Choosing a GPU for DaVinci Resolve can be overwhelming. I’ve listed all the best NVIDIA and AMD GPU options in order of price and performance.
Article Last Updated: May 2021
The GPU is the single most important component in any DaVinci Resolve workstation or laptop. Choosing a GPU is a careful balance between performance needs (and expectations), and budget. I’ve put together the a list of all the best NVIDIA and AMD GPU’s arranged in order of performance. This hierarchy is pretty much universal, not only for DaVinci Resolve, but any application that relies heavily on GPU processing. A list of top gaming GPU’s would probably come out in more or less the same order.
I’ve included both NVIDIA and AMD GPU’s in the list, in their respective positions relative to each other, along with the most important factors to use with DaVinci Resolve.
I’ve added Amazon product links where there is availability. These are affiliate links. I’ve skipped buy links to GPU’s that are currently priced higher than a better, newer option.
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DaVinci Resolve NVIDIA and AMD GPU Ranking
Included are the latest 30-series Ampere architecture GPU’s as well as the 20-series and 16-series Turing architecture NVIDIA GPU’s along with a few relevant 10-series GPU’s for reference.
This list is based on a ton of research, trawling through user forums and various published benchmarks. It is not based on my own actual testing. I would love to be able to build a test rig and compile data for all these GPU’s but sadly that’s out of reach for me. So you should take it as a rough guideline, with some room for error. Real-world testing might swap a few positions, but I doubt it would be drastically different.
| GPU | Architecture | H.264/H.265 Encoding / Decoding | Clock | Memory | Cores | Memory Bandwidth | Power Consumption |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090 | Ampere | Y (NVENC / NCDEC) | 1700MHz | 24GB GDDR6X | CUDA Cores: 10496 | 350W | |
| AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT | RDNA2 | Y | 2015MHz | 16GB GDDR6 | Compute Units: 80 Stream Processors: 5120 | 512GB/s | 300W |
| Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 | Ampere | Y (NVENC / NCDEC) | 1710MHz | 10GB GDDR6X | CUDA Cores: 8704 | 320W | |
| AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT | RDNA2 | Y | 2015MHz | 16GB GDDR6 | Compute Units: 72 Stream Processors: 4608 | 512GB/s | 300W |
| AMD Radeon RX 6800 | RDNA2 | Y | 1815MHz | 16GB GDDR6 | Compute Units: 60 Stream Processors: 3840 | 512GB/s | 250W |
| Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 | Ampere | Y (NVENC / NCDEC) | 1730MHz | 8GB GDDR6 | CUDA Cores: 5888 | 220W | |
| Nvidia Titan RTX | Turing | Y (NVENC / NCDEC) | 1770MHz | 24GB GDDR6 | CUDA Cores: 4608 | 672GB/s | 280W |
| Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 Ti | Turing | Y (NVENC / NCDEC) | 1635MHz | 11GB GDDR6 | CUDA Cores: 4352 | 616GB/s | 250W |
| Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 Super | Turing | Y (NVENC / NCDEC) | 1815MHz | 8GB GDDR6 | CUDA Cores: 3072 | 496GB/s | 250W |
| Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 | Turing | Y (NVENC / NCDEC) | 1710MHz | 8GB GDDR6 | CUDA Cores: 2944 | 448GB/s | 215W |
| Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 Super | Turing | Y (NVENC / NCDEC) | 1770MHz | 8GB GDDR6 | CUDA Cores: 2560 | 448GB/s | 215W |
| AMD Radeon VII | GCN 5th Gen | Y (UVD, VCE) | 1905MHz | 16GB HBM2 | Stream Processors: 3840 | 1000GB/s | 300W |
| Nvidia Titan X | Pascal | Y (NVENC / NCDEC) | 1480MHz | 12GB GDDR5X | CUDA Cores: 3584 | 480GB/s | 250W |
| Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080Ti | Pascal | Y (NVENC / NCDEC) | 1582MHz | 11GB GDDR5X | CUDA Cores: 3584 | 484GB/s | 250W |
| AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT | RDNA | Y (VCN) | 1905MHz | 8GB GDDR6 | Stream Processors: 2560 | 448GB/s | 225W |
| Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 | Turing | Y (NVENC / NCDEC) | 1620MHz | 8GB GDDR6 | CUDA Cores: 2304 | 448GB/s | 215W |
| Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 Super | Turing | Y (NVENC / NCDEC) | 1650MHz | 8GB GDDR6 | CUDA Cores: 2176 | 448GB/s | 175W |
| Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 | Pascal | Y (NVENC / NCDEC) | 1733MHz | 8GB GDDR5X | CUDA Cores: 2560 | 320GB/s | 180W |
| AMD Radeon RX 5700 | RDNA | Y (VCN) | 1725MHz | 8GB GDDR6 | Stream Processors: 2304 | 448GB/s | 180W |
| AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 | GCN 5th Gen | Y (UVD, VCE) | 1546MHz | 8GB HBM2 | Steam Processors: 4096 | 484GB/s | 295W |
| Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 | Turing | Y (NVENC / NCDEC) | 1680MHz | 6GB GDDR6 | CUDA Cores: 1920 | 336GB/s | 175W |
| AMD Radeon RX Vega 56 | GCN 5th Gen | Y (UVD, VCE) | 1471MHz | 8GB HBM2 | Stream Processors: 3,584 | 410GB/s | 210W |
| Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 Ti | Pascal | Y (NVENC / NCDEC) | 1683MHz | 8GB GDDR5 | CUDA Cores: 2432 | 256GB/s | 180W |
| Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 Ti | Turing | Y (NVENC / NCDEC) | 1770MHz | 6GB GDDR5 | CUDA Cores: 1536 | 288GB/s | 120W |
| Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 Super | Turing | Y (NVENC / NCDEC) | 1785MHz | 6GB GDDR5 | CUDA Cores: 1408 | 336GB/s | 125W |
| Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 | Turing | Y (NVENC / NCDEC) | 1785MHz | 6GB GDDR5 | CUDA Cores: 1408 | 192GB/s | 125W |
| Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 | Pascal | Y (NVENC / NCDEC) | 1683MHz | 8GB GDDR5 | CUDA Cores: 1920 | 256GB/s | 150W |
| AMD Radeon RX 590 | GCN 4th Gen | Y (UVD, VCE) | 1545MHz | 8GB GDDR5 | Steam Processors: 2,304 | 256GB/s | 225W |
| AMD Radeon RX 580 8GB | GCN 4th Gen | Y (UVD, VCE) | 1340MHz | 8GB GDDR5 | Stream processors: 2,304 | 256GB/s | 185W |
| AMD Radeon RX 570 4GB | GCN 4th Gen | Y (UVD, VCE) | 1244MHz | 4GB GDDR5 | Stream Processors: 1328 | 224GB/s | 150W |
| Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 | Turing | Y (NVENC / NCDEC) | 1665MHz | 4GB GDDR6 | CUDA Cores: 896 | 128GB/s | 75W |
Hardware AVC / H.264 / H.265 Encoding / Decoding in DaVinci Resolve
All GPU’s in the list are capable of hardware accelerated H.264 / H.265 encoding / decoding. However, it’s worth noting that hardware accelerated H.264 / H.265 encoding / decoding is only available in DaVinci Resolve Studio on Windows and Linux. It’s available even in the free version of Resolve for Mac. I state this in all my DaVinci Resolve specification and performance related posts because investing $299 in a DaVinci Resolve Studio license is the best $295 you can spend if you’re working with AVC / H.264 / H.265 source media, which many of us are.
Further Reading
- Learn more about DaVinci Resolve Minimum System Requirements
- Read more about the The Best Budget Laptops for DaVinci Resolve In 2021 with Thunderbolt
- Read more about using an eGPU in my article The Best DaVinci Resolve eGPU Options
- Find out more about Resolve monitoring in my article The Best Low Budget Resolve Monitoring and Video Color Management
- Read more about storage in my article The Best Storage for Video Editing | Post Workflow Strategy & Backups
Stay in Touch
If you’d like to be notified of new articles and tutorials you can subscribe to my very occasional email updates.
Please don’t hesitate to comment with your questions either here, on Youtube, or hit me up on twitter, I will always reply.
Are you saying that upgrading my GPU in the free version does no good?
