Art room Graphics Cards

[Duke5A]

We're running CS5 and even Autocad with the on board Intel graphics on Optiplex 780 and 790 machines. It works great, but we did have a problem that I didn't realize. Windows 7 ships with Microsoft drivers that work, but will cause the machine to go unstable and randomly reset when using hardware acceleration. The biggest issue we had with it was the machine crashing when using Powerpoint 2010. The new version of Powerpoint uses acceleration to animate the transitions between slides. Installing the real Intel driver cured the problems.

[Duke]

If it's any help - last summer we upgraded most of our ICT suites to PCs with dedicated graphics cards (AMD 6350) as they were using 3D software (game design, etc.) that needed it. We benchmarked Photoshop, and to be honest the graphics cards didn't make that much difference. You have to manually enable the extra bits in Photoshop to take advantage of the GPU, and the only major speed increases were when you were doing a complex transformation to an image - e.g. render a high-res photo onto a 3D shape. For most common image editing that they'd be doing in Art (straighten, crop, resize, levels) you won't see much difference. If they're doing HDR photos or applying effects to very high-res photos then you may see some real-world benefit.

[sonofsanta]

If you're wanting GPUs to improve Photoshop, they need to be nVidia cards, as Photoshop's GPU acceleration is based on CUDA not OpenGL. It only helps in a select number of operations though, so probably not worth the extra expense. I'd only really consider the GPU if it were for movie editing with Premiere (which still needs to be nVidia, but can make a big difference there).

 

Regarding future proofing... my favoured tactic has long been to get what's good enough now wrt value, i.e. a Core i3-2120, and then in a year or two's time upgrade again and move the older machines to another room. For example, any time I get new PCs in they go into the ICT classrooms, and their existing machines will go to replace teacher PCs elsewhere - otherwise you end up with a situation where your most powerful machines are used for taking registers whilst ICT suffer with 4 year old hardware. It's more cost effective than trying to future proof now.

[3s-gtech]

^^Absolutely, this is the method we use too.

[Duke]

If you're wanting GPUs to improve Photoshop, they need to be nVidia cards, as Photoshop's GPU acceleration is based on CUDA not OpenGL. It only helps in a select number of operations though, so probably not worth the extra expense.

 

You do get some benefit from an AMD card / OpenGL, but you're completely right that the very latest acceleration features are CUDA-based. I agree that if you're just doing photo editing, not 3D work, then the money could be better spent elsewhere.

[bwestlake]

some work will be done with hdr images so we want to ensure that they are able to run pretty decently

[Duke]

some work will be done with hdr images so we want to ensure that they are able to run pretty decently

 

If I were you then I'd contact Adobe (although their support is :censored:ing - try talking to Academia) and ask if: a) HDR is one of the GPU accelerated features, and b) if so, what card do you need to be able to take advantage of it (e.g. does it need to support CUDA, or even be an nVidia workstation-class card).

 

Chris

[bwestlake]

what specific nvidia graphics card would you personaly suggest?

[Duke]

what specific nvidia graphics card would you personaly suggest?

 

I don't keep up with desktop hardware enough to make a personal recommendation, but this site is your friend: Performance charts Graphics cards - Benchmark

[sonofsanta]

what specific nvidia graphics card would you personaly suggest?

 

Tested list here: Tested video cards | Photoshop CS5

So one of the 200/400 series really... 240+/450+ to make a difference, I should think - I don't think the 430 is much cop.

 

Although I'd personally suggest just whacking gob loads of RAM in (8Gb) and not worrying too much about GPU acceleration given the limited scope of performance improvements outside of video editing. The difference is better spent upgrading to a good IPS display, as others have said.

 

EDIT: List of nVidia-touted improvements here: http://www.nvidia.com/object/adobe_photoshop.html (biased source, obv)

[synaesthesia]

Heh, it's great when people use benchmarking sites to try and prove a point when in real life it's far from the truth in *this context* . I was actually referring to the HD 3000 and I wouldn't buy a discrete graphics card to add to it unless I was gaming on it. There is literally no point. It is defintely better than the GT240. There is no way in hell anything under £50 will beat a HD3000 in application useage other than gaming.

[Duke]

Heh, it's great when people use benchmarking sites to try and prove a point when in real life it's far from the truth in *this context* . I was actually referring to the HD 3000 and I wouldn't buy a discrete graphics card to add to it unless I was gaming on it. There is literally no point. It is defintely better than the GT240. There is no way in hell anything under £50 will beat a HD3000 in application useage other than gaming.

 

Sorry, meant to add to my last post that although that's the site I'd look at for finding a graphics card, in this scenario I wouldn't actually recommend buying one and judging by everyone's comment you'll be better off with on-board GFX and spending the money elsewhere.

[bwestlake]

the intel i5-2400 only has Intel® HD Graphics 2000, will this still be better than a discreate graphics card?

[3s-gtech]

It'll do fine for your needs in *this context*.

[bwestlake]

http://www.edugeek.net/forums/hardware/90995-art-room-graphics-cards-27-02-12-a.html