Video Cards for Adobe Premiere CS5 and CS5.5

How to Unlock Adobe Premiere CS5 and Premiere CS5.5 to use almost any
NVIDIA graphics card with CUDA acceleration.

Download Free software to do the unlock for you for both Premiere CS5 and CS5.5.

Adobe Premiere CS5 CS5.5 Video Card Cuda

Article Updated on 01/29/12
Software Updated on 01/29/12

Copyright 2012, Studio 1 Productions
Written by David Knarr of Studio 1 Productions
FAQ section is near the end of the article.

You will need to unlock the video card AFTER each update or
if you upgrade to Adobe Premiere CS5.5

Adobe Premiere CS5 and Adobe Premiere CS5.5 has the new Mercury Playback Engine (MPE) that can use an NVidia video card’s GPU to accelerate playback, effects and rendering.

However, Adobe has only “certified” a few video cards from NVIDIA. (See Note 1, About Adobe's Certified Video Cards). According to Adobe, they only certify video cards that have gone through rigorous testing by Adobe which takes a lot of time. With all of the different video cards from NVidia and the variations of these video cards from the various manufacturers, it's easy to understand why Adobe doesn't certify more video cards.

If you don't have a certified card or you want to use a non-certified NVidia video card, there is a way to edit a file and add your video card to a list, so Adobe Premiere CS5.5 and Premiere CS5 will allow your video card to run with GPU Acceleration. Some people call this a mod, hacking or unlocking the video cards, whatever you choose to call it, this will not make it "certified" in the eyes of Adobe. But, you will be able to use the GPU Acceleration feature of Adobe Premiere CS5.5 and Premiere CS5.

There are thousand and thousands of Adobe Premiere CS5.5 and Premiere CS5 users who are using non-certified NVidia video cards without any problems. In fact, we have 8 systems running non-certified video cards without any problems.

This article will show you how to "unlock" Adobe Premiere CS5.5 and Premiere CS5 to use almost any NVidia video card with GPU Acceleration in Premiere CS5 and Premiere CS5.5. There are two methods covered in this article, one is by using a small program I wrote, the other is by doing it manually. Note: On some Laptops models, you may not be able to use the GPU Acceleration with Premiere CS5 or CS5.5. We will explain why later.

This article covers a lot of information, not just how to unlock the video. It coves topics such as the video card requirements for the unlock to work, how to setup Premiere for GPU Acceleration, I show some benchmark results, talk about power supply requirements, video card cooling, how to do the unlock and more. Please read the article in it's entirety.

NOTE: Studio 1 Productions does not sell video cards, Adobe products or other products mentioned in this article. We are simply users of Adobe Premiere CS5 and CS5.5. So we are not trying to sell you anything by providing this article or the unlock software. If you would like to see the products we do offer, simply place your mouse over the products link at the top of the page or click on the products link at the top of the page.

There is also a Frequently Asked Question section at the end of the article. This cover different problems and questions that you may have. Please make sure you read it. Click Here

Number 1 - Introduction
Adobe Premiere CS5 has two modes for the Mercury Playback Engine, the are:

A) Mercury Playback Engine GPU Acceleration
B) Mercury Playback Engine Software Only

To use the Mercury Playback Engine in Adobe Premiere CS5.5 and CS5 in the GPU Acceleration mode, you need an NVIDIA graphics cards (aka. video cards) with at least 896 megs of video ram and preferably, one of the newer models. I will explain more on this a little later in the article.

The GPU Acceleration is for accelerated playback, effects, deinterlacing, blending modes, scaling and rendering.

If you don't have a video card with the NVidia chip set, then Premiere CS5.5 and Premiere CS5 will run in what is called the "Software Only" mode and will not take advantage of the video card's GPU.

When you install Adobe Premiere CS5 or Premiere CS5.5, and it does not find one of the “certified“ video cards, the Mercury Playback Engine is set to run in “Software Only” mode, using only the computer’s CPU and not the video card’s GPU.

If you have an NVidia video card or you are buying one, please make sure you read this article. We will show you how to unlock Adobe Premiere CS5 and CS5.5 so you can run your video card in the GPU Acceleration mode.

Number 2 - Maximum Render Quality Mode
Adobe Premiere CS5.5 and Premiere CS5 has a setting called the Maximum Render Quality mode (or MRQ).

The Maximum Render Quality mode will maximize the quality of motion in rendered clips and sequences. So when you select this option, the video will often render moving objects more sharply. Maximum Render Quality also maintains sharp detail when scaling from large formats to smaller formats, or from high-definition to standard-definition formats. For the highest quality exports you should always use the Maximum Render Quality mode.

Whether you are running the Mercury Playback Engine in the software mode or GPU hardware mode, you can turn the Maximum Render Quality mode on or off.

Here is how to set the Maximum Render Quality.
1) Open up Premiere CS5 or Premiere CS5.5
2) Click on Sequence at the top of the screen
3) Then select Sequence Settings
4) At the bottom of the window select Maximum Render Quality and click Okay

Basically, I recommend you always set the Maximum Render Quality mode to ON.