Hi Robert, depending on your current GPU, and the demands of your work, upgrading your GPU is always going to increase your performance. It just won’t help your H.264/HEVC decode and encode (realtime playback of those codecs) unless hardware accelerated decode/encode is available. On Mac, this is enabled in both Resolve and Resolve Studio. On Windows, hardware decode and encode is only available in Resolve Studio.
Good luck finding any of those video cards. Well maybe you could get a GTX 1660 for four times what I paid for mine a year ago. This pandemic has made it very profitable for the money dealers to gouge and gouge more.
Yep. Unfortunately the situation is pretty bad.
I’m currently using FCPX but am contemplating switching to DR. I have an 8 core iMac Pro with 64GB RAM, Vega 56 GPU and a 5700XT in a Razer enclosure. Will DR utilize the two GPUs well and are they enough horsepower? I make 4K 5 minute videos and use lots of plug-ins/effects. Your thoughts would be appreciated.
Hi Benjamin, I can’t say for sure about the GPU usage because I’ve never tried that before, but you should have enough power there. Plus, if you have trouble with playback after piling on a lot of plugins and nodes, there’s always render cache, which helps a lot when the timeline gets really heavy.
HI I have a question. Is a AMD Ryzen 9 3900X and a GTX 1660 Super good for Davinci Resolve 17. I edit a lot and do some stuff in the colour and fusion page. Thanks
Hi Daniel, yes, you should be ok, the good thing is there are tools in DaVinci Resolve that can help if you have trouble with playback performance if you need it, such as render cache and generating optimized media. I would definitely advise that you use the Resolve Studio version rather than the free version, this will give you better H.264/H.265 codec playback.
Hi Richard,
what is your take on the new RTX 3060 regarding 4k editing via Davinci?
12GB VRAM, though a bit low on the memory bandwidth side, should be able to handle things like denoising and stabilizing 4k material without error, hm? In that case it would be a safer bet than, let’s say a 2060 or 2070, wouldn’t it?
Cheers!
Hi Levi, absolutely, I think the RTX 3060 will give you tons of power, and I doubt you will find any bottleneck, I’ve read it’s similar to a RTX 2080 when it comes to video work but have no first hand experience with it. I would definitely choose any 30-series if I was building a PC right now. The trouble is finding one.
Quadro P2000 5GB vs GTX 1650 Super 4GB. Are these pretty well equivalent for basic Resolve performance?
Hi Peter, sorry for the ridiculously late reply. I would rate the GTX 1650 higher, but that’s just based on things I’ve read from other people. I don’t have experience of this direct comparison.
Hi Richard, I am so glad to run across your site! Great info, and it is so generous of you to answer questions and give sage advice. Speaking of which…
As a pastor, I’m in the same boat as the choir director who posted. We have been livestreaming this past year using my 2011 MacBookPro with Thunderbolt 1, perched in front of me on the pulpit. External USB camera, External CalDigit Thunderbolt dock, and external microphone going into a Focusrite Forte USB audio interface which feeds both the livestream and two powered EV 250 speakers for the benefit of those attending Live. I run everything. Things are working pretty well, but we’re ready to upgrade. I’m an audio guy (former touring performer and studio engineer) but trying to come up to speed on the video side of things has been slow going for me. Here are my considerations:
1) I’ve scoped out a system for the sanctuary with a PTZ optics 20x camera, Blackmagic Teranex Mini Audio to SDI 12g converter, and Blackmagic Decklink Duo 2 Pci-e card. We’ll have a little multimedia station set up in the balcony at the back of the sanctuary with a Windows PC. I’ll need to play around with software -I’ve used Vegas Pro sparingly, but for many years, and have the latest version; V-Mix Basic HD Live is also an option. And I’ll edit / assemble / and then publish for Youtube / FB / Website with DaVinci Resolve (which I’ve also used sparingly). In making the changeover, our IT consultant will assist in running XLR-stereo audio from the mixer in the front of the sanctuary back to the multimedia station.
