Have Asus P877-vlk motherboard Current Card is Gigabyte GeForce 8500 GT (GV-NX85T512HP) 512 MB CPU RAM Will a new card speed things up?
Suports PCI-Express 3.0 x16 Would like to stay with NVIDIA, something fanless to be quiet. Likely 2 GB GPU RAM.
i7 and 16 GB RAM
How much diff is there between PCI-Express 3.0 and 2.0 if I'm not a gamer? Would I see a difference? Is 2.0 fine?
Other thoughts and suggestions appreciated. Recommended cards?
Don't worry about the difference between PCIe 2.0 and 3.0 for your purposes. If you were running something like a GTX 980 (a card selling for over $800 discounted), then it might be a little faster with a PCIe 3.0 slot, as it can handle very high bandwidths that way.
But, for the types of cards in your apparent price range, it really doesn't make any difference, as PCIe x16 2.0 is plenty fast enough to support the bandwidth needed for most cards.
Of course, all newer cards are going to be PCIe 3.0 anyway, and you'll want to get a newer card if spending money on one, so you get one that supports the latest DirecX, OpenGL and OpenCL standards.
Until we see benchmarks of LR CC using different card models doing different tasks, there is no way to know how much difference one card will make versus another.
With Photoshop CC, what users found was the the newer Smart Sharpen filter was significantly faster with some of the newer card models compared to older card models within the Nvidia Lineup.
For example, the GTX 750 Ti versus the older GTX 650 Ti, as reported in this thread by Thomas Niemann:
http://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/53284238
The newer GTX 750, GTX 750 Ti, GTX 960, GTX 970 and GTX 980 models are the only cards within the Nvidia lineup based on a newer Maxwell architecture design, that offers better performance with OpenCL compared to the earlier generation cards they replaced.
Those cards also have the best performance per watt of any cards made (as Nvidia went to great lengths to reduce power consumption and heat generated with the new Maxwell design).
Will more features take advantage of a faster card in Lightroom CC? Again, until someone benchmarks different features using different card models, there is no way to know.
But, I'd probably buy a faster card for "future proofing" if budget permits.
On the lower end of the scale, I'd probably go with this Asus GTX 750 (model# GTX750-DCSL-2GD5) if you really want passive cooling in a card.
http://www.amazon.com/Asus-GTX750-DCSL-2GD5-ASUS-Graphics-Cards/dp/B00RL2SKXY
But, even the GTX 750 and GTX 750 Ti cards with typical fans have a reputation for being very quiet. This Asus "STRIX" GTX 750 Ti is probably the quietest you'll find:
http://www.amazon.com/Asus-STRIX-GTX750TI-OC-2GD5-ASUS-Graphics-Cards/dp/B00M9ZZ1Z8
Basically, it's fan won't even need to run unless under very heavy load, and even then it's likely to be very quiet from reviews I've seen.
Or, if budget permits and you want something a lot faster, look at something like this GTX 960 STRIX model instead:
http://www.amazon.com/Asus-STRIX-GTX960-DC2OC-2GD5-ASUS-Graphics-Cards/dp/B00S9SGMZM
The GTX 960 tests more than twice as fast on some of the OpenCL benchmarks compared to the GTX 750 Ti. See the Luxmark tests on this page for one example of that:
http://benchmarkreviews.com/24899/asus-geforce-gtx-960-strix-video-card-review/12/
Note how the GTX 750 Ti was more than 3 times as fast on that Luxmark test compared to the previous generation GTX 650 Ti?
The better OpenCL performance we're seeing with the newer Maxwell generation cards is probably why I've seen users report much better processing times using the Smart Sharpen Filter in Photoshop CC when comparing times between a GTX 650 Ti and 750 Ti (since Adobe is using OpenCL for GPU accelerated features now).
But, the Smart Sharpen Filter was the only filter in Photoshop CC that would take advantage of a card as fast as the 750 Ti. Other GPU accelerated features really didn't need a card as fast.
Lightroom CC?
Your guess is as good as mine, as I haven't seen anyone benchmarking different card models with any of it's features yet (and I don't know which features would benefit from a fast card either).
In the past, we've tended to see rapidly diminishing returns once you get to a certain speed card (where you could buy a card twice as fast and see no further improvement).
Some of that started to change with filters like Smart Sharpen in PS CC though (where users did notice a bigger difference with a faster card).
Of course, as time passes, I'd expect to see more and more software that can take better advantage of a faster GPU.
We're also seeing higher and higher resolution displays, and trying to push 4K displays at faster frame rates is going to need a good card too.
Anyway, given your system, if budget permitted, I might consider a GTX 960 for it, as it's the newest card in the Nvidia Lineup. It also has an HDMI 2.0 port (whereas the GTX 750 and GTX 750 Ti models only support HDMI 1.4).