Please Note: I receive quite a few emails from people who say they don't see much, if any speed difference between the Software mode and the GPU mode. This is because, when they are testing in Software mode, the Maximum Render Quality mode is set to OFF and is rendering at a lower quality, which makes it run faster. When it is set to GPU mode, the Maximum Render Quality mode is automatically set to ON, rendering in higher quality.

PLEASE make sure when you test your video card in Software mode, make sure the Maximum Render Quality is set to ON, so the test will be equal with the GPU mode.

Number 3 - Updates & Drivers
When Adobe releases an update to Premiere, you will need to unlock the video card again, as they tend over write the cuda_supported_cards.txt file, which is the file that holds the name of your video card.

Video Card Drivers - Do not use the drivers from the video card manufacturer, they are almost never current. You are also going to need the latest NVidia drivers from the NVidia website for your video card.

Number 4 - Decoding
The decoding of video footage is still handled by the CPU and not the GPU. So if you are using heavily compressed video, such as AVCHD or h.264, you will still need a fast processor, since the video card won’t help with the decoding of the video. Also, keep in mind, that if you use a non-Mercury Playback Engine enabled plug-in or effect, the GPU on the video card won’t help you with rendering that effect.

Number 5 - CUDA Cores
Each NVIDIA GPU has a certain number of CUDA cores, which is the computing engine in the NVIDIA GPU.

Now some of you might just stop here and think, "I will just buy a video card with the most CUDA cores". While this might seem like a good idea, it may not be for you. There are other factors that are involved than just CUDA cores. We will cover that later, right now I just wanted you to know that different NVidia graphics cards will offer a different amount of CUDA cores.

(Your video card should have 96 CUDA cores or more. I will cover more on this later in the article.)

Number 6 - Video Card Memory
The Mercury Playback Engine requires the NVIDIA video card to have at least 896 megs memory or more. Anything less, the Mercury Playback Engine will NOT work in the GPU accelerated mode. It will work in the Software mode, but you want it to work in the GPU accelerated mode. I personally recommend at least 1 gig or higher of DDR5 video memory.

Video cards come with different types of memory, such as DDR2, DDR3, and DDR5 type of memory. If you are going to be purchasing a video card, buy one with DDR5 memory. It offers 50% more bandwidth than DDR3 memory and it makes a performance difference with Adobe Premiere CS5 and the Mercury Playback Engine.

If you already have a video card with DDR3 memory and you don't want to buy a new card with DDR5 memory, it will work, but it won't be as fast as most video cards with DDR5 memory. Just remember, your video card will need 896 megs or more of video ram.

DO NOT buy a video card with DDR2 memory. The DDR2 memory can cause performance problems with the Mercury Playback Engine. If you have a video card with DDR2 memory, replace it.

To give you an example of the performance difference between DDR3 and DDR5 memory, we ran some tests using a MSI NVidia GT240 video card with 1 gig of DDR5 memory and a MSI NVidia GT240 video card with 1 gig of DDR3. The video card with the DDR5 memory gave us around a 45% speed increase over a GT240 with DDR3 memory.

Bottom line, if you are going to be buying a video card, it is best to buy a video card with 1 gig or more of DDR5 memory.

Number 7 - Chart of NVidia graphics Cards
As we said earlier, each NVIDIA GPU has a certain number of CUDA cores, which is the computing engine in the NVIDIA GPU. Below is a list of NVIDIA video cards and the number of CUDA cores that each video card offers. (Note: the more CUDA cores the larger the power supply will have to be, we will cover that next)

NVIDIA Card	Number of CUDA Cores	Size of Power Supply **	Memory Type	Memory Interface Width	Graphic Clock Speed	Processor Clock Speed	NOTES
9400 GT	16	300 watt	DDR2 or DDR3	128 Bit	550 Mhz	1400 Mhz	Not Recommend
9500 GT	32	350 watt	DDR2 or DDR3	128 Bit	550 Mhz	1400 Mhz	Not Recommend
9600 GT	64	400 watt	DDR3	256 Bit	600 Mhz	1500 Mhz	Not Recommend - Only has 512 Megs
9800 GT	112	400 watt	DDR3	256 Bit	600 Mhz	1500 Mhz
9800 GTX	128	450 watt	DDR3	256 Bit		1688 Mhz
9800 GX2	256	580 watt	DDR3	512 Bit	600 Mhz	1500 Mhz	(128 per GPU) Premiere CS5 at this time only supports 1 GPU

GeForce G100	8	300 watt	DDR2	64 Bit	567 Mhz	1400 Mhz	OEM Video Card - Not Recommended
GT 120	32	350 watt	DDR2	128 Bit	500 Mhz	1400 Mhz	OEM Video Card - Not Recommended
GT 130	48	350 watt	DDR2	192 Bit	500 Mhz	1250 Mhz	OEM Video Card - Not Recommended
GTS 150	128	450 watt	DDR3	256 Bit	738 Mhz	1836 Mhz	OEM Video Card

