Best Budget Graphics card for photoshop cs6?

[Fateen4563]

Hi i am planning to upgrade my graphics card but but havefew problem. I have a ordinary 500w psu that usually cost $15 or £10 which is pretty crap i know but i have enough money to buy some new components so my options are the following:

Asus Radeon HD 7770 DirectCU plus a 6pin adapter -for £98
Asus AMD Radeon HD 6670 and corsair 430w psu- for £93

i do no gaming at all but do quite alot of photo editing in photoshop cs6 but when i'm handling a big file around 600mb or a full hd pic it starts to lag which is soooo annoying so can you please help me out on what i should get or give any other ideas in a budget of £100 which will be good for photoshop cs6.

my current set up is:
asus mlx-v2 mobo
amd athlon x2 3.00ghz
amd 5450
4gb vengeance and 2gb of 1333mhz ram
ocz 60gb agility 3 ssd
wd 160gb hdd 7200 rpm
Toshiba 400gb 5400rpm hdd

 

[TheGreatHoylando]

The HD 7770 is probably the best budget card out there. For me it beats the HD 6670 on performance and the support it will have for newer games as well as your Photoshop, in the future. I'd go with the HD 7770

Regards,
Dan.

 

[dannoddd]

That's probably not related to your graphics card. That's related to your CPU/RAM/Storage.

The GPU related features in PS6 are at this link,
http://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/kb/photoshop-cs6-gpu-faq.html

As far as opening and moving around, etc. that's a bottleneck of your system overall. To reduce that you need to increase system throughput overall by upgrading your CPU, adding more RAM, or swapping out an HDD to an SSD.

Since you aren't a gamer, buying a gaming graphics card that isn't going accelerate your Photoshop will just frustrate you.

Based on your specs, the CPU is your weakest link. If you give us the exact model of your board we can search to find the best CPU to go in there. A dual core Athlon X2 is pretty bad news.

You might want to make sure that your scratch disk isn't going to the 5400RPM drive as well.

 

[daswilhelm]

yep, a GPU isn't going to do anything for you, considering they are meant for gaming. it's the aging cpu thats holding you back. sounds like your ram is recent, so maybe just a mb/cpu swap is your best bet.

 

[ronintexas]

I use Photoshop CS6 on a core i7 3770k, 16GB RAM, using the integrated Intel 4000 graphics - works unbelievably fast. A file that large, I would recommend at least a quad core processor, with 8-16GB RAM - unless you are doing 3D rendering or some of the more advanced filters, CPU/RAM upgrades will give you more performance.

Opening a 600MB photoshop file takes a few seconds, most filters are almost instant in loading. The only slow downs I have encountered is with the 3D rendering and a couple of filters - and compared to CS4 on a dual-core Pentium with 4GB, with decent video card (I do not recall the model - it was a Radeon that cost about $150 a few years back), it would take 30-60 seconds for most filters/loading files, new rig 1-2 seconds....

 

[Fateen4563]

WOW thanks you everyone for the advice so what i did was i went ahead and bought this cpu :AMD Phenom II X4 965 which is unlocked so i can overclock as i've seen on youtube secondly someone mentioned about ram i am planning to get another corsair vengence 4gb 1800mhz blue which will max out my system ram which is a total of 8gb would that be a good idea also could you let me know if i should change the graphics card as i currently have a amd 5450 1gb ggdr3.

 

[TheGreatHoylando]

The AMD HD 5450 should handle your Photoshop perfectly as long as your not hardcore gaming, it's more down to your CPU, which sounds fine My apologies for my previous post, I though you were gaming aswell, that's why I recommended the HD 7770, but for Photoshop it'll be fine and so will your CPU, good luck!

Regards,
Dan.

 

[ronintexas]

The only limitations I have with the Intel 4000 graphics is 3D rendering is slower than using a GPU, and a couple of the advanced filters are slow - or can't be used because of my graphics card.

Your GPU will have similar performance. So the question - will you be doing a lot of advanced filtering and/or 3D rendering? If no, keep your current card. I would give it a shot with your GPU, and if it isn't performing to your standards, upgrade it.

A good GPU for 3D rendering will probably cost around $200-$300 (US) - and it might not be needed for your application....

 

[Fateen4563]

no i dont do use that much of advanced filters but do use 3d rendering a little and it does lag but when i normally use magicbullet if you've heard of it my pc just freaking lags and just crashes and then freezes for a good 3 mins then starts working however when i am doing light photoediting it doesn't so what do you think i should do but if i upgrade my graphics my budget is quite low i was thinking would a asus 6670 would do?

 

[ronintexas]

I would put the horsepower into cpu/mobo/RAM, and then see what your use is. If you aren't using the advanced filters and 3d rendering much, you will be a lot happier without upgrading the GPU.

There are only a few filters I can't use, and to date, only wanted to use one of them. I use the 3d rendering so little, I don't mind it being a bit slow...

The thing about gaming and/or 3d rendering of objects, the basic cards are either non-functional or very slow, let's say 120 seconds to render an object. The mid-priced cards like the asus 6670 will do it faster, maybe 30-45 seconds (3-4X speed), but the cards that are like the Radeon HD 7870 will provide you rendering in 10 seconds (12X faster than current, 3-4X faster than the mid-range card).

Those times are fictitious, but it illustrates what I mean. You can spend $1,000+ on a video card that renders in 1-2 seconds, but is that horsepower needed?

It comes down to what you are using CS6 for, and how often you use it. A professional that specializes in 3d rendering would be better suited to invest in the ultra-high end card, while I have decided that since I don't use it often, I can wait for the rendering to complete.

 

[daswilhelm]

no i dont do use that much of advanced filters but do use 3d rendering a little and it does lag but when i normally use magicbullet if you've heard of it my pc just freaking lags and just crashes and then freezes for a good 3 mins then starts working however when i am doing light photoediting it doesn't so what do you think i should do but if i upgrade my graphics my budget is quite low i was thinking would a asus 6670 would do?

a 6670 over what you have now, isnt going to make a lick of difference, as stated earlier, you need to invest your money in updating your cpu.

 

[CustomPosters]

Adobe CS6, NVidia K2000 or higher video, NVidia K20 or K20x (2 if possible), 20 gig ram up to 512 gig, 2 Intel quad processors, three hard drives (1 operating system and Photoshop, drive2 saved files, drive 3 Solis State 128 gig photoshop scratch disc, all running on a HP Z820 workstation, press the enter button and you are done before your hand returns to it origal state.

Adobe CS 6 takes advantage of all the newest hardware. Computer 4000, Additional GPU's 3000 each, 254 gb 40000, but its only money.

 

[clutchc]

Edit: Please delete this. Accidentally placed this in the wrong post.