Comparing Resolve performance with GTX 285, 470, 480 and Quadra 6000

[jake blackstone]

I just had a visit from Dave Pirinelli from MacvidCards.
Disclosure:
I have no affiliation with David or MacVidCards, other than I use his GTX 285 with stock MacPro 4.1, octo 2.26 Ghz and Resolve, that I had purchased almost 2 years ago.
He offered to bring various Mac video cards to test with Resolve.
So we had tested:
1. GTX 285 with 1 GB of RAM
2. GTX 470
3. GTX 480
4. Quadra 6000.

All cards ran fine with Resolve. Only GTX 480 required an external power supply. They all showed up correctly in the system profiler, with exception of Quadra 6000 showing 2GB of RAM, instead of 6GB.
GTX 470 and 480 were properly recognized by Resolve. Resolve complained about Quadra 6000, but it still ran fine, as far as I can tell.
I used the Noise Reduction to simulate a heavy GPU load. I used settings of 2 and 3 on the NR to see the playback speed. Lower number requires more number crunching GPU power.
So, here are the findings:
1. GTX 285 NR=2 9 fps NR=3 16fps
2. GTX 470 NR=2 12.5fps NR=3 21fps
3. Quadra 6000 NR=2 12fps NR=3 20fps
4. GTX 480 NR=2 16 fps NR=3 Real time

For my money. GTX 470 is the best value with Resolve. As you can see, this card actually exceeded the performance of Quadra 6000. The overall champ was GTX 480. This is the only card, that was capable of real time performance with the NR. Not too bad, but the external power supply is a bit of a bummer. Not a problem, though with the external enclosure.
Hope this info helps...

[Dustin Cross]

Jake,

Thanks for the info.

Would you see much benefit to having two GTX480s? I have been thinking about trying 2 480s, but it seems Resolve uses my CPUs more than my GPUs. Maybe it is just the things I have been doing (mostly dailies with light grade) and if I did more complicated grades I would notice the GPU being used more?


Dusty

[jake blackstone]

Jake,

Thanks for the info.

Would you see much benefit to having two GTX480s? I have been thinking about trying 2 480s, but it seems Resolve uses my CPUs more than my GPUs. Maybe it is just the things I have been doing (mostly dailies with light grade) and if I did more complicated grades I would notice the GPU being used more?


Dusty

For dailies you don't need even a one GTX 480. GTX 285 is just fine for that type of work. In your case all the heavy lifting- debayer is done either by CPU or RR.

[Dustin Cross]

Jake,

Actually most of my dailies lately are Alexa, but simple one node grade doesn't seem to use GPU much at all.

What type of work in Resolve would take advantage of two 480s?


Dusty

[jake blackstone]

Jake,

Actually most of my dailies lately are Alexa, but simple one node grade doesn't seem to use GPU much at all.

What type of work in Resolve would take advantage of two 480s?


Dusty

Lots and lots of of nodes, high res, like 4k, stereo, real time NR, HDRx

[Mark Kern]

I assume a GTX 580 would still work in realtime...anybody have compatibility issues with a 580?

[jake blackstone]

I assume a GTX 580 would still work in realtime...anybody have compatibility issues with a 580?

At this point no one has been able to make GTX 580 working on a Mac...

[Kaku Ito]

Thanks Jake for this.

[Matthew Scott]

Legend, thanks so much :)

[Luis Otero]

Well,

I bought a 470 from them, upgrading from the 285. NEVER have gotten Jake's frame rates, never. :-(

I am using it for Resolve, so the GT 120 is still being used for UI. I am having questions, posted them after I followed their website instructions as to how to update the Device ID on the "AppleGraphicsPowerManagement.kext" (wich by the way, it shows two different ones on my system profile, one for each "slot" it covers, and there is no instructions as to how to handle this), but it seems that there is no way to get support to confirm if the appropriate steps were followed.

BTW, the instructions are not that user-friendly, and can be even contradicting. Do "x" to maximize its performance, but later on, if it mentions that if used for Resolve do not change it. So, does it mean that if used for Resolve we will never exploit its maximum performance?

Can someone be so kind and point me to the right place to get the answers I need. I feel that I have a piece of equipment that has the potential to generate for me $1M, but I am getting 50 cents...