GeForce 205	8	300 watt	DDR2	64 Bit	589 Mhz	1402 Mhz	OEM Video Card - Not Recommended
GeForce 210	16	300 watt	DDR2	64 Bit	589 Mhz	1402 Mhz	Not Recommended
GT 220	48	300 watt	DDR3	128 Bit	625 Mhz	1360 Mhz	Okay on low speed dual core processors, for about $20 more you can get the GT240
GT 240	96	300 watt	DDR3 or DDR5	128 Bit	550 Mhz	1340 Mhz	I Recommend the DDR5 memory version of this card
GTS 240 OEM	112	450 watt	DDR3	128 Bit	675 Mhz	1620 Mhz	OEM Video Card - Not Recommended Only has DDR3 memory
GTS 250	128	450 watt	DDR3	256 Bit	738 Mhz	1836 Mhz
GTX 260	192	500 watt	DDR3	448 Bit	576 Mhz	1242 Mhz
GTX 275	240	550 watt	DDR3	448 Bit	633 Mhz	1404 Mhz
GTX 280	240	550 watt	DDR3	512 Bit	602 Mhz	1296 Mhz
GTX 285	240	550 watt	DDR3	512 Bit	648 Mhz	1476 Mhz	End of Life Product
GTX 295	480	680 watt	DDR3	896 Bit	576 Mhz	1242 Mhz	(240 per GPU) Premiere CS5 at this time only supports 1 GPU

GeForce 310	16	300 watt	DDR2	64 Bit	589 Mhz	1402 Mhz	OEM Video Card - Not Recommended
GeForce 315	48	300 watt	DDR2	64 Bit	475 Mhz	1100 Mhz	OEM Video Card - Not Recommended only has 512 Megs memory
GT 320	72	300 watt	DDR3	128 Bit	540 Mhz	1302 Mhz	OEM Video Card - Not Recommended
GT 330	96 to 112	300 watt	DDR2 or DDR3				OEM Video Card - Not Recommended
GT 340	96	300 watt	DDR3	128 Bit	550 Mhz	1340 Mhz	OEM Video Card - Not Recommended

GeForce 405	16	300 watt	DDR3	64 bit	580 Mhz	1402 Mhz	OEM Video Card - Not Recommended
GT 420 OEM	48	300 watt	DDR3	128 Bit	700 Mhz	1400 Mhz	OEM Video Card - Not Recommended
GT 430	96	300 watt	DDR3	128 Bit	700 Mhz	1400 Mhz	Only available with DDR3 memory at this time. You are better off with the GT240 card with DDR5 memory.
GT 430 OEM	96	300 watt	DDR3	128 Bit	700 Mhz	1400 Mhz	Only available with DDR3 memory at this time. You are better off with the GT240 card with DDR5 memory.
GT 440	96	300 watt	DDR3 or DDR5	128 Bit	810 Mhz	1620 Mhz	Make sure you get the DDR5 with 1 Gig of memory version.
GT 440 OEM	144	400 watt	DDR3 or DDR5	192 Bit	594 Mhz	1189 Mhz	OEM Video Card - Has DDR3 or DDR5 memory.
GTS 450	192	400 watt	DDR5	128 Bit	783 Mhz	1566 Mhz
GTS 450 OEM	144	400 watt	DDR5	192 Bit	790 Mhz	1580 Mhz
GTX 460	336	450 watt	DDR5	256 Bit	675 Mhz	1350 Mhz	Specs are for 1GB DDR5 version of this card.
GTX 460 SE	228	450 watt	DDR5	256 Bit	650 Mhz	1300 Mhz
GTX 465	352	550 watt	DDR5	256 Bit	607 Mhz	1215 Mhz
GTX 470	448	550 watt	DDR5	320 Bit	607 Mhz	1215 Mhz
GTX 480	480	600 watt	DDR5	384 Bit	700 Mhz	1401 Mhz

GT 520	48	300 watt	DDR3	64 Bit	810 Mhz	1620 Mhz
GT 530	96	300 watt	DDR3	128 Bit	700 Mhz	1400 Mhz	OEM Card
GT 545 DDR3	144	350 watt	DDR3	192 Bit	720 Mhz	1440 Mhz
GT 545 GDDR5	144	400 watt	DDR5	128 Bit	870 Mhz	1740 Mhz
GTX 550 Ti	192	400 watt	DDR5	192 Bit	900 Mhz	1800 Mhz
GTX 555 OEM	288	450 watt	DDR5	192 Bit	776 Mhz	1553 Mhz	OEM Card
GTX 560 OEM	384	450 watt	DDR5	320 Bit	552 Mhz	1104 Mhz	OEM Card
GTX 560	336	450 watt	DDR5	256 Bit	810-950 Mhz	1620-1900 Mhz
GTX 560 Ti	384	500 watt	DDR5	256 Bit	822 Mhz	1645 Mhz
GTX 560 TI OEM	352	500 watt	DDR5	320 Bit	732 Mhz	1464 Mhz	OEM Card
GTX 570	480	550 watt	DDR5	320 Bit	732 Mhz	1464 Mhz
GTX 580	512	600 watt	DDR5	384 Bit	772 Mhz	1544 Mhz
GTX 590	1024	700 watt	DDR5	384 Bit Per GPU	607 Mhz	1215 Mhz	Dual GPU - Premiere CS5 at this time only supports 1 GPU.

