Best computer for PS CS

S
Posted By
Smitty
Dec 29, 2006
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361
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I’m planning to buy a new computer which I will be using 90% for photo editing with PS CS. I tried to submit this question to Adobe but their web site is not conducive to finding this info. In fact it is a pain in the butt to negotiate for information.

The question is this… what is the optimum computer specs for photo editing sometimes with 50meg and up images. Do I need a dual core machine with more than I gig of ram. Special Video card? I don’t want to buy more than I need. Thanks for your help

www.adroit-images.com
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B
Bruce
Dec 29, 2006
"Smitty" wrote in message
I’m planning to buy a new computer which I will be using 90% for photo editing with PS CS. I tried to submit this question to Adobe but their web site is not conducive to finding this info. In fact it is a pain in the butt to negotiate for information.

The question is this… what is the optimum computer specs for photo editing sometimes with 50meg and up images. Do I need a dual core machine with more than I gig of ram. Special Video card? I don’t want to buy more than I need.
Thanks for your help

www.adroit-images.com

Since nobodys answered this yet I’ll take a swipe at it. I don’t use CS very intensively so I’m not the best person to answer, but based on the comments I’ve seen in this NG for several years here is the recommendations:

– Fast processor, however CS doesn’t use multithreading so dual core won’t help that much. However theres not much of a choice nowadays for a fast CPU so you probably want to go that route anyway.
– Memory, yes,, lots. 4GB if you can afford it.
– Two physical disk drives, the second one to hold the CS scratch drive. I would recommend SATA drives, 10k RPM.
– Video card, no special requirement here, CS isn’t very video intensive. However check that the video card supports your monitor well (e.g. it has a mode that supports the native mode of the monitor).

Now on the other hand you don’t "need" any of this stuff, any reasonable machine will work (except probably want to go for 2 GB of memory). It’s more a matter of how fast it will work. Dual core CPUs are still a bit pricey, so perhaps the best price point would be a Pentium 4 3.2 GHz, 2 GB RAM, and a second HDD.
M
maXion
Dec 30, 2006
You must have some huge files or be working with very high DPI etc. to need any special hardware. I do all my graphics for web development on a 1.4GHz machine with 256MB of ram and a low end video card. Never even notice any slow down.

Don’t go overboard for nothing unless you need to do posters or double sized magazine covers etc.

James

"Smitty" wrote in message
I’m planning to buy a new computer which I will be using 90% for photo editing with PS CS. I tried to submit this question to Adobe but their web site is not conducive to finding this info. In fact it is a pain in the
butt
to negotiate for information.

The question is this… what is the optimum computer specs for photo
editing
sometimes with 50meg and up images. Do I need a dual core machine with
more
than I gig of ram. Special Video card? I don’t want to buy more than I
need.
Thanks for your help

www.adroit-images.com

R
ruettger
Dec 30, 2006
Smitty wrote:

… I don’t want to buy more than I need.
…

Hi Smitty,

according to Adobe is the minimum system requirement as follows:

– Intel Pentium III or 4
– Win 2000, SP 4, WinXP, SP 1 or 2
– 384 MByte RAM for the execution with Adobe Bridge etc. – Additional main memory 1 GByte
– 3 GByte Diskspace
– 1024 x 768 Resolution
– CD-ROM
– Internet connection

We have nearly the same requirements as you and made good experiences with the following equipment:

– Intel Core2 Duo, 2MB cache, 1.86 GHz
– 2 GByte main memory
– 256 MByte Graphics card

In our notebooks we partly used 1 GByte RAM and it work’s very well. For the used of VMWare however 2 GByte are recommended.

Master Retouching Hair

Learn how to rescue details, remove flyaways, add volume, and enhance the definition of hair in any photo. We break down every tool and technique in Photoshop to get picture-perfect hair, every time.

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