dual p4's worth it for photoshop?

[TonyB]

um.. ok

 

[mooojojojo]

I think what gratefullysaved said is about right. it really doesn't matter what machine you use - it just needs to be a recent system with a decent amount of ram. after all it's not the computer that draws and makes the designs.

it doesn't hurt to have a cutting edge system but how fast is fast enough? I would think that a 2GHz with 1GB ram and a 7200 HDD is plenty.. the important thing here is the monitor. get a large one. trinitrons/diamontrons are nice.

 

[Macro2]

Dual Athlon MPs or a single P4 probably your best bet.
I just saw a review of this stuff somewhere.
dual MPs edged the P4 but the P4 still won a bunch.

Mac
I do graphic design. I'd be more concerned about the monitor and video card picture quality.

 

[mooojojojo]

I do graphic design. I'd be more concerned about the monitor and video card picture quality.

indeed. you will work faster on a 21"/733mhz than on a 17"/2Ghz... well it depends actually on your work files res.

 

[Adul]

dual p4 would be a wast of money,

a good quality monitor and video card are indeed handy

also a fast cpu and lots of ram

 

[zephyrprime]

I don't understand, why does photoshop run faster if it's on a serparate hard drive?

 

[mooojojojo]

Originally posted by: zephyrprime
I don't understand, why does photoshop run faster if it's on a serparate hard drive?

well you see.. it's not the actual photoshop installation that has to be on a separate hard drive. it's photoshop's scratch file. so that it could write and read independently from windows' scratch disk... something like that

 

[Varsh]

Originally posted by: Varsh
Nope, having 2 partitions on one HD actually usually decreses performance as it's trying to read from two places on the same HD at once, this can also decrease the life of the HD (It's happened to me numerous times till I bought a seperate one). So in theory, having two seperate will run twice the speed as a dual partitioned HD.

 

[tbates757]

Originally posted by: DaTT
According to Intel, P4 doesn't support Dual Processing (straight from Intels website)

It's called Xeon... jeez the clueless come out at night

 

[techietam]

Originally posted by: TonyB
this system would be great for Photoshop

CPU - (2) Xeon 2.8GHz 533FSB 512k Cache Retail w/Hyper Threading
Motherboard - Supermicro X5DAE dual CPU motherboard E7505 chipset w/ Onboard Gigabit Lan
Memory - (6) Crucial 512MB DDR266 PC2100 ECC Registered Memory - 3GB
Video Card - ATi Radeon 9700 Pro AIW 128MB
SCSI RAID Controller - LSI MegaRAID Enterprise 1600 RAID (4 Channel) 64Bit 66MHz performance 128MB ECC SDRAM
Hard Drives - (6) Seagate Cheetah 15K.3 18GB U160 Hard Drive in RAID 0 - 108GB Max
Hard Drives II - (4) Seagate Cheetah 15K.3 73GB U160 Hard Drive in RAID 5 - 219GB Max
Floppy Drive - Any
CDRW - Plextor PX-W4824TABP 48/24/48
DVDRW - Pioneer A05 4X DVD-RW
Sound Card - Audigy 2
Speakers - Klipsch 5.1
Case - Supermicro SC850P4 Server Chassis
Power Supply - Supermicro PWS-0039 700W + 350W Redundant PSU
Monitor - Viewsonic 22" VP2290b LCD panel
Monitor II - Any

Tell me that you are joking, Tony... Unless you have a direct line to Santa Clause, to bring it in for free

 

[Macro2]

talk about overkill.

Sounds like Sis is just getting into graphic design. Why blow a big wad when in 2 years she will decide whether she likes graphic design and by then something will be a lot faster anyway.

Mac

 

[DaTT]

Originally posted by: tbates757

Originally posted by: DaTT
According to Intel, P4 doesn't support Dual Processing (straight from Intels website)

It's called Xeon... jeez the clueless come out at night

Thats all fine and dandy you think I'm clueless, but maybe if you read his first post and then my post, you would realize that I said P4, not Xeon.... and so did he

 

[HokieESM]

I do a LOT of computational work (which is frequently what Photoshop is doing)... and I can tell you one thing: there is a lot of "serial" computation out there--stuff that SMP (multiple processors) don't help with. Now Photoshop IS multi-threaded--so sometimes, you DO see a boost. But for some things, nothing can beat a single, very fast processor.

I would personally get an Intel or Asus motherboard and a P4 3.06HT.... and a LOT of RAM. 1GB... maybe 2GB if you've got the cash. Photoshop is a memory hog... particularly on large photos. I don't even think the memory bandwidth will be THAT big of a deal (sure, granite bay is nice.... but if you can buy a cheaper motherboard and buy more RAM, I think you'll be happier).

But I think SEVERAL others have it right here--I would buy a dedicated hard drive to put my photoshop "working files" on. Either a fast IDE (read: WD___JB) or, if you really have the money, go SCSI. Don't install Photoshop to this drive--just put the working ("scratch") files on the drive. That way, the program files are being read from one channel on IDE, and the working files are being read/written to another (you can even put them on separate IDE channels if you have room).

And DON'T skimp on the monitor. I would buy a 19" CRT (or bigger).... a Sony G420 comes to mind (or its bigger brother the G520). Or its Dell twin. Great for graphics. And a Matrox video card (if you're just doing 2D editing--or slow moving 3D--Matrox is king... well, unless you have 3Dlabs money, but very few people do).

Anyhow... best of luck....

 

[zephyrprime]

How big does the photoshop scratch file get? Also, I believe that a lot image filtering is memory bandwidth bound so I would consider getting the highest bandwidth memory I could get.

 

[Zurn]

My 2 cents? Get a big processor, 1 and only 1, and a lot of RAM. I am not sure that Photoshop would even make use of dual threading on a system like that.

 

[lssanjose]

it does, but only in certain cases. A dual cpu in my eyes are best for load balancing when you have something else running and yet you don't want your photoshop to be neglected

 

[ProviaFan]

I won't suggest much in the way of specific hardware, but from my (limited compared to some of the professional gfx designers here) photoshop experience, I would suggest prioritizing your hardware spending as follows:

1. High quality, 19 inch or larger, CRT (the color accuracy of LCDs is not as good as that of CRTs)
2. Lots of RAM (bare minimum - 512MB; if she's really dedicated - at least 1GB)
3. Two good hard disks (7200RPM IDE hard disks with 8MB of cache)
4. Video card (Get a Matrox G450 or G550 as long as she doesn't want to do much gaming, as they are king of analog 2D image quality)
5. Processor - just something reasonably modern. She'll probably spend more time actually working in Photoshop than she will spend applying various filters.
6. Motherboard - doesn't need to be expensive, just make sure it's stable!

I'm sure I'm forgetting something, as it's kind of late, but hopefully this will help a bit.

 

[FishTankX]

I might as well add that instead of getting a dual processor rig maybe spend the extra money on monitors.

A Parhelia and a 2X 21'' would do the trick quite nicely. Even 1X21'' 1X19'' would be a huge boon.

 

[Oreo]

Priority list for a Photoshop user:

1. The best monitor you can afford
2. Good videocard
3. LOTS of ram
4. Fast CPU

That's really the order you should go by IMO. Of course it would be stupid to buy a Apple 23" LCD display and only 128MB of ram but you get the picture. The CPU isn't really that important as long as it's in the say 2GHz+ range.