Quadro FX 370 LP	8	350 watt	DDR2	64 Bit			Not Recommended - Only has 256 Megs
Quadro FX 370	16	450 watt	DDR2	64 Bit			Not Recommended - Only has 256 Megs
Quadro FX 380 LP	16	350 watt	DDR3	64 Bit			Not Recommended - Only has 256 Megs
Quadro FX 380	16	450 watt	DDR3	128 Bit			Not Recommended - Only has 256 Megs
Quadro FX 570	16	450 watt	DDR2	128 Bit			Not Recommended - Only has 512 Megs
Quadro FX 580	32	50 watt	DDR3	128 Bit			Not Recommended - Only has 512 Megs
Quadro FX 1700	32	450 watt	DDR2	128 Bit			Not Recommended - Only has 512 Megs
Quadro FX 1800	64	450 watt	DDR3	192 Bit			Not Recommended - Only has 768 Megs
Quadro FX 3700	112	450 watt	DDR3	256 Bit			Not Recommended - Only has 512 Megs
Quadro FX 3800	192	550 watt	DDR3	256 Bit			Has 1 Gig Memory
Quadro FX 4600	112	750 watt	DDR3	384 Bit			Not Recommended - Only has 768 Megs
Quadro FX 4800	192	750 watt	DDR3	384 Bit			Has 1.5 Gigs Memory
Quadro FX 5600	128	750 watt	DDR3	384 Bit			Has 1.5 Gigs Memory
Quadro FX 5800	240	750 watt	DDR3	512 Bit			Has 4 Gigs Memory
Quadro CX	192	750 watt	DDR3	384 Bit			Has 1.5 Gigs Memory
Quadro 600	96	300 watt	DDR3	128 Bit			Only available with DDR3 memory at this time. You are better off with the GT240 card with DDR5 memory
Quadro 2000	192	500 watt	DDR5	128 Bit			Has 1 Gig of DDR5 Memory - Can vary by manufacturer
Quadro 2000D	192	500 watt	DDR5	128 Bit			Has 1 Gig of DDR5 Memory - Can vary by manufacturer
Quadro 4000	256	500 watt	DDR5	256 Bit			Has 2 Gigs of DDR5 Memory - Can vary by manufacturer
Quadro 5000	352	550 watt	DDR5	320 Bit			Has 2.5 Gigs of DDR5 Memory - Can vary by manufacturer
Quadro 6000	448	750 watt	DDR5	384 Bit			Has 6 Gigs of DDR5 Memory - Can vary by manufacturer

**NOTE: The specs and power supply requirements listed above are based on NVidia's web site. PLEASE check with the manufacturer of the video card you plan on purchasing to see what their power supply requirements are.

NOTE: Adobe Premiere CS5 and Premiere CS5.5 does not support more than 1 GPU. So the GTX590, which has dual GPU's, only 1 GPU and half of the CUDA cores will be used by Premiere CS5 and Premiere CS5.5. If you are looking at the GTX590, you would be better off with the GTX580.

Number 8 - Power Supplies
The Power Supply - Before you run out and buy an NVIDIA video card, you need to know how big your power supply is in watts. Different video cards will require that you have a minimum number of watts power supply. So open your computer, if you are comfortable doing that, otherwise, find someone who is.

Look on the label on the power supply for the number of watts it is rated. It may say something like 300 watts, 450 watts or higher. Once you know the watts, then you can select a video card that will work with your power supply.

For example, the NVIDIA GeForce GT440 will work fine with a 300 watt power supply. But, the GeForce GT580 will require a minimum of a 600 watt power supply.

This is why you need to know your computer’s power supply size before you run out and buy a video card. You don’t want to use a video card that your power supply can’t handle. For example, if you decide you really want a GeForce GT580 video card and you only have a 300 watt power supply, then you will need to upgrade your computer’s power supply.

A lot of the computers you buy in a retail store (not custom built computers) will have a 300 or 450 watt power supply. So if you don’t want to bother upgrading your power supply, then make sure you stick with a video card that will work with what every the size of your power supply is.

In the chart above, we list a minimum power supply size needed for the each video card. This list above are based on NVidia's web site recommendations.

We had some one email us about the MSI N240GT (GT 240) video card with 1 GB of DDR5 memory and that the MSI box says it requires a 350 watt power supply. So why does our chart list a 300 watt power supply?

Okay, if you look at the MSI box for the GT240 with DDR5 memory, it does say they recommend a minimum of 350 watt power supply. But, when you open up the installation guide it says the minimum power supply is 500 watts based on a PC configured with an Intel Core2Extreme Qx9650 processor. Wait a minute, the list above says 300 watts. Okay so what is going on here?

