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Build Yourself A Photoshop Speed Machine

(This article was written in February of 2007 -- since prices and technologies change so rapidly in the computer world, by the time you read this, there may be even better options!)

One reason Apple’s Mac computers have long been popular with graphics professionals is because programs such as Photoshop take a lot of horsepower to run, and Macs have long offered computers with dual processors. Processors are the brains and brawn behind the computer.  

A dual processor Mac, however, will cost you somewhere between $1800 and $4000; more money than most of us are willing to spend. Consequently, we limped along on PC’s.  

That is all changing. You can now buy, or build, a computer using either Intel’s or AMD’s new dual core processors. Be warned that in every speed test comparison done, the Intel chips fall far short in performance compared to AMD’s chips – and they are pricier too. A good review can be found here http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-10442_7-6389077-1.html.  

3/25/09    (NOTE: SINCE THIS ARTICLE WAS FIRST WRITTEN, THE INTEL CORE DUO 2 PROCESSORS HAVE BEEN RELEASED. IN ALL TESTS DONE, THESE PROCESSORS OUTPERFORM THE AMD DUAL CORE CHIPS. AMD DUAL CORE PROCESSORS MAY STILL BE A GOOD CHOICE FOR SOME, AS THEY TEND TO BE CHEAPER, BUT FOR THE TIME BEING, THE BEST PERFORMANCE IN A DUAL CORE WILL BE FOUND USING THE INTEL CORE DUO 2 CHIPS.

IN ADDITION, QUAD-CORE CHIPS HAVE REACHED THE MARKET. TESTS I'VE READ INDICATE PHOTOSHOP PERFORMS FASTER ON A QUAD-CORE THAN A DUO-CORE. FINALLY, INTEL HAS RELEASED THEIR NEW i7 CORE, WHICH HAS FOUR CORES AND EIGHT THREADS. EXPENSIVE, BUT THE FASTEST PROCESSOR OUT THERE RIGHT NOW).

Dual-core refers to a CPU that includes two complete execution cores per physical processor. It has combined two processors and their caches and cache controllers onto a single integrated circuit (silicon chip). Dual-core processors are well-suited for multitasking environments because there are two complete execution cores instead of one, each with an independent interface to the frontside bus. Since each core has its own cache, the operating system has sufficient resources to handle most compute intensive tasks in parallel.

If you’re buying a computer off the shelf, only Hewlett-Packard and Gateway (of the easily found brands) offer the  AMD chips. Dell is rumored to be considering use of AMD chips, but so far only offers Intel chipsets.  

The better way to get what you want is to build – or have built by your local computer store or geeky friend – your own super computer. My brother and I put together a truly remarkable machine for a total cost of $1,170.76, and it blows away my older Dell in running Photoshop, and even outperforms Macs costing more than twice as much. The prices below are from MWave, my geeky brother’s favorite online computer parts store, and the vendor where I purchased the components.  

You could save more if you scavenged parts from your older computer – such as your CD or DVD drive, or ordered smaller or fewer hard drives (I installed two). Your only other cost ($60-80), if you don’t have a copy of Windows XP to install, would be to purchase this operating system.  

Speaking of XP, you want to make sure you install the XP Pro version, not the XP Home version, if you plan on increasing RAM to above 2 GB. If you are using XP Home, no matter how much RAM you add above 3 GB, the computer can't access it. Vista 32 bit will allow you to install and access 4 GB. Vista 64 bit will handle up to 8 GB.

BUT -- no matter how much memory you install, Photoshop only "sees" and uses 2 GB!!! The extra memory, though, can at least allow you to run other programs simultaneously with Photoshop without seeing serious slow-down.

When building a computer for Photoshop, the most important component is the processor. Buy as much speed here as you can afford. The second most important factor is the amount of RAM. Get at least two gigabytes. And while you’d think that your video card would be very important, the fact is that Photoshop runs very well on just about any card (note – if you’re building a computer for video editing, your video card is extremely important!). Today’s video cards are really designed for 3D applications and games, and Photoshop is a 2D program. Buy a decent card in the new PCI Express form, but don’t go overboard.  

