Anyone gone to X2 who uses Photoshop/Maya

[Dark_Angel]

Hey...

I use Photoshop and Maya Personal Learning edition. Though I am starting to notice a little slowdown when running the programs at the same time.

I currently have a Venice @ 2.7 or so GHZ, with 1GB of ram and an x800XT card. Anyone think upgrading to a X2 3800 will be worth it? I am mulling over the idea right now, but am not certain of what to do...

 

[Dark_Angel]

How did it handle things with just a single core? was the difference like night and day? I know PS pretty much just likes ram and is not quite so bothered about CPU power. How much did you manage to overclock your 3800?

 

[Dark_Angel]

The one thing which is concerning me is if the epox 9nda3 supports dual cores correctly, as I have read that a few people have had trouble with it

 

[Dark_Angel]

Bah. You people are evil. EVIL. Making me want to spend more money I had my heart set on a 20" TFT widescreen, and was gonna order next week but now I am considering getting this instead. I have a 19" CRT at the moment and a 15" CRT to... but widescreen would be nice for the 360 I have.

Also, what would I do to enable dual core? I would assume I download a bootdisc, boot in to dos command prompt (like a windows 98 boot disc or something) flash the bios, and then turn off computer, replace the 3000 venice with the X2, turn on the PC and pray it works?

Is there anything I would have to do in windows itself? I have heard that you need to update the drivers in control panel->system->device manager.

Thanks for the help all, even if you are making me want to spend money.

 

[Dark_Angel]

The only thing that is is holding me back is that I would not be able to buy a secondary monitor, or if I did I would have to buy a standard 19" CRT one... do people think that its worth it?

I am using Photoshop CS2 (took me a while to save lol) and maya Personal Learning Edition (the free one) and premiere elements, so I assume I should not have any trouble with dual cores?

One last thing, I am currently burning a lot of AVI files to DVD, mostly stuff that I am messing around with in premiere... and as anyone knows that encodes stuff it takes quite a while... its a pain in the butt not being able to do PS work or play CS while I am waiting for it to encode. Will I notice ANY lag in counter strike or using photoshop while I am encoding using the other CPU?

I also as mentioned have 1GB of ram currently, and am thinking of replacing it with 2x1GB sticks... the other option I have is to buy another 2 x 512MB sticks which brings up the total to 2GB... I have been told that even with a 939 its best to buy 2x1GB sticks. I have noticed my memory usage is often near the paging limit especially when PS and maya are used at the same time... (texturing and so on) so I am guessing that the extra GB will really help me...

 

[Dark_Angel]

Actually I only place CZ... I dont really like the feel of source, and 1.6 is a bit long in the tooth now. Plus all My mates play CZ too

Must admit though, I am still stuck between the monitor and the CPU... both of them would be an excellent upgrade I think..