According to MSI, the main group of people who buy higher performance video cards are people who use the computer to play games. The GT 240 card falls into this category and the GT 240 card with 1GB of DDR5 memory is capable of being overclocked. (See Note 2 on Overclocking). MSI recommends a 350 watts if you are a gamer and are going to overclock the video card. If you won't be overclocking the card and you really don't need to for video editing, MSI said you will be fine with a 300 watt power supply.

If you are running a quad core system, such as one with the Core2Extreme Qx9650 processor, you will generally have a larger power supply than 300 watts any way and most likely it will be 450 to 500 watts or larger. This is why their installation guide recommends a 500 watt power supply. The more powerful the CPU, the larger power supply your computer will have, since the CPU pulls quite a bit of power in watts. For example, the quad core Qx9650 processor pulls around 65 watts and the I7-930 processor pulls 130 watts.

Also, I was informed by several other video card manufacturers that they put a higher minimum power supply requirement on their video cards, since they don't know what other devices or the number of hard drives you have in your computer. This way, they will be on the safe side.

Currently, two of our computes are HP a1630n stock systems, with AMD Athlon 64 5200+ processors. These systems have stock 300 watt power supplies. Each system has two hard drives, 6 gig of ram, a MSI GT 240 1GB DDR5 memory video card and each system has a AzenX Blitztorm cooler. And, they run just fine with the GT 240 card with a 300 watt power supply. Yes, we are running Premiere CS5 on these systems. While they are no where as fast as our quad core systems, they will run Premiere. For more information about these two computers, see the FAQ section at the end of this article.

Number 9 - Video Card Performance and System Performance. PLEASE READ THIS SECTION CAREFULLY.

Our First test system (AMD Quad Core):
We used an HP computer running an AMD Phenom II X4 (quad core) computer running at 3.2 Ghz with 8 gigs of RAM and a single Samsung 7200 rpm SATA 3.0Gb/s hard drive. The computer was running Window 7 Home edition. All of the video cards had 1 Gig DDR5 memory.

All tests were run with the MRQ (Maximum Render Quality) set to ON. To measure the time, I used a stopwatch. Each test was run 5 times in the GPU mode and then averaged together. Tests with the Mercury Playback Engine in Software mode was run once.

MPE GPU = I was running the Mercury Playback Engine using GPU Acceleration.
MPE Software = I ran the test with the Mercury Playback Engine using Software only.

First Benchmark Test - I used Adobe Premiere CS5.5 and the PPBM5 benchmark project that uses 4 video tracks.
The chart below shows the time it took to render the timeline with multiple effects and dissolves.

Video Card	# of Cuda Cores	Time Line Render MPE GPU On	Time Line Render MPE Software	MPE GPU On Export to MPEG-2 DVD	MPE Software Mode Export to MPEG-2 DVD
GT-240	96	34.2 Seconds	373 Seconds	281 Seconds	387 Seconds
GT-440	96	33.3 Seconds	373 Seconds	275 Seconds	387 Seconds
GTX-470	448	31.6 Seconds	373 Seconds	230 Seconds	387 Seconds
GTX-545	144	32.8 Seconds	373 Seconds	258 Seconds	387 Seconds
GTX-550 Ti	192	31.9 Seconds	373 Seconds	246 Seconds	387 Seconds
GTX-570	480	31.5 Seconds	373 Seconds	193 Seconds	387 Seconds

Note: the MPEG-2 DVD test above was run by using direct export, by selecting File, then Export and then Media. I used the following settings during the Export. Format = MPEG2-DVD, Preset = NTSC High Quality Widescreen, I then unchecked Export Audio and I unchecked Use Max Render Quality, Use Previews and Use Frame Blending.

Our Second test system (I7-920):
We used a computer running an Intel I7-920 (quad core) computer running at 3.05 Ghz with 16 gigs of RAM and a dual Seagate 7200 rpm SATA 3.0Gb/s hard drive. The computer was running Window 7 Home edition. All of the video cards had 1 Gig DDR5 memory.

I used the same Adobe Premiere CS5.5 and the same PPBM5 benchmark project that uses 4 video tracks, as I did above.

All tests were run with the MRQ (Maximum Render Quality) set to ON. To measure the time, I used a stopwatch. Each test was run 3 times in the GPU mode and then averaged together. Tests with the Mercury Playback Engine in Software mode was run once.

Video Card	# of Cuda Cores	Time Line Render MPE GPU On	Time Line Render MPE Software	MPE GPU On Export to MPEG-2 DVD	MPE Software Mode Export to MPEG-2 DVD
GT-240	96	11.5 Seconds	114 Seconds	181 Seconds	176 Seconds
GT-440	96	11.5 Seconds	114 Seconds	180 Seconds	176 Seconds
GTX-470	448	10 Seconds	114 Seconds	98.5 Seconds	176 Seconds
GTX-545	144	11 Seconds	114 Seconds	168 Seconds	176 Seconds
GTX-550 Ti	192	11 Seconds	114 Seconds	159 Seconds	176 Seconds
GTX-570	480	10 Seconds	114 Seconds	97 Seconds	176 Seconds

Explaining the Test Results - The Rendering Results
(Please read this section very carefully)

In case you are wondering, Adobe Premiere uses ALL of the CUDA cores on the video card.

