AMD or Nvidia graphics card for Photo editing?

[LesC]

For photo editing - Photoshop CC & Lightroom - is there any reason to chose Nvidia over AMD or vice versa (I'm not bothered about gaming) ?

[kalniel]

Nope.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

OpenCL performance tends to be better on the AMD parts especially at the lower ends,and due to the involvement of both Apple and AMD,Adobe is moving and more GPU acceleration over to OpenCL.

For PP,for example,there are more AMD consumer cards supported than Nvidia ones now:

https://helpx.adobe.com/premiere-pro...uirements.html





This Russian website tested Sony Vegas 13 and other image and video editing software:

https://translate.google.co.uk/trans...vs_gtx770.html

https://translate.google.co.uk/trans...html&sandbox=1

[LesC]

Many thanks folks

[kalniel]

But you still won't notice any difference in stills editing as per photoshop/LR.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

But you still won't notice any difference in 2D editing as per photoshop/LR.

LR6 is getting GPU acceleration via OpenCL it appears.

Edit!!

The Mercury Graphics Engine in CC is also OpenCL accelerated now.

A few other RAW converters now have OpenCL plug-ins too.

[KeyboardDemon]

LR6 is getting GPU acceleration via OpenCL it appears.

Edit!!

The Mercury Graphics Engine in CC is also OpenCL accelerated now.

A few other RAW converters now have OpenCL plug-ins too.

So in real time terms, how much of a difference would it make to perform the same edits/filters and adjustments on say an AMD 290X versus a GTX780Ti or GTX980?

I don't have PS installed at the moment, I had it for some time as my brother was allowed a license for it through the company he used to work for, unfortunately he lost that perk when he left the company so I had to uninstall it, but when I had it, I never used the GPU acceleration, as my 3770K seemed to be fast enough for me, even at stock speeds.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

So in real time terms, how much of a difference would it make to perform the same edits/filters and adjustments on say an AMD 290X versus a GTX780Ti or GTX980?

I don't have PS installed at the moment, I had it for some time as my brother was allowed a license for it through the company he used to work for, unfortunately he lost that perk when he left the company so I had to uninstall it, but when I had it, I never used the GPU acceleration, as my 3770K seemed to be fast enough for me, even at stock speeds.

LR can choke for me with my D600 images if I am doing a lot. Looking at Corel Aftershot anything from a 25% to 40% improvement dependent on the CPU and that is using Intel and AMD IGPs.

Ultimately,more and more consumer software is moving away from CUDA,and TBH look at the scores for a £140 R9 285 - they are close to or exceeding a GTX970,and not massively behind an R9 290. The problem is that Nvidia also is caught between two worlds - they have invested a lot of money into CUDA,so don't want to support OpenCL that well either,so its a bit of an afterthought.

The problem is Apple is massively pushing this and is the main reason that Adobe is moving more and more to OpenCL.

There are loads of videos of Adobe and AMD reps talking about their collaboration.

Look at the list of supported cards in PP:

https://helpx.adobe.com/premiere-pro...uirements.html

Nvidia

NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M
NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M
NVIDIA GeForce GT 755M
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 470
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 675MX
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680MX
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 770
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 775M
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M
NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN

AMD

AMD A10-7800 APU
AMD Radeon HD 6650M
AMD Radeon HD 6730M
AMD Radeon HD 6750
AMD Radeon HD 6750M
AMD Radeon HD 6770
AMD Radeon HD 6770M
AMD Radeon HD 6950
AMD Radeon HD 6970
AMD Radeon HD 7480D
AMD Radeon HD 7510M
AMD Radeon HD 7530M
AMD Radeon HD 7540D
AMD Radeon HD 7550M
AMD Radeon HD 7560D
AMD Radeon HD 7570
AMD Radeon HD 7570M
AMD Radeon HD 7590M
AMD Radeon HD 7610M
AMD Radeon HD 7630M
AMD Radeon HD 7650M
AMD Radeon HD 7660D
AMD Radeon HD 7670
AMD Radeon HD 7670M
AMD Radeon HD 7690M
AMD Radeon HD 7730M
AMD Radeon HD 7750
AMD Radeon HD 7750M
AMD Radeon HD 7770
AMD Radeon HD 7770M
AMD Radeon HD 7850
AMD Radeon HD 7850M
AMD Radeon HD 7870
AMD Radeon HD 7870
AMD Radeon HD 7870M
AMD Radeon HD 7950
AMD Radeon HD 7970
AMD Radeon HD 7970M
AMD Radeon HD 8470
AMD Radeon HD 8550M
AMD Radeon HD 8570
AMD Radeon HD 8570M
AMD Radeon HD 8670
AMD Radeon HD 8670M
AMD Radeon HD 8690M
AMD Radeon HD 8730M
AMD Radeon HD 8740
AMD Radeon HD 8750M
AMD Radeon HD 8760
AMD Radeon HD 8770M
AMD Radeon HD 8790M
AMD Radeon HD 8870
AMD Radeon HD 8950
AMD Radeon HD 8970
AMD Radeon R7 265
AMD Radeon R7 APU
AMD Radeon R7260X
AMD Radeon R7M260
AMD Radeon R9 280
AMD Radeon R9 280
AMD Radeon R9 280X
AMD Radeon R9 285
AMD Radeon R9 290
AMD Radeon R9 290X
AMD Radeon R9 295X2

