Photoshop PC Build - Final words of wisdom

B

bevels

n00b
Joined
Oct 15, 2008
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Hey People,

This is my first post here, so hello to all!

I'm building a Photoshop machine on a budget.. it's not too tight of a budget but I can't go crazy on luxuries with small gains.

Here's the machine as it stands (I'm buying it tomorrow or this weekend)

Gigabyte GA-EP45T-DS3R
Intel Core2 Quad Q9550
4gb Kingston HyperX 8500
MSI GeForce 9600GT 512MB GDDR3
150gb Velociraptor
3x Seagate 250gb SATAII 16mb - Run in RAID0 as dedicated PS scratch disk
Antec NSK6580B Solution Series ATX MiniTower

What I most want to know is whether or not the case I've chosen with it's included 430w PSU is A:going to be enough power and B: is going to have sufficient cooling for this system?

Is the VRaptor an un-necessary luxury.. would a 640gb Caviar Black be similar in performance?

For the money is the Kingston HyperX worth it's weight or should I be looking at Corsair or OCZ or something else?

Is the MSI GPU the way to go, or should I put in a Gigabyte or Asus 9600GT? (If it makes any difference at all??

Are the Seagate 250gb drives okay to run in RAID0 or are there other drives at the same price point (I don't care what capacity they are) which would do a superior job?

Please keep in mind, I don't want to add money to this system, if anything I'd like to shave a little off if I can.

Any advice is going to be really appreciated before I make the plunge and buy my new beast! It's going to be a good weekend!

Ciao.

B.
 
I'll say this regardless of the naysayers comments:

If you want the best possible performance with Photoshop (especially CS3 or god forbid CS4), get 8GB of RAM, get RamDisk Plus from SuperSpeed.com, and set aside 4-6GB of RAM for a RAMdisk, point the Photoshop scratch file to that RAMdisk, and you'll have the absolute fastest possible Photoshop experience that hardware will be able to muster.

Simple.
 
Hey JA.. I have certainly considered the RAMdisk option and also Gigabytes I-Ram, the latter is too expensive and unfortunately the superspeed RAMdisk doesn't have the ability to bypass the 4gb ram limitation in x86. I'm not interested in running x64 so it's not going to work out :(

I seriously wish the superspeed RAMdisk was able to bypass the 4gb limitation, I don't see how this product is even worth running in x86?

Thanks for the advice though!
 
There's no reason not to run either XP Pro x64 (my OS of choice, obviously) or Vista x64, none at all. There's nothing wrong with either OS, much to the chagrin of the naysayers. Simple dismissing them as possible OSes for no apparently good reason only serves to keep you stuck in the past as I can't think of or even find a piece of software anymore that won't run on either OS (except 16 bit code and if you have some of that around, well, whatever - that's what VMs are for nowadays if necessary).

If you're going to remain stuck in the past - and you're build a FULLY 64 BIT CAPABLE BOX - I can't help with that. Suffice to say, your new build is more than capable of running at max performance and I'm pretty sure that mobo you've chosen will support 8GB of RAM (it does, I just checked the specs - 4 x 1.5V DDR3 DIMM sockets supporting up to 8 GB of system memory) so why bother hanging around with a 32 bit OS. Makes no sense to me.

If you're simply ignorant of 64 bit OSes, especially XP Pro x64 - the red-headed bastard stepchild of Windows Server 2003 x64 but still a viable OS for years to come - or even Vista x64, ask questions and people will answer them. Driver issues are a thing of the past with 64 bit OSes - driver support is here, right now, and has been for quite some time and is continuing to improve day by day. That used to be the biggest gripe about running XP Pro x64 but hasn't been a valid point of debate for 4 years or longer now as everything has 64 bit drivers now, primarily because of Vista.

But if you're going to be stubborn and stay in the 32 bit world, so be it.

As far as the other questions, considering the cost, the WD 640GB drive will give you very close to Velociraptor performance and twice the storage for 3x less money. It's the best drive out nowadays that's a non-Velociraptor.