Let's take a look at the results. As you can see even though both computers are quad core systems and the clock speed is close, the Intel processor performed much better. The reason, AMD processors do not have SSE 4.1+ support, where the Intel processors do. Premiere Pro uses the SSE 4.1+ instruction set, thus providing better performance. Now this doesn't mean you can't use an AMD processor, you can, it will perform slower than the Intel processors.

Timeline Rendering. As you can see when you render the timeline with the Mercury Playback Engine (MPE) in the GPU acceleration mode vs. the MPE in software mode, there is a huge difference in speed on both the AMD and Intel systems.

Another thing you will notice is there is NOT a big difference between a NVidia card with 96 cuda cores vs. one with 480 cuda cores, when rendering the timeline.

Exporting to MPEG2-DVD format. Here is where things get interesting. You will notice on both systems, that the more cuda cores the faster it is to export to the MPEG2-DVD format with the Mercury Playback Engine (MPE) in the GPU acceleration mode vs. the MPE in software mode.

On the AMD system, even having just 96 cuda cores, the MPE GPU mode is faster than the MPE is in software mode.

However, on the Intel I7-920 system, a video card with 96 cuda cores, can be a few seconds slower than if you used the MPE in software mode. The reason for this is, on this Intel system, the CPU could actually export the MPEG2-DVD footage faster than the video card with 96 cuda cores. Once I put in a GTX-545 with 144 cuda cores, then the video card was able to export faster than the software mode. As I installed different video cards with more and more cuda cores on them, the faster exporting became.

Exporting to h.264 format. Although I don't show the results above in the charts, exporting to the h.264 format with MPE in the GPU mode, was any were from 38% to 50% faster then exporting in the MPE software mode. The difference between a 96 cuda core video card and a 480 cuda core video card was 7 seconds when exporting in the MPE GPU mode.

Newer Intel CPU's - If you have a newer Intel CPU, such as the I7-2600 processor, you will benefit by having 300 or cuda cores on the video card when exporting to the MPEG2-DVD format. If you don't export to the MPEG2-DVD format, then you can get by with an NVidia card with less cuda cores.

Bottom Line:
If you have a computer with an AMD processor, you will be fine with a NVidia video card with 96 or more cuda cores.

If you have an older Intel CPU (dual core or quad core), you too will be fine with a NVidia video card with 96 or more cuda cores.

If you have a newer Intel CPU such as the I7-2600, you should get an NVidia card with 300 cuda cores or more if you are going to be exporting to MPEG-2 DVD format.

However, If you have a newer Intel CPU such as the I7-2600 and you will NOT be exporting to the MPEG-2 DVD format (or you are rarely going to be exporting to the MPEG-2 DVD format) then you will be fine with 96 cuda cores or more.

NOTE: I realize that not everyone has the need to export to the MPEG-2 DVD format. Some video editor are producing content for the web or h.264 for Blu-Ray or the are exporting to some other format. I understand this.

Unfortunately, there are people on the web that like to just make a blanket statement, such as "you need to have 384 cuda cores to get good performance with Premiere" or "you need a GTX-xxx card".

They don't stop to think about the type of CPU you have or what you export your final product to or what your power supply is. Remember, you may have to upgrade your power supply if the video card you select won't work with you current power supply. And they don't take into consideration if you are a hobbyist, student, amateur, part-time editor or pro editor. Plus, they don't take into account of your budget.

While they are trying to be helpful, they are not asking you enough questions to give you a good answer, just a blanket statement.

Another thing that has been brought to my attention is, on some of the forums, people are being told their system won't cut it. However, they are reporting to me, that once they have either put in a NVidia video card and unlocking it or unlocked their existing card, they feel they are getting great performance. So they asked me why are they being told their system won't cut it?

What is happening here is everyone has a different level acceptable of performance. Some people just need the fastest (and expensive) system in order to be comfortable editing. They have a high level of acceptable performance.

While other people are just as comfortable editing on a slower and less expensive system. They have a lower level of acceptable performance and there is nothing wrong with that.

I have had a few comments thrown my way because my computers all have AMD processors. I have had to explain more than once, that my main use for the computer's are for rendering animations. My animation software doesn't care if it is on a AMD or Intel. The speed they render at is practically the same for either processor. For my needs with Premiere CS5.5, my AMD systems and the GT-240 card works out great for me, because I do NOT render out to MPEG2-DVD format. In addition, I could use the power supply that came in the computer and the GT240 was very inexpensive when I bought them. I have no problems editing on my quad core AMD system.

To be fair, not everyone on the forums are like this. But, there are those few who are and they can be very vocal about their opinions on what you should have..

I realize that people's budgets are tight. That's why I show the speed differences across a variety of video cards. So you can get an idea of how different video cards perform in different systems.

