Sandy Bridge Graphics (Intel Graphics HD 3000) + Photoshop CS5 performance/stability?

Hey all,

I'm posting this here because I figure Thinkpad users are more likely to be using such professional software than that of other machines.

Has anyone extensively tested HD Graphics 3000 on their machine along with Photoshop CS5? I really need to know whether the GPU acceleration features have been corrected, and I heard some stability issues were happening as recent as last month.

Thank you!

 

Hey othersteve,

While I do not know much about the HD Graphics 3000 other than basic facts and numbers, I feel that many will agree with me you should not worry about this at all and invest in a discrete graphics card. Sure, the graphics card would "work" but it is not as fast/good as a business GPU with stability drivers. I strongly recommend getting a discrete graphics card if you plan to use Photoshop a lot.

 

Optimize performance | Photoshop CS3 | Windows


"The hardware you use limits Photoshop performance. Faster the processors or hard disks allow for faster image information processing. Other hardware options, such as installing additional RAM, using a multiprocessor system, or using optimized and defragmented disks, can also improve performance."

 

SR45: this is true, but a bit outdated. Since CS4 photoshop is using openGL. I would also invest into dedicated card tho.

 

Yeah, and I absolutely would... but for an IPS screen in a small laptop with a Sandy Bridge chipset, this is about the only current option!

Oh, why oh why can't we have it all...

Anyone tried this at all?

 

Lenovo ThinkPad X220 Review - Notebook Reviews by MobileTechReview

The video review talked a bit about Photoshop performance. Not a whole lot of details though.

 

Thanks all... but does anyone really know for certain? This is very important to me!

Thanks!

 

From my own experience, Photoshop GPU acceleration even in CS5 is so limited that I wouldn't worry about it at all. I am using much older and slower GPU at home in my desktop workstation without any problems.

M.

 

I am using a quad core SB in a W520.

One of the main reasons I went there was the use of resource hog Adobe software. In my case LR3 and PSE9.

I can say the quad core SB with 12 GB of memory makes LR and PSE9 sing.

BTW, I also added an SSD.

Where my old Thinkpad maxed my CPU meter constantly with LR3 this one doesn't even feel the software.

Sorry I couldn't be specific with CS5. But if you send me a copy I will try it for you.

Perry

 

From my understanding, unless you're doing 3D work in Photoshop, then a dedicated GPU is not going to do much for you. For 2D work (which is what Photoshop is commonly used for), then your limiting factors will be CPU and RAM, not GPU. And Sandy Bridge graphics is a beast in 2D.

I recently built a desktop PC specifically for Photoshop and Lightroom work, it's got a Sandy Bridge Core i5-2500 with Intel HD Graphics 2000, running Windows 7, Photoshop CS5 and Lightroom 3 (all 64-bit). I haven't done extensive testing yet, but the performance is amazing and blew my mind. I did have one or two crashes in Photoshop, but I don't think it was caused by drivers instability, but rather specific configurations that I was using.

 

Sure--I mean, I do plenty of CS5 on my aged M1330 (Core 2 chipset), and it works with the X3100. But the GPU acceleration features that I care about (smooth zooming, anti-aliasing, etc.) don't work at all. And in fact, if the GPU acceleration features are switched on even at the lowest level, the screen turns black when the image is rotated or any of the features are invoked.

Of course, new drivers, settings, etc have all been tried.

I just want to know this won't be the case with HD Graphics 3000, not necessarily that 3D will be possible/smooth!

 

I haven't tried turning on GPU acceleration in PS (don't even know how it's done). I'll try to test it when I get the chance.