That means you could drive a 4K display at 60 frames per second via the HDMI port in the GTX 960 (something you can't do via the HDMI port from cards like the GTX 750 or GTX 750 Ti).
The GTX 960 is also the *only* card made now that has both H.265 (4K standard) decoding and HDMI 2.0 (where the decoding of H.265 video is performed in hardware). Of course, that's not as big of concern with a faster CPU. But, it's interesting that Nvidia included that feature with their new GTX 960 model (other cards don't have H.265 decoding).
Of course, we're not seeing but a handful of computer displays yet that even have HDMI 2.0 inputs. That feature is more common on some of the brand new 40" and larger TV Sets now.
Also, with a 4K computer display, you could still drive it at faster frame rates via a DisplayPort (you wouldn't need to use HDMI if both the card and display had a DisplayPort).
But, as time passes, I expect we'll see more and more monitors, TVs, etc. adopting the HDMI 2.0 standard with higher 4K resolutions.
So, from a future proofing stand point, if budget permits, I think I might consider going with a GTX 960 instead of a GTX 750 or 750 Ti.
That way, you'd be getting a card that tests more than twice as fast as a GTX 750Ti, plus a card that supports the newer HDMI 2.0 standard (for a price that's not twice as high, as I see the Asus GTX 960 STRIX model (their quieter design where the fan doesn't even run unless under heavy load, with very quiet fans if they are running, since higher RPMs are not needed to cool a GTX 960) listed for $188.99 on Amazon right now, which is only $29 more than the Asus GTX 750 TI Strix model.
Asus GTX 750 Ti Strix ($159.99 right this minute)
http://www.amazon.com/Asus-STRIX-GTX750TI-OC-2GD5-ASUS-Graphics-Cards/dp/B00M9ZZ1Z8
Asus GTX 960 Strix ($188.99 right this minute)
http://www.amazon.com/Asus-STRIX-GTX960-DC2OC-2GD5-ASUS-Graphics-Cards/dp/B00S9SGMZM
As for your Seasonic 460w PSU, most of the models I've seen from them have +12v rails rated at something like 38 amps and have dual 6+2 pin PCIe connectors included, too.
That GTX 960 only needs a single 6 pin PCIe connector to work (it draws 75 Watts from the PCIe slot, and the rest it needs from a single 75 Watt 6 Pin PCIe connector, not dual 6 pins, 8 pin, etc. like higher power draw cards need). The latest Maxwell design is very power efficient compared to any other cards on the market.
Even under "torture" tests, the most I've seen it reported to draw was 144 watts.. But, you'd be hard pressed to get it pulling that much, as they were probably overclocking it significantly for that torture test.
See it in a chart on this page:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/nvidia-geforce-gtx-960,4038-8.html
In fact, Nvidia specs only show a 120 Watt TDP for it, with a 400 Watt PSU recommended. See their specs for it:
http://www.geforce.com/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-gtx-960/specifications
Chances are, your entire system fully loaded including that card fully loaded being stressed with benchmarks tests is only going to pull around 200 Watts total (as the newer Core i7 4790k and similar CPUs have a TDP of 84 Watts under full load and the GTX 960 has a rated TDP of 120 Watts (and I doubt you'd get it to much over 100 Watts anyway without using Asus software to OC it significantly); with the MB, fans and drives using very little more.
IOW, your PSU shouldn't get to much over 50% load with your entire system being stress tested, including that card, your CPU, motherboard, drives and fans. For that matter, I suspect you'd have to try really, really, hard to get your entire system pulling much over 200 watts total (as it's hard to get a CPU and GPU at 100% load at the same time).
Anyway, there is no way to know if Lightroom CC will benefit much from a faster card, until see start seeing some benchmarks of it's features from users that are testing it with different video card models.
So, there is no guarantee that a faster card is going to help anything. But, if it were my money and I were buying a new card, I'd buy the GTX 750 with 2GB of memory at a minimum.
But, I'd go ahead and make the jump to the GTX 960 (Nvidia's newest video card model with features like HDMI 2.0 and H.265 decoding that are not available in the GTX 750 or GTX 750 Ti) if budget permitted, giving me a card that tests more than twice as fast as a GTX 750 Ti for very little price difference (since I expect to see more and more software taking advantage of a faster video card as time passes)
BTW, there is a new 4GB model of the Asus GTX 960 STRIX coming out very soon. It was announced last month and was supposed to be available this month:
But, I don't see it listed on popular vendor sites yet.
Of course, most of what we do now doesn't need more than 2GB (with even 1GB working fine for most purposes). But, in the future, I suspect we'll see more and more apps that are actually running on the GPU versus the CPU. So, more memory wouldn't hurt anything for future proofing.
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JimC
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