Laptop graphics card?

Burning smells emanating from my PC signal the end of an era and I've always fancied being able to work on my photos without having to sit in front of a computer desk so.......

I am going to go for a laptop and will only be using it for CS2/CS3, word processing & internet, no gaming. Will hook it up to a CRT monitor if I need to for final editing etc.

I am happy with the other specs like the processor, RAM, screen resolution and am just looking for a definitive answer to:

Do I need a dedicated graphics card?

I've read and heard a few different opinions but don't know enough about it to know who is right, so please take pity because I can't face another weekend of going around the computer shops...

Thanks for your help!

Steve

P.s. I can't afford a Mac

well i have a laptop... 512mb ram 1.8 ghz CPU 50gb hard drive dell and it has intergrated graphics... my computer is crying when i use CS3 its so laggy you cant see anything! lol like when i play around such as liquify.,.... it doesnt respond for like a minute and then it swirls... but this computer is a few years old :P I think youd be fine but thats just my opinion...

i think having a dedicated gfx card with on board ram will boost performance a little, as it wont have to steal any memory from the system resources like some on board cards will do, this is the only benefit i can think of and even then i may not be entirely correct

i just got hold of a Dell Vostro with 2ghz core2duo, 2 gig ram, 160gb disk and it has an Nvidia 256mb 8600GT M card inside

i havent installed much yet, but i have tried lightroom and it is very fast, although ive not used any lesser laptops to compare performance against, but the gfx card seems to have no trouble with anything

hope this helps a little

I'd definitely go for a dedicated card, the memory loss for an integrated one is usually enough to upset windows let alone cs3.

PB

Integrated graphics would be fine for the majority of CS3 work. For CS3, you're better off concentrating on the amount of RAM you have, the processor and even things such as the speed of your hard disk. Typical 2.5" laptop drives offer only 5400rpm as a standard.

zeva wrote in post #4286300
well i have a laptop... 512mb ram 1.8 ghz CPU 50gb hard drive dell and it has intergrated graphics... my computer is crying when i use CS3 its so laggy you cant see anything! lol like when i play around such as liquify.,.... it doesnt respond for like a minute and then it swirls... but this computer is a few years old :P I think youd be fine but thats just my opinion...

It's because you have 512MB of RAM (and possibly your processor.. I assume it's something like a Pentium M 750 or similar).

It's a good point about integrated graphics pinching storage from main RAM but other then that there are no issues for photo work. You need a meaty GFX card for number crunching video games, which are having to generate 30-100+ frames of image data per second and calculate lighting and particle effects and shadows all at the same time. HD video also benefits from a powerful card because again you are chucking out an awful lot of changing data in frames per second and need a huge amount of data throughput.

For photographic work you call up a picture or two and then it just sits there, with just the odd mouse movement and dialogue box to deal with. Once in a while you may tweak the photo a bit but the display only needs to be refreshed once each time and then the GFX card just sits there waiting for something else to do.

I've got by perfectly well with DPP, CS2 and Lightroom with a 32MB (dedicated) graphics card on a 6 year old laptop. It is no stretch for a modern GFX card, even integrated, to deal with photo editing. I can manage it on my travel laptop, running Vista with 1GB RAM and Intel integrated GFX. 2GB of RAM would undoubtedly help, but as far as the GFX card goes, it's no sweat.

Thanks for the replies everyone!

Collin85 wrote in post #4288855
Integrated graphics would be fine for the majority of CS3 work. For CS3, you're better off concentrating on the amount of RAM you have, the processor and even things such as the speed of your hard disk. Typical 2.5" laptop drives offer only 5400rpm as a standard.

The specs I am looking at are a dual core, 2Ghz or greater processor with 2GB of RAM.

Do you think paying for 7200rpm hard drive would be of more benefit than 5400rpm with dedicated graphics?

Thanks,


Steve

perfect_pixel wrote in post #4289382
Thanks for the replies everyone!


The specs I am looking at are a dual core, 2Ghz or greater processor with 2GB of RAM.

Do you think paying for 7200rpm hard drive would be of more benefit than 5400rpm with dedicated graphics?

Thanks,

Steve

Sounds good Steve.

The hard disk upgrade will bring you different benefits compared to the graphics card, so it's difficult to quantify exactly which is 'better' - personal preference really. However for me, I would definitely go for the hard disk upgrade. Keep in mind though that the 7200rpm disks suck more power, so you'll see your battery life ultimately go down faster.

