I just finished up building a Photoshop/Photography machine (no gaming) and I picked up a cheap GPU (Radeon 6570) to put in based on Adobe’s recommendations for some of the features unlocked/accelerated by the Mercury engine. I did quite a bit of research and it looked to me like a heavy case of diminishing returns when it comes to GPUs for Photoshop. I just wanted to be able to access all the features, I don’t care about increasing processing times a couple percent with a really expensive GPU. What I guess I didn’t research enough was that the Intel P4600 seems quite capable for my uses. It looks like all the new features are ‘unlocked’ and Liquify and Puppet Warp are faster and more fluid than I’ve ever experienced (using integrated graphics). Honestly I never use stuff like the Oil paint and wide angle filters which all the benchmarks seem to be based on. So I was curious if there’s any point at all to installing the Radeon or if I should just take it back.
I couldn’t find a direct benchmark comparison between the 6570 and P4600, but it seems like they should be at similar performance capabilities. But my question is: the Radeon has 2 gigs of memory, whereas the P4600 uses my RAM, correct? So theoretically using the discrete GPU would free up to 2 gigs of memory from my system, correct? I only paid $40 for it, so if there’s any gain at all to using the Radeon I’ll put it in, but if I’m not going to see any difference I figured I should KISS.
CPU: Intel Core i7-4770K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor ($279.00 @ Amazon)
CPU Cooler: Corsair H60 74.4 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler ($192.26 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: ASRock Z87E-ITX Mini ITX LGA1150 Motherboard ($129.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: Crucial Ballistix Sport 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($109.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Samsung 840 EVO 250GB 2.5" Solid State Disk ($174.00 @ Mac Mall)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Black 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($149.92 @ Amazon)
Video Card: XFX Radeon HD 6570 2GB Video Card ($59.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Cooler Master Elite 130 Mini ITX Tower Case ($41.99 @ Microcenter)
Power Supply: EVGA 600B 600W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($34.99 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: LG GH24NS95 DVD/CD Writer ($15.99 @ Microcenter)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) ($89.00 @ Amazon)
I couldn’t find a direct benchmark comparison between the 6570 and P4600, but it seems like they should be at similar performance capabilities. But my question is: the Radeon has 2 gigs of memory, whereas the P4600 uses my RAM, correct? So theoretically using the discrete GPU would free up to 2 gigs of memory from my system, correct? I only paid $40 for it, so if there’s any gain at all to using the Radeon I’ll put it in, but if I’m not going to see any difference I figured I should KISS.
CPU: Intel Core i7-4770K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor ($279.00 @ Amazon)
CPU Cooler: Corsair H60 74.4 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler ($192.26 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: ASRock Z87E-ITX Mini ITX LGA1150 Motherboard ($129.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: Crucial Ballistix Sport 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($109.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Samsung 840 EVO 250GB 2.5" Solid State Disk ($174.00 @ Mac Mall)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Black 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($149.92 @ Amazon)
Video Card: XFX Radeon HD 6570 2GB Video Card ($59.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Cooler Master Elite 130 Mini ITX Tower Case ($41.99 @ Microcenter)
Power Supply: EVGA 600B 600W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($34.99 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: LG GH24NS95 DVD/CD Writer ($15.99 @ Microcenter)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) ($89.00 @ Amazon)
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