2) The IT consultant suggested that rather than doing the editing up there in the balcony (would have to heat sanctuary!), I could do it at home. He’s recommending using a USB 3.0 1 TB RDX Drive to transfer data from the sanctuary PC to my home. I have two primary options there:
a. My 2009 flashed to 2010 MacPro Cheesegrater I use for recording, mixing and mastering in my project studio. It has 2 x Xeon X5690 (Westmere) / 3.46 GHz CPU’s (= 12 cores), 64GB ram, AMD Radeon HD 7970 video card with 3072 MB memory. I have two Apple Cinema 30″ monitors and a smaller LG, all running from the Radeon. Currently I use High Sierra, but my video card will support metal, so I’ll be going to Mojave and possibly beyond at some point.
b. My Dell Precision 7910 Tower (honestly, I use it mostly to host chess software). It has 2 x Xeon E5-2630v.3 / 2.4 GHz CPU’s (=32 cores), 32 GB ram, with NVidia Quadro 5000 video card with 2559 MB memory. I have a nice Phillips 25″ monitor paired with it.
[c. Like you, I’m eager to checkout the new MacBook Pro 16″ when it comes out later this year. It’s entirely possible I’ll move to that for the video portion I do at home, as long as the potential you speak about is realized.]
For now, though, will either option a. or b. do the trick? Is one of these systems much preferable over the other for editing / assembling? I will likely add in video from my iPhone 11 (for a second camera angle) and some multimedia each week into the assembled video, but that’s about it. No intensive fx I would think, just doing “fades and wipes” kind of stuff. (I’ve appreciated your pointing out that if I use a PC I should purchase the full version of Resolve.)
3) We’ll need to buy a PC for the multimedia station in the sanctuary. I have read several of your articles, and others I’ve found about Video, as well as specifically for DaVinci systems. Would a used Dell 7910 or 7810 tower with dual-core Xeons be a good streaming / recording computer for the multimedia station outfitted with Blackmagic hardware, or should I look into i7 territory? I’m having a hard time parsing all the different opinions out there on the subject and would much appreciate your take.
Warmly,
Mark
Hi Mark, thanks so much. Apologies for leaving your query in limbo for a few days, I normally only get time to check here on the site and respond over the weekends. This one is going to require a bit of research, especially into comparing the two GPU’s. Could you let me know what kind of video files you will be working with? I am assuming you’ll be recording live to the PC at the back of the sanctuary with the Decklink card? So this will be 1080p, it’s good thinking to get the Decklink Duo 2, as in future you can add multiple camera feeds and record them all. This being the likely case, these files won’t be too heavy going to edit with. I’ll have a think about what the best codec to record to might be. If you can avoid H.264 altogether that may be an advantage when it comes to editing performance, so I’m thinking Avid DNxHD or DNxHR files may be the best to record if you’re going to use Blackmagic Media Express software to record. This is if you’re only recording live video to disk, and not streaming at the same time. Will that multimedia PC with the Decklink card be streaming live also? So you need to stream and record at the same time? Sorry for the questions, just trying to understand the workflow and options.
Hi Richard, thanks for your reply!
Yes, 1080p will pretty much do it for us, as in the end we’re just uploading “compiled” services to our webpage, Youtube and FB pages. All the rest of your assumptions are right as well: 1) the PC at the back of the sanctuary will be handling the livestreaming and the simultaneous recording through the Decklink Duo 2 Card; 2) yes, we might well add another camera in the future (for now, my iPhone 11 will probably be put to use to record another camera angle, and I’ll transfer those files from my iPhone to the computer I edit on at home); 3) and following on from one of your comments, whatever format we record with will need to play well with DaVinci -which I imagine is pretty well inclusive at the level we’re at.
Thanks again! Your help is much appreciated!
Hi Mark, one last question, are you using OBS to stream or some other software?
Hi Richard, I intend to start off with trying V-Mix Basic HD Live. I’m aware of OBS, so might play around with that at some point as well.
Hi Mark, thanks for this. I will now check into V-Mix Basic HD Live and see how it handles simultaneous recording of the live source, and streaming, and see if I can advise what is the best format and codec to record in order to give you the smoothest experience when editing.
Thanks, Richard. Will be eager to hear about your CPU recommendations as well (The two Xeon options I have vs i7 or i9).
