Graphics card and photo editing?

Simple question, how important is the graphics card to programs like Lightroom, Nik plug-ins, and photoshop elements?

I'm looking to replace my 7year old MacBook with either a Mac mini (and a nice ISP monitor) or a refurbished 27" iMac. Both have pros and cons but the difference between them that's driving me nuts is the graphics card and whether or not the graphics card is even important!

The mini uses the built in Intel hd4000. The iMac uses a nvidia GTX660m with 512MB memory. Right now I use aperture (with the new machine I plan on switching to Lightroom), Nik, and PSE 12 and my MacBook (with a much older intel graphics card) shows its age!

Does the graphic card even matter photo editing programs? From the research I've done it seems like it matters very little but I just want to be sure before I make the leap on either machine.

I'll put it this way. Between the home and office, I have a late-2006 iMac (24 inch); a 2007 and 2011 Mac Mini; and a 2009 and 2012 i7/i5 self-built desktop PC. Between my own testing and benching, I figure I've had about 6 different vid cards in the two desktops, ranging from the cheap $50 variety all the way up to a $400 card I have in the 2012 right now.

Bottom line for me: of all the things that factor into a computer's total performance, I'd probably rank the vid card *last* in terms of importance if we're talking photo editing. Now, with video editing, that's a different story. But I can bounce between all of these computers, and as long as they are properly configured the noticeable differences all relate to other hardware. I've swapped out my $400 card with a 4-year old $50 card in m older i7 box, and honestly I can't tell a bit of difference when running LR4 and PS. And I jump on my old 2006 iMac (which has been rebuilt and now serves as a home computer for the wife) all the time, and the biggest differences I notice are related to the monitor, not the graphics card.

As BeritOlam said you won't see much difference. I know for a fact that Lightroom does not utilize a GPU for any acceleration.

For elements and the nik plug-ins you would have to do some reasearch. Elements I can't find anything that says it does support GPU acceleration and NIK plug-ins list GPUs that are compatible but I don't know how its affected or how much improvement you will see.

Unless you consistently use something that supports GPU acceleration I doubt it would show much improvement. Most of those programs rely mostly on CPU and disk speed for performance.

I was wondering the same thing as I'm looking for a new monitor. I read in a few other posts stating to "make sure your graphics card will support your new monitor". Can someone explain what is meant by this as my PC is going on 5 years old and I don't want the graphics card to limit a new monitors performance.
Thank you.

Quack Me Up wrote in post #16682336
I was wondering the same thing as I'm looking for a new monitor. I read in a few other posts stating to "make sure your graphics card will support your new monitor". Can someone explain what is meant by this as my PC is going on 5 years old and I don't want the graphics card to limit a new monitors performance.
Thank you.

Two questions you'd want to answer: (a) Do you know what graphics card you have? [It should be either a GDDR2 or GDDR3.] (b) What 'new monitor' are we talking?

For example, if you're looking at something like one of these new Dell 28'' LED screens that max out at 3840x2160 resolution, you'd want to find out if your vid card can handle anything of the sort. Not sure anything back in the days of DDR2 could push that, and I'm not even sure many DDR3's cards could do it either. You could run into some compatatbility issues with that. But if it's just a simple 22-24 inch IPS running at 1920x1080, then I think you'll probably be fine with whatever you have. In between those 'extremes', some 24-27 inch monitors will run at 2560x1440 -- I just checked, and the 2 remaining DDR3 cards I have laying around will support up to that resolution.

SO....as long as your card and monitor resolution match up, the age of the card shouldn't really be an issue.

gremlin75 wrote in post #16678821
Simple question, how important is the graphics card to programs like Lightroom, Nik plug-ins, and photoshop elements?

Some of the Nik software is gpu-accellerated, as are Aperture and Pixelmator. But virtually nothing else is. So, for those, the gpu is a plus.

iMac won't reach sRGB gamut. Mini will if you have a display capable of it. (Or you can add a display to the iMac that can get sRGB.)

I use Aperture and the Nik suite and the HD4000 is plenty for those. I get real-time raw processing with my 5Dii files (23 mb) and Sigma Merrill (52 mb).

The 4000k series, onboard graphics processor on the latest i5/i7 processors is more than powerful enough to do editing on a Dell U3011 @ 2560 x 1600.