8GB of RAM with a 4-6GB RAMdisk for the Photoshop scratch disk running XP Pro x64 or Vista x64 would be like 100x faster in Photoshop operations related to the scratch disk than even 10 of those 250GB drives in RAID 0. Nothing can touch RAMdisks... not even the iRAM which is hamstrung by the silly SATA interface and topping out at 300MB/s max, which is doesn't even saturate. RAMdisks... that's the ticket.

Good luck, just the same...

ps
Just as a disclaimer: I build Photoshop high perf boxes for photo service bureaus and none of them ever have less than 8GB of RAM, and each of them uses RamDisk Plus by SuperSpeed. The owners are very happy considering how ridiculously fast their hardware is and the end result is increased efficiency meaning a higher return on their investment.
 
A.J I seriously appreciate you taking the time.

The reason I've been choosing not to go with a 64bit OS is simply compatibility issues. I run a plethora of different PS plugins some of which are quite outdated but do specific things I require, having said that, I'm not even sure if they run on 64bit or not? The task of inquiring with each and every company would take far too much time.

Everything I've read say's to go with X86 unless you're processing gigapixel sized images, which I'm not. The images I process rarely exceed 35-40 megapixels.

I've taken your advice on the RAMdisk. I haven't been onto superspeeds website for quite some time. The newest version 9 of RAMdisk plus has a workaround for the 4gb limitation, so that changes everything!!! I'm going to ditch the RAID0 array, I'll install 8gb of RAM and allocate 4 to a RAMdisk and if I need more later then I'll buy more. That board I'm going with takes up to 16gb so I'm covered.

Fun fun, I'll spend Saturday putting it all together! I've got a Dell 2408WFP arriving on monday, my box will be ready to plug it into and I'll be going from the Laptop i've been using for months to this monster! Yummy.

Thanks for your help!

B.
 
Lemme know how that so-called workaround works out for you, I'd be interested because I do have a few clients that are stubborn to the extremes and still force me to install XP 32 bit on a few workstations for basic stuff, primarily tutorials for new employees and experimentation.

As for 16GB, the specs on the board here:

http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/Motherboard/Products_Spec.aspx?ProductID=2851

say 8GB max, filling out the 4 available slots with 2GB sticks. If it's 16GB max, I'd sure love to see the specs say it. ;) The boards in this review all cover 16GB, yum yum yum:

http://hothardware.com/Articles/Four-Intel-P45-Motherboards-from-Gigabyte/

and the DS3R is one of 'em, so either something is wrong with Gigabyte's published specs on their own website or I'm missing something. :confused:

The GA-EP45C-DS3R (rev. 1.0) at:

http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products...oard&ProductID=2871&ProductName=GA-EP45C-DS3R

does 16GB, but the one you show, the EP45T doesn't - it maxes out at 8GB. Make sure you get the right board, the EP45C if you intend to someday try and get 16GB in there...

But... I'll say it again: you'll get better performance all around with moving to a 64 bit OS, undeniably, especially when it comes to processing and data manipulation, moving those big as megapixel images. If necessary you could get XP Pro x64 or Vista x64 as your host OS and then install XP Pro x86 in a virtual machine inside VirtualBox and wham... instant performance boost... it would outperform the stock 32 bit installation, big time because all the memory access would be functioning at 64 bit levels.

(yes, I do this shit entirely too much... but if you think any given PC is fast, I'll make it faster... a lot faster)
 
Interesting stuff about running x86 in virtual box.. I was just going to install a dual boot to test x64 and If I liked it and didn't have any issues then run with it.

I think there must be something wrong with the published figures on Gigabytes website?? This is the link I had to the motherboard

http://www.gigabyte.com.au/Products...oard&ProductID=2854&ProductName=GA-EP45T-DS3R

Which states 16gb max?? I also checked other review sites which all have the same specification.. anyway I'll check when I'm buying it to be sure!

I really hope RAMdisk does what it says it does and utilizes the 8gb of RAM I'm buying. Fingers crossed!

Ciao for now, off to buy everything.

B.
 
