Photoshop Video Card RAM question :)

[JordanTurner]

Ive been searching and searching and I just can't seem to get a straight answer. I even called adobe and the guys in India there had no idea.

Basically Im going to be buying a laptop for my wife who does concept art in photoshop. She uses 100 layers at 5000x5000 pixels.

Normally people merge layers but in concept art you need to be able to make changes to any of them and so Im trying to figure out an ideal system solution for her.

Since she requires a laptop for mobility purposes, the question is based on the

7970m and the 680m

Both are about the same speed in everyway but the 680m has 4gb of vram while the 7970m only has 2gb of vram. The 680m costs 200$ more :/

My question is this: How much of an impact does video card ram have on photoshop work when youre using tons of layers?

Is 2gb to 4gb vRam even noticable in photoshop using a 5000x5000 image with 100~ layers?

Thank you so much if you have an answer!

 

[3DVagabond]

What you need to find out is if PS uses system ram or video ram in the workspace window. AFAIK it used to use system ram. I don't know if it still does. With that said 5K²x100.psd file is 7.5GB, if I'm doing my math right. So, hopefully it uses system ram and you can get 16gig of RAM.

 

[Stuka87]

Photoshop uses system ram for just about everything. The only thing that will use the GPU (Outside of basic 2D drawing through aero and such) are filters that have GPU acceleration, and some brushes. And the memory usage is quite small. Now if you will be doing 3D modeling, then memory usage will go up.

It should be noted that Photoshop uses OpenGL and OpenCL, so go with whatever card has better support (AMD as I recall). Adobe has a big section on that stuff here: http://forums.adobe.com/message/4289204

EDIT: Now that I think of it, the Tahiti chips have much stronger compute than nVidia's (Outside of Titan).

EDIT EDIT: Oh, 7970M, thats not a Tahiti as I recall, it uses a Pitcairn.

 

[JordanTurner]

Hey thank you so much for the replies. I appreciate it very much. I think were just going to go with the 680 and spend the extra money, at the expense of a few pounds of weight off me for a couple weeks x.x a cruel mistress she is.

 

[Stuka87]

Hey thank you so much for the replies. I appreciate it very much. I think were just going to go with the 680 and spend the extra money, at the expense of a few pounds of weight off me for a couple weeks x.x a cruel mistress she is.

If it was me I would go for a system with a Quadro in it. Although some of the Quadro's are not that great, others are basically designed for CAD/CAM work, and do well in what you are wanting to do. The 680 is more of a gaming chip, not that it can't do what you want.

 

[JordanTurner]

She plays games too, its why i dont opt for a 675mx with 4 gigs of ram. D: wives are expensive

 

[Fallengod]

Tell her she needs to be in the kitchen cooking you some food rather than wasting your money on man stuff.....












PS: That was a joke I promise...

 

[3DVagabond]

If it was me I would go for a system with a Quadro in it. Although some of the Quadro's are not that great, others are basically designed for CAD/CAM work, and do well in what you are wanting to do. The 680 is more of a gaming chip, not that it can't do what you want.

She's just working with .psd files, from what the OP says. No need for a workstation card for that.