Do I need a new vid card?

[Niege]

I'm upgrading my rig from Athlon x2 3800 to either i7-870 or AMD 1055T and going from XP 32bit to W7 64 bit; going from 4G (3.2 usable) to 8G.

Currently I have a Sapphire Radeon HD 3650 with dual DVI. My main use is Photoshop CS5, Nikon Capture NX2, and Office; no gaming. Is this card sufficient for dual monitors with this rig or should I upgrade to something else. If so, any suggestions?

Thanks.

 

[netxzero64]

you're into office work and no gaming, why would you need such processing power? you can go for a 5670 and go eyefinity 3 LCD displays for multitasking...

 

[busydude]

you're into office work and no gaming, why would you need such processing power?

Photoshop?

Just for dual monitor setup, you can use your 3650.

 

[Niege]

Thanks, guys. Yes, 80% of my computer use is now photo editing. With my three main programs for my workflow going at the same time (ViewNX, CaptureNX2, and CS5) I'm often beyond the 3.2G usable with XP and into the swapfile. Getting weary of long load, save, and processing times.

If I'm hearing you right, Yasasvy, I should take it that the 3650 is enough for CS5 and dual monitors?

 

[busydude]

If I'm hearing you right, Yasasvy, I should take it that the 3650 is enough for CS5 and dual monitors?

For dual monitors, yes 3650 will be fine.

If you use mercury playback engine which uses CUDA you will need a Nvidia GPU with CUDA support.

For after effects any card which is opencl 2.0 complaint will be supported and 3650 supports opencl.

I am sorry but I don't have much experience with cs5 so cannot comment any further. May be someone else will chime in.

 

[Niege]

Thanks, Yasasvy, big help.

 

[3DVagabond]

Are you using PS CS5 Extended (which supports 3D content)? If you are then I would suggest upgrading your card. I had CS4 extended w/HD3870 and it would struggle with some larger scenes. Never crashed, but would get real slow. In 2D though, I believe you'll be fine.

 

[Niege]

3DVagabond, I am using extended, but so far I am only doing 2D work. It sounds like I can reuse the 3650 until I get into 3D. That makes an SSD more appealing. Thanks!

 

[3DVagabond]

I didn't explain that too well. What slowed it down in 3D was poly count. So, by large file I was referring to polygon count. SSD won't help that out.

If you get to where you are trying to do 3D painting, you'll want a faster card. I hope that makes sense, and sorry if you understood that already and I took your meaning wrong.

 

[Niege]

3DVagabond, thanks for the clarification about polygons. My SSD comment was that if I could save $ on a vid card I might be able to get a SSD to speed up Photoshop. I appreciate your following up.

 

[Arkaign]

Might I suggest going 1366 route (i7-920 and up) due to the possibility/probability of you wanting to get more ram in the future. 6 slots on the platform is nice to have, and the kind of work you're describing is tailor-made for i7 and plenty of ram.

If you have a Micro Center around, they usually have the chips as low as $200. Look for a mobo that lists 24gb support, along with USB 3/Sata 6gps such as this :

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813128423

Should be a golden setup for years to come as long as you add ram if needed.