NVIDIA $10,000 Quadro RTX Graphic Card to Boost RED 8K Editing for PC Users

NVIDIA, the company which designs graphics processing units (GPUs) for the gaming and professional markets, has partnered with Red Digital Cinema to invent a new graphic card called Quadro RTX in the goal of making your 8K editing faster.

It’s the GPU (and not the CPU) stupid!

Many of us who are experienced with 8K editing, definitely familiar with the frustration of the dropped frames phenomenon due to the limited performances and resources of the computer’s CPU when dealing with 8K footage.

Many of us also assume that stronger computer with higher CPU (Central Processing Unit) will get over that situation. The issue is that it’s not always the CPU fault, but rather the GPU (Graphics Processing Unit).

Sometimes, the way to go here, is to focus and improve the GPU performance with better graphic card. Most of the time, this solution is much preferred if you care about smooth editing, especially when dealing with ultra high resolution (like 8K REDCODE).

If you’d like to read more about the advantages of 8K, refer to our in depth article about 8K REDCODE and file size. 

Of course you can workaround this issue by working with proxies which is OK for rough cuts, but less preferable for grading and final touch.

NVIDIA Unveils Quadro RTX, World’s First Ray-Tracing GPU

The NVIDIA® Quadro® RTX™ 8000, Quadro RTX 6000 and Quadro RTX 5000 bring hardware-accelerated ray tracing.

This new graphic card contains Turing™ architecture-based GPUs. Without getting into much details here, let’s take a look at what NVIDIA is saying about the Turning technology: “Turing makes it possible for video editors and color graders to work with 8K footage in full resolution — in real time — reaching greater than 24 frames per second using just a single-processor PC with one Quadro RTX GPU”.

Turing makes it possible for video editors and color graders to work with 8K footage in full resolution — in real time — reaching greater than 24 frames per second using just a single-processor PC with one Quadro RTX GPU

For those who’d like to dive into more info, there are some of the characteristics of the new technology:

• New RT Cores to enable real-time ray tracing of objects and environments with physically accurate shadows, reflections, refractions and global illumination.
• Turing Tensor Cores to accelerate deep neural network training and inference, which are critical to powering AI-enhanced rendering, products and services.
• New Turing Streaming Multiprocessor architecture, featuring up to 4,608 CUDA® cores, delivers up to 16 trillion floating point operations in parallel with 16 trillion integer operations per second to accelerate complex simulation of real-world physics.
• Advanced programmable shading technologies to improve the performance of complex visual effects and graphics-intensive experiences.
• First implementation of ultra-fast Samsung 16Gb GDDR6 memory to support more complex designs, massive architectural datasets, 8K movie content and more.
• NVIDIA NVLink® to combine two GPUs with a high-speed link to scale memory capacity up to 96GB and drive higher performance with up to 100GB/s of data transfer.
• Hardware support for USB Type-C™ and VirtualLink™(1), a new open industry standard being developed to meet the power, display and bandwidth demands of next-generation VR headsets through a single USB-C™ connector.
• New and enhanced technologies to improve performance of VR applications, including Variable Rate Shading, Multi-View Rendering and VRWorks Audio.

Read more in the press release.

REDCODE RAW 8K

Hopefully, this technology can be utilized when dealing with REDCODE 8K RAW and without the need of editing proxies and without experiencing dropping frames.

As stated by Jarred Land, president of RED Digital Cinema. “Our work with NVIDIA to massively accelerate decode times has made working with 8K files in real time a reality for all.”

Our work with NVIDIA to massively accelerate decode times has made working with 8K files in real time a reality for all

Pricing

• Quadro RTX 8000 with 48GB memory: $10,000 estimated street price
• Quadro RTX 6000 with 24GB memory: $6,300 ESP
• Quadro RTX 5000 with 16GB memory: $2,300 ESP

Availability

Quadro RTX GPUs cards should be available in Q4 2018.

NLEs and GPUs

The question remains here, if those new outstanding graphics card will be utilized by NLEs (Non Linear Editing software).

For some reason, the majority of the NLEs are developed to utilize the CPU, means the CPU is the bottle neck. If so, a strong GPU will not contribute as much! The efforts must accomplish by both sides: GPU and software (NLEs). 

Will FCPX, Premiere and Avid take the advantages of the Quadro RTX GPUs in order to facilitate 8K RECODE workflow? We just need to wait and see.

By the way, the card is relevant for PC users. Mac fans will probably have to wait to the new Mac Pro.

Are you experienced with 8K editing? What do you think of this GPU technology? Let us know in the comments section below!