Install vista 64.
I just built myself a photoshop rig and I am loving Vista 64 on it. I have 8 gigs of ram and just upgraded to CS4 which has 64 support....I am also using Lightroom64..both apps fly on this.
 
Hey harsaphes.. Thanks for the reply,

Didn't manage to get my system today, everywhere seemed to be sold out of Q9550 so I'll have to wait till early next week :mad:

Are you having any trouble running your plugins and apps like firefox and skype etc.. on X64?

I did a quick search for Firefox X64 and got some rubbish about downloading a tweaked version that wasn't the current Firefox blah blah blah and read a couple of threads about people saying "come on give us X64 support". To be honest, I really can't be bothered with incompatibilities, it'll drive me up the wall. The way AJ was talking about though has certainly made me look further into it. I think it'll just be a case of trying it myself and deciding if it's for me.
 
What Joe says.

Also - I have the need to exceed the 4gb limit AND must remain in a 32bit Windows environment due to the RIP that I run and the drivers for my 63" Mimaki printer. The best option I've found for this is to run Windows Server 2003 Enterprise edition. I've essentially disabled all of the server functionality, set it to be optimized for apps, enabled sound, themes etc.. and for all intents and purposed it runs, acts, and looks like any desktop Windows OS. The enterprise version however can address way beyond 4GB of ram. In fact my machine has 32GB of ram in it.

I do use a different Ramdisk program - I use Qsoft RAMDisk (ramdisk.tk), the paid Enterprise version, and it works great for me. I have it configured to allocate 28GB of the system ram as the ramdrive. Works beautifully for Photoshops scratch disk and makes working on 2gb and even larger psd and psb files a ton faster.



Joe Average said:
I'll say this regardless of the naysayers comments:

If you want the best possible performance with Photoshop (especially CS3 or god forbid CS4), get 8GB of RAM, get RamDisk Plus from SuperSpeed.com, and set aside 4-6GB of RAM for a RAMdisk, point the Photoshop scratch file to that RAMdisk, and you'll have the absolute fastest possible Photoshop experience that hardware will be able to muster.

Simple.
Click to expand...

bevels said:
Hey JA.. I have certainly considered the RAMdisk option and also Gigabytes I-Ram, the latter is too expensive and unfortunately the superspeed RAMdisk doesn't have the ability to bypass the 4gb ram limitation in x86. I'm not interested in running x64 so it's not going to work out :(

I seriously wish the superspeed RAMdisk was able to bypass the 4gb limitation, I don't see how this product is even worth running in x86?

Thanks for the advice though!
Click to expand...
 
I'm rethinking things.. The motherboard I initially was going to go for - The Gigabyte EP45T-DS3R is a DDR3 board so I can't use DDR2 RAM in it. I simply can't afford 8gb of DDR3 so I'm thinking of going with the Asus P5Q Deluxe??

I don't know anything about the compatibility of these components and what to consider in order to get them running harmoniously so I don't encounter any serious bottlenecks? If I'm running the P5Q Deluxe with the Q9550, will DDR2-800 RAM be okay or should I go with the Gigabyte DDR3 board buy less DDR3-1333 so the MB, CPU and RAM are all running at 1333?

Huuurrr what a headache, I wish I could get a definitive answer on this stuff.
 
i am not sure about ps specifically but ddr3 is way over priced and no major perf increase
 
For the features it provides, the Asus P5Q Deluxe is very very overpriced IMO. Some other motherboard recommendations:
Gigabyte GA-EP43-DS3L Intel P43 Motherboard - $87
MSI P45 Neo3-FR Intel P45 Motherboard - $110
Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3R Intel P45 Motherboard - $120
Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3R Intel P45 Motherboard - $120
Asus P5Q Pro Intel P45 Motherboard - $135
Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3P Intel P45 Motherboard - $137
Biostar TPower I45 Intel P45 Motherboard - $150
DFI Lanparty DK X38-T2R Intel X38 Motherboard - $185
Asus P5E Deluxe Intel X48 Motherboard - $220
DFI Lanparty DK X48-T2R Intel X48 Motherboard - $220
Gigabyte GA-EX48-DS4 Intel X48 Motherboard - $225

