- Joined
- Nov 1, 2012
- Messages
- 1,007
- Motherboard
- GA-Z77X-UP5 TH
- CPU
- i7-3770K
- Graphics
- HD4000 / GTX 1050 Ti
- Mac
- Classic Mac
- Mobile Phone
I've maintained for a long time that the HD4000 graphics had enough grunt for my work. And they do. Using Lightroom, Photoshop CS6, writing software, browsing the web, reading email, watching movies, it's all fine. I've tested this on 27" 2560x1600 displays as well as dual 24" displays. However, I'm an inveterate tinkerer...
I noticed when running the Unigine Heaven benchmark at 1920x1200 that my lammergeier machine only managed 8 fps overall. While this was a similar result to my MacBook Pro (with a GPU) running at 1680x1050, it shows that 3D processing would not be pleasant on this machine. Also, I'm considering some projects for the coming year using Premiere and Photoshop for 1080p video processing, and some level of CUDA processing could be useful. Note that Photoshop CS6 and Lightroom 4 don't use CUDA. Photoshop at least uses the OpenGL and OpenCL interfaces, and is happy running on AMD hardware for accelleration. Premiere CS6 and After Effects CS6 do use CUDA.
So I decided to look into the options for a GPU with more grunt than the HD4000. Just cos I could...
Selecting a GPU
I didn't want a GPU which was going to consume too much power (after all this machine is powered by a UPS with battery backup) or generate a lot of noise (having already made the system almost silent). Due to wanting CUDA, and their built-in support in Mountain Lion (albeit beefed up by updated drivers from nVidia) I restricted myself to looking at the nVidia 6xx cards. Actually, I lie: I did look at some of the Radeon cards but they (a) didn't seem to offer a significant performance advantage over the similarly-priced nVidias, and (b) the 7xxx chips aren't supported in OS X 10.8.2 so they're out of the running for now anyway.
So without spending a fortune, what was a reasonable nVidia GPU card to look at?
Tom's Hardware has a convenient chart of GPUs arranged into tiers of gaming performance, providing a (very) simplified look at the market. The text on that page says:
Choosing between the GTX 650 and the GTX 650 Ti
For budget-conscious purchasers, the optimal choice is likely to be one of the GTX 650 or the GTX 650 Ti. The GTX 650 Ti is faster, although by how much depends on the work it's doing. If you check out the technical details you'll see that it has twice the number of SPUs and TAUs, but the same number of ROPs, slightly faster memory, but a slightly slower clock. The Tom's Hardware GPU chart has the GPUs two tiers apart: less than their "three tiers higher" reccommendation.
People looking for the most performance for their dollars will probably choose the GTX 650 Ti (or possibly even the 660). However I chose the plain GTX 650. If I was keener on getting even more GPU power for a specific purpose, and I was happy with the extra 46W of PSU and cooling required, I might have gone for the GTX 650 Ti.
I ended up getting a 2 GB GTX 650 card for less money than a 1GB GTX 650 Ti. I figured that just as in the CPU world where more RAM is usually the biggest thing to extend the life of a machine, more vRAM was likely to extend the useful life of the card even if I wasn't going to need it now. 1 GB is more than enough for now (minimum requirement for Photoshop CS6 Extended 3D functions is only 512 MB) but I played it safe. Most of my photos are around the 20-megapixel mark (and are likely to get bigger), and if I end up processing these with the GPU then I don't want it to start thrashing the vRAM which would kill performance. That's crystal-ball gazing however: I'm not asking any software to handle full-sized images on the GPU yet. The extra GB was easy future-proofing, and cost me only AU$25. The card is a Gigabyte GV-N650OC-2GI, with a clock 5% faster than the reference nVidia design.
I did ummm and aaah about the options for quite a while, but in the end made a choice and went with it.
See the update to my lammergeier build post for details on how I installed the card. I did make some physical modifications to it.
BTW I am still using the HD4000 as well as the GTX 650.
The day-to-day performance of the GPU is not noticeably different to the HD4000, but that's probably because I don't use much "heavy-duty" GPU software at the moment. But the Heaven benchmark?
I noticed when running the Unigine Heaven benchmark at 1920x1200 that my lammergeier machine only managed 8 fps overall. While this was a similar result to my MacBook Pro (with a GPU) running at 1680x1050, it shows that 3D processing would not be pleasant on this machine. Also, I'm considering some projects for the coming year using Premiere and Photoshop for 1080p video processing, and some level of CUDA processing could be useful. Note that Photoshop CS6 and Lightroom 4 don't use CUDA. Photoshop at least uses the OpenGL and OpenCL interfaces, and is happy running on AMD hardware for accelleration. Premiere CS6 and After Effects CS6 do use CUDA.