Like people have already mentioned, integrated graphics will tend to leech memory from RAM, which is why I mentioned it's important to get a machine with a high amount of primary storage to begin with. 2GB is preferred, so it's good you're going that route (especially if it's Vista you're running). However because most tasks in Photoshop don't require much memory addressing by the video card, you'll find you won't lose too much memory from RAM. That isn't to say it's not worthwhile to get discrete graphics anyhow. Even a cheapy Geforce 7400 or Radeon X1400 (or something like an 8400 if you're getting a new Santa Rosa laptop) can be good without breaking the bank. Could be useful for other things besides PS too, such as powering Vista's Aero.. if you're running Vista.

I find with my current laptop (2GHz Core 2 Duo, 2GB DDR2), RAM usage often jumps to around 80% - 90% during certain Photoshop jobs. My next laptop will likely have 4GB of RAM. Now even though 32-bit operating systems can theoretically support only 2GB of RAM for single applications, that still means an entire 2GB of RAM will be available to be allocated for PS alone, with the rest being available for other applications and just general Windows processes etc.

With a laptop, normally it is impossible to upgrade the graphics once you have the thing, whereas a hard disk upgrade, either for more storage and/or more speed is normally fairly easy if you have a few technical skills (and some disk/partition cloning software) to port over your old OS and data. You may also find that it is cheaper to buy the laptop with the 5,400 rpm drive and then buy a 7,200 rpm drive separately and install it yourself. That way you've saved money and got yourself a free spare HDD. All you need then is a cheap USB caddy and you've got yourself a nice portable data backup solution.

You may also find you're quite happy with 5,400 in any case and can save the cost of the upgrade altogether. FWIW my main laptop has a 2.16GHz Core 2 Duo processor, 2GB RAM, 120GB 5,400 rpm drive and a mental (and quite unecessary for my needs) nVidia 7950 GTX graphics card. A faster HDD might speed things up fractionally - perhaps 5-10 seconds off you boot time, or opening 100 thumbnails from 100 jpeg files or something, but once you're working on a single photo it will have little to no benefit, but will run hotter and suck more juice.

Ok gents, my conclusions after your words of wisdom:

HD - It looks like a 5400rpm HD with the intention of possibly upgrading it in the future (I've added extra HD's to my PC before so doesn't sound too scary).

Graphics card - if it has dedicated or is a cheap upgrade then great but I won't break the bank to get one.

OS - It will probably be Vista which I have never used before but I have a copy of XP Pro on CD so can always revert to that if Vista is pants.

RAM - 2GB, I don't really mind about the laptop dragging it's heels every now and then (collin85 your 80-90% usage), just want sufficient so that it isn't thinking things over for a few minutes before merging layers etc.

Processor - As said 2Ghz or better, biggest cache etc. possible for my budget.

I am also going to look for a 17" screen - size and battery life aren't concerns as 99% of the time it will be plugged in to the wall.

......and errrr, think that's it, off shopping tomorrow! Would prefer to be buying a lens though....

Thanks again for your help!


Steve

gfx card on laptop are graphx chips , you cant change it, its on board

Thanks Cr4zYH3aD, will bear that in mind.

On another note does anyone use Vista's 'Readyboost', uses a USB flash drive as extra RAM? Does it work or is it just a gimmick with no noticeable performance gain?

Thanks,
Steve

Cr4zYH3aD wrote in post #4289702
gfx card on laptop are graphx chips , you cant change it, its on board

Some laptops do have user upgradeable graphics, but it is usually on top line models, especially gaming specials and boutique exotics. Here is a more modest Dell E1705 (equivalent to the UK Inspiron 9400, I think), being dismantled to upgrade the graphics.

http://www.legitreview​s.com/article/349/1/

I was careful in my choice of words. Normally you cannot upgrade graphics, but in a few models you can. It is inaccurate to say that none can be upgraded.

The main reason for getting a dedicated graphics card is for processing power as opposed to memory. i.e. video games require huge rendering capabilities. Photoshop is all 2D so IMO, it would be better to spend more money on system memory than a graphics card. If you're going to play video games on your laptop, however, you definitely want to get to get a dedicated card.

That might seem to be the main reason for some gamers. But in the case of PS user its about the memory. Most NB are risked to 2GB of Memory so sharing this resource further compound the memory shortage. Because the OP already stated that he is getting 2GB memory I doubt that he can add more memory to the NB. Besides adding more then 2GB of memory might be very costly option at least more costl then adding a GFX card.