Does fast RAM have much benefit for Photoshop?

[djeyewater]

I'm looking at building a new PC, the main heavy lifting it will have to do is working with large Photoshop files.

Looking at RAM, I can get 2x 16GB Corsair Vengence LPX DDR4 2400 Mhz CL16 (CMK32GX4M2A2400C16) for around GBP 100.

On the other hand I can get 2x 16GB G.Skill TridentZ DDR4 3200 MHz CL14 (F4-3200C14D-32GTZ) for around GBP 200.

I'm guessing that the RAM speed isn't that important? Would two sets of the Corsair RAM in a quad channel arrangement possibly be faster than the G.Skill in dual channel?

 

[R0H1T]

I'm looking at building a new PC, the main heavy lifting it will have to do is working with large Photoshop files.

Looking at RAM, I can get 2x 16GB Corsair Vengence LPX DDR2 2400 Mhz CL16 (CMK32GX4M2A2400C16) for around GBP 100.

On the other hand I can get 2x 16GB G.Skill TridentZ DDR4 3200 MHz CL14 (F4-3200C14D-32GTZ) for around GBP 200.

I'm guessing that the RAM speed isn't that important? Would two sets of the Corsair RAM in a quad channel arrangement possibly be faster than the G.Skill in dual channel?

Don't think so, but 25% faster RAM will not give you 25% better performance ever.

The 100% premium you'd be paying to get the 25% faster RAM is not worth it, instead get something closer to 3000MHz speed that isn't overly expensive compared to the first option, alternatively overclock the Corsair memory.

If faster dual channel doesn't help (much) then quad channel will be no better. It's best if you'd invest more in RAM capacity than speed IMO.

 

[dlerious]

I see a problem, maybe a typo, but those 2 choices are completely different. The Corsair is DDR2 and G.Skill DDR4. One of them won't fit in the same motherboard.

 

[ronbo613]

As a regular Photoshop user, I think I would prefer more RAM than faster RAM. An SSD as a system drive with your programs on it and another SSD to hold your scratch discs would help speed things up.

 

[bigi]

As a regular Photoshop user, I think I would prefer more RAM than faster RAM. An SSD as a system drive with your programs on it and another SSD to hold your scratch discs would help speed things up.

+1. Get as much RAM as you can and then even more.

I use PS for focus stacking. Often, I need to focus stack 80-100 35Mpix images. I've found out pretty quickly that 32GB was not enough for that.

 

[djeyewater]

Thanks for the advice everyone.

I think I'll probably go with the cheaper RAM and get more of it as you all suggest, or spend the saved money on other components.

The 100% premium you'd be paying to get the 25% faster RAM is not worth it, instead get something closer to 3000MHz speed that isn't overly expensive compared to the first option, alternatively overclock the Corsair memory.

The best deal on RAM I could find that's between the two I originally mentioned is some Corsair Vengeance 3000 MHz CL15 for GBP 150. So that's still 50% more than the cheaper but slower RAM.

An SSD as a system drive with your programs on it and another SSD to hold your scratch discs would help speed things up.

I do use an SSD for my OS and an SSD for scratch disk at the moment. Possibly I might upgrade to an NVMe SSD for the OS for the new machine, but they're still pretty pricey right now.

I see a problem, maybe a typo, but those 2 choices are completely different. The Corsair is DDR2 and G.Skill DDR4. One of them won't fit in the same motherboard.

Oops, yeah that was a typo, both are DDR4.

 

[UsandThem]

https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Adobe-Photoshop-CS6-Memory-Optimization-182/page2

You want more RAM. The difference betweens speeds in negligible. DDR 3000 is plenty fast and has more available bandwidth than you will ever use with Skylake.

 

[grimpr]

The more RAM the better.

 

[denis280]

As a regular Photoshop user, I think I would prefer more RAM than faster RAM. An SSD as a system drive with your programs on it and another SSD to hold your scratch discs would help speed things up.

+1

 

[tweakboy]

1333 or 1866 you will not tell a difference between these two.. .gl

 

[Fileas Corrales]

fast RAM very good for Photoshop

 

[addverma]

My two cents to this. My company has given me a Laptop with 16gb of RAM. I use it to open Outlook and Lync/Skype, 20-25 Tabs of Chrome, Word Processor, Excel and other servers+Tools. I have seen that even at the end of the day or peak of the day RAM utilisation never crosses 10 gb. Neither is my dual core Hyper threaded processor ever had an average utilisation crossing of 75%. But what I do observe on my Windows Resource Monitor is that my Disk IO for the whole day runs at practically 100% of its bandwidth. My office computer is fairly recent but it is still sluggish.

It is not the RAM which alone determines the snappiness of the computer, it is a combination of CPU, hard disk, Video Card and RAM. It is said that adding more RAM is the "cheapest" way to improve performance. The emphasis is on the word Cheapest. If there is a budget go for a SSD and a high end Graphics card. Adding more RAM may result in the additional RAM capacity from being under-utilised. But please note that the other 2 options may not be the most economical, rather will be quite expensive as compared to purchasing more RAM.