NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Ti FE in a Studio PC and a Workstation – Showdown against a RTX A6000 and limited to 300 Watts

1 - Introduction and the optional 300 watts limiter 2 - Video Editing and Animation 3 - Rendering and Modelling 4 - Image Processing 5 - CAD, 3D Content Creation and Conclusion

Adobe After Effects CC 22.0.5

Let’s start with After Effects. I’ll be relying on workloads and test settings from Puget Systems, one of the major systems houses in the U.S. and specializing in workstation and studio systems, for some of the following tests. The scoring system used in this benchmark is based on performance against a reference system with an Intel Core i9 11900K, an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 10GB, 64GB RAM, a Samsung 980 Pro 2TB SSD, and Windows 10 Pro and Adobe After Effects ver. 22.0. The total score is weighted with 40% RAM performance from preview, 40% rendering and 20% tracking.

DaVinci Resolve Studio 18.0.1

The DaVinci Resolve benchmark used examines rendering with a wide range of codecs at 4K and 8K resolutions (Extended Preset only), OpenFX, and performance in Fusion. The test media used (59.94 FPS) consists of the following resolutions and codecs:

4K H.264 150mbps 8-bit 4K ProRes 422
4K RED 8K H.265 100mbps
8K RED

For the 4K and 8K media tests, benchmarking comes through with a relatively simple preset to focus primarily on processing performance for these codecs. The export is done in both H.264 (an older but very widely used codec) and DNxHR HQ to minimize the encoding step of the process. The GPU effects part of this test focuses on OpenFX and noise reduction with the following effects:

Temporal NR x3 – 2 frames better
Temporal NR – 2 frames better
Film grain
Spatial NR – Better
Lens Blur x5
Lens aberration
Optical Flow – 50% improved Better
Facial Refinement

Subsequent fusion testing will test performance for a range of projects. These focus on:

3D Title
3D Lower 3.
Phone Composite (tracking + green screen replacement)
3D backlit text (motion graphics)
Turbulent particles (motion graphics)

The rating system used in this benchmark is based on performance compared to a reference workstation with an Intel Core i9 10900K and an NVIDIA Titan RTX 24GB. Depending on the selected benchmark preset, the results are summarized to the overall results “Standard” and “Advanced”, whereas I am only interested in the GPU score today.

Adobe Premiere Pro CC 22.0.5

The Premiere Pro benchmark tests both live playback and export performance with a wide range of codecs at 4K and 8K resolutions. Even though it is not yet enough for the very top places, AMD has made decent gains in live rendering and at least reaches the targeted FPS rate more often than before. In addition, there are special sequences with strong GPU effects, individually stressing the system beyond what a typical Premiere Pro user will do (though we’re not interested in the CPU part today). The test media (59.94 FPS) consists of the following resolutions and codecs:

4K H.264 150mbps 8-bit 4K ProRes 422
4K RED 8K H.265 100Mbps (Enhanced)
8K RED (Enhanced)

The tests are all run for live playback performance tests at full playback resolution:

Standard – Two 59.94FPS clips in series with a Lumetri Color effect
2x forward – Four 59.94FPS clips in series with Lumetri Color on 200% speed in a 119.88FPS sequence to simulate double-speed playback performance.
4x forward – Eight clips at 59.94 FPS in series with Lumetri color at 400% speed in a sequence at 239.76 FPS to simulate 4x speed playback performance.
MultiCam – multiple clips on four to six tracks in a multicam sequence. Playback is tested in the “Multi-Camera” display mode.

the default sequence is also used to test export performance with the Youtube 2160p 4K Ultra HD preset (H.264, 4K, 40mbps), as well as for export to 4K ProRes 422HQ 8-bpc. Furthermore, there is a sequence with high GPU load:

Two ProRes 422 clips in series with a cross dissolve between the two
Advanced effects: Lumetri Color, Ultra Key, Sharpen, Gaussian Blur, Basic 3D, Directional Blur, and VR Digital Glitch.
Extreme effects: Lumetri Color, Ultra Key, Sharpen, Gaussian Blur, Basic 3D, Directional Blur, VR Digital Glitch and VR De-Noise.
Performance is measured by exporting to ProRes 422HQ.

The scoring system used in the benchmark is based on performance against a reference system with an AMD Ryzen 5900X, an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 10GB, 64GB RAM, a Samsung 960 Pro 1TB SSD, and Windows 10 Pro and Adobe Premiere Pro 2020 (14.8). The performance in FPS for each individual task is compared with the reference result and used to calculate the ratings for live playback, export, GPU and effects. For these sub-scores, a score of “100” would correspond to the reference system, for example, while a score of “80” would indicate performance of about 80% of the reference system.  The GPU score determined here is the average of the results for the GPU effect tests and the H.264 export tests.

Topaz Video Enhance AI 2.6.4

Even though I don’t really like Topaz’s subscription model, I’m one of the paying subscribers who also had to buy a basic version. Nevertheless, the investment is well worth it if you work with it almost every day like I do. The program works with different AI models, but I prefer to work with Proteus Fine Tune, because you can optimize it the most yourself. Using various AI models, the program not only calculates missing details in the respective frames of a video, but can also be used as a denoiser, image sharpener and to remove artifacts.

In addition, the program also calculates missing details based on preceding and following frames, so that sometimes amazing results can be achieved here. If you upscale a rather crumbly 720p video to 4K, it will take quite a long time even on large graphics cards, but would probably be almost unsolvable for a CPU in the sum of all effects used. I’m using an old 30-fps dash-cam video, because here, in addition to the artifacts, there was image loss due to the rapid movement of the vehicle.