Graphics Card Question...

[davijin]

Photoshop along with illustrator, painter, and other 2d apps make no use of the graphics card what so ever. even in most 3d apps like maya, max, xsi, etc they only really use the graphics card to push polygons in viewports in realtime, all other calculations are taken by the cpu. tasks such as rendering, particle physics, modeling, animation, etc are all done by the cpu. Since you said her primary use is photoshop changing the graphics card really wont do anything noticable perfomance wise in photoshop to speed it up.

I would say save that money that you would have spent on a quadro card, and maybe look into putting together a new rig for her. for the amount of money those cards cost you can get or put together a core 2 duo system with 2-4gb of ram which will give a boost to all around performance and photoshop performance instead of a card that wont really do either.

[gamedeveloper]

I'm going to assume your computer is an older model since you're running with AGP. If you don't want to purchase a new system and want a cheap set of performance upgrades, try the following...

Max out the RAM ($100?)

Upgrade to the fastest RPM hard disk you can for your particular HD interface (IDE, SATA). Since you're upgrading the hard disks you'll need to do a fresh Windows install -- always good for upping the performance. ($100?)

If your CPU is socketed, try upgrading to the BEST CPU your motherboard allows. If it's an older P4 Intel motherboard, it probably won't suport the latest dual core processors but will 'probably' support Pentium D. If so, try a Pentium D 930. Not a fantastic chip by any means, but cheap and way better than single core. ($90)

Upgrade to the best AGP card you can. CS3 Extended does make use of the 3D card for certain functions, so having a little extra power here is useful. Are you AGP 4x? AGP 8x? Find out and pick a faster card with at least 256MB RAM. ($125?)

If you can keep your upgrades to about $400, then it may be worth keeping your existing computer as going from...

- pentium 4 2.4 Ghz, 1GB RAM, 5400rpm HD, 128MB old GPU

to

- P4D 930, 2GB+ RAM, 7200rpm HD and 256MB fast GPU

...could provide a 100% speed improvement. However, if you have a large budget (>$1000) just buy a new box! ;-) You'd be getting better dual core tech, faster memory speed, better HD interface and better GPU interface.

One more thing related to PhotoShop work, if she has a sucky monitor please upgrade her to something decent. ;-) I'd recommend a 23"+ widescreen monitor with landscape/portrait orentiations. You can find great refurb displays on ebay for under $400.

[Szos]

Dear Hardware Forum,

I do tech support for my wife who is a graphic artists, 3D artists, etc. The question I have is in relation to how Adobe Photoshop CS2/3 works with the high end graphics cards. In this case my wife's computer is still using an AGP video card and I would like to upgrade her video card to a Nvidia Quadro 4000 / 3000.
Photoshop and other 2D apps take no advantage of the 3D hardware in regular videocard, let alone over-priced cards like the Quadro-line.


We have read that the Quadro video cards are built for rendering, but nothing is really mentioned about 2D graphics.
No, Quadro cards are not built for rendering at all - they are solely used to display viewport geometry... rendering is 100% handled by the CPU. And nothing is mentioed about 2D performance cuz they are 3D cards - just about any cheapo videocard is going to be good enough for Photoshop work.

My suggestion is get a 6800XX or 7800XX AGP card for probably under $100 (there was a recent thread on AGP cards) and then drop another $100 or so on RAM. Done.

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