Ok, here is a question im trying to figure out... Its hard to explain so ill have to be detailed..

So I have a 30' inch cinema display and I do very detailed technical drawings in Photoshop CS2 at 600dpi with 50-100+ layers. Since im constantly resizing the image size on screen, zooming in and out - it always takes about 5-10 seconds for the screen to fully refresh and show the entire image. Of course on small sized images it takes no time to refresh but on these large PSD images of 200mbs I'm tired of having to wait. I thought maybe more ram would help but im at 4GB and it did nothing to speed up the refresh. I'm guessing this is graphics card related. I am thinking i need a graphics card that is - what? - Faster -more memory? I don't know. I'm hoping someone here can tell me if the graphics card is what i need to upgrade. I'm currently using a NIVIDIA Quadro FX 560.

Thanks,
Tyson

Photoshop is a memory and CPU hog, not graphics card. Most people I know working at that rez, etc have 8 gigs RAM and at least a Quad Core, or a very highly overclocked C2D CPU. Some even have dual quad cores.

4 gigs RAM you have is ok, but my guess is your CPU is underpowered for your use.

I can only echo that - RAM, RAM and more RAM, combined with a dual core CPU, or quad if you're doing anything else.

whats ur current setup like?

it may be a cpu issue.

Here is the setup...you need

Xtreme Quad-Core Digital Darkroom

Thermaltake Matrix ATX Case with front panel "EZ Access" Firewire and USB.

The Thermaltake case allows us to produce a "Dual Core" powered Digital Darkroom in a small footprint case. The fan set is quiet and efficient. The case has a "no nonesense" beauty and is superbly constructed.

700 Watt High Performance Power Supply currently we use either Thermaltake or FSP models that are designed to support a Quad-Core work station with power to spare.

Intel Pentium Quad-Core Extreme QX6700 2.66-8MB Processor currently the worlds fastest processor!

Intel Quad-Core processors are ideal for multitasking environments because there are four complete execution cores instead of one, each with an independent interface to the frontside bus.

Quad-Core processors deliver the resources of four full processing cores giving you greatly increased capability to accomplish tasks with performance-intensive programs like Photoshop.

While processor speed is important to the efficient operation of Photoshop and other imaging software, it is only one part of the equation.

LGA775 Socket Intel® Quad-Core

NVIDIA nForce® 650i SLITM Chipset w/

* Support for FSB 1333/1066/800/533MHz
* Multi-RAID Support for Serial ATA & Ultra ATA Hard Drives
* Supports Dual-Channel DDR2 RAM (Up to 8 GB)
* High Definition 7.1 Digital Audio
* Gigabyte LAN

PNY Verto NX8800GTS 640 MB PCI Express Video Card. A great video card for Photoshop.

4 Gigabytes of DDR2 PC6400 RAM! (4-1GB sticks, 8 GB Max.)

4 Gig's of dual channel 6400 RAM will dramatically shorten your digital editing time and will noticeably improve your "real world" Photoshop productivity.

Note: Here's the best part, the system is configured to allow Photoshop CS2 to see and use 2.5 GB of RAM! How cool is that?

More than a Terabyte of (Server Rated) Hard DriveCapacity!

1-160GB SATA II Hard Drive (16MB Cache) for Software Programs (C

2-500GB SATA II (16MB Cache) Hard Drives: These drives are configured RAID 0 or RAID 1 and serve as your DATA DRIVE (D

Raid 0 essentially splits data writing between 2 drives. The operating system sees the 2 -500's as 1 -1000 Gigabyte drive running 100% faster. This offers a tremendous increase in overall speed and productivity.

Note: We recommend extrernal firewire hard drives for "Drag & Drop" Backup of critical data or to Archive your Image Files.

RAID 1 essentially writes the same data to both hard dirves simultaneously thereby creating an nstant backup or mirror of your data. This offers a tremendous increase in data securtiy, however this only allows you 500 GB of data space.

