
ATI cards have some advantages for multi monitor support and pass through of Bluray data to an HDTV. Otherwise there is not much to distinguish Photoshop performance between Nvidia and ATI as similar price points.
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Many thanks for the info:)

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