Hi, I have an issue that the thumbnails and the footage takes forever to load, but plays good after it loads 4-5 min after startup, then it can freeze again.. I cant find a solution.. I have a ryzen 5 3600, 32GB of ram, rx 5600 xt .. Do you have any idea if this is solvable?
Hi Joakim, that’s an interesting problem. Is your primary media storage internal or external, and what kind of storage? Which version of Resolve are you using? Did this issue start when you made some major change (like a new version of Resolve or some system change) or has it always been this slow to open projects?
Hey, I have this Problem too and the same configuration. Can somebody help me or had that problem before?
Hey you guys,
I actually have the same problem and came here by accident. Exaxtly what Joakim and SchroschEy say. Freeze. forever to load up, slow. I changed from an old and “slow” RX560 4G to the RX 5600 XT which is by far faster and has more RAM. The issue only occured after the RX 5600 XT was installed. All drivers and everything is up to date.
Maybe someone has a solution.
Hey, I am buying a new laptop for some Davinci Resolve editing. Is this good enough for video editing at what realistic maximum resolutions?
Dell G5 15 SE (5505)
– Ryzen 7 4800H (8c/16t)
– Radeon RX 5600M (6gb VRAM)
– 512gb SSD Storage
Comes with 8gb of RAM by default, but I was going to upgrade to either 16gb or 32gb of RAM. What are your thoughts?
Hi Brent, this looks good. I would definitely put at least 16GB RAM in it. You’ll be able to work on 4K projects but so much depends on the type of source video files you’re working with, and the complexity of the grade (and which plugins you use). Definitely purchase the Resolve Studio license, this will give you GPU accelerated H.264/HEVC deciding and encoding. Whatever you can’t play back real-time, there are always options of generating optimized media, and using render cache.
Hey, I just startet editing video (1080p) with Davinci Resolve (free) on my i7 3770/32GB 1333 Memory/AMD R280/SATA SSD Raid 0 and It does not run too well. Im experiencing some dropped frames and stuttering. It isn’t a total mess, but it is quite distracting and exhausting over time. I am going with 1080p for now with no intent to cut 4k within the next 1-1.5 years. Though I am on a very tight budget I wonder, what would bring better advantages: a) upgrading to the Studio Version and a GTX1650 or GTX1070 for hardware acceleration; b) stay with the free version of Davinci Resolve and upgrading my CPU-platform first (e.g. AMD Ryzen5 3600/B550 chipset)? What are your thoughts?
Hi Olaf, I think absolutely GPU and DaVinci Resolve Studio will make a world of difference for you. Can you stretch for an RTX 20-series GPU?
Many thanks for your advise! I think I’ll be patient until the GPU prices will (hopefully) cool down a bit, go on saving some money meanwhile, and go fo a RTX20-Series-GPU then.
Hi Richard,
I have to choose between 2 PCs for my Workstation
1: CPU Ryzen 5 3600, GPU RTX2060, RAM:16GB
2. CPU Ryzen 7 3700x, GPU RTX2070, RAM 16GB
Is it the first one good enought for DaVinci Resolve? I know that between this two PCs the second one has more power but i need the best Ratio for Davinci. It is also Price/Value very importand.
Thanks in advanced
Nikolay
Hi Nikolay, apologies for the late response. Yes, both are good, definitely if you can afford it I would go with the 3700x and the RTX2070 but both will run Resolve.
This is awesome information. Thank you. I am working on a film, all shot on my LG V40 smartphone, shot in 1080, HDR10. I’m using Resolve free version so far and it’s been flawless on my Dell XPS 13 7390 2 in 1. (i7, 16 gig RAM, 256 SSD inside and a Glyph Atom 1TB external thunderbolt drive) So far, just building my timeline and moving things around, syncing audio and stuff like that has been glitch-free, but I’m about to get to color grading and transitions and I’m thinking my XPS is goimg to struggle because it uses internal iris graphics. I was told to get the Sonnet breakout box and a 2060 card. Will that work without an external monitor? Or do I also need to purchase that as well, to finish this project? I’m also about to upgrade to the paid version of Resolve to have noise reduction and some of the other features the free version doesnt have. Will that have Resolve asking more of my GPU than my CPU, as the free version is doing now? Meaning I have been told the free version is more CPU reliant. Awesome info here, thanks again. It is much appreciated.
