Which is more important in Photo Editing

[Dark Matter]

Planing to get a new system (PC or Mac yet to decide) for mainly PP work with Lr2 and Pse. But would like to know which component will have a bigger impact on the performance.

1. CPU
2. GPU
3. RAM

example...will I benefit more for getting a 8GB memory (RAM) but with a average graphic card (delicated 512mb) when comparing to getting a highend graphic card (1gb or more) but only 4GB of memory (RAM). And will i7 be worth of it price comparing to core 2 quad in term of photo editing.?

Need some advise to help me decide...

 

[IsenGrim]

you need more ram if you gonna open many images at once or using a VERY big file like a few gb file. it will speed loading time between files.

you will need more CPU if you use alot of processing such as liquidfy la, sharpening la etc etc. sort of speeds file transfers a little. will speed things such as the "develop" details in LR

not sure how the GPU will help but i guess it will take load off the CPU. I think it will speed things like generating previews...

 

[eas01010]

I think it's RAM.

You are not rendering 3D or watching video, so GPU not as impt in this case.

 

[wildsoyabean]

you need more ram if you gonna open many images at once or using a VERY big file like a few gb file. it will speed loading time between files.

you will need more CPU if you use alot of processing such as liquidfy la, sharpening la etc etc. sort of speeds file transfers a little. will speed things such as the "develop" details in LR

not sure how the GPU will help but i guess it will take load off the CPU. I think it will speed things like generating previews...

I think it's RAM.

You are not rendering 3D or watching video, so GPU not as impt in this case.

i know this...my laptop has 4GB ram but lousy processor. hences i can play game and photoshop at the same time...however processing photo - especially when using photomatrix or stitching, takes hell lots of time. and opening raws...just takes forever

in my office i have better cpu with same ram. everything just speeds up

graphics card dont matter unless you are gaming games like left4dead etc etc

 

[jackzhangxiao]

you need more ram if you gonna open many images at once or using a VERY big file like a few gb file. it will speed loading time between files.

you will need more CPU if you use alot of processing such as liquidfy la, sharpening la etc etc. sort of speeds file transfers a little. will speed things such as the "develop" details in LR

not sure how the GPU will help but i guess it will take load off the CPU. I think it will speed things like generating previews...

Agree.

For the GPU wise, If you only doing LR and PS, which are not 3D, GPU dose not really play an important part in it.

And You will need more Ram to run LR than PS. I also dun know why, but it is seems PS can run much much smoothly with 2G ram, than LR.

So for basic, you need to have at least 4G ram.

 

[giantcanopy]

CPU and RAM for now.

i7 if u can afford it

i7 vs Quad Core in PS4 http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,2336860,00.asp
i7 vs Quad Core in LR http://techgage.com/article/intel_core_i7_performance_preview/7

GPU accelerates only certain aspects of 2D photoshop work, but we might just see more and more GPU involvement in subsequent versions.

Ryan

 

[Dark Matter]

Thanks for all the comment and advise...

Actually was thinking of getting an All-In-One PC, but they dont have i-core only Core2-Duo. So I think I have to setle with the normal PC since I prefer atleast a quad core for editing photo and should upgrade ram to 8gb (will it be overkill??).

 

[Octarine]

Actually was thinking of getting an All-In-One PC, but they dont have i-core only Core2-Duo. So I think I have to setle with the normal PC since I prefer atleast a quad core for editing photo and should upgrade ram to 8gb (will it be overkill??).

Then you will always have some good components and some only so-so stuffs inside. Why not assembling a PC on your own? Or ask which shops do the final assembly for you if you are not familiar with that topic? Get the components that you need. 8 GB RAM can be helpful when you work with large images or multiple applications in parallel (LR, PS and others). Do bear in mind that you must use the 64bit edition of your Operating System in order to utilize the RAM. If you are sure about the later upgrade then install 64bit right from start. AFAIK, you cannot upgrade from 32bit to 64bit later. It needs a complete re-installation of everything (OS, driver, applications..)

 

[hotwork77]

Thanks for all the comment and advise...

Actually was thinking of getting an All-In-One PC, but they dont have i-core only Core2-Duo. So I think I have to setle with the normal PC since I prefer atleast a quad core for editing photo and should upgrade ram to 8gb (will it be overkill??).

I hope I'm not late in this thread...

RAM, CPU or GPU is completely useless if the monitor your have is crap. For photo editing or video editing, its always the monitor that is the most important. Complementing it next is the GPU. No point getting a good monitor if the GPU card is crap. The next component of course is the RAM. The more the merrier. Once again, to use more RAM, you need to use a 64bit OS like OSX or Win7 or Linux.

Lastly, you need a CPU that can keep pace with your demands. Not core i5 or i7 but Xeon or AMD X4 Phenom II.

8GB for RAM is not overkill but just nice for certain PP work.

 

[doom102938]

i7 only makes a big difference from the c2d if its super cpu intensive like PS or video editing.