Just to help you out: All of these motherboards have PCI-E 2.0 which may be useful for future GPU upgrades. If you don't need RAID, more than 6 SATA ports and only need semi-decent overclocking, check out the DS3L. If you need 8 SATA ports, RAID, 4 PCI slots, and legacy ports, then get the Neo3-Fr. If you don't need more than 6 SATA ports but want RAID, firewire, a second PCI-E x16 port, a second gigabit port, support for 16GB of RAM, optional eSATA, x8/x8 Crossfire, and great overclocks, then get the DS3R. If you like the DS3R but want better overclocking capability and 8 SATA ports, then get the UD3P or the UD3R if you don't need that second PCI-E x16 slot. If you like the DS3R but need 8 SATA ports, want an onboard pre-installed fast booting Linux setup, just support for 8GB of RAM, and don't need a second gigabit port, get the Asus P5Q Pro. If you want a motherboard with excellent overclocking capabilities above all else (feature wise), go with the I45. If you want Crossfire with full x16/x16 bandwidth, get the Lanparty DK X38. If you have cash to burn, need x16/x16 Crossfire, and don't give a damn about getting the most value for your money, get the Asus, DFI, or Gigabyte X48 motherboards. Do note that the Asus website can be slow sometimes.

As for the RAM, if you're not planning on major overclocking, DDR2 800 RAM will be more than enough for the Q9550. In fact, Intel C2D CPUs run best when the RAM and FSB are at a 1:1 ratio or equal to one another. Some math:
Stated FSB/4 = Actual FSB
Actual FSB x 4 = Stated FSB
Multiplier x Actual FSB = CPU Speed
1:1 Ratio: 2 x Actual FSB = RAM Speed
1:1 Ratio: FSB = 1/2 RAM speed

Q9550:
Multi x Actual FSB, Stated FSB, RAM Speed = Clock Speed
8.5 × 333Mhz, 1333Mhz, DDR2-667 = 2.83Ghz <<== Stock speeds
8.5 × 400Mhz, 1600Mhz, DDR2-800 = 3.40Ghz <<== Easy OC
8.5 × 450Mhz, 1800Mhz, DDR2-900 = 3.82Ghz <<== Good OC
8.5 × 500Mhz, 2000Mhz, DDR2-1000 = 4.25Ghz<<== If you're lucky

So for stock speeds, all you need for the Q9550 with its 1333Mhz FSB is DDR2 667 RAM. However, I recommend getting this DDR2 1000 RAM set for two reasons: A) Not that much more than 4GB set of DDR2 667 RAM and B) It would allow for a pretty high OC should you choose to do so later on:
G.Skill F2-8000CL5D-4GBPQ 2 x 2GB DDR2 1000 RAM - $68

And yes, DDR3 RAM is a major waste for current C2D systems. As for the video card, I recommend getting the cheaper PNY 9600GT instead:
PNY VCG96512GXPB GeForce 9600 GT 512MB PCI-E Video Card - $85

However, if you're a demanding gamer who plays at 1920x1200, then get the HD4850 instead:
Sapphire 100245L Radeon HD 4850 512MB PCI-E Video Card - $160
 
Joe Average said:
There's no reason not to run either XP Pro x64 (my OS of choice, obviously) or Vista x64, none at all. There's nothing wrong with either OS, much to the chagrin of the naysayers. Simple dismissing them as possible OSes for no apparently good reason only serves to keep you stuck in the past as I can't think of or even find a piece of software anymore that won't run on either OS (except 16 bit code and if you have some of that around, well, whatever - that's what VMs are for nowadays if necessary).
Click to expand...

I can think of and regularly use many programs that flat-out do not work in any 64-bit os. Most of the ones I use are related to embedded systems programming (such as most Xilinx product). There are also still device driver issues for older devices, such as my large-format scsi scanner. However, for photoshop type stuff, I have never had a problem with a 64-bit OS.

