ATI 4670 1GB vs. ATI 4850 1GB

CS
Posted By
Chris_Schwarz
Jan 11, 2009
Views
375
Replies
2
Status
Closed
I’m upgrading my system for Photoshop CS4 on Windows Vista x64. I’m down to the video card. I don’t play any games – this is only for CS4. Would I notice a performance difference between these two cards? The price doesn’t bug me, but the ATI 4850 does suck down a lot more power.

Thanks,
Chris
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B
bmoag
Jan 11, 2009
If you do not play games try to find a video card that is either entirely bus powered or requires only one additional external power connector. I run CS4 with both types of cards (a dual power connector ATI 4970 and and older Nvidia 8600 one power connector).
Both are overkill for use with Photoshop of any ilk.
Running 3-d games is an entirely different matter.
Ignoring the essentially useless GUI functions in CS4 the only requirements for a video card is that it has enough RAM and power to run your LCD at its native resolution.
For most of us that means any video card with 64mbs or more ram (the actual minimum ram is even less) will run most of the LCD panels in use by the vast majority of users.
Even motherboard based video is more than adequate for any but the largest, highest resolution panels.
Realize that color/tonal fidelity has nothing/nada/zip to do with the electronics of the video card and is entirely dependent on your monitor (which for most of is a dithered 6 bit device, which brings up all the nonsense about 16 bit color processing in Photoshop, but I digress).
JT
John_T_Smith
Jan 12, 2009
Without having either, or having read reviews of either, I would say that your FIRST concern should be availability of a Vista64 device driver for either/both of the cards

If there is not a 64bit driver for either/both, you should look elsewhere

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