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New CPU in a laptop?
InsuredDisaster
Registered Users Posts: 1,132 Major grins
I have a 2 year old Dell XPS M1530. It came from the factory with 2GBRAM, 150GB HD, a Dual Core CPU running at 1.66Ghz.
I've got CS4, and will be leaving the country. I'm wondering how much of a difference a new CPU will make?
I ran a task using the old specs and CS4, and it took a hair over 13 minutes, I upgraded the RAM to 4GB (only 3.5 shows up on my Vista, ok by me) and the job took just under 10 minutes.
Will I be able to shave off more time by installing a T9300 Dual Core CPU, running at 2.5 Ghz?
I'm also installing a new 320GBHD, so I'll be able to set up a scratch disk and all of that stuff.
I know that everyone says, upgrade RAM. Well I maxed that out. Is it worth doing the CPU? A new laptop is outof the question right now.
Oh, FYI, the task I ran was to pull up 6 photos in LR2, and merge them to HDR in Photoshop, hit ok, and hit save. The photos were saved on an external hard drive, which I know isn't optimal, but considering that my internal HD is 50% full, and thats after deleting or moving anything I could find. I'll be reinstalling the OS with a new HD, and will be able to store a few photos onboard in the future.
I've got CS4, and will be leaving the country. I'm wondering how much of a difference a new CPU will make?
I ran a task using the old specs and CS4, and it took a hair over 13 minutes, I upgraded the RAM to 4GB (only 3.5 shows up on my Vista, ok by me) and the job took just under 10 minutes.
Will I be able to shave off more time by installing a T9300 Dual Core CPU, running at 2.5 Ghz?
I'm also installing a new 320GBHD, so I'll be able to set up a scratch disk and all of that stuff.
I know that everyone says, upgrade RAM. Well I maxed that out. Is it worth doing the CPU? A new laptop is outof the question right now.
Oh, FYI, the task I ran was to pull up 6 photos in LR2, and merge them to HDR in Photoshop, hit ok, and hit save. The photos were saved on an external hard drive, which I know isn't optimal, but considering that my internal HD is 50% full, and thats after deleting or moving anything I could find. I'll be reinstalling the OS with a new HD, and will be able to store a few photos onboard in the future.
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I would save up for a new machine instead. You have already done the cheap upgrade with memory. Beyond that, you tend to get diminishing returns--a faster CPU will help some, but then you'll find a bottleneck with memory or system bus speed. You might want to consider moving to a 64-bit OS so you can take advantage of the full 4GB.
Yeah, maybe when Windows 7 will come out.
See, I thought I read somewhere that there will be a new USB3 coming out, and if this release is imminent (like definately in the next 12 months) then I'd rather just wait until after it comes out.
My goal is to stretch this laptop another 2 years, or until it falls apart.
The first USB 3 implementations are expected in 2010. As with everything else technology related, I would avoid the first implementations, as the second round will probably work better. So another two years would be perfect if you can swing it.
Thanks. I'll do that I think. I hear its supposed to be pretty fast, and I can live with my laptop for another year or 2.
THe previously mentioned task took less than 5 minutes.
Its of course questionable which made more a difference: The fresh install on a faster HD with a scratch disk set up, or the CPU.
But I'd say my PC is now litterally twice as fast (in one bench mark at least) so I'm pretty happy.
Theoretically one can swap a Core Duo with Core 2 Duo as Core 2 is backward compatible and uses same connectors, but it is likely there will be some more significant impacts from the bridges on the motherboard.
Oh sorry, I started with Core 2 Duo, and just got a bigger, faster one.
The improved time is likely do to the fresh install and the faster CPU.
* Off topic: I noticed yesterday that Best Buy has a 7200RPM notebook hard drive (320GB, I think) for $109. That seemed like a deal to me.
InsuredDisaster's post stated that he upgraded to a faster drive. You're correct that creating a separate logical drive on the same physical drive offers no benefit at all, though the fresh install may have resulted in contiguous swap space, which is a good thing. I recently replaced my C: drive with a 7200 RPM model (the old 5400 RPM died) but I can't say that I have noticed any performance improvement in CS3. It did improve my backup time just a bit, as the external drive is also 7200.
Doh, I'd missed that but see it now!
Seperate than install? See, the photos come off of an external disc, but photoshop is installed on the internal HD. So if PS must be on a seperate disc, than no, I haven't got the best scrach disk. But if photos and scratch disk must be on seperate drives, then I've got that covered.
Unless your external disk is connected by an eSATA interface, you will get better performance if your photos are loaded and stored from the internal drive. Keep in mind we're talking about a difference of milliseconds here, so if it's more convenient for the workflow to have them on the external drive, then don't worry about it. The single most important thing you can do to optimize PS performance is have enough RAM available that you rarely hit the swap file. Everything else is just icing on the cake.