Plextor 8 in 1 "Combo Drive" Burns DVDs & CD's. (18X DVD+R,18X DVD-R, 18X DVD-ROM, 48XCD-R, 24X CD-RW, 48X CD-ROM). This is our favorite! A commercial grade DVD and CD burner! It burns both positive and negative media, and we really like it. The new 18X DVD+R recording speed allows you to fully record a high-speed 4.7 GB DVD+R discin less than 5 minutes.

16X DVD/ 52X CD ROM Drive. LiteOn is our current favorite.

Atech Pro-MX Multiple Media Reader (Compact Flash Type I & II, IBM Micro Drive, SmartMedia, Memory Stick, MultiMedia Card, Secure Digital Card). Each media slot correlates to a lettered drive. Double click the My Computer icon on your desktop to check'm out. Right click on the drive letter to rename it.

6 - USB Ports (2 on front panel) We don't like hubs and neither do most operating systems. ver tried to install a printer with the USB cable plugged into a hub instead of your computer? We've put 6 USB 2.0 Ports on this computer, (2 on the front panel and 4 on the back),so you won't need to use a hub.

5 - Firewire Ports 2-1394b and 5 1394a ports (1 on front panel) More and more peripherals connect through Firewire. Many external hard drives now connect using 1394b (aka Firewire 800) this essentially doubles the speed at which data transfers.

Multimedia Keyboard w/Optical Mouse

Windows XP Pro or Vista Operating System

$3895.00

http://www.visualville.com/add_info.html

Sorry not trying to bump the thread but i was under the impression that windows can only see three gig of ram?
You seem to know your stuff just thought i would ask

Mactronix

Huh :?: Was that just a sales plug for your company???

The OP didn't say he needed a new system. He said he wanted to know why his system was chugging and what might be done to improve it. The answer is simple: FAST CPU and enough RAM.


OP: post your full system specs and we can easily give you an answer. Otherwise, we'll run around in circles all day. Give us your specs and we can probably tell you the weak link right away.

Hey Tyson,

Photoshop doesn't use the gpu much. For best performance you need multiple hard drives (scsi 15000 rpm would be the best/if not go WD raptor 10k rpm). Photoshop uses multiple hard drives for scratch...similar to virtual memory for the os. Also if you are using xp sp2 32bit you can use the 3gb boot option to increase memory to the apps. Windows will allocate 50% to the OS and 50% to the app by default...The 3gb option (change made in the boot.ini) will allocate 75% to app and 25% to OS. Max memory supported in xp 32bit is 4gb...xp/vista 64 bit can support more memory.

READ THIS first (most stuff at bottom)
http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/knowl [...] ode=simple

adobe performance guide for memory
http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/knowl [...] ?id=331372

Microsoft 4gt option aka 3gb boot.ini option
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/syst [...] AEmem.mspx

Hey Tyson,

Photoshop doesn't use the gpu much. For best performance you need multiple hard drives (scsi 15000 rpm would be the best/if not go WD raptor 10k rpm). Photoshop uses multiple hard drives for scratch...similar to virtual memory for the os. Also if you are using xp sp2 32bit you can use the 3gb boot option to increase memory to the apps. Windows will allocate 50% to the OS and 50% to the app by default...The 3gb option (change made in the boot.ini) will allocate 75% to app and 25% to OS. Max memory supported in xp 32bit is 4gb...xp/vista 64 bit can support more memory. Faster Processor makes the biggest difference...check out tom's photoshop chart.

READ THIS first (most stuff at bottom)
http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/knowl [...] ode=simple

adobe performance guide for memory
http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/knowl [...] ?id=331372

Microsoft 4gt option aka 3gb boot.ini option
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/syst [...] AEmem.mspx

My specs are;'

MB: Tyan Thunder K8WE (s2895)
CPU: Dual Opteron 270s dual core
RAM: 4GB corsair ECC something or other...
600w Silverstone Power supply
GPU: Nvidia Quadro FX 560
Sound: Audigy 2 ZS
Raid drive: 1TB stripe of 2 Western digital SE16 500g
System drive; old 250g Maxtor on IDE channel
Monitor: Apple cinema display 30'
Wacom Intuits 3 12x19
Vidieo editing; Blackmagic Intensity card