Understanding Graphics cards?

I am a new user of DaVinci Resolve, and a long time user of Adobe Premiere. While my computer works just fine with Premiere 6.5, I am having problems with Resolve 14. Before going on, let me say that I am poor! My present computer has an Intel Quad Core Q9300 cpu on an Asus P5N7A motherboard with 3 gigs of memory, and a Nvidia GeForce 9500GT graphics card. The system is Windows 7 Pro.

I have tried pre-12.5 Resolve and it ran...well, okay. 14 will not run. I can see the need for more memory, but the big problem seems to be the graphics card. The cuda is only 1.5 as I understand it. So, without getting too complicated, what would be some suggestions for a cheap (like I said, I’m poor) graphics card that will just run Resolve 14?

Any response would be most appreciated!

It all depends on what sort of work you are wanting to do on DR. SD ? HD ? UHD ? Light colour correction or full on grading? The minimum specs can be found in the user manual that you can download but looking at your system you are going to have to upgrade your system a fair bit. Even running Adobe CC would be a challenge on your system to do any meaningful work, or any modern editing software that is out at the moment, it won't be just a case of upgrading to a higher spec GPU as the whole system will be a bottle neck

You will have totally replace your computer to use Resolve without horrible performance issues.

Okay, totally replace my system? Presently I use Premiere 6.5 and I have not upgraded to CC only because 6.5 does what I want without problems. So...can anyone suggest motherboard/cpu/gpu/memory parts that will get me started in Resolve?

I would suggest a minimum of an i7 5xxx series and up, at least 16Gb of Ram and at least a GTX 1050. You'll also need an SSD drive or a RAID to avoid bottlenecking if you're working with large files.

Hello Doug,


Could you tell us a little more about what you want to do?

Your computer is very out dated ( 10 years?)

I suppose that if you needed a computer you would have already upgraded your PC since a long time ago

a good entry level editing pc would cost at the very least 1000, you would need to buy a new screen (From 500) and a calibration device (200)

With the hard drives this could go more or less 2000 (entry level)

You seem satifisfied with premiere pro 6.5, did you consider just getting a plug in like Red Giant Colorista?

Premiere 6.5 is 15 years old. I'd wager that Red Giant plugins won't support that.

Yup that would be about right. Premiere 6.5 was released in 2003, so it is 14 years old. Intel Quad Core Q9300 was released in 2008.

Anyhow, without sounding too negative I am afraid you'll have to replace your computer if you want to use Resolve. Those specs will not be sufficient....

jake

Hummm...okay. Well, it worked fine with Resolve 12.3.2 (I think it was) but that version wasn't as good as Premiere 6. And yes, I do have some Red Giant installed. I can't afford a whole new computer so I'll just stay with Premiere.

That's okay, and I want to thank everyone for the help!If my finances improve, I may be back with more questions!