Don't use the I-ram. It is far slower than a software ramdisk. Like MixMan, If you don't want to do 64-bit, I would recommend server 2003 EE. I have used it as a standard desktop, and it works excellently.
 
Wow thanks very much for all your info, I seriously appreciate it because at this stage of the game... I just want my new machine!!!

I just had a look at the boards you recommended.. I love the sound of the GA-EP45-UD3P but it's not available in Australia :mad: That's really annoying!

Thanks also for the info on the RAM, I'll definitely look at getting DDR2-1000

I'm very interested in going the X86 Windows Server 2003 Enterprise edition route.. I've heard of another guy doing this as well and he said he was extremely happy with it. I'll try and find a decent tutorial on how to get it looking and running like XP Pro and If I can get good instructions I think that'll be the ticket.

Desdichado thanks for your words of wisdom on X64 ;)

Slowly but surely.. I'll get there in the end!
 
http://win2k3.msfn.org/

The original and still pretty much the best guide for tweaking out 2K3 to work more like a workstation OS. I've done that in the past, multiple times, and 2K3 out of the box runs far faster (roughly 20% in my own testing) than XP Pro does. Of course, I stepped it up later on with 2K3 x64, and then finally chose XP Pro x64 because it effectively is Windows Workstation 2003, basically. :)
 
Fantastic.. that seals the deal then! I've done a bit of research on server 03 and it sounds great. Thanks so much for the advice!

Still trying to work out the Motherboard and RAM to use. Ideally I'd like the GA-EP45-UD3P which 'Danny Bui' recommended but it's not yet available in Australia.. So I'm going to trawl the Gigabyte site and try and find something as close to that board which I can get here in Australia.

This thread has been a massive help in making my decision, I can't thank you guys enough for your input.
 
hey, i find altech.com.au has the best range of motherboards here in Aus, also note that prices are rising fast because of the stupid US economy crysis.

also, i dont know what the hell you have been told about x64, there is NO compatability issues for 95% of people, What you were talking about with firefox x64 etc is not how you run a x64 OS, you just use the normal 32 bit firefox, 32 bit apps run on a x64 OS fine, its just you have the option of running x64 apps, IF they are available, also, you will have NO issues with plugins and add ons for photoshop in x64vista, i know because i dont :p, cant comment about CS4, havent got it yet. I was skeptical about a year ago about switching to vista x64, but if anything i am more stable and faster than i ever was on 32 bit XP.

sorry if you knew this, its just it doesnt look like you really knew what it was like running a 64 bit OS. it is vurtially the same, just mor eram and x64 support.

carnag3
 
The Computers & Gadgets forum is for pre-builts. I'm moving this over to GenHard. Please at least read the sticky threads in a forum before posting.
 
Apologies Lethal.. Still getting used to the catagories on this forum.

carnag3 I was in part ignorant to this fact so thanks for clarifying it.. I thought only 'some', and not many 32bit applications were able to run on x64.

I was under the impression that software companies released versions that were X64 compatible. I didn't realize that most software ran on X64 and so I went to the software manufacturers websites whose apps I use most and tried to see if they had a 'X64 version' of their software available for download. It's no wonder I was so damn confused, after not finding a single 'X64 version' I just thought all the software was for x86 and wouldn't run on X64 unless specified.

I think I'll take S03 enterprise X64 over Vista, I'm just not sold on the whole "Vista Experience". I want things to run as quick as they possibly can, I'm a big fan of snappy response. So for now, resource hungry vista might not make it onto my machine.

Thanks for the tip on altech.com.au but CPL and MSY are quite a bit cheaper.

Gigabyte GA-EP45T-DS3R - CPL = $189 - MSY = $169 - ALTECH = $250

Cheers for the advice.

B.
 
One thing I've slightly overlooked..

The Antec case I've chosen comes with a 460w PSU. Is this enough to run this system?
 
bevels said:
One thing I've slightly overlooked..

The Antec case I've chosen comes with a 460w PSU. Is this enough to run this system?
Click to expand...

Actually it comes with a 430W PSU. Anyway, it'll be enough for your system.
 