There are now much more AMD cards officially supported by Adobe as opposed to Nvidia ones.

This is a change of events from a few years ago,when it was the other way around.

[KeyboardDemon]

I'm not trying to troll you on this, but when you say 25% to 40% it sounds like it could be significant, but 25% to 40% of what?

25% faster for a filter that takes say 4 seconds to apply means that I only have to wait 3 seconds right?

I'm really confused by the benefits of CUDA/OpenCL or any other means of distributing the workload between CPU and GPU, when in my experience the workload never really tends to take much time. But that might say more for the kind of editing I was doing with Photoshop as at most it was just a case of opening my RAW files, applying filters or adjustments on different layers and then maybe cropping before saving jpegs of my 'finished' product.

[kalniel]

Well openCL is accelerated by both AMD and nVidia cards, and while AMD is faster at it, they only have to be fast enough to remove some CPU load and it'll clear any choking from a very weak CPU, which is why I suspect there's no noticeable difference between AMD/nVidia cards per se.

Premier Pro is video isn't it? I still maintain that for stills editing (what I meant to say instead of 2D, above) there's no noticeable difference - it's more important to get a fast CPU.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I'm not trying to troll you on this, but when you say 25% to 40% it sounds like it could be significant, but 25% to 40% of what?

25% faster for a filter that takes say 4 seconds to apply means that I only have to wait 3 seconds right?

I'm really confused by the benefits of CUDA/OpenCL or any other means of distributing the workload between CPU and GPU, when in my experience the workload never really tends to take much time. But that might say more for the kind of editing I was doing with Photoshop as at most it was just a case of opening my RAW files, applying filters or adjustments on different layers and then maybe cropping before saving jpegs of my 'finished' product.

Well openCL is accelerated by both AMD and nVidia cards, and while AMD is faster at it, they only have to be fast enough to remove some CPU load and it'll clear any choking from a very weak CPU, which is why I suspect there's no noticeable difference between AMD/nVidia cards per se.

Premier Pro is video isn't it? I still maintain that for stills editing (what I meant to say instead of 2D, above) there's no noticeable difference - it's more important to get a fast CPU.

I was talking about examples of Corel Aftershoot and try around a few dozen images from a D600 and see how it adds,which is quite easy to do when you go to an airshow where I can go through easily 500+ pictures in one day. Even using an Intel IGP,Corel Aftershot was nearly two seconds quick per image using an Intel IGP,which is likely to only decrease with better hardware.

What either of you don't understand is that Nvidia cards are worse for OpenCL since they are very poorly optimised on consumer cards(plus the AMD consumer cards are faster in hardware too since lower end Nvidia cards are more compute gimped).

On top of this,AMD has forged much closer links to Adobe over the last two years and are cheaper.

I have a GTX660 myself and my mates AMD cards are just better at any of the OpenCL benchmarks under £200.

Both of you can deflect as much as possible,but that is where it is ATM.

Anybody objective would be going for an AMD card for Adobe software now,unless there is a particular situaton where there CUDA acceleration is better than OpenCL.

They are also significantly cheaper,meaning something like a £70 R7 260X is probably go to be faster than all of the sub £200 Nvidia cards.

If a £140 R9 285 is matching a GTX970 or even a GTX770 which is near £200,then it means none of the other Nvidia cards are really going to be worth it.

