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CS4 hardware tips

Carefree Chris

Carefree Chris

Carefree Chris

Associate
Joined
14 May 2009
Posts
71
Hello again, after my brief introductory thread last week, my lesson has been learnt and there shall be no external links :D

I'm looking to build myself a new system within the next couple of months, and have a spec list in mind. But before I go ahead, I'd appreciate any tips.

The system will mainly be used for After Effects CS4, and Photoshop CS4 too. Budget, not including a monitor, of around £800-850. I've never overclocked before and I'm not really that interested in doing so, unless there are serious performance advantages from doing so. Also, I'd want to make minimal changes or upgrades to the system (except perhaps for RAM) for at least 3 years.

I was previously thinking of an AM2+ setup, but since then I've been trying to find out whether Intel would be better suited for CS4 - so, the main issue for me, is AMD or Intel? And if Intel, Quad Core, or i7? Given my budget, I'm still leaning towards AMD AM3 with their Phenom II X4 945 - but if Intels are better for CS4 then I might change that. Also, if Intel is the way to go, would the extra cost in going for i7 be worth it?

The second main issue for me, is regarding a GPU, which CS4 will utilise quite a lot - does anyone know what CS4 prefers, ATI or Nvidia? Again, I have a Sapphire 1GB HD4870 in mind, but if CS4 prefers Nvidia, then I'd go Nvidia instead.

And lastly, RAM. What do you suggest as an absolute minimum for RAM capacity and bandwidth? Going with Phenom II CPU I'd get 8gb of 1333Mhz DDR3, but with Intel it'd be 6GB of 1600Mhz.

If it helps, the monitor I plan to get a little while down the line is a 24" HP LP2475W H-IPS panel LCD mointor, with a 1900x1200 resolution.

I have the rest of the system - HDD, mobo (depending on CPU type), PSU, case, etc worked out, its just the integral processing part that I want to make sure is best suited to get the most I can out of CS4.

Cheers in advance!
 
well, tbh i dont think cs4's GPU usage extends outside of displaying images, rotation and acellerated zoom ect - its not used for increasing the speed of the image processing:
OpenGL/GPU features in Adobe Photoshop CS4 are:

Smooth Display at ALL Zoom Levels
Animated Zoom Tool
Animated Transitions when doing a One Stop Zoom
Hand Toss Image
Birdseye View
Rotate Canvas
Smooth Display of Non Square Pixel Images
Pixel Grid
Move Color Matching to the GPU
Draw Brush Tip Editing Feedback via GPU
3D GPU features include:
3D Acceleration
3D Axis
3D Lights Widget
Accelerated 3D Interaction via Direct To Screen
Click to expand...


- even a basic card would be fine as long as it supports openGL 2.0....which is just about all new cards lol. Its fine even on my laptop with its hd3470, for example. a 4870 isnt going to improve anything really - not worth it unless you also what a top end gaming rig.

Cpu speed is important, obviously, but speed is cheap these days. again, my laptop is quite quick enough (2.26ghz c2d) although obviously not as fast with the more intesive filters as my pc is but its not ever caused me a problem. that said, i believe something like the e8500 c2d would be perfectly capable of everything you require and if not....you can clock the nuts off it:d

as far as ram goes, are you going to be editing multiple very large images? if so just get as much ram as you can - its cheap enough these days. ive got 4gb in both my laptop and my pc and ive seen no problem with ram on either, but if your editing a few 5-600mb images or bigger you are going to run out of ram pretty quickly.
 
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If you don't want to overclock, I'd suggest the AM3 route. AM3 chips usually come higher stock clocked than Intel chips, but if you do want to overclock, you can easily squeeze 50% more performance out of i7 for just £50 for a CPU cooler.

Here's what I'd recommend for a CS4 workstation:

2zsy8g1.png
 
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james.miller said:
well, tbh i dont think cs4's GPU usage extends outside of displaying images, rotation and acellerated zoom ect - its not used for increasing the speed of the image processing:

- even a basic card would be fine as long as it supports openGL 2.0....which is just about all new cards lol. Its fine even on my laptop with its hd3470, for example. a 4870 isnt going to improve anything really - not worth it unless you also what a top end gaming rig.

Cpu speed is important, obviously, but speed is cheap these days. again, my laptop is quite quick enough (2.26ghz c2d) although obviously not as fast with the more intesive filters as my pc is but its not ever caused me a problem. that said, i believe something like the e8500 c2d would be perfectly capable of everything you require and if not....you can clock the nuts off it:d

as far as ram goes, are you going to be editing multiple very large images? if so just get as much ram as you can - its cheap enough these days. ive got 4gb in both my laptop and my pc and ive seen no problem with ram on either, but if your editing a few 5-600mb images or bigger you are going to run out of ram pretty quickly.
Click to expand...

Ah, well I'm still tempted by the 4870, as I would also use the system for modern games, and would like it to keep up for at least 3 years.

I'm now leaning towards Core 2 Quad, maybe 6700, if I can learn how to overclock it. Its nowhere near as expensive as the i7, and cheaper than the Phenom II 945, but would then probably still outperform the 945.

Working with AE would not involve massive files, would would involve plenty of effects, and 3d work too.
 
D D Danneh said:
If you don't want to overclock, I'd suggest the AM3 route. AM3 chips usually come higher stock clocked than Intel chips, but if you do want to overclock, you can easily squeeze 50% more performance out of i7 for just £50 for a CPU cooler.

Here's what I'd recommend for a CS4 workstation:

2zsy8g1.png
Click to expand...

Holy crap, £400 for CPU and mobo, lol. I can't justify to myself that kind of outlay for a CPU and mobo, as the cost of that with the rest of the system I had in mind (mainly lots of storage space) would bring the total to close to £1000.
 
Yup, CS has been multi-threaded for a while now. That's why the two most important components are a quad core and 4+ GB of RAM, if you're doing a lot of work with high resolution images.
 
Just go the Intel route, something such as a Q6600 with 8GB DDR2 ram. You should also look into investing into an SSD just for the OS and apps, that should speed up things a lot.
 
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