Bevels what display are you using for your image editing? I've been looking for a good display with decent out of box color levels. Those Eizo monitos seem to be great, but the pro models are way expensive.

I agree that PSU is fine for your setup. Def go with 8GB or more if possible. Photoshop is hungry.
 
Thanks for that Danny Bui :)

Deanlwau, I've just bought the Dell 2408WFP, I'd absolutely love an Eizo but they're way out of my price range for now. I did a heap of in depth research on displays before I purchased as it's without doubt the most important component of my setup. I came to the conclusion that the Dell 2408WFP has the best price/performance. I won't be able to speak from experience though, until I print some images in the next couple of days.

I got my components today and I'll be putting it all together tomorrow. Here's what I decided on.

Gigabyte EP45-DS4P
Intel Core2 Quad Q9550
2x 4gb Kingston HyperX DDR2 800
XFX GeForce 9600GT 512MB GDDR3
Western Digital 640gb HDD (WD6400AAKS)
Logitech mouse and keyboard
Coolermaster RC690
Pioneer DVD-RW

I'll most likely run Windows Server 2003 Enterprise X64 unless convinced otherwise in the next 24 hours.

Hopefully the build goes smooth and I should be up and running tomorrow ;) Sweet!

I'd like to thank everyone that's put in their 2 cents, it's definitely steered me into certain decisions!
 
Adobe instructors kept reminding us how much faster Photoshop CSx is with Vista 64 over XP 32 and Mac OSX (OSX is 64bit but Photoshop on the Mac isn't).
 
Hey Zepher.. thanks for the words of wisdom. I'm still planning on taking Server 2003 Enterprise for a spin. I'll put it on tonight and see how I go.

Does anybody know of a good tutorial on stripping back Vista 64 of all it's 'fluff' to get it running as fast and stable as possible? What I mean by fluff is all the unnecessary eye candy and processes that don't need to exist? I really don't want to go to Vista but it's only going to become more of a necessity in the future.
 
bevels said:
Does anybody know of a good tutorial on stripping back Vista 64 of all it's 'fluff' to get it running as fast and stable as possible? What I mean by fluff is all the unnecessary eye candy and processes that don't need to exist? I really don't want to go to Vista but it's only going to become more of a necessity in the future.
Click to expand...

Best answer: DON'T STRIP ANYTHING FROM VISTA. Just turn off Aero and/or UAC and you'll be fine. Stripping or stopping any other service won't provide a meaningful increase in anything and might lead to problems later on. So leave Vista alone.
 
I've just recently put together a photo editing box with:
gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3R - found it to be as much as I need or more,

16GB G. Skill DDR2 800 - found that I should have just bought 2x4 gig sticks, since I can't seem to get any reasonable combinations of programs to use more than 8GB, but I may have upgraded in the future anyway if the need came up. That would have saved me money, but I do suggest the 4 gig sticks so that you can leave room for upgrades.

Intel Core2 Quad Q9550 - the mobo and Vista run this well - pretty even distribution of work among the cores.

And Vista Home Premium (64 bit). This operating system has a lot of extra programs bundled with it, but it still runs extremely fast with my hardware and photo editing software. It doesn't include fax software which is insanely stupid, but that's another issue I'm trying to figure out. As far as CS3, it runs better than any other machine/OS I have ever used, and when we get CS4 I'll give some reactions.

I haven't found any program incompatibilities that were significant - just a couple small things that I've had since the windows 98 days that I should have gotten rid of years ago. The incompatibility I hate is the fact that although Vista runs Winamp and its Advanced Visualization Studio in windowed or fullscreen mode, it won't run it as a desktop wallpaper the way it does on other operating systems, but since you've spoken against "eye candy", this will not at all be an issue for you. The eye candy of vista doesn't appear to rob resources enough to make any noticeable impact on programs if you ask me.
 
@ Danny Bui and swingdjted - Thanks for the recommendations. My new machine went together without a hitch!! I'm running XP Pro X64, all drivers and software installed without any problems at all.. I'm so glad I listened to the advice of certain people in this forum.

