T410 I5-520M IGP and CS3/CS4

I know there is couple threads on Arrandale IGP performance elsewhere, but would like to know from T410 owners with Arrandale's IGP (w/o the discrete GPU).

(1) Is the performance using CS3/CS4 good? What limitations have you noticed (e.g. 3D modeling)?

(2) In prior Intel IGP GM450, it seemed to take forever to see icons/images in a folder with pictures. Does Arrandale display pictures in folders quickly?

I am not interested in heavy game playing. My wife is a graphic artist and this will be for her. I know the discrete GPU will solve all the problems but did not want to spend the premium if not needed.

Thank you.

 

I'm pretty sure it does. We have a Dell Inspiron desktop with the GMA 950. It took forever to display the pictures in a folder (as icons). I eventually got a cheap X1600 and the improvement was dramatic.

I've heard photoshop does not need the GPU however I read elsewhere that photoshop does make use of GPU acceleration. Not sure what that means and hoping a CS3/CS4 owner can help.

 

Prior to GM450, Intel's aero performance is barely functional. However, based on the few data that we have, the new generation of intel IGP is almost as powerful as the radeon 3470 on the T400 (which is a discrete card). So aero should be very smooth now (unless there is some other problem).

 

Photoshop does not need a discrete GPU to work well, however, I believe starting from CS3, PS can make use of GPU acceleration in order to speed up certain tasks.

 

photoshop is mostly CPU and RAM intensive, so if you got a good CPU and lot of ram it should be okay.

 

Those are the keywords. Not everything you do in CS4 will be sped up