Graphics Card - Photoshop CS6 / CC - Cuda Vs OpenCL

[iamthemoose]

Apologies to the forum if I'm putting this in the wrong place. It kinda spans at least 3 different subjects but I thought this would fit best.

 

So it might be time for me to build a new system. Currently my wife's graphics station is running an amd a8-3870 and radeon 7800. Pretty sure I'm going to spring for intel this time.

 

Anyway, when I built the current system she's using photoshop (and the adobe suite in general) had come out pretty strongly against cuda. Time on certain photoshop operations were doubled or tripled on nvidia cards because they had no OpenCL support whereas radeons did. https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/kb/photoshop-cs6-gpu-faq.html " MGE is new to Photoshop CS6 and uses both the OpenGL and OpenCL frameworks. It does not use the proprietary CUDA framework from nVidia."

 

So my main question is this: does anyone know if this has been rectified in any way? Is Adobe now supporting CUDA in CC? (which I suspect isn't the case because https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/kb/photoshop-cs6-gpu-faq1.html) Did Nvidia start supporting OpenCL? 

 

Right now I'm considering either a R9 2790X or 290X, but I see the GTX 970 gives noticeably better performance for the same price as the 290X. However as this is a 0% gaming machine, no cuda support, and photoshop being primarily CPU based, I don't know if I'd see any difference even between the 270X and the GTX 970 for most photoshop/fireworks/ai work.

 

Thoughts anyone?

[costacis21]

if you are not using this machine for gaming, you should really consider the ''workstation'' grade GPUs of amd and nvidia. Quadro for nvidia and firepro for amd.

[SWAGGA]

why would you need a gpu for photoshop, integrated graphics will easily do the job

[TheKDub]

I believe that Nvidia has supported opencl for a long time, and I think that adobe also supports cuda, though I may be wrong.

 

You should just have to install the drivers for opencl for it to work.

[Ex14]

I have CC and I ahve to say... Graphics acceleration hasn;t really made me experience any better. Granted I'm just using lightroom

[typographie]

I work as a designer and I use Photoshop fairly heavily, and I use a work-provided 2012 iMac with a 512 MB Geforce GT 640M.

 

Consequently, most common Photoshop workloads isn't particularly demanding in my experience. So, it's going to come down to what your wife is actually doing most of the time in Photoshop.

[Micky Love]

- unless you do batch raw conversion or heavy filter (noise, liquefy), CPU power is enough I think...

I use a GTX 750 with a i5-4460 and it's pretty fuild...

[iamthemoose]

why would you need a gpu for photoshop, integrated graphics will easily do the job

 

Haven't seen a lot of integrated graphics that handle 3 displays.

 

 

if you are not using this machine for gaming, you should really consider the ''workstation'' grade GPUs of amd and nvidia. Quadro for nvidia and firepro for amd.

 

Hard to justify the added cost for lower performance. Don't need the kind of "workstation" reliability they put into them.

 

 

I work as a designer and I use Photoshop fairly heavily, and I use a work-provided 2012 iMac with a 512 MB Geforce GT 640M.

 

Consequently, most common Photoshop workloads isn't particularly demanding in my experience. So, it's going to come down to what your wife is actually doing most of the time in Photoshop.

 

 

It varies from batch raw conversion on 200+ files at once to working on a single file upwards of 10k*10k pixels. Her workflow habits aren't the best so it's not uncommon to see her working on 7 or 8 different 1gb+ files at once.

 

 

Anyone have thoughts on the cuda/opencl issue?

[Dabombinable]

 

 

 

Haven't seen a lot of integrated graphics that handle 3 displays.

 

 

 

Hard to justify the added cost for lower performance. Don't need the kind of "workstation" reliability they put into them.

 

 

 

 

It varies from batch raw conversion on 200+ files at once to working on a single file upwards of 10k*10k pixels. Her workflow habits aren't the best so it's not uncommon to see her working on 7 or 8 different 1gb+ files at once.

 

 

Anyone have thoughts on the cuda/opencl issue?

 

Nvidia graphics cards can utilise OpenCL alongside Cuda, so if you buy an Nvidia card its really comes down to which one appears to work better.

[iamthemoose]

Nvidia graphics cards can utilise OpenCL alongside Cuda, so if you buy an Nvidia card its really comes down to which one appears to work better.

 

That's good to know, how does their implementation stack up against AMD?

[Dabombinable]

That's good to know, how does their implementation stack up against AMD?

I'm not sure, the last AMD card I owned was the iGPU in my laptop from 2003-and that lacked a lot of modern features.

[Dabombinable]

This article (3 pages) might help: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=nvidia-amd-opencl-2015&num=1

[typographie]

Anyone have thoughts on the cuda/opencl issue?

 

It sounds to me based on some Google searching—and bear in mind that there's a lot of confusion about this out there—that Photoshop from CS6 onward uses OpenCL, not CUDA. And OpenCL is not vendor specific.

