Video Cards

[sedrosken]

I'm a little bit surprised you'd chose a 27" screen. I've had 32" monitors for 15 years at this point.

To be fair, I am trending upward. I went from a 19" screen, to a 21.5" screen, to a 23, to a 24, and now to a 27. But yeah, as Lunar said, if you start looking for anything bigger they want to sell you 4K, and I don't want to A. push that many pixels for no reason and B. have to resort to DPI scaling that doesn't always function correctly.

 

[ddrueding]

I do think that 42" is the correct size if it can physically and financially fit in your situation. This one by ASUS was announced after I'd ordered mine, but before I'd taken delivery (always the way). They call it a gaming monitor, but 98% of DCI-P3 is plenty for social media video production.

 

[jtr1962]

Be glad you are still at a point where glasses are somehow optional. My eyesight can't even be corrected to 20/20 with glasses, and I am physically incapable of putting in contacts. Not hyperbole. I had a very patient optometrist and his assistant conclude, after three hours of trying, that the only I'd ever get them in was a Ludavico Technique scenario.

I doubt contacts would go over that well with me, either. My uncorrected vision is in the area of 20/200 but I normally get by just fine without glasses. I only wear them when I need to see fine detail from a distance, like watching TV from the couch. I can ride my bike just fine without them. The upside of being nearsighted is my closeup vision is great. I don't need reading glasses, which is common for a lot of people by the time they hit my age. I can still assemble tiny components on circuits, and even read the numbers off stuff like 0603 size resistors.

Are OLED displays in actual computer monitor sizes being made? I see them in 15" and 48" and really pretty much nothing in between.

As you found out, yes, they're being made but they're not in "normal people" price range. OLED TVs are finally getting there. When the 42" in the living room goes, I'll get a 48" OLED. It'll fit in the cabinet due to the much narrower bezel. And that size is now under $1,000 finally. Might be under $500 by the time I need one.

 

[LunarMist]

I do think that 42" is the correct size if it can physically and financially fit in your situation. This one by ASUS was announced after I'd ordered mine, but before I'd taken delivery (always the way). They call it a gaming monitor, but 98% of DCI-P3 is plenty for social media video production.

Are you viewing it without glasses? It seems to me that the pixel level viewing distance would require a lot of neck/head movement and the difference between center and edges to eyes would vary a lot. I suspect that at about 0.75m the size would be just OK for full viewing, but would require a deep desk if the keyboard is on top of it, in front on the monitor.

DCI-P3 is more of a video standard, not so much for photography. Are any of those OLED monotors really stable and have hardware calibration with a 3D LUT? Can you turn off all that auto brightness and HDR crud and operate at 100 nits or close to that with a decent gamut for soft proofing?

 

[sedrosken]

I do think that 42" is the correct size if it can physically and financially fit in your situation. This one by ASUS was announced after I'd ordered mine, but before I'd taken delivery (always the way). They call it a gaming monitor, but 98% of DCI-P3 is plenty for social media video production.

My 4K TV is 43" and there's just absolutely no possible way I could fit that on a desk or make it comfortable to use as a monitor. I already think I'm maxed out in terms of useful screen area with how I use and sit at my desk.

 

[Handruin]

I'm running a Dell 43" 4K monitor on my desk for the past 3 years or so and it's been great. It took a little getting used to but once I did, I love it. I've been considering changing from this Dell 43" to an LG C2 42" since I do more gaming than anything else on this setup. Those went on sale a couple months back and I regret not picking one up at the time.

 

[LunarMist]

If I decide to get a 4070 Ti, and assuming it doesn't blow up the power, is it enough in the long haul for maximizing the 2560 displays and computing images? I don't forsee getting a 42-43" display during this AMD AM5 era (4th or 5th Geeration RYZEN). They don't seem to be made for 3D calibration and many don't seem to have any hardware LUT. By the time the Ryzen 6 is out I'll probably give up on computer building and have to buy a MAC.

 

[Handruin]

The 4070 ti should be able to handle four panels at 3840 x 2160 at 60hz so handling a single 2560 panel should be nothing for it.

 

[ddrueding]

Windows has this great feature where if you hold the windows key and use the arrows (left and right are the most useful), it automatically moves the active window to exactly half your screen and prompts you what you'd like (from the open applications) on the other half. This gives two 8:9 aspect ratio windows without a bezel in between. For normal web browsing and research work this is perfect. If you then use the windows+up or down keys you can quarter your screen and have 4x 20.25" 1080p screens.

Of course, it is amazing for videos and games as it is.

I don't know of one with the full set of pro-level tools (hardware calibration, hardware LUT, etc), and all OLED-based technology will have some level of image shifting and other bits to fight burn-in, but I suspect it is plenty for 99% of people doing photo/video work.

 

[Mercutio]

Video work is a whole thing, man. It's deeply specialized and the recommendations change entirely based on your hardware and applications. My setup is extremely idiosyncratic because I choose to work in Resolve Studio instead of some other thing.

