5 Best GPUs For Video And Photo Editing
5 min. read
Updated on
Share this article
Improve this guide
Read our disclosure page to find out how can you help Windows Report sustain the editorial team Read more
Key notes
- In video editing, the role of the GPU is to speed up some effects, transitions, and 3D rendering tasks.
- In this article, we'll explore the best GPU you can buy to improve your video editing experience.
- To discover more hardware and software offers, don't hesitate to check our Black Friday Hub.
- Looking to build up a computer? Our Buying Guides Section helps you to choose the best components.
Graphics processing unit, GPU, is a specialized processor designed to handle graphics rendering tasks.
A GPU can be integrated on the motherboard or connected to the motherboard on its own separated card, a so-called dedicated graphic card.
While many computer applications can run well with integrated GPUs, video editing software require more resources and performance. Therefore a dedicated graphics card is better suited to the job.
If you work with high-resolution files, 4K or 360-degree video, you need a dedicated GPU to help you transcode the files at a reasonable speed.
What are the best GPUs for photo and video editing?
AMD Radeon RX 580
- Best value or the price
- 8GB VRAM
- Overclocking possibility
- Variety of ports
- Consumes quite a lot of power
With an affordable price, Radeon RX 580 designed by AMD, is one of the best cards for beginners serious about video editing.
It is built on the latest Polaris architecture and has 8GB of memory with factory overclocking to 1425 GHz. This card is also VR ready and supports AMD Crossfire configuration for multiple GPUs.
If you work with applications based on the OpenCL framework, this video card improves video editing performance considerably.
You can connect up to 3 monitors, and the display outputs include support for DVI, HDMI, DisplayPort.
If budget really matters, RX 580 is an excellent choice.
Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080TI
- Best for 4K video editing
- New technologies
- Silent work without overhitting
- 11GB DDR6 memory
- Expensive for a limited budget
The best graphics card you can buy on the market is GeForce RTX 2080. If you’re not on a limited budget, then this is the right choice.
RTX 2080 is powered by Turing architecture and comes with a huge 11GB DDR6 memory with a bandwidth of 616 GB/s. This is more than enough if you work with multiple 4K displays.
This is the most performant GPU offered by Nvidia. It can easily render video with a resolution of 4K or above and offers more performance when you apply multiple GPU-accelerated effects.
AMD Radeon VII
- 16GB HBM2 memory
- 1 TB/s bandwidth
- New architecture and process technology
- Suitable for 4K video editing
- Increased temperature and power consumption
Radeon VII from AMD is the first GPU using the 7nm processors which leads to stunning experience at 4K resolution.
It is based on VEGA 20 architecture and comes with a huge 16GB HBM2 memory. HBM2 memory is better for computer intensive task, like video editing and rendering.
It also has the highest bandwidth, 1 TB/s. This helps reduce latency, meaning that editing tasks take less time, even at higher resolutions.
Radeon VII is a perfect choice for professional video editing and rendering.
Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 Super
- Power-efficient
- Affordable price
- Best for 1080 and 1440 resolutions
- Good cooling system
- Not so good for 4K resolution
RTX 2060 Super is the best valued graphics card in the RTX 2060 series cards. More expensive than RTX 2060 but better in all the other aspects.
Like other RTX, is running on the Turing architecture and comes with 8GB DDR6 VRAM with a bandwidth of 448 GB/s. This is enough for most video editing tasks.
The OC scanner feature is an automated function that will find the highest stable overclock settings. The cooling system does not let the temperature rise beyond the safe limit, which is an admirable feature.
If you are a beginner but serious about video editing, you should definitely consider this card.
AMD Radeon RX 5700
- 8GB DDR6 memory
- 4K support
- Efficient and fast
- Radeon image sharpening
- Uncomfortably hot operating temperatures
Radeon RX 5700 stands up better than other graphics card in the same price range. It offers decent performance at 4K resolution and exceeds expectations for intensive video editing.
Radeon RX5700 is built on the new RDNA architecture, and, because of the Radeon Image Sharpening technology, this architecture displays sharper and dynamic images.
You get 8GB DDR6 VRAM that runs at a decent bandwidth of 448 GB/s, and it also supports 4K H264 decoding and encoding rendering formats.
Great choice for a mid-range performance graphics card.
If you work in video editing and looking to build a computer, you can choose one of the above GPU. Any of them will help you render video and graphics in higher-definition formats, faster and easier.
Many video editing software take advantage of processor graphics acceleration and can speed up the 3D visualization of effects and improve rendering.
By buying a dedicated GPU, you’ll also avoid wasting precious time waiting for projects to render and encode.
[wl_navigator]
