I am an artists and recently started woring with photography on my computer. I am a novice user of Photoshop CS2 and I’m looking to purchase a new PC computer that would make it easier to work with large graphic files. I need advice regarding system requirements. Currently I am frustrated by the slowness of my machine. How much GHZ is ncessary, what kind of video card, etc.
Go to the photoshop specifications page from Adobe’s web site and adhere to those specs except for RAM. Get 2 gig and as much hard drive as you can buy. No such thing as too much of those, and less than 1 gig of ram will choke you.
Other than that, if you’re buying a new machine, buy one level down from the fastest processor. I, myself, run on a 3.2 GHz; it can be run on slower machines to be sure, but trust me on the ram and HD.
Hard drives are cheap. WD Caviar SE 320GB SATA 16MB cache is less than a hundred bucks if you buy the OEM version at newegg.com. (The OEM version lacks the totally unnecessary driver/utility disks, which are on the wdc.com website, and lacks rails and cables. For the roughly $50 difference between OEM and retail versions, you can buy all the cables and rails you want and pocket a lot of cash. Go to the website to get instructions, if you need ’em.
As to processor, if your computer has been bought or built in the last four (or more) years, it can run CS2. If it’s a new computer, even if not cutting-edge, it will run it very well. I’ve used CS2 on a 2001 vintage Pentium 3-733MHz with 512-768MB RAM and have now transitioned to a box I built with an AMD Athlon 64X2-6400+ with 4GB RAM. CS2 worked perfectly well on the old box, but it was understandably slow. Now, it screams.
Bottom line: Buy a computer that has at least 1MB of RAM and at least two hard disk drives. Get a processor that is at least in the middle, performance-wise, between the "value" systems and the "power user" systems that your vendor is offering. One thing you don’t need to spend a lot on is the video or graphics card; this is very important to gamers, but not to photographers.
My company is looking into getting me a new computer, but like most everyone, we are on a budget. Also, I’m also not the most technology savvy person there is. 🙂 If money is an issue, what would you rate to be the most important upgrades: – a second processor (for instance, 2 dual processors)? – graphics card (upgrade to 126-512 MB?) – memory upgrade (past 2 GB)? – Multiple Hard drives?
I work on photoshop, indesign and illustrator on a regular basis. We don’t have a specific brand of computer we’re looking at quite yet…still shopping around.
I have a feeling just a feeling mind you that Photoshop CS3 is going to need a bit more graphics power (than the currently adequate 128MB) for some of the new features.
I’ve been testing Vista here on a P4 2.66 Ghz (no HT) with one gig of RAM. I’ve got CS2 installed and while I haven’t done any scientific studies it seems to run better than it did when I had XP on it.
And while some people aren’t overly crazy about the new inteface, I like it a lot. Of course, some folks just hate change. <g>
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