 

[LunarMist]

So do I need a strong video card for video or is it just for processing files (GPU accelerators) and playing games?
I'm really needing to decide what to buy.

 

[ddrueding]

If you're working in a video codec where a GPU has built-in encoders or decoders, you should have one of those cards. Almost doesn't matter where in their product lineup you are.

 

[LunarMist]

I'd like to see the difference in speed between the 4070 Ti and the 4070. The 4070 Ti will be a tight fit, but the 4070 may or may not be much smaller. It looks like there are only a few 4070 Ti that are less than 3+ slots wide and not in stock. It's also a bit strange that many of the same cards are sold in regular and OC versions, but the OC is a percent or two at most. I've checked the mainstream 4070 Ti cards.

MSI Ventuos - 52mm (and 1 similar OC version)
Asus - None <60mm
Gigabyte Gaming, Eagle, Aero - 58mm (and 2 similar OC versions)
PNY XLR8 Gaming Vertigo - width unclear (3-slot bracket), but looks like about 58mm
Zotac AMP AIRO, Trinity - 58.5mm (and 1 similar OC version)

Are there any other options I'm not aware of that would fit? For now I would feel better with the Ventuos. Thoughts?

 

[Mercutio]

If you're working in a video codec where a GPU has built-in encoders or decoders, you should have one of those cards. Almost doesn't matter where in their product lineup you are.

The RTX 4090 has dual encoding modules, which could be a big deal since nVidia typically has the best supported encoding hardware.
On the other hand, Intel has the best overall support for codecs in Quickpath, which can be enabled from either CPU or a GPU.
In either case, you get the same (single) hardware encoder when you buy whatever GPU of a given generation. A 3050 and a 3080 do the same things, for example. It just comes down to what software supports which hardware encoders better and which hardware encoders are fastest.

Many photo editing products barely use a GPU for anything, apparently, but plenty of add-ins like Topaz Denoise, make heavy use of them. In video editing, it depends if you've risen out of the slums of consumer stuff before hardware encoders do much of anything.

 

[LunarMist]

So there is a big difference between the 40 series and 30 series, but not so much in the different ones in each line. I will never be getting the dual encoder types. Which benchmarks are best representative of the DXO, Topaz, PTGUI for example?

 

[Mercutio]

Since we're probably talking about consumer graphics hardware, single-precision FP32 is probably a decent indicator of GPU computing performance. The actual specifics will depend on what a given application has decided to implement and support.

 

[LunarMist]

What sites show those numbers? I'm really hoping for some improvements over the 3060 Ti.

 

[Mercutio]

There are a bunch of sites that offer rankings. Many of them want to use specific cards rather than generic chips, but it's easy enough to navigate. cpu-compare.com is an easy one to remember.

 

[LunarMist]

Which ways do the cards blow from the three fans, in or out?

 

[ddrueding]

Generally if it is a 3 fan card the fans pull from the outside of the card and blow into the card. Of course they all dump that hot air right back into the case, and it is up to you to get that heat out. Yes some of the hot air leaves the backplate, but don't count on that to be the only exhaust.

 

[LunarMist]

Theoretically the video will only be at power for brief periods of time in bursters during file processing. It's not used continuously as in games or emulating proteins, preparing cryptobionic monies, etc. I have a 140mm rear case fan that is tied to CPU temperature. There is a slowish 200mm case fan on the side that blows on the whole mainboard. The two front fans are old and somewhat clogged, so don't do much. The top has a an open mesh, but I added some smaller one to reduce debris ingress.

 

[LunarMist]

I read that the cables to the GPU are a different kind from the factory, so a Y adapter is needed and some of those are problematic due to stiffness and/or overheating. Do you guys recommend the bundled adapter or maybe a direct power connector like this one?

 

[sedrosken]

If the direct cable is compatible with your power supply, 100% I'd go for that one. That's always going to be less sketchy than adapters.

 

[LunarMist]

The video card is really long and the wiring doesn't fit, nor does the slot.
Width is not as bad as I thought.

 

[LunarMist]

Now it won't initialize my OpenCL in PTG, so there is no accreleration at all (obviously slower than the 3060 Ti). This video card cluster since the pandemoneic reminds me of waiting two years to upgrade RAM and then realizing it wouldn't work. That was 20 years ago, but Windows is still screwing with me. Whatever...

 

[LunarMist]

I got the cable and it works great. There is definitely less stress than that stiff adapter and one cable is better than two cables plus adapter. It is still longer than needed at 650mm.

 

[Mercutio]

Apparently, nVidia has improved its hardware encoder to the point that anything Maxwell or newer (and not an -MX) can now encode five inputs simultaneously with NVenc. Before, the encoder could only handle three streams at once.

No support any of the stuff I care about, but it's probably really cool for someone recording game + desktop + realtime face and secondary camera in OBS or whatever.