Upgrade advice for creative work

[ikkitousen]

I'm looking for a upgrade to speed up my Photoshop work, it's starting to become unbearably slow working with high res images for print.

I was thinking about getting 4gigs - 8gigs+ depending on how much it would set me back.

My current specs are :

CPU: AMD 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 3800+
Mobo: DFI Lanparty nf4 Ultra-D
Ram: Corsair - 2 X 1GB PC3200
Video: 320MB 8800GTS PCI-E

Many thanks!

[staffsMike]

how much do you have for the upgrade.

DDR ram is really expensive compared to DDR2 which is a shame.

[ikkitousen]

Yea i was going to just buy two sticks of DDR but it seems to be a rip off!

I think i can spend about £300.

[staffsMike]

If you can spend £300 then how about this.

Intel Q6600 - £160 (quad core runs very nicely)

4GB or RAM - £70 (are you running a 64bit windows? if you aren't then it will only use 2GB or ram anyway)
4GB GeIL Black Dragon DDR2 PC2-6400 (5-5-5-15) Dual Channel kit (2x2GB)

Abit IP-35 - £70 (but has been popping up on scan today only for £60ish)

You might want an after market cooler like the arctic freezer 7 pro for £15 to overclock it as it will reach 3.4GHz or more if kept suitable cool.

There are cheaper cpu's of course.
something like an intel E4600 is 2.4GHz standard and will overclock to 3.0GHz+. That is only £80ish.

One thing to consider is photoshop does seem to like it's cpu cache so the higher the better.
Something like the E6550 or E6750 are good for that if dual core is you favourite option. (£100 - £115)

[ikkitousen]

Hmm thanks for the spec mate, will change to 64bit to support the ram.

Think i'll stick to the quad core, for future proofing. Yet was wondering is there any news on any new chips coming out this quarter?

Thanks again mate.

[staffsMike]

Some people are saying 20th of Jan for the quads and others are saying feb/march.

That said the Q9450 looks as if it will cost over £200 and the Q9300 has half the cache (of the Q9450) but will be around the Q6600's price.

[ikkitousen]

Hmm, may wait till then to see if the prices drop and get 6gigs of ram instead.

Thanks for all the help mate!

[Ciber]

You might find that your PC is just running slow because of processes that are running in the background taking up resources, as well as how you're OS is configured. You could try going through this guide: TweakGuides.com - The TweakGuides Tweaking Companion Or maybe just try a fresh install of XP.

[ikkitousen]

Thanks ciber, will look into it but i doubt it improve much, working on 300 DPI images at 76x102 cm is a total pain and it seems like 4gigs+ is a total must in the print industry these days

[Thorsson]

Photoshop is very memory hungry. If you get a 64bit OS the thing to do is buy 2 or 4 2Gb sticks, i.e 4Gb or 8Gb. One thing that can save memory is saving the file. "Undos" use up memory very quickly.

[ikkitousen]

Is it possible to get 2 4Gb sticks? Thus making 8gigs?

[staffsMike]

Not yet unfortunatly.