Minimum CPU for decent GPU offloading?

Hello,

New to resolve here. I recently purchased a GTX 1060 GPU in order to run Resolve -- I was actually a little surprised by the GPU requirement as other video editing software ran decently with my fairly minimal needs. I thought the GPU would give a good performance boost, but it's currently only running at about 4 to 6% while editing, rendering, or even when grading.

I realize my CPU is the bottleneck, running close to or at max. So I I assume I should upgrade it, but I'm interested in advice since my motherboard is a bit old (in computer years).

Here's my system:

Intel i5-2500 @3.3GHz
8 GB RAM
Fast SSD (OS) & HDD RAID 10

Now I realize my RAM is a bit low, my motherboard can take 16 GB max, so I could upgrade, but generally it runs at about 4GB used while editing... so I assume that isn't a real issue.

The fastest CPU my motherboard can take seems to be this: i7-3770K Quad-Core Processor 3.5 GHz 8 MB Cache

It looks like I could pick up a used one for about $270, not much less than I spent on this 1060 GPU...

My question is would this upgrade give a significant performance boost, to the point where the GPU would be utilized? My current CPU is only .2 GHz slower than this i7, they're both quad core, but the i7 does have 8 threads whereas my i5 has 4. I really don't know enough about CPU's and threads to know if that would make much difference.

Or perhaps I'm missing something else entirely?

Sorry for the long winded question -- thanks in advance for any help.

[Peter Chamberlain]

I feel you need both. 16GB ram and more threads.
If you have to pick one first buy the ram.

Oh interesting, thanks. I have heard of RAM capping our far below the total, so perhaps that's the case here...

In your opinion, might this 8 thread 3.5 GHz i7 + 16GB RAM be a decent match for this 6GB GTX 1060 GPU? Or did I go way overboard on the GPU?

Hello,

New to resolve here. I recently purchased a GTX 1060 GPU in order to run Resolve -- I was actually a little surprised by the GPU requirement as other video editing software ran decently with my fairly minimal needs. I thought the GPU would give a good performance boost, but it's currently only running at about 4 to 6% while editing, rendering, or even when grading.

I realize my CPU is the bottleneck, running close to or at max. So I I assume I should upgrade it, but I'm interested in advice since my motherboard is a bit old (in computer years).

Here's my system:

Intel i5-2500 @3.3GHz
8 GB RAM
Fast SSD (OS) & HDD RAID 10

Now I realize my RAM is a bit low, my motherboard can take 16 GB max, so I could upgrade, but generally it runs at about 4GB used while editing... so I assume that isn't a real issue.

The fastest CPU my motherboard can take seems to be this: i7-3770K Quad-Core Processor 3.5 GHz 8 MB Cache

It looks like I could pick up a used one for about $270, not much less than I spent on this 1060 GPU...

My question is would this upgrade give a significant performance boost, to the point where the GPU would be utilized? My current CPU is only .2 GHz slower than this i7, they're both quad core, but the i7 does have 8 threads whereas my i5 has 4. I really don't know enough about CPU's and threads to know if that would make much difference.

Or perhaps I'm missing something else entirely?

Sorry for the long winded question -- thanks in advance for any help.

Depends on the media you are editing. I typically edit h.264 low bit rate 2.7 or 4K media and from my experience, no. You're not going to see much if any real improvement.

I have a Ryzen 1800x, @4GHz with 32 Gigs of RAM all on (2) m.2 drives running full tilt and DR kills my system. Transcoding the h.264 media into a more edit friendly codec will help tremendously, I'm just to lazy to do it.. (and space is at a premium right now)

That's useful information, thanks. Yes I have heard that working with heavily compressed footage takes a lot of CPU power, and that transcoding makes a big difference.

Would it be safe to say no single CPU has the power necessary to work with h.264 footage effectively enough to make a GPU very helpful?

I too am running low on disk space, so have avoided transcoding video -- much of which is 4k multi-camera concert footage. It generally just requires a curves adjustment for luminance, and cropping in to taste (rendered to 1080).

Is there a recommended transcoding format that would be lossless? Or is the idea you perform a good quality lossy transcode for editing/grading, then render from the original footage (giving a longer render, but higher quality)?

Well I doubled my RAM, but unfortunately it made zero difference. While rendering it still uses about 5 GB (out of 16 total) and 4 GB used while editing, no difference). GPU use is identical... about 5%.

So I'm thinking the concept of 'the more RAM the better' is not always true, and if you're running at about half your total RAM, you won't see any benefit from adding more. The good news is I can now double the number of tabs I have open in Chrome... if running multiple browsers with tons of tabs it will push RAM usage up higher than it did when I had 8 GB total. I'm hoping it will still come in handy if I upgrade my processor.

Though now that I'm looking at upgrading my processor (my original idea), I'm still a bit worried the best processor for my motherboard won't make enough of a difference to really utilize this graphics card. I'll post back here when I do upgrade just in case it helps anyone down the road.

Don't know if it'll help, but there's a setting in preferences where you can force Resolve to allocate more RAM for its use.

Thanks, I'll experiment.

Just thought I'd give an update in case it helps anyone else.

So I upgraded my CPU to a used i7-3770 at 3.4GHz (one gen newer than my old CPU) and this is making a nice difference. If I add some grading and other layers I can get the graphics card working quite well before the CPU maxes out. The GPU is still likely a good bit overkill for this older CPU, but at least the graphics card is being utilized fairly well now.

can these specs run desolve Intel i5-10400F 2.9GHz, GeForce GTX 1660 Super 6GB, 8GB DDR4, 500GB NVMe SSD,

Since that's a gen 10 CPU I think it should do pretty well with Resolve. The other specs seem okay to me, but I'm certainly no expert. You might want more RAM depending on how many layers of effects/corrections you do.

my updated computer build is a intel i5 10400f 10th gen a gig geforece gtx 1050 ti 4GB 16GB of ram a samsung nvme ssd Do you think this could run Devichi resolve? I dont use fusion i only export in 1080p

It's pretty difficult to judge the hardware needed without knowing sources and intended resolution.
Yes, that hardware should run Resolve. But the question will be: how smooth?

It's pretty difficult to judge the hardware needed without knowing sources and intended resolution.
Yes, that hardware should run Resolve. But the question will be: how smooth?

i plan to only do 1080p rendering no fusion and some effects the pc I am building will have a 10th gen i5 10400f a gtx 1050ti 4gb gpu 16 gb of ram a Samsung nvme ssd and a 500 watt psu. can my computer run resolve?

can these specs run [Resolve]

Run it? Sure.

But will it handle the tasks you wish to accomplish with ease? Uli's questions above are key here.