graphics card question

dogwood

For photography purposes only, is there any advantage to having two PCI Express x16 graphics cards on a motherboard? I currently have one-- but will it speed things up in photoshop to have two? The PCI Express cards can be 'daisy-chained' to work together. Is this mostly for gamers? Do photographers see any advantage?

I'm updating my current system (an AMD 2.4 processor with 2 gigs RAM) to an AMD 2.4 dual core processor and 2 more gigs of RAM (4 GB total) plus yet another HD. Should I throw in another PCI Express graphics card too? Does this need to be the same brand/model I currently have (a GeForce 6800... which appears to be discontinued at newegg anyway).

Anyone? My goal is to make CS3 run as fast as my pocketbook can afford at this point. I realize the dual-core processor probably won't speed CS3 up, but at least I can run multiple apps without bogging everything down.

Bendr

dogwood wrote:

Anyone? My goal is to make CS3 run as fast as my pocketbook can afford at this point. I realize the dual-core processor probably won't speed CS3 up, but at least I can run multiple apps without bogging everything down.

If i'm not mistaken, I could have sworn I read somewhere that CS3 is supposed to be multithreaded, which means that it would take advantage of a dual-core...

But, I could be totally wrong...

dogwood

Bendr wrote:

If i'm not mistaken, I could have sworn I read somewhere that CS3 is supposed to be multithreaded, which means that it would take advantage of a dual-core...

But, I could be totally wrong...

Well that's good. I'm definitely going dual-core for other reasons. So if CS3 can use it, that's fine with me!

Anyone know about the dual graphics cards? Does CS3 care about stuff like that?

LuckyBob

I havn't seen anywhere that Photoshop (including CS3) supports SLI (dual/quad video cards), but then again I havn't looked explicitly for it. I highly doubt it does, though, especially since dual video cards could theoretically introduce color inaccuracies.

dogwood

LuckyBob wrote:

I havn't seen anywhere that Photoshop (including CS3) supports SLI (dual/quad video cards), but then again I havn't looked explicitly for it. I highly doubt it does, though, especially since dual video cards could theoretically introduce color inaccuracies.

Thanks LuckyBob. That's my hunch too-- sounds like the dual cards are more for gamers. The RAM and dual-core processor sounds like the only upgrade I'll need to make right now, so that's cool.

ChrisJ

You're not going to gain anything by using two video cards. Photoshop isn't pushing the frame rate at all (it's usually only one static frame), which is the advantage SLI gives you.

dogwood

ChrisJ wrote:

You're not going to gain anything by using two video cards. Photoshop isn't pushing the frame rate at all (it's usually only one static frame), which is the advantage SLI gives you.

Thanks Chris!

flyingdutchie

dogwood wrote:

Thanks Chris!

For performance, a dual card (SLI) is only useful for gamers, to increase the frame-rate in games.

However, if you have 2 monitors and one monitor hooked up to each of the video-cards (instead of 2 monitors to 1 video-card), you may be able to calibrate both monitors independently.

dogwood

flyingdutchie wrote:

For performance, a dual card (SLI) is only useful for gamers, to increase the frame-rate in games.

However, if you have 2 monitors and one monitor hooked up to each of the video-cards (instead of 2 monitors to 1 video-card), you may be able to calibrate both monitors independently.

Yeah, good point. Though I can barely keep up with my post-production as it is-- maybe I need to be working on two images at once to speed things along?

I do have two monitors, but one is just for palettes, a second browser, music, etc. I'm sure one day we'll all have four or five monitors surrounding us as we work... or some giant projection type screen... until then, I think the single graphics card will be adequate. Thanks again for the replies!

kini62

Photoshop won't notice nor use the 2nd card. But what I would do instead of trying to find a 2nd old geforce card would be to get something like the 8600gt or gts or gtx or whatever they're calling it. Or some form of the ATI x1950- both in various configurations are $200 or less and both would be likey almost as fast as 2 of your cards in SLI. If you want to do vista gaming:D that is.

I think the nVidia (8600 cards) at directX10 ready too.

Gene

dogwood wrote:

For photography purposes only, is there any advantage to having two PCI Express x16 graphics cards on a motherboard? I currently have one-- but will it speed things up in photoshop to have two? The PCI Express cards can be 'daisy-chained' to work together. Is this mostly for gamers? Do photographers see any advantage?

I'm updating my current system (an AMD 2.4 processor with 2 gigs RAM) to an AMD 2.4 dual core processor and 2 more gigs of RAM (4 GB total) plus yet another HD. Should I throw in another PCI Express graphics card too? Does this need to be the same brand/model I currently have (a GeForce 6800... which appears to be discontinued at newegg anyway).

Anyone? My goal is to make CS3 run as fast as my pocketbook can afford at this point. I realize the dual-core processor probably won't speed CS3 up, but at least I can run multiple apps without bogging everything down.

claudermilk

kini62 wrote:

I think the nVidia (8600 cards) at directX10 ready too.

Gene

Yup, that's what they say on the Newegg spec sheets.