Nvida FX3800 or GTX560
 

I just built a new editor and own both the Nvida FX3800 and GTX560 graphics cards. I'm thinking on taking the 560 back. But, I see it recommended here so much that now I'm thinking of trying it out. Once I do that though there is no returning it. The FX3800 has some years on it and I'm just wondering would the GTX 560 be a better card now? System is I7-980 @3.33, 24 gigs of RAM, G-Raid 4 Tera (storage), Velociraptor system drive with another Velociraptor for the edit drive. CS5 Master collection. What say you????

Re: Nvida FX3800 or GTX560
 

Based strictly on hardware specs, the GTX 560 is superior to the FX 3800. The FX 3800 is an older generation chip, based on the original release of the GeForce GTX 260 but with only a 256-bit DDR3 memory bus instead of the 448-bit DDR3 memory bus of the GTX 260 that it's based on. The GTX 560 always uses a 256-bit memory bus - but the memory used with the GTX 560 is higher-bandwidth DDR5 instead of the lower-bandwidth DDR3 memory that the FX 3800 uses.

Re: Nvida FX3800 or GTX560
 

To add to Randall's good observations, my understanding of the Mercury Playback Engine in Premiere, and the accelerated H.264 encoding of AME, is that the CUDA cores are doing the work. The FX 3800 has 192 CUDA cores, versus 336 in the GTX 560, therefore it stands to reason that the GTX 560 will perform better with Premiere.

If one is doing CAD/CAM or other 3D-intensive stuff, it is quite possible that the older FX 3800 would blow a newer "gaming card" out of the water in those areas, but for Premiere CS5 or CS5.5, not so much.

Jeff Pulera

Re: Nvida FX3800 or GTX560
 

And with GTX 6xx around the corner