Photoshop only sees 3.2gb of my 8gb so I've got 5gb setup as a Ramdisk using superspeeds Ramdisk Plus for XP X64.. it couldn't be easier to setup!

Set the Ramdisk drive to scratch in PS and I'm away laughing.

To say things are running quick would be an understatement. This machine flys.

Thanks for all your help in steering me into the right hardware and OS choices ;)
 
Good to hear that your build went off without a hitch. Now where are the pics of the PC?:D
 
Pics... or I call SHENANIGANS!!! :D

And congrats on the build. Now we need a benchmark so, try this sometime and post the results:

http://www.retouchartists.com/pages/speedtest.html

And also: since Photoshop CS4 is out, and 64 bit, it should[/b] be able to see every byte of RAM if you decide to use it at some point. For the cost, it's excessive, but if you own something older like CS2 or CS3, obviously the upgrade pricing is what you'd go for...
 
I'm glad it all worked out, and congrats. I'm happy XP x64 works for you, because it's another reason why I maybe should try a duel boot with it. I have a licence copy of it from work, but was worried that many hardware drivers would be incompatible with it. Perhaps that would allow me to use my older fax modem too (drivers don't work in Vista, nor does Vista have faxing software either) - hard to tell.

As far as CS4, I read (don't remember the web site, but I'll continue looking for it) that it's mostly only effective with up to around 8GB RAM for scratch. This would be in addition to the RAM used for operating system, antivirus, and other stuff you're running. Hopefully I'm wrong (and the web site is wrong) so that I can make use of all my RAM.

edit - here's the quote:

"As you add RAM to your computer, you should see corresponding improvements in performance up to about 8GB, which is the point of diminishing returns."

from this web site:

http://www.peachpit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=1247538&seqNum=3

It continues with some more helpful information:

"A reliable way to determine whether you'll benefit from more RAM is to keep an eye on the Efficiency indicator while you work. To turn on the Efficiency indicator, click the third option from the left (the black triangle) in the status bar at the bottom of a document window and choose Show > Efficiency (see Figure 1). If the Efficiency reading drops below 100%, more RAM would help."
 
All I had to read was this so-called "Tip" and I knew instantly that these so-called tech/Photoshop experts have no clue whatsoever on how to make Photoshop work better:

"Will setting up a RAM disk as a scratch disk make Photoshop run faster? There's no reason to do that, because Photoshop can work with your operating system automatically to treat the available RAM above 4GB as a RAM disk for scratch data."

If such blasphemous bullshit were true, why do benchmarks actually show real-world gains in performance, sometimes doubling in fact, when using a proper RAMdisk especially on a machine with 8GB of RAM that, according to that "Tip" should be performing like it has a RAMdisk if it doesn't? Even with SuperFetch in Vista and all that data cached it still doesn't come near the performance a real RAMdisk set up as a scratch disk shows...

Geez... and these people get paid to write such crap. I'll never figure it out.

Set up a clean installation of Photoshop CS4 with 8GB of RAM without a RAMdisk, run that Photoshop benchmark I linked to above. Get the results, then add a RAMdisk of 4GB and set that up as the scratch disk. I guarantee you when you see the difference in the benchmark you'll realize those so-called "experts" are laughable at best.
 
I didn't realize that the suggestion on the site was wrong. Was the little that I quoted from there at least correct, or is that also possibly incorrect too?

I'd like to know this, because if what I quoted was wrong, then it might benefit me to make a ram disc bigger than 8GB on my machine.

Also, was the suggested procedure to check efficiency a good thing to do? I hope I'm not derailing the thread - just curious.
 
If you only have 8GB of RAM, making a >8GB RAMdisk is, of course, impossible.

With 8GB of RAM, running something like Vista x64, with Vista itself running really well with about 2GB of that, and maybe Photoshop CS3 or even the new even-more-bloated CS4 edition, creating a RAMdisk of about 4-6GB isn't unreasonable and can DRAMATICALLY improve performance in Photoshop when the scratch disk variable points to the RAMdisk itself.

