New Gonfig - GTX 550 or GTX 560 for $125 more.

I am not exactly a hardware knowledgeable guy, but I am about ready to buy a new computer from Puget.

Salient specs so far:

Core i7 2600k
16 Gig RAM - DDR 1333
120 Gig Intel 510 SSD + 1.5 Tb Western Digital Green
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 550 Ti

So, the question is they have a GeForce GTX 560 for $125 more.

Here is a link to Hardware Compare:

http://www.hwcompare.c​om …ti-vs-geforce-gtx-560-ti/

Which shows the 560 is clearly a faster card on many specs. The problem is, I don't know what these specs tell a photoshop user. If anyone can help decode this info in the context of photoshop, I would appreciate it.

Also, an idea could be to cut back on the RAM, 8 instead of 16, which would save $109. Almost the cost difference between the cards. Would the processing speed increase via the faster GPU make of for the difference in dropping the ram to 8?

FWIW, I shoot with a 5dMkII, so these are fairly large files, multiple layers, and, at times, reres the images to print as large as 24"x36" at 600 dpi (14400 x 21600 pixels)

Thanks for the advice.

Rad

stick with the 550, you will not see a difference in photo editing betwen the cards. yes in benchmarks and in gaming.

8GB is plenty. 16GB if you have multiple high ram using applications open at the same time.

Use the saved money for an SSD.

8GB would work, but I would keep the RAM at 16GB. I multi task a lot so RAM is as important if not more so than a faster CPU.

Yip, no need for the higher end card unless you also plan on doing some serious gaming.

As for the RAM, it's up to you, but I need to have LR, Chrome, Winamp, 1 or 2 other programs open, and BE processing a large panorama before I use all of my 8GB and start hitting the HDD cache.
Thats working with 5D2 RAW files.

I work on 12MP D700 RAW files in Bridge, dozens of files at a time, with firefox and thunderbird open, quite happily on 4GB RAM. I sometimes have Photoshop doing 6 images panoramas in the background while I work in Bridge and it works fine, all on my Core2Quad.

If I bought a new computer i'm not sure if i'd go 8GB or 16GB RAM. The big advantage of more ram is that it caches files from the disk in there. If you reuse the same files over and over it probably helps more than if you keep using new files, but maybe there's some read ahead capability in there.

Haven't had a chance to review your old posts- are you doing video? More specifically, using Premiere Pro?

borealis wrote in post #13103552
Haven't had a chance to review your old posts- are you doing video? More specifically, using Premiere Pro?

No video at all - just photoshop.

I would say go with the 550 if you are sure you won't be doing video editing or (serious) gaming.

As for RAM: 8GB is okay but you can't have too much and getting 16GB now will ensure you don't have to try and match chips later if you want to upgrade. It's hard to spend a better way to spend $109 on delaying obsolescence (and keeping the old blood pressure low).

(Very Geeky and Probably Unneccessary Caveat: The advice to get 16GB now does not apply if you plan to upgrade to 32GB when 8GB non-ECC DDR2 DIMMs are reasonably priced. If that's the case, just get 8GB now to minimize the pain at upgrade time. But I'm not getting the impression from your original post you'd be that interested...)

OK, so it sounds like most everyone is saying that the RAM issue is more of preference, that it might help, but wont hurt.

As to the video card, it seems clear that the 550 will be just fine for PS, and that the 560 will just be a waste of money best spent elsewhere.

Is that about it?

Anyone else want to chime in?

Rad

Just a comment about RAM.

In this thread https://photography-on-the.net …/showthread.php​?t=1091436 someone mentioned that people have reported "stability problems using 12 Gigs of ram", or words to that effect.

This type of "stability issue" can sometimes be (is often?) the result of upgrading RAM after the fact with mismatched or incompatible DIMMs: even the same brand/type from different batches may cause issues, though it's not terribly likely.

Moral of the story: get lots of RAM right at the start, it can save lots of hassles in the future.