Video Cards: Quantity or Capacity?

[Nick Mercer]

Is it better to have 2 x 1.5 gb video cards or 1 x 3gb video card for After Effects, Premiere, FCP, 3ds Max, Resolve, etc...?

[Jeff Kilgroe]

To much of a loaded question there. All depends on what is supported by the various applications and on what platforms. Some apps, like FCP7 don't benefit from GPU acceleration at all. Some apps depend on nVidia GPUs for CUDA acceleration, this includes Premiere and Resolve, Premiere can only use one GPU, Resolve can use multiple. In fact, Resolve requires one GPU for the user interface and at least one dedicated CUDA GPU for acceleration. Other apps are OpenGL specfific, like Max, Maya and other 3D apps. Some of these can use multiple GPUs in tandem at times, some can't.

So the real answer is to see which apps you will run the most and configure your hardware according to what will serve them best.