I think both of you are argueing for the sake of argueing just to show you both have a different viewpoint,and have entrenched yourselves.

[KeyboardDemon]

Well openCL is accelerated by both AMD and nVidia cards, and while AMD is faster at it, they only have to be fast enough to remove some CPU load and it'll clear any choking from a very weak CPU, which is why I suspect there's no noticeable difference between AMD/nVidia cards per se.

Premier Pro is video isn't it? I still maintain that for stills editing (what I meant to say instead of 2D, above) there's no noticeable difference - it's more important to get a fast CPU.

Thanks Kalniel, that makes more sense now.

So that looks like I was right in my thought process in that the average performance increase in Photo editing of 32.5% only really makes a difference that can be measures fractions of a second, it won't make it so that an end user is up 40% more productive because they picked a card that offers better OpenCL support over an alternative card.

Correct me if I'm wrong, ultimately I often get bogged down over insignificant details and I think that this might be one of the scenarios where I would spend time trying to get to the bottom of it all when it looks like it wouldn't make a difference to the way I use my PC.

[kalniel]

I think both of you are argueing for the sake of argueing just to show you both have a different viewpoint,and have entrenched yourselves.

Not at all - we're just answering the question.

But there there plenty of other factors that should be taken into account - AMD cards *tend* to be cheaper for the same performance, meaning you could increase your budget for another component that's more performance critical, like CPU, or to get an SSD (behind CPU, one of the biggest improvements to PS/LR user experience speed IMHO).

On the other hand, nVidia drivers seem to play more nicely with power saving states for me at the moment, so depending on computer usage patterns, I'd consider whether the additional stability would be worth spending a little extra (should your usage match my circumstances).

However, performance in photo editing with PS/LR isn't what I'd use to guide my decision because it's just not significant enough. Even nVidia's poorly optimised openCL is more than fast enough for PS/LR.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Thanks Kalniel, that makes more sense now.

So that looks like I was right in my thought process in that the average performance increase in Photo editing of 32.5% only really makes a difference that can be measures fractions of a second, it won't make it so that an end user is up 40% more productive because they picked a card that offers better OpenCL support over an alternative card.

Correct me if I'm wrong, ultimately I often get bogged down over insignificant details and I think that this might be one of the scenarios where I would spend time trying to get to the bottom of it all when it looks like it wouldn't make a difference to the way I use my PC.

Its actually seconds,but I feel you want to negated the advantages the AMD cards have in this scenario.

Not at all - we're just answering the question.

But there there plenty of other factors that should be taken into account - AMD cards *tend* to be cheaper for the same performance, meaning you could increase your budget for another component that's more performance critical, like CPU, or to get an SSD (behind CPU, one of the biggest improvements to PS/LR user experience speed IMHO).

On the other hand, nVidia drivers seem to play more nicely with power saving states for me at the moment, so depending on computer usage patterns, I'd consider whether the additional stability would be worth spending a little extra (should your usage match my circumstances).

However, performance in photo editing with PS/LR isn't what I'd use to guide my decision because it's just not significant enough.

No your not,since you didn't even realise LR6 is getting such accelleration did you,and have entrenched yourself.

There is nothing wrong with any of the drivers - none of my mates with R9 280,HD7870LE/XT or HD7850 systems have problems and some of those are mini-ITX boxes.

The power consumption thing is just pointless - all of the systems are not really that different ins stability with the GTX660,GTX650TI Boost and GTX750 systems I have had experience,and none have any stability issues.

I am also assuming the OP knows about the disk speed,CPU and RAM requirements for LR.

When a R9 285 is matching a GTX970 in most benchmarks,meaning a r7 260x is probably going to be better than most sub £175 Nvidia cards,it seems you are both terrified,to actually admit the AMD cards are better in this case,and at significantly lower cost. Seems very suspicious,especially with all the deflections,especially with stupid rubbish like stability.

Maybe you should have experienced the Nv 330 drivers and them crashing FF for me all the time - which I thought was a FF problem until someone told me here it was low power state issue with certain Nv configurations. Meh.

I am not going to bother argueing with both you guys since its almost like trolling now with your excuses.

[kalniel]

No your not,since you didn't even realise LR6 is getting such accelleration did you,and have entrenched yourself.