Its nice to have a lot of ram. 8gb ddr2 if your going with c2d or at least 6gb of ddr3 ram for i7.

Gpu for photo editing isn't very important unless your doing graphics. Its nice to have a powerful graphics for L4D 2 thou. I bought a Nvidia 9800gt for almost 200 bucks and it runs L4D 2 on a 1920x1200 monitor just fine with pretty high settings. You probably could get a better deal on some other mid range graphics card.

Monitor wise, try to get something nice. Of course the holy grail would be a 30 incher. Like the Dell Ultrasharp 3008 or a Apple 30 inch Cinema. They have a resolution of 2560x1600 which is around 4mp. And they use very high quality panels which reproduces colour very well with good viewing angle. Get at least a 24 inch 1920x1200 monitor. They range from 300+ to 800+. Its pretty darned good to be able to watch full HD movies in their native resolution.

Happy shopping!

 

[Dark Matter]

Then you will always have some good components and some only so-so stuffs inside. Why not assembling a PC on your own? Or ask which shops do the final assembly for you if you are not familiar with that topic? Get the components that you need. 8 GB RAM can be helpful when you work with large images or multiple applications in parallel (LR, PS and others). Do bear in mind that you must use the 64bit edition of your Operating System in order to utilize the RAM. If you are sure about the later upgrade then install 64bit right from start. AFAIK, you cannot upgrade from 32bit to 64bit later. It needs a complete re-installation of everything (OS, driver, applications..)

Used to build my previous 2 PC...the last one was 7 years ago...since then very seldom play games on PC (old liao), until recently when I pick up this photographing hobby which required me to get a new PC. And now it is lazy and busy that I dont want to DIY anymore, just get one, with most thing I needs, from the market will do. Looking at HP or dell at this point of time.

I hope I'm not late in this thread...

RAM, CPU or GPU is completely useless if the monitor your have is crap. For photo editing or video editing, its always the monitor that is the most important. Complementing it next is the GPU. No point getting a good monitor if the GPU card is crap. The next component of course is the RAM. The more the merrier. Once again, to use more RAM, you need to use a 64bit OS like OSX or Win7 or Linux.

Lastly, you need a CPU that can keep pace with your demands. Not core i5 or i7 but Xeon or AMD X4 Phenom II.

8GB for RAM is not overkill but just nice for certain PP work.

Will Radeon 4850 or GT 230 able to do the job?

i7 only makes a big difference from the c2d if its super cpu intensive like PS or video editing.

Its nice to have a lot of ram. 8gb ddr2 if your going with c2d or at least 6gb of ddr3 ram for i7.

Gpu for photo editing isn't very important unless your doing graphics. Its nice to have a powerful graphics for L4D 2 thou. I bought a Nvidia 9800gt for almost 200 bucks and it runs L4D 2 on a 1920x1200 monitor just fine with pretty high settings. You probably could get a better deal on some other mid range graphics card.

Monitor wise, try to get something nice. Of course the holy grail would be a 30 incher. Like the Dell Ultrasharp 3008 or a Apple 30 inch Cinema. They have a resolution of 2560x1600 which is around 4mp. And they use very high quality panels which reproduces colour very well with good viewing angle. Get at least a 24 inch 1920x1200 monitor. They range from 300+ to 800+. Its pretty darned good to be able to watch full HD movies in their native resolution.

Happy shopping!

Any recommend monitor from 24-25".

After so many years I already lost touch with the PC world.

 

[doom102938]

Something that scores very high on the points(after calibration) is the HP LP2575W. Pretty expensive for a 24 inch but good colour reproduction, good black depth and matte screen(I don't like glossy and yet I use a unibody MacBook Pro lol.).

I have a Acer P243W that I got from Harvey Norman for $388 about 6 months ago. Good monitor for its price but color is a little off and its usable viewing angle is really bad. Colour shifts if your off the centre of the screen. And its super glossy, so means it works really well at night, but during day time, I can see my self.

 

[hotwork77]

Used to build my previous 2 PC...the last one was 7 years ago...since then very seldom play games on PC (old liao), until recently when I pick up this photographing hobby which required me to get a new PC. And now it is lazy and busy that I dont want to DIY anymore, just get one, with most thing I needs, from the market will do. Looking at HP or dell at this point of time.



Will Radeon 4850 or GT 230 able to do the job?



Any recommend monitor from 24-25".

After so many years I already lost touch with the PC world.

Radeon 4850 will do nicely. Good enough for video editing and pp work. Personally, I use Radeon 4770 which would already suffice as I do a lot of 3D CAD work. It is also powerful enough for PP and Video editing.

I use a 24inch apple LED display. It is bright, clear, sharp and everthing you ever wanted for a display. Maybe you would like to check it out as well.

 

[Dark Matter]

I like the apple LED monitor too. But apple is over my budget for the same spec I can have on a PC. Also pefer LED to LCD monitor, didn't see any LED monitor from HP. BTW, will LED monitor have better colour reproduction than LCD?