Wow, sounds like an awesome project. An eGPU could be a good option if you want more GPU power. There is no need to attach an external monitor to the GPU, as long as it’s there and the system (and Resolve) recognize it, Resolve Studio will use it. Resolve Studio will utilize multiple GPU’s, so getting a Resolve Studio license is a good move in any case.
Hi Richard! Just purchased the GTX 1660 Super and want to ask if you believe that card will be fine, or should I expect some issues and if so, what those might be – and the possible work-around. I currently have the Radeon 5500 XT and Davinci doesn’t seem to like this card at all. The stuttering in playback is extremely bad. The lag is terrible. In some cases, when I move the timeline I have to wait several seconds for it to move to that point. I also noticed it’s not listed here. Thanks in advance for any assistance and input.
hi Richard, I just purchased the GTX 1660 Super (to arrive soon) and thought I might ask if you believe I will be ok, or anticipate some issues, and if so what those might be – and possible work-arounds. I currently have the Radeon 5500 XT and Davinci doesn’t seem to like it because the stuttering in playback is REALLY bad. The lag is terrible. I noticed it’s not on this list too. Thanks in advance for any assistance!
Hi Mike, the GTX 1660 Super should be fine. It depends on what kind of work you intend to do, what kind of media you are working with, and your expectations. I would definitely recommend you use DaVinci Resolve Studio, not the free version, so you can take advantage of H.264/HEVC hardware acceleration. The only other workarounds, if you face any performance issues is to use Resolve’s optimized media feature and to utilize render cache. Feel free to let me know here by reply if you have any issues and we can troubleshoot.
I’m using this to layer Milestone MXGP gaming videos together for now and want to start posting to YouTube at some point. I want to achieve smooth playback and rendering at 1080p 60 fps for upload. Right now, with Radeon that is not happening at all. Currently, I am using the DaVinci Resolve 16 free version. What exactly will the acceleration hardware do for me? The price is a little step but not out of reach. Thanks for being there for us!
Resolve Studio will give you hardware GPU decode of H.264/H.265 video codecs, which I assume is what you’re recording from your games. I apologize, I know nothing about gaming, what are you using to capture the videos? It should make a decent difference in real time performance for playback. I’d love to know how you get on with your GTX 1660 Super.
Good morning Richard. Excellent article. I need help. I am a Davinci Resolve user and I am working on a documentary with xavc and UHD files. I need to change my vram 2gb nvidia gtx 760 GPU and would like to know if installing an 8gb RTX 2070 super or 2080 might work fine with my I7 4770K (4th gen) CPU. My processor also needs to be updated for the new GPU to work correctly?
Very grateful if you could help me with this question.
Hi Sandro, yes, that’s a good combination. The only thing I would add is to make sure your power supply is up to the task, these GPU’s are power hungry.
Thank you very much for responding Richard. I’ll keep it in mind.
Hi sir,,My lap has nvidia geforce gtx 1650 4gb gpu…..But the new version of resolve 17 is showing that your gpu memory is full and I can’t playback or render any of it….And I have uninstalled resolve 17 and using the older version resolve 16.2……….Please tell some tips for me sir…..
Hi Praveen, unfortunately there is no solution to this if your plugins or effects are causing your GPU memory full warning. You either need a computer with a GPU that has more memory, or you have to reduce timeline resolution, or avoid using memory intensive plugins or effects. What resolution are you working and rendering at? Which plugins are you using?
Hi there….total new to all of this….I’m using the free Resolve and considering the Studio version. I built an i710700k, RX5700XT, [email protected] and originally bout Pinnacle 23…which sucks! It sounds like you’re saying the 5700XT is simply not enough GPU for the Resolve Studio? There are no GPU’s available anywhere that I can see….well at least that aren’t $1,500. What issues will I run into with the 5700XT? Thanks!