Well I look forward to trying LR6, but since LR5 is already more than fast enough for bulk processing with my current set up any improvement isn't going influence purchase decisions for me. Of course, different people have different workflows, but the processing side of things is not rate limiting for me.

There is nothing wrong with any of the drivers - none of my mates with R9 280,HD7870LE/XT or HD7850 systems have problems and some of those are mini-ITX boxes.

Do check some of the threads on this forum where people have mentioned the issue for AMD cards resuming from power saving states - we hoped the Omega driver would fix it, and it did a little, but several people are having to disable ULPS to improve stability. Even with that I still get the odd hang when the card resumes from idle.

it seems you are both terrified,to actually admit the AMD cards are better in this case,and at significantly lower cost. Seems very suspicious,especially with all the deflections,especially with stupid rubbish like stability.

You know I currently use an AMD card right? And I pointed above that cost is a very good reason to go with AMD? Stability however is very far from stupid rubbish, especially if you're doing something like photo editing.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Well I look forward to trying LR6, but since LR5 is already more than fast enough for bulk processing with my current set up any improvement isn't going influence purchase decisions for me. Of course, different people have different workflows, but the processing side of things is not rate limiting for me.

Do check some of the threads on this forum where people have mentioned the issue for AMD cards resuming from power saving states - we hoped the Omega driver would fix it, and it did a little, but several people are having to disable ULPS to improve stability. Even with that I still get the odd hang when the card resumes from idle.

You know I currently use an AMD card right? And I pointed above that cost is a very good reason to go with AMD? Stability however is very far from stupid rubbish, especially if you're doing something like photo editing.

I know exactly what cards you use. None of my mates have had issue. Really don't start,my GTX660 had stability issues for ages due to a known bug in low power states and FF and yet my mate had no issue and NV would not fix it for months. If you don't believe me - look for the post where I mentioned it off hand as I was having a go at Mozilla,and then someone hear said it was a NV conflict. So you are as likely to have an issue with a Nvidia card as and AMD one.

Likewise none of my mates have this issue last time I checked.

You are moving into "see said","he said" territory - want to give figures per million AMD users for this driver bug??

It still does no change the fact that.a £140 nearly matches or exceeds a GTX970 in lots of GPU accellerated benchmarks,unless they are massively CUDA optimised, So at this point none of the fluff is going to stick. That would mean all the cards under that like the £70 R7 260X and so on will be faster than probably most of the sub £170 Nvidia cards or at least matching them. That means extra money towards storage,RAM and a faster CPU.

Plus what you don't repeatedly understand is again,I posted the PP list for a reason - AMD consumers card have been tested more extensively than Nvidia consumer cards for OpenCL support and as a result there are more AMD cards supported by Adobe than Nvidia. So if you are that worried about stability,then that would mean you would go for a AMD card then. I bet you will make up some excuse for that too.

So:

1.)AMD has more supported consumer cards overall
2.)OpenCL support is better tested by Adobe on AMD cards as more of them list OpenCL support
3.)There are loads of videos of AMD and Adobe reps talking about the work they have done to incorporate OpenCL support into Adobe software including the Mercury Playback Engine
4.)Adobe is moving more and mroe stuff off CUDA/OpenGL to OpenCL
5.)AMD budget cards tend to much better in productivity based stuff than Nvidia ones due to the bifurcation of the Nv lines starting with Kepler
6.)The AMD cards are MASSIVELY cheaper for similar performance. A £140 R9 285 is close to or exceeding a £250+ GTX970 in such benchmarks. A £70 R7 260X is most likely to be as good as something like a GTX960 or GTX750TI or maybe even faster
7.)Nvidia is still betting on CUDA meaning OpenCL support is more an afterthought and IIRC in one Anandtech review a while back they stated something to that degree. They are starting to change that view though,but ATM are behind in consumer cards,even though Maxwell has improved. They do very well in synthetics but not so well in actual software.

At this point we can argue until the cows come home.

I and both of you can agree to disagree and keep it at that,and the same with anyone else.

Its quite funny when the Nvidia cards used to be considered better overall for these things(which they tended to do due to CUDA support in more software),most people(including me) would probably edge it for the Nv ones in the past especially in the Fermi days. But now the tables are turned,people are still stuck in that mode of thinking. Even if Adobe turned round and said use a AMD card explicitly,I bet people will stay make a 1000 reasons not to.A shame really.