A couple of months ago, I asked some suggestions about a new PC for photo editing. In two-three weeks I'll had the funds; I still have few questions before ordering the PC:
1- RAM: I'm going to buy 2 GB of RAM, for now I can't really afford 4GB. I have seen different option; the cheaper ones have 4x512MB, the more expensive one have 2x1GB. Since they gives both 2GB total, what it the difference?
2- Video Card: I'm going to buy a 128MB card, but there is an huge price difference between some 128MB card...for example, the nVidia Quadro FX 1400 costs 400 euros more than the NVIDIA Quadro FX540. What makes the price difference? It is worth to spend a lot more for the FX1400 (for a photo editing system)
3- Photoshop and Windows: I have heard that installing them on two different partition improved noticeably the speed...how can I do it?
Thanks for you suggestions, always truly appreciated!
1) Chances are the motherboard has 4 slots. If you get 4x512, you will have to replace all of them when it's time to upgrade. If you go with 2x1GB you will still have 2 open slots to fill at a later time.
2) Some of them differ in memory speed and 3D performance - neither of which is a bid deal for digital imaging (2D). Get one that can drive 2 monitors - you may want to add a second one in the future.
3) Actually it's the swap file that needs to be on a separate drive (not partition) for best performance. If you can get 2 drives you can easily configure PS to keep its swap file on the non-system drive.
Hi Guy,
thank you for the answers. One last question...of course I can get two drives but that's another expense: it is worth it? I mean, there is a strong improvement in performances (e.g. 50% faster) or you gain just a little more speed (say 10-15%)?
Juza, the difference in performance will depend on what applications you plan to run concurrently. The more you have running at the same time - the more meaningful the I/O bottleneck will become.
Of course you will still be able to work with just one drive and buy the second one at a later time if you feel disk I/O is limiting you (you can get an idea by looking at the Windows Performance Monitor).
Juza, if you can affort it, use two drives. You can save all important files on both. The drives (and the power supply!) are the computer parts that have the most crashs and data loss is irritating. (A part of my daily work is repair computers). A drive is about 100 Euro for 250 Gbyte. Another option is to use an external storage for backup. But that is slower and no solution for getting PS faster. You can save a lot of money by using an unexpensive grafic card. You need the high priced cards only for 3D games. Its also not necessary to buy the fastes processor. Only gamers need that. For you the processor speed is not realy important. More important is the RAM sice and speed. With PS you see no big speed difference between a 2.5Ghz and a 3.5Ghz processor, but a very big difference by using 2Gbyte RAM or only 512 Gbyte RAM.
Discussion
5 replies1- RAM: I'm going to buy 2 GB of RAM, for now I can't really afford 4GB. I have seen different option; the cheaper ones have 4x512MB, the more expensive one have 2x1GB. Since they gives both 2GB total, what it the difference?
2- Video Card: I'm going to buy a 128MB card, but there is an huge price difference between some 128MB card...for example, the nVidia Quadro FX 1400 costs 400 euros more than the NVIDIA Quadro FX540. What makes the price difference? It is worth to spend a lot more for the FX1400 (for a photo editing system)
3- Photoshop and Windows: I have heard that installing them on two different partition improved noticeably the speed...how can I do it?
Thanks for you suggestions, always truly appreciated!
2) Some of them differ in memory speed and 3D performance - neither of which is a bid deal for digital imaging (2D). Get one that can drive 2 monitors - you may want to add a second one in the future.
3) Actually it's the swap file that needs to be on a separate drive (not partition) for best performance. If you can get 2 drives you can easily configure PS to keep its swap file on the non-system drive.
Guy
thank you for the answers. One last question...of course I can get two drives but that's another expense: it is worth it? I mean, there is a strong improvement in performances (e.g. 50% faster) or you gain just a little more speed (say 10-15%)?
Of course you will still be able to work with just one drive and buy the second one at a later time if you feel disk I/O is limiting you (you can get an idea by looking at the Windows Performance Monitor).
Guy
How do you configure PS to keep its swap file on the non-system drive?