The Major Hardware Components

The Major Hardware Components

We will be covering four major areas of hardware when we discuss optimizing your system’s performance.
If you are already well versed in the subject of computer hardware, you may skip straight to the section
Identifying Performance Bottlenecks. If you are more of an artist than a computer wizard, it will be helpful
to have an understanding of these major components so that you can feel confident making decisions
about configuring the right computer system for your needs.
Central Processing Unit (CPU): This is the brain of your computer.
Computers may have one or more CPU chips, and each chip may
have multiple “cores” or processing units embedded in a physical
chip. Generally, more physical cores means more processing power,
which means software runs faster—although some software now
uses the GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) as much as the CPU; more
on that below.
Another issue you will hear mentioned alongside the number of
physical cores available is “hyper-threading.” Using this technology, a
single physical processor core may appear as two virtual cores to the
operating system and the software that runs under it. These are
helpful when you have one instance of software that can take advantage of multiple processors
(a capability known as “multithreading”); however, these virtual cores are not used when multiple
instances of software are each looking for their own processor to run on. This is a subject we will
discuss in more depth in the section on After Effects and multiprocessing.

A less direct measure of computing power is the speed that the processing unit runs at. This
“clock rate” (the master pulse that pushes along the processing steps) is usually expressed as
GHz (gigahertz). When the same model of processing unit is used, a higher clock rate results in
faster computation. However, newer generations of processing units often can perform more work
at the same speed, meaning a newer chip with a lower clock rate might still run software faster than
an older chip with a higher clock rate. Additionally, “mobile” versions of CPUs for laptop and similar
applications may not be as powerful as their desktop computing relatives; this is a tradeoff many
hardware designers make to conserve battery usage. So do not be seduced by clock rate alone—
ask if the computer you’re interested in uses the latest, fastest generation of CPU available for it,
and instead pay attention to comparative speed benchmarks in reviews of new computer systems.
Graphics Processing Unit (GPU): Today’s video cards and display systems contain their own
specialized processing units, capable of rapidly executing a specific set of commands for
manipulating and displaying images. GPUs often have hundreds of cores built for parallel
processing, compared to a CPU that typically has 4 to 6 cores. Significant portions of
Adobe software have been written to run on your computer’s GPU rather than
CPU to take advantage of this processing power. Therefore, it is often
possible to realize a specific performance boost just by replacing
your video card. Similarly, an otherwise powerful computer
may be accidentally handicapped by an incompatible or
underpowered GPU. The list of approved GPUs for
your chosen software will help you select the
best graphics card for your needs.
Today’s GPUs are all compatible with the
OpenGL (Open Graphics Library) standard, allowing
specialized image processing tasks to be significantly
accelerated by virtually any video card or display chip.
All of the software discussed in this document take advantage of
OpenGL in one way or another, from speeding display functions to accelerating specific processing
tasks in Photoshop to running virtually the entire SpeedGrade software.
Beyond OpenGL, NVIDIA®—one of the leading video card and chip manufacturers—has developed
a parallel computing platform and programming model called “CUDA” (tinyurl.com/AdobePWP-03)
that runs on their own GPUs. Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects make specific use of CUDA and
its related technologies (such as NVIDIA’s OptiX™ Ray Tracing Engine) to wring more performance
out of specific GPUs. Therefore, when we mention that a function requires CUDA, this performance
acceleration is only available using Adobe-qualified NVIDIA CUDA-enabled video cards and display
systems (listed later in this document).
New on the scene is OpenCL (Open Computing Language), which theoretically gives any
application access to the graphics processing unit for non-graphical computing. However, at the
time of this writing (early 2012), OpenCL is a relatively new standard, and currently only Adobe
Premiere Pro CS6 and Photoshop CS6 can take advantage of it under very specific circumstances
discussed later.
For maximum performance, video cards must have a high-speed connection to your CPU. In
workstation-style computers, this is governed by the speed of the physical slot the card is inserted
into. If you are installing your own graphics card, make sure you put it in a slot marked “16x” or
“16 lane”—not a smaller number like 8x or 4x, which transfer data at only one half or one quarter
the speed. Note that the initial implementations of the Thunderbolt interconnection standard only
operates at 4x speed (with 8x on the way), so GPUs placed in external Thunderbolt-connected
enclosures can only talk to your computer’s CPU at reduced speed, affecting performance.
Note that video card software drivers are updated often. One of the best things you can do to
ensure compatibility and performance is to proactively check for and update your specific video
card’s drivers. Also check the system requirements for your chosen software on Adobe.com to see
if any additional GPUs have been added to the qualified list; this list is different for each program.