There is one killer feature that AMD announced while unveiling the new Radeon RX 7900 XTX
, and no one seems to be talking about it.
And BTW, I am not referring to its relatively low price or the reduced power requirements
when compared to Nvidia RTX 4090.
Sure RX 7900 XTX costs less than 1000 bucks and won't melt your power supply, but I am
excited about something entirely different.
You see, I mostly use my GPU for video editing.
And till now I have exclusively relied on Nvidia’s GPUs because they give the best
bang for bucks when it comes to 4K video editing.
But with the Radeon RX 7900 XTX, I think the GPU landscape has shifted for content creators,
streamers and video editors.
This is because AMD announced a new feature called Smart Access Video which promises to
dramatically improve 4K video encoding speeds.
To understand why this feature is a game changer, let's first talk about the current generation
of GPUs from AMD and Nvidia.
So all Radeon and RTX GPUs come with media encoders and decoders to hardware accelerate
h264 and h265 codecs.
But none of these GPUs utilize the extra media encoders that are already present in your
CPU.
For e.g. I edit 4K videos on Davinci Resolve Studio Edition version 18.0.4.
My PC is running on Intel Core-i7 CPU and Nvidia RTX 3060 ti GPU.
Intel CPUs include an iGPU that comes with hardware media encoders.
Similarly Nvidia GPUs have NVENC and NVDEC hardware accelerated video encoding and decoding
engines.
So when rendering a 4K or an 8K video, I can choose either the media encoders present in
my Intel CPU or the Nvidia RTX GPU.
But there is no way to simultaneously use both these media encoders at the same time.
Which means my PC is leaving extra performance on the table, and I am not able to get the
best possible encoding time.
The same problem would exist if I switch to an AMD Ryzen processor and either a Radeon
6000 series GPU or an Nvidia GPU.
In the PC world, CPUs and GPUs don't play nice with each other when it comes to video
encoding.
This is one of the reasons why Apple’s M2 silicon kicks ass and delivers significantly
better video encoding performance.
Apple is able to utilize all the media encoders present in their SOC because they control
both the hardware and the software stack
Which brings me to Radeon RX 7900 XTX GPU and the new AMD Smart Access Video technology.
AMD has created a new unified API and associated software stack that allows supported video
editing softwares to utilize all available media encoders.
It distributes encode and decode workloads across all media encoders found in Ryzen 7000
series CPUs and Radeon RX 7900 XTX.
So that means when you are rendering a 4K or an 8K video, media encoders in Radeon RX
7900 XTX GPU will work in conjunction with the ones present in Ryzen 7000 series CPU.
AMD claims that technology will result in a 33% performance boost during 4K video rendering
I think this is a game changer for content creators because it will dramatically cut
down video rendering time.
At the time of making this video, AMD confirmed that Adobe premier and open source softwares
like ffmpeg, handbrake and OBS will support Smart Acess Video technology.
But unfortunately they didn't mention my favorite video editing software: Davinci Resolve.
Hopefully Davinci Resolve will also work with AMD’s Smart Access Video technology in near
future.
Now intel fans must be wondering that all this sounds very familiar.
And you guys are not wrong.
Intel has already introduced a similar technology in their Arc A770 GPU.
Its called Intel Deep Link Hyper Encode.
This feature allows popular video editing softwares like Adobe Premiere and Davinci
resolve to simultaneously utilize all the media encoders present in both the CPU and
the GPU, provided you are using a 12th or a 13th generation Intel CPU.
When this Hyper Encode feature is enabled, Intel claims 57% boost in single stream encoding
while using DaVinci Resolve Studio.
So that's even better than what AMD is claiming with their Smart Access Video technology.
But both Intel and AMD restrict this feature to their own CPUs.
So you will have to use Intel Arc A770 GPU and either the 12th or 13th gen Intel Alder
Lake and Raptors Lake CPUs.
Or AMD Ryzen 7000 series CPU with Radeon RX 7900 XTX GPU to utilize this extra boost in
performance
But both Intel and AMD have not invited nVidia to this party.
Which means RTX 3000 and 4000 series cards cannot utilize the media encoders present
in the latest intel and AMD CPUs.
While it sucks for the consumers, this creates a perfect opportunity for both Intel and AMD
to get a piece of the video editing and content creation market share.
Presently most streamers and content creators rely on nvidia GPUs, because they offer better
video editing performance.
Historically Nvidia has made better video drivers and superior hardware encoders and
decoders.
But now things are changing.
Intel’s media encoders in Alder Lake and Raptor Lake CPUs are actually quite good.
In fact Intel was the first company to launch AV1 hardware encoder with their 12th and 13th
gen CPUs and Intel Arc A770 GPU.
And now both nVidia and AMD have followed suit, and included AV1 hardware encoders in
their latest GPUs.
BTW, if you are not familiar with AV1 codec, it's going to be the codec of the future.
Companies like Google, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Intel and AMD have adopted AV1 codec.
Which means YouTube, Netflix and pretty much every video streaming and gaming website will
be using this codec in the future.
So if you are planning to upgrade your video editing rig, make sure that your CPU and your
GPU support AV1 codec.
Now both Radeon RX 7900 XTX and NVidia RTX 4090 offer 24 GB of video RAM.
But RX 7900 XTX is $600 cheaper and makes more sense for content creators.
Regarding actual video editing performance, we will find out after December 13, 2022,
when RX 7900 XTX goes on sale.
I am dying to find out how AMD’s Smart Access Video technology improves its 4K video editing
performance.
This card is not only $600 cheaper than Nvidia’s flagship card, it's also smaller in size and
consumes less power.
Which means you won't have to upgrade either your case or your power supply.
But I don't want to sound like an AMD fanboy.
There are still some unanswered questions.
When it comes to video editing, historically Radeon drivers have not been as robust as
Nvidia.
Also like I said Davinci Resolve will not utilize AMD’s Smart Access Video technology.
Let's hope that changes in the future, fingers crossed!
So I will try to get my hands on the RX 7900 XTX when it becomes available next month.
If you are interested in a detailed 4K video editing benchmark, please subscribe to this
channel.
In the meantime checkout this video over here where I talk about why you should consider
buying an Intel Arc A770 GPU if you are a content creator.
So go ahead and watch that video and I will see you guys over there.
Bye!