How can I make photoshop scream?

[Z24]

Hi,

What's the best setup for running Photoshop. I know already this machine is going to have 512MB RAM or more... but: Do I go PIII, P4, Athlon? Dual? RDRAM, DDR SDRAM, regular SDRAM?

Any thoughts? Thanks,
Dave

 

[Czar]

eeerrrmmm.......... g4 ?

 

[Pariah]

Buy a mac.

 

[Z24]

no macs. nothing against them, just needs to be a PC.

 

[goldboyd]

SCSI would definately be a worthwhile investment

 

[Vinny N]

If you have enough ram so that it doesn't use the swap file with the average size image you work with...
And it can't be a mac...
then get the fastest P3 or Athlon you can afford...unless you're running NT4 or Windows 2000, in which case, you can't really beat two high speed P3s running in SMP, if you can afford it

 

[Z24]

Ok, I like the idea of dual P3's. The question then becomes: what motherboard?

Older BX? The new via ones? (don't they have poor memory performance?) Rambus is still pretty damn expensive, so I don't see that as a viable option.

I've heard about the serverworks chipset, but it doesn't seem to support AGP... true?

Thanks,
dave

 

[dcdomain]

Seems like you have a lot of money to spend on this machine... although I don't know much about dual proc mobo's... I recommend that you get a dual display system.

Zoom feature kicks butt on the Matrox cards. On one screen, you can have the view of the entire piece you are working on, then you can zoom in on a specific portion and while editing that, it'll show up in the whole view. KICKS BUTT...

 

[Z24]

It's actually for someone I know who does image editing professionally. Right now, he's got a PIII-500 with 768 Megs on an Asus P3B-F. Says it's too slow.



I'm just trying to figure out the best way to maximize his dollars on a new system. Since Photoshop uses memory so much, I'm assuming its a good idea to stay away from Via chipsets because of their lackluster memory performance. What I'm not sure of is whether money is better spent on dual processor, or SCSI, or WAY more RAM, or what...

This is the advice I am seeking.

Dave

 

[obenton]

dual processor is a plus with Photoshop

 

[Z24]

C'mon... you guys know more than this... help me out here.

 

[nortexoid]

anand has a review on the MSI 649D via dual intel mobo i believe...check it out
if i remember correctly - it's on a par with its intel chipset mobo counterparts...

so, the memory performance isn't that "lackluster"...perhaps trailing insiginificantly...
and the price is definitely a bonus...not to mention its stability is fairly solid...
Tyan makes a similar board, although supposedly not as stable...

 

[seewhy]

Serverwork chipset are great, Tyan has this mobo Thunder 2500 that kicks butt. It has AGP pro support and everything you want in a mobo...if you can afford it.

If your don't mind waiting, in one or two month, you should be able to get dual Athlon solution, but no one knows how well it will perform, but a dual 1.2 Athlon system will kick everything out there if there is no compatibility problems.

If you wanna save some money, there are lots of Via based mobo now out there from MSI, Tyan, Abit, Epox..., but you may see some incompatibility problems. You may have to load new bios, patches and other stuff to get the system run correctly, but if you know how to deal with computer, you should be able to get those system up and running without much trouble.