When nVidia released Quadro CX and FX 4800 graphics card, we were unpleasantly surprised to learn that the only difference between the cards was a DVD containing Badaboom's RapiHD plug-in for Adobe Premiere CS4.
RapiHD plug-in worked only with the Quadro CX graphics card, so for instance, a combo between FX 5800 and SDI add-in card would be useless. After a couple months of hard work, AMD today announced the release of beta version of ATI Stream plug-in for Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 software package.
The plug-in is a result of collaboration between AMD and Adobe, all in the goal of utilizing Stream technology to level the load between the CPU and the GPU. Unlike nVidia's shot with Quadro CX and RapiHD, AMD's plug-in will accelerate all ATI Stream capable cards, e.g. Radeon 2000 series onwards. Seeing both consumer and commercial products accelerating a professional application [no, we do not consider a $699 Premiere Pro CS4 to be anything but a commercial app] is really beneficiary for the companies in the video business, given that for the price of single professional card you can usually get three to four regular ones. In the case of Quadro CX, you can get around five GeForce GTX 285 graphics cards.
However, given the previously disclosed limitations of Radeon 2000 and 3000 series, we would say that usable GPGPU experience in Premiere Pro CS4 would be expected with 4000 series onwards. You can download the plug-in on the official page:ATI Stream Premiere Pro CS4 GPGPU plug-in.
Now, it's nVidia's time to react.
