Will a better graphics card improve photoshop performance?

I am very close to buying the Lenovo T61 and I have one specific question:
Will a better graphics/video card improve the computers ability to run Photoshop CS2 or CS3?
I am a photographer and the running of that program is the most important thing to me in a notebook.

 

hmm..did u hear anything about nvidia quadros (i think that was an old name)? check out the nv line (sorry if i'm confusing some stuff)

 

Yes and no...yes, it will help slightly in that it will render the screen more quickly when you are doing heavy zooming in and out, but the improvement is negligable.

More memory and a faster harddrive is far more important when aiming for improved photoshop performance.

 

thanks gerry, that seems like the answer I am looking for. I didn't think it was worth it to spend an extra $150 or so when I'm wont be playing games.

 

CPU is pretty important aswell me thinks

 

Yes it is, but the margin of difference between typical CPUs found in laptops is not much.

When buying a laptop your basically getting one of a handful of CPUs and the performance gain is not that great between them -- you are paying for bragging rights more than anything else.

For example, a core2duo 7300 vs a 7500 will result in almost no difference to the typical user (though a bechmark might show a gain).

That said, you may notice a difference between a cpu with a 2mb cache on board, vs. one with a 4mb cache, so it was good of you to point this out--but even that difference is not as great as some people would have you believe.

 

To quickly answer your question, Photoshop speed is 99% cpu/memory and a little bit of hard drive, although the difference between a 5400rpm and a 7200rpm is benchmarked to be negligible.

In regards to which CPU for Photoshop work, CPUs within the same "series" with the same FSB speeds.. you're looking at split second differences in real, applicable processing time on images. If it took you 2.5 seconds to apply a filter with a T7300, a T7500 might apply the same filter in 2.3 seconds. Of course, "worth" is relative to your bank account but for most people, it's usually not worth more any more than maybe fifty bucks to upgrade the processor. You'd probably notice the cpu difference if you did any sustained processing over long periods of time such as video encoding, 3d rendering, etc. The real, applicable difference in processing times between a 2MB cache and a 4MB cache chip are split seconds as well. Sometimes you can hop up to the 4MB cache CPU for less than $50, which, for me... is worth it.

The GPU only kicks in when you're doing real time quick rendering such as in 3D modeling in the viewscreen while you're working on it. When you go to actually render the animation or stills, that's CPU/memory power. Most of the time it's bottlenecked by the memory's speed anyway.

Personally, I'm a professional graphic designer that works in CS2 all day. I typically go for the cheapest CPU in the series and upgrade to the cheapest 4MB chip if it's less than $50 more than the cheapest chip. For instance, I'll pay a little extra for the 800MHz FSB of a santa rosa chip, but I will try to go for the cheapest 800MHz FSB chip. Currently, that's usually the 1.6GHz processor. Sometimes the 1.8GHz w/ 4MB cache is only $50 more, in which case I'd go with that. If it's $100 or $200 more to get that 4MB cache, no thanks. There's usually a steep curve in the steps up in processor. $50 to get into the 1.8GHz 4MB or $150-200 to get up to 2.0GHz 4MB. The first step up would be worth it, to me... the second would not.

 

hey guys, to make things clear, what are the nvs models made for?

 

3D modeling, CAD, MAYA...

 

i say 2gb of ram will definitely improve performance of photoshop and try to get a CAD video card ie. Quadro or FireGL

 

Photoshop CS3 has an option for enabling 3D acceleration. Does anybody know what that does?

 

Photoshop CS3 (extended only) can open typical 3D model files and so you can see realtime updates for when you're texturing a model, if you still just do standard GFX design it doesn't do anything. If you want faster PS then increase the % of RAM used =)

 

If You will have Vista, buy the config (or add later) with as much RAM as possible. That will improve Your Photoshop performance. For 32bit Vista 3GB is max (You can have 2x2GB but it wont see it) For 64bit version You can go as high as Your Motherboard supports - I guess 2x2GB all visible and useble in system.

 

Well everyone has said pretty much what I was going to type

dont forget that photoshop recognises multiple cores, I know most notebooks are dual core these days but with the recent announcements for quad cores and the very interesting cheaper AMD Tri-Cores , there may be some gain to be had
I was running 2 systems
one a pc with 2 gig of ram single core AMD geforce 6600 and dual 7200rpm HDD's in Raid0

and then a laptop with 2gigs of ram a dual core processor ati x1400 and single 5400 rpm hdd

the laptop won hands down so that must have mostly been down to the processor and I suppose the ram was 667mhz instead of the pc's 400mhz

anyway good luck with your purchase, Lenovo's are pretty sturdy and ok for lugging around with equipment, I find toshibas are quite sturdy especially where our company salesforce are concerned LOL