Adobe Photoshop and Elements GPU?

[UNhooked]

ALready created a thread in the software section but thought I'd create another one here due to more foot traffic 🙂

Does the GPU matter for a machine solely for Adobe Photoshop and Elements or can I get away with built in GPU of a 3770K or 4770K?

Thanks!

 

[Stuka87]

Several Photoshop features require a video card that has at least 512MB of vram.

Here are the cards they have tested for compatibility. But the below list does not mean all cards will run all features.

nVidia GeForce 8000, 9000, 100, 200, 300, 400, 500, 600 series

nVidia Quadro 400, 600, 2000, 4000 (Mac & Win), CX, 5000, 6000, K600, K2000, K4000, K5000 (Windows & Mac OS)

AMD/ATI Radeon 2000, 3000, 4000, 5000, 6000, 7000 series

AMD/ATI FirePro 3800, 4800, 5800, 7800, 8800, 9800, 3900, 4900, 5900, 7900

AMD/ATI FireGL W5000, W7000, W8000

Intel Intel HD Graphics, Intel HD Graphics P3000, Intel HD Graphics P4000, Intel(R) HD Graphics P4600/P4700


If you are working with very large canvases, I would get a real GPU. Does not have to be high end. An HD7750 would do great for most things. But if you just use this on the side for your own stuff, may not be worth it.

Further details are here: http://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/kb...ics hardware not officially supported message

 

[UNhooked]

O cool so a cheap GT 640 would do it

It's for the wife, she has had a laptop all this while and has been asking me for a machine to do photoshop stuff. I saw a deal on the GTX 660 for $170, would that be an overkill?

 

[Stuka87]

Just for photoshop a 660 is way overkill. You can pickup a 7750 for 90 bucks brand new, and it requires no external power connection. So you wont need a fancy PSU for it. Very low power draw.

 

[kbp]

Might be overkill but I love my Quadro 4000K

 

[Kippa]

For OpenGl in Photoshop, is it 32bit based or 64bit based? I am talking about explicit use of OpenGl in particular. For example if you had a titan with 6gb of ram would Photoshop using OpenGl use the full 6gb of video ram or is it limited to 32bit addressing?

 

[Cerb]

O cool so a cheap GT 640 would do it

Yes, and a lot more. Anything more powerful than a GT 640 or HD 6770, is pretty much going to be wasted. Even that much of a GPU is allowing some performance headroom (but, the GT 640 really is far more powerful than a 620 or 630, but not much more money). It will be much better than IGP for quite a few tasks. The GPU saves the CPU/IGP processing time and bandwidth, so it helps, but after a point, it's all fast enough that you will be waiting on CPU or storage.

Put your money into a CPU with Hyperthreading, like a Xeon E3 series or Core i7, and at least 16GB of RAM (and an SSD, if that doesn't blow the budget 🙂).