 

If my understanding is correct, this article lists the GPU-accelerated functions in CS6: https://forums.adobe.com/message/4289204

It sounds like it's used mostly for filters and Photoshop's 3D rendering tools. Your wife's workload might be entirely platform-dependent.

[iamthemoose]

This article (3 pages) might help: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=nvidia-amd-opencl-2015&num=1

 

Yeah, i found that one but wasn't sure about it because 1) they don't test the cards our local shops carry (see OP) 2) it's on linux and 3) it's for their own proprietary test suite, not Adobe.

[iamthemoose]

It sounds to me based on some Google searching—and bear in mind that there's a lot of confusion about this out there—that Photoshop from CS6 onward uses OpenCL, not CUDA. And OpenCL is not vendor specific.

 

If my understanding is correct, this article lists the GPU-accelerated functions in CS6: https://forums.adobe.com/message/4289204

It sounds like it's used mostly for filters and Photoshop's 3D rendering tools. Your wife's workload might be entirely platform-dependent.

 

That confusion is what led me here. Hoping someone might have done this legwork within the past year and come up with better real results than I'm getting.

 

What do you mean when you say platform-dependent?

[Dabombinable]

Yeah, i found that one but wasn't sure about it because 1) they don't test the cards our local shops carry (see OP) 2) it's on linux and 3) it's for their own proprietary test suite, not Adobe.

The features of the graphics cards still run the same way. There are several benchmarks here that show the strengths and weaknesses of each card. In all reality you could buy either an R9 290X or a GTX 970 and your wife would be happy. (Is the R9 270X a typo in the first post? It is significantly weaker than an R9 290X).

[typographie]

That confusion is what led me here. Hoping someone might have done this legwork within the past year and come up with better real results than I'm getting.

 

What do you mean when you say platform-dependent?

 

Platform refers generally to the CPU/motherboard/memory, but I mean the CPU and RAM in this case. I think those are likely to be the biggest factors in the sort of tasks you listed above.

[iamthemoose]

The features of the graphics cards still run the same way. There are several benchmarks here that show the strengths and weaknesses of each card. In all reality you could buy either an R9 290X or a GTX 970 and your wife would be happy. (Is the R9 270X a typo in the first post? It is significantly weaker than an R9 290X).

 

The 270x is weaker, but also about 40%(170$) cheaper locally. I'm not sure if the extra cost there on a non-gaming machine is justifiable. They have the same memory capacity, 4gb, though the memory interface is is 512 on the 290x and 256 on the 270x. But the 270x has higher clock speed, 5,600mhz vs 5,000mhz on the 290x.

270x: http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/MX51572

290x: http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/MX50293 

And looking through the available local GTX 970's; http://www.memoryexpress.com/Category/VideoCardsI'm not seeing any with a 512bit memory interface. This page: http://www.studio1productions.com/Articles/PhotoShop.htm would lead me to think that it could be an important aspect.

 

 

So, realistically, how much does the 256/512bit memory interface affect this sort of thing?

 

 

Platform refers generally to the CPU/motherboard/memory, but I mean the CPU and RAM in this case. I think those are likely to be the biggest factors in the sort of tasks you listed above.

 

Ah, yeah, but not appropriate for this forum. I'mm'a go stir up trouble over in the cpu/mb/mem forum later. Oh geeze. I totally thought I'd posted this thread in graphics forum

[han_han08]

no cuda support? go AMD gpu for better gpu acceleration..

 

we have after effects user here that's using gtx 960

[Chiobe]

You might want to take a look at this before buying a card:

 

Photoshop Mercury Graphics Engine

The Mercury Graphics Engine (MGE) represents features that use video card processor, or GPU, acceleration. In Photoshop CS6, this new engine delivers near-instant results when editing with key tools such as Liquify, Warp, Lighting Effects, and the Oil Paint filter. The new MGE delivers unprecedented responsiveness for a fluid feel as you work.

Source: Adobe.com

 

GPU-enhanced features added in Photoshop CS6

Adaptive Wide Angle Filter (compatible video card required)

Liquify (accelerated with compatible video card with 512 MB of VRAM)

Oil Paint (compatible video card required)

Warp and Puppet Warp (accelerated with compatible video card)

Field Blur, Iris Blur, and Tilt/Shift (accelerated with compatible video card supporting OpenCL)

Lighting Effects Gallery (compatible video card required with 512 MB of VRAM)

New 3D enhancements (3D features in Photoshop require a compatible video card with 512 MB of VRAM):

Draggable Shadows

Ground plane reflections

Roughness

On-canvas user interface controls

Ground plane

Light widgets on edge of canvas

IBL (image-based light) controller

Source: Adobe.com

[iamthemoose]

Chiobe; yep. Have seen that. And posted a link to it in the original post at the top there.