Hi Larry, I’m certainly not saying there’s anything wrong with the RX 5700 XT, if it does what you need it to do. It’s an 8GB GPU and should perform just fine with most 4K work. It’s lagging behind now in terms of processing power, but it really comes down to what gives you the performance your needs demand. There are options that will give you more performance for well under $1000 though, take a look for anything positioned higher than the RX 5700 XT in the table. The Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 Super may be a good option if you can find one. Take a look at the list of sellers at this link there are used and new there (affiliate link): https://amzn.to/36t6Rdz
Hello! I need some help. My GPU is NVIDEA GeForce 2080SUPER. I’m grading a 30minutes / around 200clips video. These are 6K Braw footage from BMPCC6K, and I’ve added demonize effect in about half of the footage. I’m getting the GPU memory full warning. Is it still not enough for this GPU to handle this project, or am I missing any set up option? By the way, I’m using resolve 16.2 studio. Any help would be great! Thank you very much.
Hi Ville, thanks for the question. What timeline resolution do you have set when you get the warning?
It’s in 3840*2160.
Sorry for the late response. I assume you meant that you are using noise reduction? (I am not sure what demonize effect is), so to troubleshoot, I would turn off all the effects you are using and then test to see if you still get the GPU memory full warning. Following that, enable them one by one until you get the warning. This should let you know what plugins or operations may be pushing your GPU memory usage over the edge. Unfortunately though there’s nothing much you can do except upgrade your GPU, or avoid whichever plugins are causing the high GPU memory usage.
Thank you for your reply! Yes, I meant noise reduction. I’ll test them one by one. Thank you, it still helps a lot!
Hello – I need some help. I apparently have 8GB of memory on my GPU, but I am still getting the GPU memory full warning, and everything is glitching – can’t add anything or play back my videos. I have resolve 16.2 studio. My GPU is NVIDIA GeForce GT 635. Any help would be amazing! Thank you.
Hi Jenna, thanks for the question. You may be looking at your system memory, which could be 8GB but this GPU is very old, and only has 1GB of video memory.
Hi Richard,
Maybe you could steer me in the right direction. Should I upgrade my card or change a setting in Resolve? My system is detailed below. I was using an nVidia Quadro K620 2gb card and while it barely edited 4k footage it never crashed Davinci Resolve 16 (free version) like the new card does. I could be doing something like scrubbing through the timeline and it randomly crashes. It always 100% crashes when trying to export 4k to a 4k or 1080 video. And even when I open Resolve it takes way longer on the new card to create the clip previews on the timeline. Creating optimised media helps a little with playback but like I said it crashes all the time.
OS: Windows 10 Home 64bit
CPU: Ryzen 5 3600
Motherboard: MSI B450 GAMING PLUS MAX Motherboard ATX
RAM: Corsair CMK16GX4M2B3200C16 Vengeance LPX 32 GB (4 x 8 GB)
GPU: AMD Radeon R9 270x Twin Frozr 4gb
PSU: BeQuiet Power 9 700w
I edit 4k 10bit videos from a Panasonic GH5 that I need to convert to Pro Res .mov files for Resolve to be able to see video. otherwise it’s just audio.
thanks and apologies if I left anything out.
Niall.
Hi Niall, I am going to be completely useless to you because I have no idea. The only thing I can think of is a driver/software or combination incompatibility of some kind. It’s a pretty old GPU. I searched for some answers for you and saw you asked this on the Blackmagic forum too, with no reply. My suggestion would be to get a newer generation GPU. Something like a Radeon RX590 is a great budget card if you want to stick with AMD, or if you can spend more, a RX5700XT, just check compatibility of everything else and so on beforehand.
No problem at all, thanks for the reply Richard. I agree with the theory that it’s a driver or config compatibility issue. I’ve rolled back the drivers to an older version but that gave the same results. I’ve actually just put my K620 back in because it was crashing so much on me today. editing 4k is slower but more stable. I’m not set on using AMD either so if there is something better around the price point of the RX590. I don’t do this professionally so I can’t justify the price of an RTX 2080 or anything like that right now 🙂
Thanks again.
Hi Richard, I have found limited information on how Davinci resolve performs on the Microsoft surface book 3. I assume it should run fine but would appreciate your feedback. Specs are: intel i7 1065g7 quad core cpu, 32gb ram, 512gb SSD and nvidia 1660ti max q graphics.
Hi Niall, that’s an interesting one. I have never tried, or read up on it, but if those are the specs, yes, I see no reason why Resolve will not run.
