Adobe CS hardware

mtrox

I've finally got a branch office network I manage convinced that the three women who do a lot of graphics intensive work need more hosepower. Every time I get on their Pent IV's, they are crawling, and task manager shows Google Earth taking about 100 Megs of pagefile, Adobe CS over 100 Megs, not to mention various other aerial photograph editor apps, etc.

So I'm shopping to advise them on what they need to get more horse power to run this stuff. I've never used any of that but here is my gut feel. Tell me if you agree.

I think the two main things I need to emphasize are:

1. Video card, preferrably better than integrated
2. RAM

My impression is that these points are more important than some super duper CPU. But I am tempted to at least think some form of dual core as Adobe can use that. Am I right?

Obviously budget is an issue. They're used to buying standard $500-$600 boxes, so if I get near $1,000 I'll be wasting my time.

Please don't advise me to go Linux, MAC, BYOC etc. This is an enterprise and it will be a Dell or an HP. If you've worked with an enterprise you understand why.

primesuspect

I use Adobe CS 2.3 for a living. De-emphasize the video card and beef up the RAM as much as possible. Dual core is a definite plus, as all Adobe CS apps are multithreaded.

Ram ram ram. Adobe CS will use as much as it possibly can.

mtrox

primesuspect wrote:

Ram ram ram. Adobe CS will use as much as it possibly can.

I've had that impression a little bit Prime. I bumped one Pent IV up from 256 to 768...not a huge difference. A few months later I bumped a 512 up to 1 Gig...still not a big difference. The next one I bumped a 512 up to 1.5 Gigs....that has made a difference.

primesuspect

I recommend a minimum of 2gb for a CS workstation. I'm trying to get 4gb in the one I use every day.

Sledgehammer70

Windows seems to kick in a huge boost once you hit just over 1.2GB of memory. But if you really want to speed up the loading of images the top things are.

Memory
Hard Drive
CPU

Most people forget some of the older PC's on 5400RPM and 4200RPM drives with low level cache just can't give you what you need. New SATA 3.0GB 7200 RPM drives seem to run much better, or to see real performance get into the 10,000 RPM drives I personally run on a pair of 15,000RPM SCSI drives

As for memory! Your systems are aging and the memory in the systems are very slow in data bandwidth. I am guessing you are sporting DDR2 533MHz or 667Mhz? The jump in speed from 533MHz to 800MHz is huge. But I say 2GB minimum for a CS tower....

As for the CPU Dual core is always better. My main machine at work that I use for CS is a Dual Pent 4 Xeon w/ HT with 3 GB of memory, and sometimes it slows down with big images over 100MB in size. But when I got a Dual Core Duo I saw a huge speed increase. The tech from P4’s to the new Core 2 is huge…

Graphics cards are not going to improve load times for you, if you are using 1 monitor. The programs that need better GPU's are ones like 3Ds Max or Maya as they have to process massive Poly's on the screen or they run in Open GL. I have used PS CS on many Graphic cards, and a mid range setup is good enough such as a 6600GT or even a X600 which are in the $50.00 range. But I would say spend the extra cash on memory and a better CPU.

On that note, it is also cheaper to buy the system from a company like Dell and than Upgrade the ram / mid range GPU from Newegg. You can always get better and faster ram for cheaper going that route.

mtrox

I wish I could afford Core 2 Duos. They get "up there" fast in terms of $'s but I know you're right about the performance improvement. Both you guys are telling me the GPU isn't that big of a deal....its RAM and hyperthread or dual cores. Thanks.

EDIT: Oh and Sledge, everything I'm looking at is at least 7200 RPM SATA. Seems to be state of the art for business class machines these days.

Sledgehammer70

mtrox wrote:

I wish I could afford Core 2 Duos. They get "up there" fast in terms of $'s but I know you're right about the performance improvement. Both you guys are telling me the GPU isn't that big of a deal....its RAM and hyperthread or dual cores. Thanks.

EDIT: Oh and Sledge, everything I'm looking at is at least 7200 RPM SATA. Seems to be state of the art for business class machines these days.

I don't know if your company would let you build the machines yourself, as you can get a mid range C2D machine for under $700.00

mtrox

Sledgehammer70 wrote:

I don't know if your company would let you build the machines yourself, as you can get a mid range C2D machine for under $700.00

They'd shoot me...or they'd scratch their heads and wonder if I'm expendable. It all needs to be supportable, from accross the country, no poking around in Google to spend extra time on the weird machines "that bozo in Mpls got us into".....

Sledgehammer70

LOL! Yeah I know how it is... sometime companies are willing to go that extra mile to save some cash especially if it is dept related.

RADA

It wouldn't hurt to go to a nVidia Quadro type video card. They are made for graphic-intense situations, outside of the gamming industry.

Copied from Leadtek.com wrote:

A unique feature of Quadro GPUs is supporting anti-aliased lines in hardware, which has nothing in common with GeForce's full-scene anti-aliasing. It works for lines (but not for shaded polygons) without sacrificing system performance or taking extra video memory for over-sampling. Since this feature is standardized by OpenGL, it is supported by most professional applications.

Another unique feature of Quadro GPUs is supporting OpenGL Logical Operations which can be implemented as the last step in the rendering pipeline before contents is written to the frame buffer. For example workstation applications can use this functionality to mark a selection by a simple XOR function. When this function is done in hardware, such significant performance loss as a GeForce adapter would cause will not happen. OpenGL can be used for either consumer or workstation adapters.

The most common applications for GeForce adapters are full-screen OpenGL games. CAD applications work with OpenGL windows in combination with 2D-elements.

A typical workstation application contains 3D and 2D elements. And while view ports display window-based OpenGL function, menus, rollups and frames are still 2D elements. They often overlap each other. Depending on how they are handled by the graphics hardware, overlapping windows may noticeably affect visual quality and graphics performance. When windows are not overlapped, the entire contents of the color buffer can be transferred to the frame buffer in a single, continuous rectangular region. However, if windows do overlap, transfer of data from the color buffer to the frame buffer must be broken into a series of smaller, discontinuous rectangular regions. These rectangular regions are referred to as "clip" regions.

Quadro GPUs support up to 8 clip regions in hardware, keeping up the performance in normal workflow using CAD/DCC applications.

All the CAD machines at my last job benefited from a switch from a GeForce to a Quadro card, can't see why CS wouldn't see the same improvement.

mtrox

Hey as long as I've got the attention of some Adobe CS guys, can I stop that VersionCue thing that's always running on machines with CS? I've started doing it to a couple as it is usually hoging at least twice as much pagefile as anything else on the machine. Is it necessary? Will it just start by itself if someone uses it? It's just a search thing and they want me to let it take over?

primesuspect

If you don't need it - definitely kill it. Version Cue is for workgroup management (multiple people working on the same project, for example)

mtrox

Figures. All of Adobe programs have a bad habit of grabbing your computer and hiding it from your other apps on the off chance you might click their direction.