Just received this today and thought I would start sharing information early as I know there is a lot of interest in GPU card choices. I will later post more detailed test reports, this is simply a first impressions post. I really appreciate the information provided by David Johns and would like to contribute as well.
The card is a fanless version from HIS (I don't like losing cards to broken fans, the noise, and have a good cooling system) and was $82 from NewEgg.
Win 7 x 64 SP 1 with 8 GB of RAM and an i7-920 2.67 GHz processor overclocked to 3.4 GHz.
Installed latest drivers Catalyst 11.1 side by side with an HD 4600. Each is driving a 22" widescreen. (I also have a 24" HDMI monitor that can handle 1920 x 1080 but need to move it from another system before I can test it.)
Card was immediately recognized - replugging the monitor into the new card simply worked - Windows kept the dual display settings and was completely unphased by the switch in adapaters. Vegas GPU Preference picked it up as well.
Strange observation: The Windows Experience index dropped with the more powerful card - and this is compared to the 4600 driving both monitors! I'll have to think more about this one.
First bummer: The Reference project fails with unknown error about 5 seconds in, nothing is written to the Windows event logs either.
Other projects are not crashing, fortunately, so I'm starting to get some data:
First test: complex compositing: fast motion, heavily masked, video over background video of turbulent water running at 25% playback rate.
Output to WMV file 1440 x 1024 23 fps
Output duration 6 minutes 14 secs.
CPU Only - 34:12
GPU: 24:00
GPU render was a somewhat underwhelming 30% faster. Nice, but not the wow I was hoping for. Still, that's a pretty good return for 80 bucks even if it doesn't improve.
I estimate CPU utilization was reduced by 30% or more.
I realize that few of you are likely to be interested in wmv format, so my next post I'll compare several others, including AVCHD and MP4. And if anyone want's to pitch me on another format please feel free. All of my work targets Windows computers.
And if someone has a thought on the Reference project crash scenario please let me know.
Final bizarre note: I can't provide any real-time results because of a bizarre scenario on my machine: the render proceeds normally, with the preview window displaying the content at normal speed during the render. But the output is actually getting "hijacked" by Winamp (installed, but not running) and a visualization plug called G-Force. The resulting output is not the project output, but a rendering of the visualization software using the audio (which is music) from the film. I swear I'm not making this up. I made sure that the .wav file type was set to Windows Media Player (which won't play my version of G-Force) and ran it again but with the same results.
Hope this is of some interest/use to someone out there.
Cheers,
- Sam
The card is a fanless version from HIS (I don't like losing cards to broken fans, the noise, and have a good cooling system) and was $82 from NewEgg.
Win 7 x 64 SP 1 with 8 GB of RAM and an i7-920 2.67 GHz processor overclocked to 3.4 GHz.
Installed latest drivers Catalyst 11.1 side by side with an HD 4600. Each is driving a 22" widescreen. (I also have a 24" HDMI monitor that can handle 1920 x 1080 but need to move it from another system before I can test it.)
Card was immediately recognized - replugging the monitor into the new card simply worked - Windows kept the dual display settings and was completely unphased by the switch in adapaters. Vegas GPU Preference picked it up as well.
Strange observation: The Windows Experience index dropped with the more powerful card - and this is compared to the 4600 driving both monitors! I'll have to think more about this one.
First bummer: The Reference project fails with unknown error about 5 seconds in, nothing is written to the Windows event logs either.
Other projects are not crashing, fortunately, so I'm starting to get some data:
First test: complex compositing: fast motion, heavily masked, video over background video of turbulent water running at 25% playback rate.
Output to WMV file 1440 x 1024 23 fps
Output duration 6 minutes 14 secs.
CPU Only - 34:12
GPU: 24:00
GPU render was a somewhat underwhelming 30% faster. Nice, but not the wow I was hoping for. Still, that's a pretty good return for 80 bucks even if it doesn't improve.
I estimate CPU utilization was reduced by 30% or more.
I realize that few of you are likely to be interested in wmv format, so my next post I'll compare several others, including AVCHD and MP4. And if anyone want's to pitch me on another format please feel free. All of my work targets Windows computers.
And if someone has a thought on the Reference project crash scenario please let me know.
Final bizarre note: I can't provide any real-time results because of a bizarre scenario on my machine: the render proceeds normally, with the preview window displaying the content at normal speed during the render. But the output is actually getting "hijacked" by Winamp (installed, but not running) and a visualization plug called G-Force. The resulting output is not the project output, but a rendering of the visualization software using the audio (which is music) from the film. I swear I'm not making this up. I made sure that the .wav file type was set to Windows Media Player (which won't play my version of G-Force) and ran it again but with the same results.
Hope this is of some interest/use to someone out there.
Cheers,
- Sam