photoshop: things to look for in a vid card?

stopthekilling77 · Post by **stopthekilling77** » Sat Jun 02, 2007 5:10 pm

one of my little brothers got accepted to Washington DC's Art Institute, and now he's asking me about building a new PC for him to use for Photoshop (CS2 i believe)

building him a decent PC wont be hard EXCEPT for the video card. what should i be looking for on the specs for a graphics card? to my knowledge, PS is a strictly 2d app right? i'm looking to get him a mid-to-high end card that will last him the 3 years he'll be there (haha i can wish right?)

thanks all!

Post by **dicecca112** » Sat Jun 02, 2007 5:11 pm

memory would be more of a concern than what graphics card you use.

stopthekilling77 · Post by **stopthekilling77** » Sat Jun 02, 2007 6:36 pm

got 4 gigs on the wishlist :D so next thing is getting the right vid card

bubba · Post by **bubba** » Sat Jun 02, 2007 6:37 pm

what ever you do get him, the system RAM will be more of an issue, more RAM the better, and a kick ass high quality monitor. CRT not LCD, CRTs have better color accuracy.

Dual monitor support would be nice to have, gives him room to go dual monitor if he wants.

6600 will do the job, a 7xxx would hold him if he gets into stuff like 3Ds MAX

stopthekilling77 · Post by **stopthekilling77** » Sat Jun 02, 2007 6:41 pm

yeah but i'm still trying to figure out if pixel pipelines are more of a big deal or whatever.

worse comes to worse i'm just gonna get him an 8800 GTS and eliminate the doubt. though its SUPPOSED to be more of a budget PC

bubba · Post by **bubba** » Sat Jun 02, 2007 6:45 pm

woops, beat me before I finished my editing my last post. I would put the vid card lower on the list of importance, He is going to want the ram (witch you got) and a good monitor. If the colors don't match what he prints it will drive him nuts.

stopthekilling77 · Post by **stopthekilling77** » Sat Jun 02, 2007 7:23 pm

thanks for the tips man

he's already got a 19" CRT monitor he's happy with, its actually pretty crisp looking, so the monitor is taken care of and he's got a good tablet so its just the vid card i've gotta settle on...

Zelig · Post by **Zelig** » Sat Jun 02, 2007 7:55 pm

bubba wrote:what ever you do get him, the system RAM will be more of an issue, more RAM the better, and a kick ass high quality monitor. CRT not LCD, CRTs have better color accuracy.

Not necessarily, a regular LCD will generally be as good for colours as most CRTs, you have to get into the high-end aperture grill designs like the Sony Artisan before you're getting really good colour reproduction. Even there, companies like Eizo make competitive LCDs.

stopthekilling77 wrote:got 4 gigs on the wishlist :D so next thing is getting the right vid card

Keep in mind that no 32-bit operating system supports a full 4 GB of system memory, and any single application is limited to 3 GB at best.

dgood · Post by **dgood** » Sat Jun 02, 2007 8:17 pm

but Xp Professional x64 does. The problesm with it are so few and far between he probably wont even have them.

stopthekilling77 · Post by **stopthekilling77** » Sat Jun 02, 2007 8:22 pm

my dad has hookups in the software industry. nuff said bout that, and pat listens to music and uses AIM whilst photoshopping, so he'd need more RAM anyhow.
as far as the monitor goes, it doesnt matter for us cause its not in the budget to get a new one when he's going to college and already has one thats big enough and works.

pleeeeeeeeeeeeease can someone help me with the original question?

Post by **dicecca112** » Sat Jun 02, 2007 8:24 pm

it already was by bubba

6600 will do the job, a 7xxx would hold him if he gets into stuff like 3Ds MAX

If you want 8800xxx then you'd be even better. But any of those cards will do fine

Hell the mac's we used in my photoshop class did everything fine and then some and they were fx 5200s

stopthekilling77 · Post by **stopthekilling77** » Sat Jun 02, 2007 8:34 pm

lol i have entirely too many energy drinks in my system im mad i missed that.

cool now i'm curious as to what photoshop really depends on from a video card, hardware-speaking

ScottLovesDogs · Post by **ScottLovesDogs** » Sat Jun 02, 2007 9:10 pm

If you don't have anything against ATI, their FireGL 3100 and 5100 are certified (by Adobe?) for use with Photoshop CS2.

With ATI, the FireGL series cards are the "professional" cards for workstations and are certified by and for a whole bunch of graphics/CAD/Engineering software. Look at their website for more info, and which specific drivers are certified with which specific card for which specific software. There is a 26 page .pdf document that lays it out.

The FireGL line is not nearly as expensive as the "gamer" oriented line which I think are the Radeons.

I use a FireGL 3300 and love it. Although, in Photoshop or 2D use with AutoCAD, I'll never push this card like gamers push theirs. It still performs very well.

nVidia might also have a "professional" or "workstation" line of cards too.

Post by **dicecca112** » Sat Jun 02, 2007 9:12 pm

they do there called Quadros and there expensive.

stopthekilling77 · Post by **stopthekilling77** » Sat Jun 02, 2007 9:23 pm

thanks scott!
i'll keep that in mind, its gonna be a month or so before i build this for him, but i'm already trying to make a feasable build so i can start to budget it

ScottLovesDogs · Post by **ScottLovesDogs** » Sun Jun 03, 2007 6:29 am

In your original post you said mid to high-end card. Keep in mind that a high-end FireGL, say the V7350, can sell for close to $1500, and is completely unnecessary for Photoshop. That kind of card is for 3D rendering in AutoCAD or one of the more esoteric and rare CAD/CAM or GIS programs that it is certified for.

You can get a V3300 for $159 (OEM) or $169 (retail) at Newegg. I got the OEM and it came with the CD with the manual and drivers (get new ones from the ATI website), as well as two DVI to VGA converters.

For Photoshop you shouldn't really need to spend over $200, and that is absolute max. Even for Photoshop CS3 (just released), which does have some very rudimentary 3D capabilities. Nothing like, nor as demanding as AutoCAD's or Maya's 3D capabilities.

Heck, I even use Photoshop CS2 on my laptop and it runs it very well indeed. This is a 5 1/2 year old Pentium III 933 Mhz (a Tualatin, though, so pretty fast and powerful), 1 GB system memory with a graphics subsystem consisting of an ATI Radeon M6 Mobility chip and 16MB of dedicated DDR VRAM. Really runs Photoshop just about as fast and well as the 3.0GHz E6600 (overclocked, water-cooled), 2GB monster with the FireGL card.

Bottom line is that Photoshop CS2 does not need a $1000 graphics card. Just be sure that the graphics card you get will have enough memory. If your brother gets into very complex designs, maybe consider a 256 MB card (around $400). My design style leans heavily toward simplicity, so 128 MB, or even just 16MB on the laptop, works just fine for me.

For overall speed of loading Photoshop on startup, etc, he will need at least 1 GB of system memory, with 2 GB preferable.

Oh, yes, almost forgot: you or your brother gets 3 years warranty and 3 years free phone tech support with the ATI FireGL series. ATI seems to support graphics professionals and engineers very well. If you buy a FireGL, make sure he registers it.