How much does the GPU matter for my use case with Davinci

Hello Forum,
this question might seem like it has been asked a thousand times, but please let me explain a bit first:

My name is Michael, I'm a run & gun video journalist. After Premiere crashed one too many times I tried Davinci once more. When I bought the studio version for my C200 there was no multi-cam and no auto-align by sound, but now it seems there are all the features I need for my daily work. Plus it actually feels much nicer and isn't as clunky. So I've been using it a lot lately.

My job actually doesn't involve any noteworthy color grading. I shoot, rough cut, send it to the client. As fast as possible. So I might not be the typical Davinci user, but I like it very much over the alternatives on Windows.

That is why I'm puzzled about which new hardware configuration makes sense. I desperately need a new computer, but as you know GPUs are hard to come by. However, I'm looking at the whole RTX 30 range.

Puget Systems says: "While DaVinci Resolve heavily relies on the performance of your GPU (especially when using OpenFX or noise reduction), the processor (or CPU) is still a critical component [...]". They give different scores to all the cards ranging from 1185 for the 3060 TI to 1427 with the 3090. It seems to be a big difference. People on the forum also never get tired of stating how the GPU is important.

That being said the column "4k h264 to h264" gives all of them a score of 90. All my material is coming and going in 4k h264. It almost seems like those cards all have the same component to do that job. Otherwise, why would the results be the same?

In other threads, I also read that transcoding and generating optimized media is done by the CPU. So is it possible spending more on the higher GPUs is a waste of money in my case?

The features I'm using are:

Importing & Exporting h264 4k
Downscaling to 1080p & 720p
Converting to lower bitrates
Upscaling, Zoom & Rotating
Stabilizing
Generating Optimized Media (That hopefully becomes unnecessary with the new computer?)
2d Lower Thirds, 2d Overlays, 2d Texts, etc.
Multi-Cam & Auto-Align by Audio

Of course, I also have to do some color, but nothing crazy, mostly fixing exposure, white balance, and contrast.

The most important thing to me is a very smooth timeline experience when trimming things. Scrubbing is important. Ideally without losing time to transcoding before.

Will I benefit from a better GPU or almost not at all? Or should I rather invest in a better CPU?

Currently looking at AMD 5900x with any of the new RTX 30 cards. If it's one of the cheaper options I might be able to go for the AMD 5950x.

Lastly which role does the VRAM play in my use case? As I rough cut material my timelines are often 30min to 60min long. Does it matter? Or is that only for "fancy" effects?

Thank you so much for reading that far.

Cheers,
Michael

PS: I also apologize to all the color graders and cinematographers for my crude workflow and low-quality process with lossy files. That is just how it is in my field.

[Peter Chamberlain]

moved to Resolve forum

principally, every image is processed by the GPU.
As you have the Studio version you can take advantage of the GPUs that offer hardware decompression, and recompression of h.264/265.. note its not all type of 264/265, so a good CPU is valuable too.

GPU memory is and the memory speed is valuable in every situation. If you are processing 24p, thats a lot less demanding than 60p.. so without more details from you know one can advise but is look for 6-8GB vram as a minimum... if you are making 8k 60p videos... 24GB or more vram.

Do you already own the hardware? If not, have a look at Apple too. The new M1 machines (cheapest option being the Mac mini) are pretty capable for what you seem to aim for. Since you have the Studio version, you'll get hardware support for the largest selection of H.264/265 codecs around today.

One caveat: they bog down with heavy effects like noise reduction. But for quick edits and some basic color correction they are great for the price. If you want something fully portable, the MB Air is another option.

From my years-long experience, Resolve is very stable on Macs. I don't want to say it's less stable on PCs, but it's harder to configure a PC that's stable in all components and drivers.

All my material is coming and going in 4k h264.

Hi.

In Resolve the CPU is used to run the app, disk I/O, fusion, compression and decompression of codecs.
Resolve does all its image processing in the GPU on the graphics card. More CUDA/OpenCL Cores are better.

In the paid STUDIO Version of Resolve, can certain combination of Codec, Resolutions, Bit width and Chroma subsampling be hardware decoded/encoded on either a AMD/nVidea Graphics card or in a Intel non Xeon CPU.

Lets look at nVidea, as they have the best dokumentation. Here is a link to their Video Encode and Decode GPU Support Matrix:

https://developer.nvidia.com/video-enco ... ew#Encoder

As we can se do they only support hardware decodning for H.264 YUV 4:2:0 and H.264 YUV 4:4:4. NOT for H.264 YUV 4:2:2.
So 4:2:2 decodning will need to be done in software by the CPU, if the CPU don't have hardware decoding for it.

And for working with 4K videos, do I recommend 8MB of vRam or more.

Regards Carsten.

Another piece of info for the NVIDIA encoding. The hardware encoder in most of the latest NVIDIA cards is the same so the performance of a 1665 will be the same as an RTX3090. But of course just for the hardware encode any other processing involved will of course be very different.

Scrubbing is important. Ideally without losing time to transcoding before.

In that case, it'd be better to shoot in a more editing-friendly codec, like ProRes or even BRAW.

https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/produc ... nemacamera

Well, he wrote he's shooting on a Canon C200 and I doubt he'd like to hang an external recorder on it.
Or do you, Michael? If so, Jim's suggestion is valid.

Most of the tasks you described are going pretty well on a Mac M1. Tomorrow my new machine should arrive (my wife needs her MB Air most of the time). If you can put a few files or even a small project on a cloud service for me, I'm willing to do a test. One of my colleagues is aiming for Canon too and had similar questions.

he's shooting on a Canon C200

Currently.

I was shooting on a GH5...till I switched to the Pocket.

Sometimes, that option is the best option.

He describes himself as a "run-and-gun video journalist". A good autofocus might be more important for him than shooting ProRes or DNxHD…

General rule of thumb would be to buy the best GPU you can afford... but if your budget is tight then the RTX3060 would probably be the very best option right now. It's fast (enough) for most stuff and the 12GB of VRAM will give you more headroom than the lesser amount in the RTX3070 and 3080. Don't opt for the TI version though because although it's a *little* faster, it has less VRAM.

I spend about 20 hours a week editing 4K/60 footage with Resolve Studio and get by with a GTX1060/6 and the 3060 is streets ahead of this in terms of VRAM and performance.