Graphics card for photoshop/video editing

[mrapoc]

Hey.

I'm trying to upgrade a PC for a friend on a budget. Current specs are 2gb of ram, e2180 processor and no graphics card.

It has already had a hard drive failure that I need to replace.

I was thinking about upgrading to mushkin essentials 4gb ddr2 kit and some kind of graphics card (any is better than onboard surely)

Is it worth getting a card for like £20 - £30 and if so what?

Thanks!

 

[KING_OF_SAND]

You are going to need WAY more than 4gb, unless your friend is doing very basic things. You will need at the VERY least 6gb and 8 to 16gb is preferable. He will go through 4gb no problem.

Also he should get one of these cards

• GeForce GTX 285 (Windows and Mac OS)
• GeForce GTX 470 (Windows)
• GeForce GTX 570 (Windows)
• GeForce GTX 580 (Windows)
• Quadro FX 3700M (Windows)
• Quadro FX 3800 (Windows)
• Quadro FX 3800M (Windows)
• Quadro FX 4800 (Windows and Mac OS)
• Quadro FX 5800 (Windows)
• Quadro 2000 (Windows)
• Quadro 2000D (Windows)
• Quadro 2000M (Windows)
• Quadro 3000M (Windows)
• Quadro 4000 (Windows and Mac OS)
• Quadro 4000M (Windows)
• Quadro 5000 (Windows)
• Quadro 5000M (Windows)
• Quadro 5010M (Windows)
• Quadro 6000 (Windows)
• Quadro CX (Windows)

[font="myriad-pro-1, myriad-pro-2, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"]This is the QVL from Adobe of cards that can utilize Cuda through the mercury engine with their programs, i highly recommend getting one of them if he does not have a 6 core.[/font]

 

[dugdiamond]

for graphics editing you will need at least 8GB of fast RAM (minimum), and an medium gfx card. a gtx550ti would be ample

 

[mrapoc]

Hmm. In that case maybe its worth just replacing the hard drive and seeing how it goes. I'll have a chat and see what he wants to do. Maybe a new machine would be more feasible. It isn't high end editing he needs to - merely college level.

DDR2 is too expensive to go for 8gb really. 4gb is still quite expensive compared to ddr3

 

[KING_OF_SAND]

You can get 16gb of ddr3 1333 for little over $100. corsair xms3

 

[mrapoc]

Yes but his board is unfortunately ddr2.

Meaning even 4gb of Ram isnt exactly cheap.

 

[Rastalovich]

We got an arse load of people using editing suites, photoshop, blah..

I'm wondering why you guys are insisting he'll definitely need more than 4/6g memory ?

It's a sideline question really cos imo with memory being fairly cheap, you'd like to get a decent amount in any case.

Without cuda based software, the display card will merely be that. Displaying.

EDIT: to clarify, I'm guessing if this build is that budgetted, it's not going to be CS5 being used..

 

[Luger718]

you can edit the text file in adobe so it can have almost any nvidia gpu work well.... i had a gt 240 and a crappy dual core CPU and it helped ALOT! now i have a 2600k and a gtx 560Ti and the 560ti also works when watching preview and exporting