Graphic Card - Does it help speed up Photoshop or Video-Editing

[flarebox]

Hi all,

Would like to ask a very noob question here...

Does a good graphic card (e.g 512MB DDR5) helps speed up Adobe Photoshop or video-editing (e.g Adobe After Effects?)

Or are Photoshops and video-editing software dependent solely on the CPU speed and amount of ram (e.g 3GB)? Which means I do not need a good graphic card for Photoshop?

 

[sammy888]

Hi all,

Would like to ask a very noob question here...

Does a good graphic card (e.g 512MB DDR5) helps speed up Adobe Photoshop or video-editing (e.g Adobe After Effects?)

Or are Photoshops and video-editing software dependent solely on the CPU speed and amount of ram (e.g 3GB)? Which means I do not need a good graphic card for Photoshop?

Not at this time. There are reports going around that the upcoming Photoshop CS4 will be able to take advantage of the GPU on a graphic card. Whether it would be newer graphic cards in the last year or longer or maybe only with yet to be released one...that one I have no idea.

But for now...it does not do much for 2D work. Graphic cards you see these day are all about 3D. It is about calculating 3D space and texture rendering and mapping of those texture to 3D objects, light ray calculating...etc. Photograph manipulation are 2D rendering and uses a very difference and less complicate but alot of raw computation which concerns more about your CPU and RAM on your motherboard. The RAM size on your graphic card has nothing to do when you use your Photoshop...nor can Photoshop access them for it's caching or storage. Those ram on your Graphic card are for the storing of data and texture file which is where the GPU will access to put them out and dress up all the 3D polygon objects in a 3D game for example.

We can only keep our finger cross with the next PS CS4... I would love to get my hand on that one since I do alot of design work with Photoshop so it will come in really handy for me.

Almost all the graphic cards you see in the market are performance at the very best it can be for 2 D graphics. Look at any specs...just pay attention to the RAMDAC numbers. Since 2006 you are already looking at 400 ramdac. The highest now I think in the market is 420 RAMDAC. I have a Matrox which is already 7 yrs old and it is still pretty fast at 380 RAMDAC. What I am saying is...that market for fast 2D rendering has been very stagnant but it is already I think at the very limit so anything more...it is just very small incremental improvement thus...it is only about 420RAM today.

I think there is a 550 RAMDAC but that is more very high end pro cards for multimedia production work from companies' like BARCO which makes high end projection..etc. Anyway that is more information then you need heheh

Bottom line... your CPU and RAM Still is the only game in town for your 2D graphic needs in Photoshop. Till Photoshop CS4 comes....that is.

 

[flarebox]

Thanks sammy888!

 

[theRBK]

Not at this time. There are reports going around that the upcoming Photoshop CS4 will be able to take advantage of the GPU on a graphic card. Whether it would be newer graphic cards in the last year or longer or maybe only with yet to be released one...that one I have no idea.

*speculation mode on*

going by how cosy Adobe and Nvidia have been in recent days, it might be an implementation of Nvidia's CUDA programing implementation (which some have proven to be able to work with ATI cards as well)... if that's the case, cards like the 8800 and newer (but not necessarily more powerful cards, like 8600) should do the trick...

*speculation mode off*

We can only keep our finger cross with the next PS CS4... I would love to get my hand on that one since I do alot of design work with Photoshop so it will come in really handy for me.

 

[tunster]

It might helps if you are "previewing" HD video for your video editing software (with hardware decoder).

 

[flarebox]

Thanks the RBK and tunster!