Hard drive speed and memory/bus speed are going to be much more critical than your graphics processor.

BeritOlam wrote in post #16686842
Two questions you'd want to answer: (a) Do you know what graphics card you have? [It should be either a GDDR2 or GDDR3.] (b) What 'new monitor' are we talking?

For example, if you're looking at something like one of these new Dell 28'' LED screens that max out at 3840x2160 resolution, you'd want to find out if your vid card can handle anything of the sort. Not sure anything back in the days of DDR2 could push that, and I'm not even sure many DDR3's cards could do it either. You could run into some compatatbility issues with that. But if it's just a simple 22-24 inch IPS running at 1920x1080, then I think you'll probably be fine with whatever you have. In between those 'extremes', some 24-27 inch monitors will run at 2560x1440 -- I just checked, and the 2 remaining DDR3 cards I have laying around will support up to that resolution.

SO....as long as your card and monitor resolution match up, the age of the card shouldn't really be an issue.

My Dell PC has a ATI Radeon HD 3200 card according to the build sheet. One monitor I'm looking at is the Asus PA249Q which is 24"
Thanks.

gremlin75 wrote in post #16678821
Simple question, how important is the graphics card to programs like Lightroom, Nik plug-ins, and photoshop elements?

I'm looking to replace my 7year old MacBook with either a Mac mini (and a nice ISP monitor) or a refurbished 27" iMac. Both have pros and cons but the difference between them that's driving me nuts is the graphics card and whether or not the graphics card is even important!

The mini uses the built in Intel hd4000. The iMac uses a nvidia GTX660m with 512MB memory. Right now I use aperture (with the new machine I plan on switching to Lightroom), Nik, and PSE 12 and my MacBook (with a much older intel graphics card) shows its age!

Does the graphic card even matter photo editing programs? From the research I've done it seems like it matters very little but I just want to be sure before I make the leap on either machine.

Heya,

For raw image editing, not video, there's really not a ton of GPU powered stuff going on yet. They still rely on the CPU for the work horse. Get the CPU with the most cores, clocked in at the highest speeds in your budget range. It's too bad you're limited to macs, an 8 core bulldozer would be a great way to go.

Very best,

gremlin75 wrote in post #16678821
Simple question, how important is the graphics card to programs like Lightroom, Nik plug-ins, and photoshop elements?

I'm looking to replace my 7year old MacBook with either a Mac mini (and a nice ISP monitor) or a refurbished 27" iMac. Both have pros and cons but the difference between them that's driving me nuts is the graphics card and whether or not the graphics card is even important!

The mini uses the built in Intel hd4000. The iMac uses a nvidia GTX660m with 512MB memory. Right now I use aperture (with the new machine I plan on switching to Lightroom), Nik, and PSE 12 and my MacBook (with a much older intel graphics card) shows its age!

Does the graphic card even matter photo editing programs? From the research I've done it seems like it matters very little but I just want to be sure before I make the leap on either machine.

Spend your money on a calibration device.

BeritOlam wrote in post #16686842
Two questions you'd want to answer: (a) Do you know what graphics card you have? [It should be either a GDDR2 or GDDR3.] (b) What 'new monitor' are we talking?

For example, if you're looking at something like one of these new Dell 28'' LED screens that max out at 3840x2160 resolution, you'd want to find out if your vid card can handle anything of the sort. Not sure anything back in the days of DDR2 could push that, and I'm not even sure many DDR3's cards could do it either. You could run into some compatatbility issues with that. But if it's just a simple 22-24 inch IPS running at 1920x1080, then I think you'll probably be fine with whatever you have. In between those 'extremes', some 24-27 inch monitors will run at 2560x1440 -- I just checked, and the 2 remaining DDR3 cards I have laying around will support up to that resolution.

DDR2 and DDR3 are merely different memory speeds/types, and largely have no bearing on the resolution support of the video card. The DDR3 memory is much faster, and will support higher throughput. We had video cards that supported 3800*2400 on the IBM T221 monitor over a decade ago, before even DDR2 was commonplace.

You can easily get video cards manufactured with DDR2 memory that will easily handle anything that Photoshop throws at it.