UPDATE 2/25/09 -- The latest version of Photoshop -- PS CS4 -- does use the graphics card more than previous versions, but mostly for fancy bells and whistle functions, like zooming, called OpenGL Drawing. These features are nice, but not essential, and if your video card is one that is not supported by CS4, you can still run the program just fine by turning these features off. However, if you are buying or building a new machine, you might as well check the Adobe website for supported graphics cards, and purchase one that will take advantage of these features.

You really should install two hard drives if this machine is truly going to be a Photoshop dream machine. Photoshop uses a scratch disk (i.e., temporary hard drive disk space used for storing data and performing computations) when there is insufficient RAM for image editing, and it is always recommended that this scratch disk (which you specify in Photoshop's "preferences" menu) be located on a drive that neither has Photoshop or your operating system. Since both of these are going to be installed on your computer's primary drive, a second drive is a must for good performance. Both of your hard drives should be top end, with high rotation and data transfer rates. There is no evidence yet, though, that hard drive cache (usually 8mb, but some newer models have 16mb) influences Photoshop performance.

Finally, a home built computer like this is much more upgradeable than off the shelf computers, and you know the quality of the equipment inside. For a tutorial on building your own PC, go here http://www.pcmech.com/byopc/index.htm.

Testing Your New (or old!) Computer's Photoshop Speed

So how fast was this new machine? Fast.

There is a sort of unofficial standardized Photoshop speed test floating around photography forums, which you can learn about HERE. Go ahead and run the test, as it is quite simple and pretty illuminating about the capabilities of your computer.

So, what was your time? If your time exceeds 80 seconds or so, you might seriously want to consider a new computer if your work involves digital editing. A reasonable score, if you don't do too much photo editing, would be between 50-60 seconds. Top end computers with dual core processors (which Photoshop loves!) should yield a score of 20-30 seconds.  

My time on my two year old 2.4 Ghz Pentium 4 Dell desktop was 78 seconds, which is why I built the new computer outlined above with the new AMD Athalon X2 3800+ Dual Core processor. Thanks to this machine, my time dropped to 23 seconds.

If you process a lot of images, such a time savings can be significant!

So remember, when buying or building a PC for use with Photoshop, the most critical components, in order of importance, are:

• Processor speed (Dual-core is best - Quad-core processors do not seem to offer an advantage);

• RAM (Random Access Memory) -- the more the better, but above 3 GB you'll need XP Pro to access it -- Vista allows you to use 4 or more GB;

• UPDATE 2/25/09  -- I recently added even more memory to my machine, and it just confirmed what I already suspected -- there was virtually no gain in speed while in Photoshop. Truly, the PROCESSOR is the most important component in the whole system.

• Video Card -- Photoshop is a 2D program. Most of today's video cards are designed for gamers, videos, etc, and are 3D cards. What this means is that just about any decent card will suffice for Photoshop. For instance, in my Dell, I once upgraded from video card with 64 Megabytes of built-in RAM, to one with 256 MB. There was NO improvement in Photoshop performance. BUT make sure you get a video card. Seems dumb to even say that, but many off-the-shelf computers don't have a video card, but process graphics through the CPU on the motherboard, and use a portion of your system RAM. This is called Shard Graphics. Stay away from it.

• UPDATE 2/25/09 -- The latest version of Photoshop -- PS CS4 -- does use the graphics card more than previous versions, but mostly for fancy bells and whistle functions, like zooming, called OpenGL Drawing. These features are nice, but not essential, and if your video card is one that is not supported by CS4, you can still run the program just fine by turning these features off. However, if you are buying or building a new machine, you might as well check the Adobe website for supported graphics cards, and purchase one that will take advantage of these features.