We Ran Second Benchmark Test:
We used an HP computer running an AMD Phenom II X4 (quad core) computer running at 3.2 Ghz with 8 gigs of RAM and a single Samsung 7200 rpm SATA 3.0Gb/s hard drive. The computer was running Window 7 Home edition. All of the video cards had 1 Gig DDR5 memory.

Second Benchmark Test (Updated 07/10/11) - I used Adobe Premiere CS5.5 and a 10 minute time line with 3 tracks and multiple effects and dissolves. Each video card had at least 1 Gig of DDR5 memory.

Video Card	# of Cuda Cores	Time Line Rendering MPE GPU Hardware Minutes & Seconds	Time Line Rendering MPE Software Minutes & Seconds
GT-240	96	5:41	40:12
GT-440	96	5:37	40:12
GTX-470	448	5:34	40:12
GTX-545	144	5:37	40:12
GTX-550 Ti	192	5:35	40:12
GTX-570	480	5:29	40:12

A word about the Second Benchmark Test: The second benchmark tests were run only rendering the timeline. This was done so I could show you the difference in using the Premiere in GPU mode vs. software mode using various video cards with a longer timeline.

Your results will vary from mine simply because our systems are different. From the chipset on the motherboard, to the memory chips, brand of video card, etc. all of these things will make a difference in the benchmarks. If you run your own tests, make sure you run your tests with the Maximum Render Quality set to ON for both Software mode and GPU mode.

I have received numerous emails from people who said, when the upgrade from one video card to another, they didn't get any performance boost when rendering the timeline. And we didn't see that much either with our test system and the benchmarks above. However, I have had a couple of emails stating they did see a small increase in timeline rendering speed. The reason why some people don't see any difference and other do see a slight difference can be attributed to how their computer system is configured.

Here are some factors that will come into play for overall system performance, they are:

CPU Cores and Clock Speed - The more CPU cores you have and the higher the clock speed the better. Remember, the decoding of your video is handled by the CPU. AMD processors do not have SSE 4.1+ support, where the Intel processors do. This will help when decoding heavily compressed video formats such as AVCHD and h.264. This isn't to say the AMD processors won't work, they will. They will decode a little slower.

Hard Disk - The faster the hard drive the better. A rotation speed of 7,200 RPM's is a minimum you want. A rotation speed of 10,000 RPM is better. Raid drive systems will improve performance. The amount of cache the hard drive has can make a difference. The more cache the better.

RAM Memory - The ram speed and latency will play a part in the overall performance. Plus, the more memory you have in your computer the better the overall performance will be. Going from 4 gigs to 8 gigs, we saw about 25% speed improvement when encoding to a MPEG2 DVD. When we upgrade from 8 to 12 gigs, we saw another 25 to 30% speed improvement when encoding to a MPEG2 DVD. Others have reported even higher speed improvements on their systems.

GPU and CUDA cores - The more CUDA cores, the wider the bandwidth and having DDR5 memory on the video card, the better performance the video card has to offer. Remember, just because the video card has more to offer, doesn't mean the rest of the computer system will take advantage of it as it has to wait on the rest of the computer systems.

The Video Formant - Different video formats put different demands on the CPU and GPU. For example, if you have an AVI clip on your timeline and you export it to an AVI file with no effects or transitions then the GPU will get around 1% usage. However, if your timeline has the same AVI clip with no effects or transitions and you are exporting to an MPEG2 DVD then GPU will see much more usage.

Please understand, do to all of the various computer configurations (ie. amount of RAM, BUS speeds, hard drive speeds, type of video card, the type of RAM on the video card, the CPU type, the speed of the CPU, etc. ) your performance results will naturally vary from others. This is not due to Premiere, but do to the way your computer is configured and to the video format you are working with.

Some people have reported they have only seen a small increase in performance, while others say they have seen up to 12 time faster performance. This is because of the video format, the effects and transitions they are using. Each can play a big part in how much speed increase you will see. If you use a simple video format with no effects or transitions, don't expect to see a huge increase in performance.

In our computer systems, having a video card with 96 CUDA cores and DDR5 memory was more than sufficient and gave us very close performance as higher end video cards with more CUDA cores and a wider memory bandwidth.

As a side note: If you have a video card already NVidia graphics card, check the chart above to see how many CUDA cores you have. If you have 48 or more CUDA cores you should see a performance improvement with Adobe Premiere CS5. While the performance will not be as much as a video card with 96 CUDA cores or more, you will still see a performance improvement over running Adobe Premiere CS in the Software Only mode and with the Maximum Render Quality set to On.

I also did test a 9400GT video card that had 1 gig of memory and with 16 CUDA cores. The footage and tests we ran didn't show any real improvement over using the Mercury Playback Engine in software mode. However, I did hear from a few people who said they did see a small improvement even with 16 CUDA cores. So if you have a video card with a low number of CUDA cores, you will have to do some testing to see if you do get any improvement.