Video cards are relatively inexpensive anyway. Your monitor will be significantly more expensive. If you're doing a considerable amount of image editing, consider stepping up to a WQHD display, like the ViewSonic VP2770-LED. The extra resolution amounts to an almost 80% increase in desktop area.

Given enough time, LR, PS and other apps will likely begin to use the GPU in a meaningful manner. How much time that will be is anyone's guess. CUDA and OCL have been out for many years, and there still aren't more than a small handful of PS filters that make use of them.

Get a machine that will let you upgrade in 3 or 4 years, just in case Adobe pulls their finger out with a properly GPU accelerated future release. Until then, any old cheapo graphics card will be as good as the next.

Well coming back to my own thread with this one bit of info. The Nik Collection does use the GPU for "gnu acceleration" and they list the compatible gpu's. No compatible gnu though and it does just used the cpu.

From the Nik site

gremlin75 wrote in post #16725702
Well coming back to my own thread with this one bit of info. The Nik Collection does use the GPU for "gnu acceleration" and they list the compatible gpu's. No compatible gnu though and it does just used the cpu.

From the Nik site

Well, add to that the fact that Photoshop/Bridge CS6 and CC do have some GPU support, and as noted, some plugins also have GPU support, and that the list will continue growing.

Here's the list, from Adobe.

GPU-enhanced features added in Photoshop CS6

Adaptive Wide Angle Filter (compatible video card required)
Liquify (accelerated with compatible video card with 512 MB of VRAM)
Oil Paint (compatible video card required)
Warp and Puppet Warp (accelerated with compatible video card)
Field Blur, Iris Blur, and Tilt/Shift (accelerated with compatible video card supporting OpenCL)
Lighting Effects Gallery (compatible video card required with 512 MB
of VRAM)
New 3D enhancements (3D features in Photoshop require a compatible video card with 512 MB of VRAM):
Draggable Shadows
Ground plane reflections
Roughness
On-canvas user interface controls
Ground plane
Light widgets on edge of canvas
IBL (image-based light) controller


GPU features added in previous versions Photoshop

Scrubby Zoom. See Zoom continuously in Photoshop CS5 Help.
Heads Up Display (HUD) color picker. See Choose a color while painting in Photoshop CS5 Help.
Color sampling ring. See Choose colors with the Eyedropper tool in Photoshop CS5 Help.
Brush dynamic resize and hardness control. See Resize or change hardness of cursors by dragging in Photoshop CS5 Help.
Bristle Brush tip previews. See Bristle tip shape options in Photoshop CS5 Help.
Rule of thirds crop grid overlay. See Crop images in Photoshop CS5 Help.
Zoom enhancements. Smooth display at all zoom levels and temporary zoom. See Zoom continuously and Temporarily zoom an image.
Animated transitions for one-stop zoom. Press Ctrl+Plus Sign (Windows) or Command+Plus Sign to zoom, and the image animates slightly between zoom levels. The zoom can be subtle.
Flick-panning. Choose Edit > Preferences (Windows) or Photoshop > Preferences (Mac OS). In the General panel, select Enable Flick Panning. Then, select the Hand tool and click-flick the image, like a flick gesture on an iPhone. The image glides smoothly to the new position.
Rotate the canvas. See Use the Rotate View tool in Photoshop CS5 Help.
View nonsquare pixel images. See Adjust pixel aspect ratio in Photoshop CS5 Help.
Pixel grid. A pixel grid appears when zooming in more than 500% on an image. See Hide the pixel grid in Photoshop CS5 Help.
Adobe Color Engine (ACE). Color conversions are faster because the GPU handles the processing instead of the CPU.
Draw Brush tip cursors. Choose Edit > Preferences (Windows) or Photoshop > Preferences (Mac OS). In the Cursors panel, choose a Brush Preview color. Then, when you interactively adjust the size or hardness of the Brush tool, the preview color displays the change in real time.  See Resize or change hardness of cursors by dragging in Photoshop CS6 Help.


Adobe Bridge GPU features

Preview panel
Full-screen preview
Review mode

I have the same question as OP. Has anything changed over the last couple years? I'm referring more specifically to the importance of graphics cards regarding the latest versions of PS CC and LR CC. I use Nik Software as well. Thanks!