Dual Quad With CS3

RW
Posted By
Rock_Weih
Aug 7, 2008
Views
309
Replies
7
Status
Closed
I’m building a duel quad core for photoshop and premire editing. My question is about a scratch disk. Will I see better speed if I get a 74 gig Rapton WD for the scratch drive? I have a Sata 160 as the OS and program drive and three 320 gig Sata WDs as storage drives. I was thinking af the Raptor as a scratch. And is anyone out there using Photoshop with a quad or dual quads? Thanks

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.

F
Freeagent
Aug 7, 2008
The Raptor is excellent for the job. You might even want to get another one and RAID 0 them, if you want max speed.
BL
Bob Levine
Aug 7, 2008
In addition to Freeagent’s advice, don’t forget that CS4 is going to be available in a native 64 bit version for Vista 64.

Bob
F
Freeagent
Aug 7, 2008
I guess what Bob is saying is spend less on hard drives and more on RAM. I fully agree with that.

I want those 64 bits so bad I’ve already started to set aside money for the CS4 upgrade. I’m ready.
BL
Bob Levine
Aug 7, 2008
Eight gigs of RAM can be had right now for less than $200. Well worth it.

Bob
MD
Michael_D_Sullivan
Aug 8, 2008
If you have a Raptor, you really don’t need to worry about keeping the Photoshop scratch files and system paging files on different volumes — especially if you have enough RAM that paging files aren’t going to be used much. If you have several GB of RAM, there will be only rare swapping to disk. The recommendation (not requirement) that the scratch and paging files be on different volumes is based on the assumption that the paging file will often be used and will be a significant slowing factor, which is not necessarily a valid assumption when one has sufficient RAM and a fast hard drive.

I have 4 GB of RAM in Windows XP — used to use the /3GB switch but it wasn’t compatible with some other software, so I only have 2 GB available in apps. I used to have the Windows pagefile and the Photoshop scratch on C:, my 74 GB Raptor. Most apps are on D: and the photos are on E: (both are 7200 rpm Caviar drives). I never ran into any problems due to the pagefile and scratch file attempting to write simultaneously, because the pagefile rarely had to write. I’ve recently moved the scratch file to D: (with E: as overflow) simply because the C: drive lacked sufficient space. No noticeable change has resulted.
F
Freeagent
Aug 8, 2008
When I used XP last I was putting together a photo book and used to have PS, ID and AI open all the time, switching between them. By the end of the day I would have around 1,8 GB paged out. PS scratch sizes would be in the 3 GB region most of the time. With two RAID 0 arrays it worked out well, but I remember the HDs spinning like crazy the whole time. I deliberately didn’t use the /3GB switch because of the multitasking.

Now, with 64/8, I don’t worry about it so much. But the point is that a 64 bit environment doesn’t just magically remove the old limitations – it creates new possibilities. For instance, you can now composite large-format images at 300 ppi, to actually be viewed up close. That may be rather pointless in a commercial context, but artists will make good use of it, and some already do.

So, on principle, I’ll just have to disagree with you there, Michael.
RW
rocky_weih
Aug 8, 2008
Thanks for the advice. I was still going to use the 160 SATA as a program and OS drive. I was thinking of using raptor only as the scratch drive. I’m still not sure by the answers if thats a good idea or not. What is the 3gig switch? never heard of it. I was going to still use XP Pro and I was going to get 4 gig of ram. Sounds like I may not need 4 gig right now. The board I will beusing has 8 ram slots so adding more ram later will be easy. Thanks again and I will post how this works when it’s up and running.

How to Master Sharpening in Photoshop

Give your photos a professional finish with sharpening in Photoshop. Learn to enhance details, create contrast, and prepare your images for print, web, and social media.

Related Discussion Topics

Nice and short text about related topics in discussion sections