Will the GPU based video decoding/encoding acceleration also work with Canon EOS R5 footage?
Hi Patrick, I haven’t ever tried this or tested, but the internal recording of the Canon EOS R5 is H.265 so I imagine the answer is yes. However, I would recommend you ask this question on some of the various Resolve forums, or search to check with users that have actually tried this.
what about gtx 1650 ti???
Hi! What about RX 5500 xt 8gb?
RX 5700 XT paired with Ryzen 7 3700X.
Great CPU.
Really shite GPU for Resolve. Go with an RTX 2060S if you want something cheap and can get one at a discount, otherwise, save and get an RTX 3070.
I do not recommend 1st Gen Navi or Polaris for Resolve. I don’t yet know how well “Big Navi” does, but the 5700XT is worse than an O.G. RTX 2060 (not even the Super) by a pretty wide margin. Resolve is heavily biased to CUDA (i.e. Nvidia) on Windows. Unless you’re getting one of the higher end workstation cards from AMD, don’t even bother with them.
what about gtx 1650ti??
Need Help,
I am going to update my card for color grading purpose since I am on low budget I am confused between GTX 1660 Super 6GB and Amd rx 580 8 GB
i am confused cos I head Davinchi want more VRAM for processes so its which card is best for me RX 580 with 8Gb or GTX 1660 Super with 6GB
Please answer
Hi Raj, I would choose the RX580, these two GPU’s are not so different performance wise, so taking the extra GPU memory makes sense. I would also recommend you buy Resolve Studio instead of using the free version of Resolve so you can use hardware H.264/H.265 acceleration.
Richard… When testing a new graphics card, what kinds of things put the most strain on the GPU? For example, with my old NLE, things like two videos playing at the same in two resized boxes over an animated background (total of 3 streams) would cause issues. I would imagine the same would hold true with Resolve, especially when using multiple streams and Fusion transitions, etc. What kinds of things should I load up my timeline with to really give a graphics card a good test?
Thanks for the comment Greg, one thing that comes to mind that will stress your GPU is temporal noise reduction, especially at a high timeline resolution. You can even throw it on a few parallel nodes with some windows. Also some OpenFX plugins like Lens Flare, Tilt Shift Blur, Sharpening.
Is Studio worth for me given the hardware I have?
I have a Lenovo 16GB Ram with Core i7-7500U and Graphics card HD620.
If I buy the Studio version of DaVinci will I see an improvement in speed or do I just need to buy a better laptop?
This is very useful, thank you for putting all this info together.
I am thinking of using Davinci Resolve just for fun with home videos to put on instagram, facebook, etc etc.
My build is:
CPU Ryzen 5 3600
32GB RAM DDR4 3200MHZ
GPU Nvidia RTX 2080 Super
Storage:
512GB M.2 for OS and apps and a 2TB SSD
PC Screen Asus TUF VG32VQ
You think my CPU will be any issue or will I be OK to do some light edits @ 1080p and maybe on occasion 4K @ 30fps?
Hi Daniel, I think you’ve got more than enough horsepower there, however I’d definitely recommend running Resolve Studio so you can take advantage of GPU h.264 / HEVC decoding and encoding. This can also make a noticeable difference to playback performance with a lot of common video files.
I upgraded my GPU to a Radeon RX Vega 56 and now all my footage playback comes with a green/white line/dot layer, but when paused it disappears instantly.
Tried fiddling with the timeline resolution and playback settings but I can’t find anything on it.
Have you ever experienced this?
Hi Kenny, that’s an interesting problem. What system do you have it in?
I may be late for the party, but after upgrading you GPU, did you installed the most recent AMD drivers for it?
May be a silly thing to check, but always worth it.
What GPU would you recommend for a hackintosh machine running Davinci Resolve?
Hi Michael, I haven’t built a hackintosh for a long long time, so I actually can’t give good advice. I would advise searching the hackintosh forums and sites for what people are currently using.
Hi, please the rx5600??
Rx 5600 xt challenger d oc 6gb
I noticed in your table some info is incorrect: Radeon VII is 16GB HBM2
Hi Ben, thank you so much! I will update it.
This is very useful, thank you!