Hardware question

JG
Posted By
John_Gellman
Oct 15, 2005
Views
249
Replies
4
Status
Closed
I have a 4 year old Dell laptop computer that is painfully slow processing images in Photoshop. I need to replace it to speed up workflow when traveling. I am more interested in speed and price than maximum portability, so I am considering a new Dell small footprint desktop (XPS 200). It’s not as small as a laptop, but should be faster with more bang for the buck. Should fit in a rolling Pelican case with a 17 inch flat monitor.

I’m looking at a configuration that would include a Pentium D Dual Core Processor 820 and 1 GIG of RAM. Can anyone suggest how much improvement I will see if I get 2 GIGs of RAM? 10%, 30% or what?

Also, I can either purchase a 128 MB video card, or save some money with an Integrated Intel Graphics Media Accelator 950. Would the integrated graphics slow performance? If so how much? This computer would be dedicated to Photoshop on the road, so I’m not concerned with games or videos.

Price for the XPS with 1 GIG or RAM, integrated graphics and flat 17 inch monitor is $1285. Can anyone suggest a laptop for under $2,000 that could even come close to the performance of the system I’ve described? I mean real world performance with large image files produced by 8MB and 12MB digital cameras. (Canon 1D MKII and 5D)

Thanks in advance to any gearheads out there who will share their thoughts.

John
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MD
Michael_D_Sullivan
Oct 15, 2005
Does the integrated graphics "card" have its own RAM, or will it be borrowing RAM from the motherboard’s supply? Unless you can confirm that it has its own RAM, you will have to assume that it will be using the system RAM. So this will (a) reduce the amount of RAM for everything else by at least 3*ScreenV*ScreenH bytes, and possibly a great deal more; (b) use relatively slow DRAM instead of faster VRAM for screen updates. I’d opt for a separate graphics card; integrated graphics are likely to slow performance.

I can’t give you a percentage increase in performance for going from 1G to 2G, but the difference should be very substantial — in all likelihood, higher than the percentages you ask about, especially if you are considering a dual-core processor, which should be able to use the RAM more effectively (just imagine, your email program won’t be hung while an image gets processed — but only if there’s enough RAM to accommodate both without paging). And the cost of RAM is relatively low. I’d go for the additional RAM if it’s within your budget. In fact, this would be a higher priority than the separate graphics card.

Have you checked out other suppliers?
Y
YrbkMgr
Oct 15, 2005
Let me add to Michael’s sage advice. Forever, I’d been running PS7 on Win98 with 512MB ram. No problems whatsoever. People would recommend more ram and I’d say "you’re nutz, hard disk space is more important because of the PS temp file".

Well, in XP, I was wrong. I have plenty of HD space and 512MB of ram. I absolutely MUST increase ram. It’s noticable. Sigh.
TM
T_Mike_Hyndman
Oct 15, 2005
Tony & John,

Win98 only needs 16MB ram plus, maybe 8MB per application, whereas WXP sulks if it is offered anything less than 128MB, even 256MB on occasion.

That’s probably the reason you are seeing the reduction in performance compared to your old W98 environment. If the PC has integrated graphics as well than you would be lucky to get it to run at all on 128MB. It’s not as simple as just doubling up the ram and expecting the performance to increase proportionatley either, the law of diminishing returns comes into play. You may see twice the inrease in going from 512MB to 1GB, but you wouldn’t see 4 times the increase in going from 512MB to 2GB. The amount of heating would increase proportionately however.

Another point for John to consider with all that power in such a small case is the amount of heat that would be generated. The neccessarily small cooling fan(s)( to fit into such a small case)would have to pretty efficient to cope with the increase in heating.

HTH
TMH
Y
YrbkMgr
Oct 15, 2005
You may see twice the inrease in going from 512MB to 1GB, but you wouldn’t see 4 times the increase in going from 512MB to 2GB.

True, but an increase nonetheless.

he neccessarily small cooling fan(s)( to fit into such a small case)would have to pretty efficient to cope with the increase in heating.

That’s more of a longevity concern untless it’s using a "Speed Step" technology, no?

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