Question After Effects Users - Weigh in on GPU?

[PatrickPowers]

Greetings,

So, I’m building a PC for editing 4K projects in After Effects (and then exporting and finalizing them in Premiere). I‘ve been working with AE for about 15 years now so know my way around the program and am aware of its demands.

I built my first AE PC in 2017. That time I got a high midrange GPU (GTX 1070 8gb)….and it was almost never needed. I don’t even think the fans revved up once while using AE.…and even working on 4k projects with my current PC, the GPU hardly ever hits 40%

Now, 6 years later, I'm getting comments from the PC Building reddit / partpicker community telling me I *need* a GTX 4070 (at least) to do what I’m looking to do….and I just don’t think that’s the case.

AE is CPU heavy, not GPU…and even with GPU accelerated effects, I’ve never seen my current 1070 taxed beyond its limits.

So, I’m planning to go with a GTX 3060, 12GB GPU….Does that seem ridiculous to any of you?

If you’re an AE user and PC builder / enthusiast, I’d love to hear from you on this. Thanks!

 

[Lutfij]

If you're saying that your GTX1070 is barely used at 40%, why not retain that GPU while you're getting a new build? If you feel like you're in need of the oomph, then drop in a GPU later down the road.

My 2 cents.

 

[PatrickPowers]

If you're saying that your GTX1070 is barely used at 40%, why not retain that GPU while you're getting a new build? If you feel like you're in need of the oomph, then drop in a GPU later down the road.

My 2 cents.

Well, my thought was that my current CPU (8700k) is topping out before the GPU, such that, with a stronger CPU, I'd want to make sure that an old GPU would not become a bottleneck...so, I'm upgrading, just not to the most expensive (mid range) options out there.

 

[Bob.B]

Well, my thought was that my current CPU (8700k) is topping out before the GPU, such that, with a stronger CPU, I'd want to make sure that an old GPU would not become a bottleneck...so, I'm upgrading, just not to the most expensive (mid range) options out there.

Leave a new gpu out of the upgrade mix test with the old gpu first.

If it shows a high % of use then upgrade the gpu.

 

[NedSmelly]

Puget systems offers a good summary here:

Hardware Recommendations

Our workstations for Adobe After Effects are tested and optimized to give you the best performance and reliability. View our hardware recommendations.

www.pugetsystems.com

My approach would be to get a faster CPU first before moving to a GPU upgrade. 8700k is that weird one without hyperthreading. GTX1070 has enough vram for 4K editing.

RTX3060 12GB isn’t bad, I use one with Davinci Resolve, but as I mentioned in your other thread that you’ll need more vram if you ever move up to 6K-8K editing. I agree with @Bob.B, hold off with new GPU until you try the 1070 with new system.

 

[35below0]

Another reason to hold off buying a new GPU is the expected arrival of next gen 50XX series nvidias. Prices and price/performance graphs will be all over the place.
Most would agree that you'll get more for your money, possibly a lot more.

That 3060 12Gb won't go anywhere, and replacing a GPU is trivialy easy compared to building an entire PC, or swapping some other components.