How much influence does a graphics card have with processing speed.

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Vicintheshed

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In as much as what should I look for in a graphics card to have better processing speeds using filters and plugins such as Topaz denoise/sharpen AI and Photo AI. Bearing in mind that I don’t want to take out a bank loan for cards that high end gaming cards seem to be priced at.
 
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Topaz products can be set up to utilize graphics cards. It vastly speeds up the processing. Not sure about adobe or others. There is a thread on dpreview about different cards, but it's about the high end ones.

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You could Google something to the effect of "gpu benchmark" and add the programs you use to the search. Toms hardware test a lot of stuff.
 
It didn't use to be that important, but now that Lightroom denoise and DXO rely so heavily it makes a difference in wait time. Though you eventually get the same result. I'd say just look at the Adobe and DXO list of supported graphics cards and requirements and make sure yours is on both lists. Even if not using dxo, it's a good benchmark that should cover other accelerated programs.
 
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It depends on the software application as to whether it can take full advantage of the GPU with a Windows computer. The driver for the card also needs to be engineered for graphics processing that is of the type needed for processing still image files. Most drivers are developed for gamers. The nVidia cards can work with either a gaming driver of their "studio" driver with the latter designed for applications such as Photoshop.

Different situation with Mac computers where there is a graphics section of the CPU that works very effectively, especially with the M2 machines. The Mac OS is also twice as efficient in the use of computer resources as Windows and that makes a very noticeable difference in processing speeds.

As I don't want to spend $9,000 on an Apple workstation I have Wintel machines that do require adding a graphics card. Then the trick is to find ones that do not take up 3 slots on the motherboard which is the case with most of them.

I gained 4x the data throughput in my Windows tower with the addition of a special PCIe card that can hold up to 4 M.2 NVME memory modules and have a direct connection to the memory bus. The first card I bought could only process the data in a serial manner from multiple NVME modules and I replaced it with a Sonnnet M.2 4x4 PCIe 3.0 Silent Edition card which processes the data in parallel and provides far better heat dissipation from the NVME modules for longer life.
 
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Vicintheshed said:
In as much as what should I look for in a graphics card to have better processing speeds using filters and plugins such as Topaz denoise/sharpen AI and Photo AI. Bearing in mind that I don’t want to take out a bank loan for cards that high end gaming cards seem to be priced at.
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Depends on the software. What software do you want to run?
 
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Vicintheshed said:
In as much as what should I look for in a graphics card to have better processing speeds using filters and plugins such as Topaz denoise/sharpen AI and Photo AI. Bearing in mind that I don’t want to take out a bank loan for cards that high end gaming cards seem to be priced at.
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I recently started getting pop up warnings that my graphics card had issues in Lightroom when I started LR (but not in PS) and mentioned the driver needed updating. When I tried to do that I found no new drivers. LR was working just as usual but I bought a newer and better graphics card that worked as the pop up has gone now.

I'm thinking that if your computer is on the edge of what the software needs it will notify you.
 
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At the moment, my PC will process a Z9 45mp in Topaz denoise in about 40 seconds, which I could put up with. Main problem I have (should I decide to upgrade) is finding a card with 2x HDMI ports, most cards have 1 with 2 or 3 dp outputs.
 
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Vicintheshed said:
At the moment, my PC will process a Z9 45mp in Topaz denoise in about 40 seconds, which I could put up with. Main problem I have (should I decide to upgrade) is finding a card with 2x HDMI ports, most cards have 1 with 2 or 3 dp outputs.
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There are approximately 3.27 bizillion cheap DP to HDMI adapters - you want to make sure that they carry audio and support the level of HDMI that you want, but as long as they handle that, all the ones I've used work quite well.
 
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Vicintheshed said:
At the moment, my PC will process a Z9 45mp in Topaz denoise in about 40 seconds, which I could put up with. Main problem I have (should I decide to upgrade) is finding a card with 2x HDMI ports, most cards have 1 with 2 or 3 dp outputs.
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My PC is a relatively new build, I completed it a few months back. I can process a full size RAW image form my Z8 is 3 seconds or less in DeNoise. GPU is an MSI Geforce 4090, with 3 display ports and 1 HDMI port.
 
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When I spec a new PC, I always get a separate higher end graphics card. Software companies have been trending to take advantage of more powerful graphics cards with lots of memory over the last 10 years or so. My current card is:

EVGA GeForce RTX 2080 Super XC 8 GB Open Air video card - which is probably out dated now......
 
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dupcak said:
There are approximately 3.27 bizillion cheap DP to HDMI adapters - you want to make sure that they carry audio and support the level of HDMI that you want, but as long as they handle that, all the ones I've used work quite well.
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Gadzooks Batman. Why didn’t I think of that before. Don’t need audio for one as I use a XP-pen tablet screen for photoshop masking and content aware fill. So, off to amazon to find a suitable card with at least one HDMI, as my main screen does have speakers for audio. Many thanks for that.
 
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Just a note: my CPU and GPU are both pretty good, but the GPU (RTX 2070 Super with 8GB) is I guess I bit old for DxO PureRaw3.

In short, PR3 tool forever with the GPU (gave up after 40min with a perpetual "20 minutes to go" meter), but when I got into settings and switched from GPU to CPU (AMD 5900x, newer generation than the video card), it went a lot faster. It was still close to 10 minutes (Adobe and Topaz are not nearly that slow), but at least it finished.

So while GPUs are used more for photo editing than they used to be, it depends on your system--the CPU may be your best option.
 
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Vicintheshed said:
In as much as what should I look for in a graphics card to have better processing speeds using filters and plugins such as Topaz denoise/sharpen AI and Photo AI. Bearing in mind that I don’t want to take out a bank loan for cards that high end gaming cards seem to be priced at.
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I have a 3 year old computer. I7 rtx2070super GPU and 32mb ram. From the time I turn it on until it's ready to use is 4.6 seconds. When I'm processing photos I have no lad virtually at all. I also have the nvme.2 hard drive. Between that and the GPU it was the best thing I ever did. I bought it from micro center because they have great service great prices and no bloatwear like Dell. Lol. Yes a GPU is the best. You don't need the newest super duper one. I think the 3070 is realistically priced or if you can find one the 2070 is good.
 
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Took the plunge. Got a HDMI to DP converter, works a treat. Bought a nVidia GTX 3060 8gb and 650 watt psu. Easy to install, works a dream. Loading full screen RAWs in LRC almost instant, noise reduction in PS with Topaz denoise took 2 to 3 seconds. Makes everything so much easier from culling images (sometimes I have to sieve through 1000 images) getting rid of obvious rejects in thumbnails, then sorting the ‘maybe’ and keepers at 100%. Saves sooo much time.
 
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