Everything goes crazy freakin' fast with this kind of setup, and simply having 8GB of RAM in a PC regardless of whatever you choose to do with it will not improve Photoshop performance in most any way - but assigning some of that RAM to be used as a true RAMdisk will, and with dramatic and very noticeable (as well as measurable) benefits.

I won't say their suggestion was "wrong;" I'd be more likely to say "They simply don't have a clue..."

A basic installation of the OS + a basic installation of Photoshop (any version, it doesn't matter) + 8GB of RAM will never in a billion years match what a basic installation of the OS + a basic installation of Photoshop + a few gigs of that 8GB of RAM set up and used as a RAMdisk for scratch disk duties can accomplish in terms of sheer outrageous performance with image editing and manipulation.

"How fast is fast?" I usually ask because people that think their machines and setups are fast... they typically have no clue just how truly fast their boxes can perform.

It's about that simple.
 
In my case I'm lucky to have 16GB available, and if you think it would be beneficial to make a RAM disc of 14 (or anything over the web site's recommended max of 8), I'll give it a try. We didn't get our license for CS4 yet, but I'm guessing it's coming soon. For now it's CS3.
 
Okay - just for fun. I downloaded and ran this test linked below. Not according to the exact directions though. I did not reboot or anything. All I did was to install the action and run it on the test image included with the test. The only thing I did between tests was the first one I disabled my ramdisk as the scratch disk in Photoshop, restarted PS and ran the test. Then enabled my ramdisk as the primary scratch disk, restarted PS again, and ran the same test. All other PS settings were left as I had them.

System is a Dell Precision 690, dual quad core xeon 2.4, running Windows Server 2003 Enterprise 32 bit. The system has 32GB of ram of which I have 28gb configured as a ramdrive via Qsoft RamDisk. During all of this the computer was not rebooted and has in fact been running for over a week. Several other applications were running the entire time including Illustrator CS3, FlexiSign Pro and it's Production Manager, and 2 instances of the Folding at Home SMP client. The only app that was shut down and restarted was Photoshop CS3.

With the ram drive disabled as the scratch disk the test took 3 minutes 22 seconds to run.

With the ram drive enabled the test took 44 seconds to run.

I LOVE having a big ol' ramdrive!! :D


Joe Average said:
Pics... or I call SHENANIGANS!!! :D

And congrats on the build. Now we need a benchmark so, try this sometime and post the results:

http://www.retouchartists.com/pages/speedtest.html

And also: since Photoshop CS4 is out, and 64 bit, it should[/b] be able to see every byte of RAM if you decide to use it at some point. For the cost, it's excessive, but if you own something older like CS2 or CS3, obviously the upgrade pricing is what you'd go for...
Click to expand...




 
swingdjted: If you've got 16GB of RAM (Ok, I'll admit it, I'm jealous, screw the envy part, I'm just flat out jealous) assigning a solid 8GB of RAM for a RAMdisk is more than enough for handling anything Photoshop is capable of, even Photoshop CS4 and it's bloated monstrosity of code - the RAMdisk is really for handling and manipulating the images as well as increasing the efficiency of the filter processing tasks.

MixMaxSC: 32GB!?!?!?! Geezus... what's worse than being jealous? :D Damned impressive and thanks for posting your own test results. From 202 seconds to 44 seconds flat, that's what, nearly 5x the performance overall. I'm sure someone will bitch at my baseline math there but... regardless, there it is... ;)
 
JA I did your test and I came up trumps. I did exactly what the readme ask to the letter, I ran the test two times, first time I got 20.9 seconds and the second time I got 20.5 seconds. By the sounds of things, that's pretty damn quick! It might have something to do with the fact that I built the machine and have only had windows on it for a day or two so everythings running as good as it possibly can!

I don't think i'll be running CS4 64bit for a while, I've heard the gains aren't that great anyway unless you're working on gigapixel sized images. 32bit will run all my plugins so that'll be me until every plugin I use becomes 64bit compatible.

JA... nice rant! I couldn't agree more, I'm a RAMdisk convert and I've only been editing images on this machine for a full day.. it flys!

Right back to work!!!
 
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