Bottom Line: Will you see a performance increase? Yes. How much will the varies with the factors listed above. Now the performance increase I am talking about is between having the Mercury Playback Engine in Software mode vs. GPU Acceleration mode and having the Maximum Render Quality set to ON when comparing between the Software mode and GPU Acceleration mode.

Note: these test results are from our systems, your results will vary from ours, simply because of the hardware differences.

Number 10 - What Video Card to Buy
This is the big question for a lot of people. Some of you may think, “I will go with the GTX580 since it has a lot of CUDA cores and I have a big enough power supply“. You want the most powerful video card, right?

Well hold on a minute. Think about this first.... Some people have to have the biggest, best and fastest computer system without regard to cost. On the other hand, a lot of people just want a video card that will give them great performance without spending a lot of money.

Here are two examples of video card prices. You can get a GT440 video card with 1 gig of DDR5 memory for around $70, depending on the brand. You can also get a GTX580 video card with 1.5 gigs of DDR5 memory for around $470 to $525, again depending on the brand. (Prices are from 01/29/12)

That's about a $400 difference in price. Now look at the benchmarks above and think about it. Remember, depending on the video card you choose, you may need to upgrade your power supply. So that may be an added expense.

I really can't say what you should buy, but if your on a budget, as a lot of people are today, take a look at the GT440, GT530 or the GT545 with DDR5 memory. Note: the GT440 and GT530 will work with a 300 power supply, where the GT545 will need a 400 watt power supply.

Now, if you are not on a budge, the GTX 550 or higher will be a great choice. Just remember you may have to upgrade your power supply.

Just remember, the video card should have 1 gig or more of DDR5 memory.

Currently, I am using the GT240's and a GT440 video cards. Even with an AMD X6 (6 core) system, we are using the GT440 video card. The reason why I am using these video cards is simple, several of our systems only have 300 watt power supplies, so I didn't have to spent money to upgrade the power supplies. Plus, they were not expensive and based upon our tests they gave us great performance without having to spend a lot on a video card. Most of our work is NOT being rendered to MPEG-2 format.

NOTE: If you run games or other programs that are video card intensive, a high end video card may boost your performance in those programs.

Okay, before you run old and buy a video card, there is one more thing you need to know......

Note 1

Unlocking the NVIDIA video card will not make it "certified" in the eyes of Adobe. Adobe would like you to use a "certified" NVIDIA video card, because these are the ones they have put through rigorous testing with Premiere CS5 and Premiere CS5.5.

With Adobe Premiere CS5
version 5.03, Adobe recommends the following video cards:

GeForce GTX 285
GTX 470
Quadro 4000
Quadro 5000
Quadro 5000M
Quadro FX 3800
Quadro FX 4800
Quadro FX 5800
Quadro CX

With Adobe Premiere CS5.5, Adobe
recommends the following video cards:

GeForce GTX 285 (Windows and Mac OS)
GeForce GTX 470 (Windows)
GeForce GTX 570 (Windows)
GeForce GTX 580 (Windows)
Quadro FX 3700M (Windows)
Quadro FX 3800 (Windows)
Quadro FX 3800M (Windows)
Quadro FX 4800 (Windows and Mac OS)
Quadro FX 5800 (Windows)
Quadro 2000 (Windows)
Quadro 2000D (Windows)
Quadro 2000M (Windows)
Quadro 3000M (Windows)
Quadro 4000 (Windows and Mac OS)
Quadro 4000M (Windows)
Quadro 5000 (Windows)
Quadro 5000M (Windows)
Quadro 5010M (Windows)
Quadro 6000 (Windows)
Quadro CX (Windows)

There are a thousands of users out there that are using this unlock technique on their NVIDIA cards with no problems at all and that includes us, at Studio 1 Productions.

Mercury Playback Hack Premiere CS5 Premiere CS5.5

Note 2

The MSI N240GT series of graphics cards (including the N240GT-MD512-OC/D5 and N240GT-MD1G) allows the user to adjust both the voltage and the overclocking configurations via the Afterburner overclocking software from MSI to increase GPU clock up to 30%. The core clock can go from 550Mhz to 625Mhz.

We do NOT recommending overclocking ANY video card when working with Premiere CS5.
We have experienced, along with other users reporting that when the video card was overclocked, Premiere CS5 would crash after using it a few minutes. The crashing can be from high video card temps and/or overclocking the video card to a speed that is beyond what the video card can handle for long periods of time.

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Video Cards for Adobe Premiere CS5 and CS5.5

How to Unlock Adobe Premiere CS5 and Premiere CS5.5 to use almost any NVIDIA graphics card with CUDA acceleration. Download Free software to do the unlock for you for both Premiere CS5 and CS5.5.

You will need to unlock the video card AFTER each update or if you upgrade to Adobe Premiere CS5.5

How to Unlock Adobe Premiere CS5 and Premiere CS5.5 to use almost any
NVIDIA graphics card with CUDA acceleration.

Download Free software to do the unlock for you for both Premiere CS5 and CS5.5.

You will need to unlock the video card AFTER each update or
if you upgrade to Adobe Premiere CS5.5