rise of the gpu

The humble GPU is increasingly becoming more important in the world of VFX and motion graphics. Real-time rendering on your graphics card is starting to become more of a necessity than a luxury.

The last 18 months has seen an explosion of new software that is using your GPU instead of your CPU to render. Video Copilot’s Element 3D, Trapcode Mir & Octane Render are just a few of the plug-ins that are leading the way in GPU rendering. This trend is set to continue, along with rendering in the cloud.

Advantages of GPU rendering for VFX & Motion Graphics

The advantages of GPU rendering are compelling. Why would you wait hours to render a 3D animation on your CPU, when you can render it in almost real-time on your GPU? The most frustrating part of creating digital imagery, is waiting for that render and not being able to get that instant feedback as you make changes to your scene. That’s why Element 3D and Octane Render have proved to be such popular products this past year, – 3D artists want to interact with their creations in real-time.

If GPU rendering is so good, why isn’t everyone using it?

The simple answer is that to experience the full benefits of GPU rendering, you’ll need a decent graphics card. Video Copilot have done an amazing job to get Element 3D working on sub-par graphics cards, but to really get excellent GPU rendering performance, you’ll need to invest in a decent graphics card.

NVIDIA® have long been leaders in graphics card technology. They’ve recently released a new range of professional graphics cards – NVIDIA® Quadro® that are powered by NVIDIA Kepler™, which is a powerful GPU architecture that makes real-time rendering and interactivity possible. These new graphics cards will give you the power to create exciting new imagery faster and keep you in a creative flow that isn’t interrupted by long rendering times.

NVIDIA Quadro K5000

 
The NVIDIA® Quadro® K5000 graphics card takes advantage of the NVIDIA Kepler™ architecture to dramatically accelerate professional applications. With the NVIDIA Quadro K5000 you can count on superior interaction when designing with the most complex models, richer scene details and effects for content creation.

CUDA™ Cores 1536
GPU Memory 4GB GDDR5
Memory Interface 256-bit
Memory Bandwidth 173 GB/s
System Interface PCI Express 2.0 x16

NVIDIA Quadro K5000 For Mac

 
From small agencies to large media conglomerates, creative professionals utilizing the Apple Mac Pro want tools that let them bring their vision to life as fast as possible – without sacrificing quality. The Quadro K5000 for Mac gives artists and editors unprecedented power and interactivity.

CUDA Cores 1536
GPU Memory 4GB GDDR5
Memory Interface 256-bit
Memory Bandwidth 173.0GB/s
System Interface PCI Express 2.0 x16

NVIDIA Quadro K4000

 
The NVIDIA Quadro K4000 graphics board offers ultra-fast performance and visual quality enhancing technical innovations that take a wide range of leading professional applications to the next level of performance and fluid interactivity. You get 3GB of GDDR5 GPU memory, 768 SMX CUDA parallel processing cores, the ability to drive up to four displays simultaneously, and full Shader Model 5 compatibility; all in a single slot form factor requiring significantly less power than competing graphics products.

CUDA Cores 768
GPU Memory 3GB GDDR5
Memory Interface 192-bit
Memory Bandwidth 134.0GB/s
System Interface PCI Express 2.0 x16

NVIDIA Quadro K2000D

 
The NVIDIA Quadro K2000D graphics board offers the perfect blend of performance and the latest productivity enhancing technical innovations at a very reasonable cost for a wide range of leading professional applications. With two DVI-DL connectors, and the ability to drive an additional side display, the K2000D is an ideal choice for color or grayscale medical imaging applications requiring 10- or 12-bit grayscale imaging with DICOM monitor calibration support. You get 2GB of GDDR5 GPU memory, 384 SMX CUDA parallel processing cores, and full Shader Model 5 compatibility; all in a single slot form factor which requires no auxiliary power to deliver full performance.

CUDA Cores 384
GPU Memory 2GB GDDR5
Memory Interface 128-bit
Memory Bandwidth 64.0GB/s
System Interface PCI Express 2.0 x16

NVIDIA Quadro K2000

 
The NVIDIA Quadro K2000 graphics board offers the perfect blend of performance and the latest productivity enhancing technical innovations at a very reasonable cost for a wide range of leading professional applications. You get 2GB of GDDR5 GPU memory, 384 SMX CUDA parallel processing cores, the ability to drive up to four displays simultaneously, and full Shader Model 5 compatibility; all in a single slot form factor which requires no auxiliary power to deliver full performance.

CUDA Cores 384
GPU Memory 2GB GDDR5
Memory Interface 128-bit
Memory Bandwidth 64.0GB/s
System Interface PCI Express 2.0 x16