Premiere 2018 GPU

[markus]

Hi guys,

So, My Windows pc has been in the storage for a while, but now its time to get it back up for a video project.
Having upgraded to the latest Windows 10 and Premiere 2018 i realized that i might need a new GPU.
Currently I have two linked AMD Radeon HD7800, but they are not compatible with Premiere anymore,

I have found a second hand Asus GeForce GTX 980 TI, but I am not sure if this is good enough for what i need to do.
I mainly work with 12-bit HD material, and sometimes 4K - i am doing a lot Warp stabilization so hoping to be able
to process this a bit fast at least.

Here is my system specs:
Intel i5 750 @ 2.67.Mhz (4 Cores) x64
16GB RAM, Lots of SSD harddisk space

Would this be a sufficient setup? Anything i need to take into consideration before getting a new GPU?

Cheers!

[sophisticles]

For 12-bit 444 1080/2k DCI material, which is what I am assume you are referring to, the cpu would be somewhat under powered but the 980 video card should be fine; for 4k content, no way.

If you're planing on working with 12-bit 444 4k DCI material, that means you're probably using RAW, ProRes, AVC Intra or JPEG2000 sources, which means you will see significant decoding and I/O bottlenecks, at the very least you will want separate read/write NVMe drives, the fastest multicore you can afford and if you're using warp stabilize and other gpu powered filters, I strongly suggest one of NVIDIA's RTX cards, with lots of VRAM.

Working with that kind of content isn't cheap; one question where are you sourcing this content, for lack of a better term that's "pro grade" formats, from high end pro caliber cameras.

Or maybe I'm making too many assumptions about the content you are working with.

[markus]

Thanks for for your reply!

Previously, i have been using this setup for working with 1080p Proress 422 from the Blackmagic Pocket Camera,
i was not the fastest workflow, but it worked out ok.

Im gonna shoot this project with a Blackmagic Pocket 4K, but as the end product is 1080p im only gonna shoot
some scenes in 4K, for the purpose of zooming it in the edit.

I know my system is is a bit outdated, but do you think i would have a significant render boost with the 980?
I have found a RTX 260 6GB, i could also invest in that..... but the question is, if it even makes sense
to spend more money on this system, since the processor is kind of slow, and its not possible to upgrade the motherboard
with more Ram.

As a pro, I am sure you would suggest a newer computer, but in my case i just want a decent workflow, and its mainly related
to this project, as I am not working with video that often....

what do you think?

[KarMa]

Can always work with Proxies, to edit lower res versions in real time and then apply those edits to the 4K content.

[sophisticles]

Previously, i have been using this setup for working with 1080p Proress 422 from the Blackmagic Pocket Camera,
i was not the fastest workflow, but it worked out ok.

Im gonna shoot this project with a Blackmagic Pocket 4K, but as the end product is 1080p im only gonna shoot
some scenes in 4K, for the purpose of zooming it in the edit.

The Blackmagic Pocket 4K is a nice camera, especially for the money. With ProRes your bottleneck will be decode, the GTX980 will help with the filtering but your cpu will definitely slow you down a lot with decoding ProRes 4k, even if you're using 422 LT which tends to be very edit friendly.

[sophisticles]

Last night I downloaded a bunch of sample footage from Black Magic, in 4k and 6k; I have to say I am impressed by how relatively light weight the ProRes codec that was used was (It appears to be 8-bit LT), I was able to scrub smoothly through the timeline, even with filters, using Linux+Shotcut, and play the content back with no trouble using a Haswell based quad core Xeon, with 16 GB DDR3, decent SSD + SMPlayer, the GTX1050 is not used in decoding since it doesn't offer hardware decode support for ProRes.

Having said that, the i5 750 you have is a quad core Lynnfield based cpu with no HT, I suggest you go to the Black Magic Pocket 4k website and download some of the ProRes samples they have and run a quick test to see how your setup handles that material.

You could also consider changing the codec you shoot in, I looked through the specs, it appears that camera only supports 12-bit for RAW, with ProRes being limited to 10-bit.

I don't know what kind of project you're working on, or what the client wants the deliverable to be, but if this is for your own project, you may want to shoot the whole thing in 4k60 8-bit ProRes LT.

[markus]

Thank you so much for taking the effort such a great help!

Will do the same, and thinking that i might go for a GTX and then work with lower res proxies, as KarMa suggested...
The amount of warp stabilization might not be that much anyway, so i think is the best option, I does not make sense
for me to go and invest in a new system.