So I decided to look into the options for a GPU with more grunt than the HD4000. Just cos I could...
Selecting a GPU
I didn't want a GPU which was going to consume too much power (after all this machine is powered by a UPS with battery backup) or generate a lot of noise (having already made the system almost silent). Due to wanting CUDA, and their built-in support in Mountain Lion (albeit beefed up by updated drivers from nVidia) I restricted myself to looking at the nVidia 6xx cards. Actually, I lie: I did look at some of the Radeon cards but they (a) didn't seem to offer a significant performance advantage over the similarly-priced nVidias, and (b) the 7xxx chips aren't supported in OS X 10.8.2 so they're out of the running for now anyway.
So without spending a fortune, what was a reasonable nVidia GPU card to look at?
Tom's Hardware has a convenient chart of GPUs arranged into tiers of gaming performance, providing a (very) simplified look at the market. The text on that page says:
Three factors were fundamental to my considerations: the price, the performance, and the TDP (Thermal Design Profile). The TDP gives us an idea of the peak load the card will place on both the power supply and the cooling systems.
- Using the HD4000 has a baseline, the GT 640 cards are 8 tiers higher. There'll be some variation based on overclocking/etc, but this is all very approximate (some CPUs have different HD4000 clocks too). The GT 640 has a TDP of 65W, and is available for under AU$100. These cards have HDMI and dual-link DVI interfaces.
- Next up the line is the GTX 650, which is essentially a GT 640 with (much) faster DDR5 RAM. It has almost the same TDP, and costs about AU$30 more. At a theoretical level just comparing the hardware seems to indicate the performance might be 18-40% greater than the GT 640, and in fact some gaming benchmarks show a 45% improvement.
In the Tom's Hardware chart the GTX 650 rates 3 tiers higher than the GT 640 (and 11 higher than the HD4000). So definitely a worthwhile upgrade from the 640 to 650 in their opinion.
- The GTX 650 Ti is two tiers higher again, with a TDP of 110W. The price climbs to around the AU$165 mark.
- Another two tiers higher, the GTX 660 is around AU$235, and the cost and the power keep going up from there. The 660 and upwards have DisplayPort interfaces in addition to DVI/HDMI.
Choosing between the GTX 650 and the GTX 650 Ti
For budget-conscious purchasers, the optimal choice is likely to be one of the GTX 650 or the GTX 650 Ti. The GTX 650 Ti is faster, although by how much depends on the work it's doing. If you check out the technical details you'll see that it has twice the number of SPUs and TAUs, but the same number of ROPs, slightly faster memory, but a slightly slower clock. The Tom's Hardware GPU chart has the GPUs two tiers apart: less than their "three tiers higher" reccommendation.
People looking for the most performance for their dollars will probably choose the GTX 650 Ti (or possibly even the 660). However I chose the plain GTX 650. If I was keener on getting even more GPU power for a specific purpose, and I was happy with the extra 46W of PSU and cooling required, I might have gone for the GTX 650 Ti.
I ended up getting a 2 GB GTX 650 card for less money than a 1GB GTX 650 Ti. I figured that just as in the CPU world where more RAM is usually the biggest thing to extend the life of a machine, more vRAM was likely to extend the useful life of the card even if I wasn't going to need it now. 1 GB is more than enough for now (minimum requirement for Photoshop CS6 Extended 3D functions is only 512 MB) but I played it safe. Most of my photos are around the 20-megapixel mark (and are likely to get bigger), and if I end up processing these with the GPU then I don't want it to start thrashing the vRAM which would kill performance. That's crystal-ball gazing however: I'm not asking any software to handle full-sized images on the GPU yet. The extra GB was easy future-proofing, and cost me only AU$25. The card is a Gigabyte GV-N650OC-2GI, with a clock 5% faster than the reference nVidia design.
I did ummm and aaah about the options for quite a while, but in the end made a choice and went with it.
See the update to my lammergeier build post for details on how I installed the card. I did make some physical modifications to it.
BTW I am still using the HD4000 as well as the GTX 650.
The day-to-day performance of the GPU is not noticeably different to the HD4000, but that's probably because I don't use much "heavy-duty" GPU software at the moment. But the Heaven benchmark?
