Graphic cards

[Chris]

I was looking at new computers at Dell. I use Photoshop every day for Rapture Forums. I think my current graphics card in this old Dell XPS 8700 is a AMD Radeon HD 7500 graphics card.

My son plays online games and all of those kind of things. I don't play video games and have no interest in them. I just use Photoshop for editing and creating graphics. If I did anything with video I might look at video editing, etc. for Rapture Forums. But I don't have any concrete plans for that at this point. Just something I've thought a little about but probably won't go there.

Anyway, Dell seems to use most these graphic cards the most in their computers (listing from low end to high end):

1. Intel® UHD Graphics 750 (630 and 730 series as well) with shared graphics memory.

2. NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1660 SUPER™ 6GB GDDR6

3. NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1660 Ti 6GB GDDR6

4. NVIDIA® GeForce® RTX 3060 Ti™ 8GB GDDR6

Are there any other Photoshop users on here that could give any advice on whether there is any need to spend extra money for these higher graphic cards?

Also, another area I am stuck on is the storage drives.

This old computer only has a 1TB SATA 7200rpm SATA single drive. I don't remember back then but it seems that these days the dual drives are all the rage. There seems to be regular SSD and NVMe SSD drives. I'm ready to ditch the old SATA drives.

But I notice that a lot of configurations come with like a say 512GB SSD + maybe a 1TB SATA backup or storage drive.

I'm thinking the NVMe is better or faster than the regular SSD drives? Is that right or what? Anyone have any experience with these two types of drives?

I'm wondering if I need a dual drive one for the regular computer and one for the storage or backup? They do have options for just having a single drive on the computer. I use a backup service now (Acronis) for backing up my computer.

Anyone have any advice for me?

 

[YallNeedJesus]

I was looking at new computers at Dell. I use Photoshop every day for Rapture Forums. I think my current graphics card in this old Dell XPS 8700 is a AMD Radeon HD 7500 graphics card.

My son plays online games and all of those kind of things. I don't play video games and have no interest in them. I just use Photoshop for editing and creating graphics. If I did anything with video I might look at video editing, etc. for Rapture Forums. But I don't have any concrete plans for that at this point. Just something I've thought a little about but probably won't go there.

Anyway, Dell seems to use most these graphic cards the most in their computers (listing from low end to high end):

1. Intel® UHD Graphics 750 (630 and 730 series as well) with shared graphics memory.

2. NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1660 SUPER™ 6GB GDDR6

3. NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1660 Ti 6GB GDDR6

4. NVIDIA® GeForce® RTX 3060 Ti™ 8GB GDDR6

Are there any other Photoshop users on here that could give any advice on whether there is any need to spend extra money for these higher graphic cards?

Also, another area I am stuck on is the storage drives.

This old computer only has a 1TB SATA 7200rpm SATA single drive. I don't remember back then but it seems that these days the dual drives are all the rage. There seems to be regular SSD and NVMe SSD drives. I'm ready to ditch the old SATA drives.

But I notice that a lot of configurations come with like a say 512GB SSD + maybe a 1TB SATA backup or storage drive.

I'm thinking the NVMe is better or faster than the regular SSD drives? Is that right or what? Anyone have any experience with these two types of drives?

I'm wondering if I need a dual drive one for the regular computer and one for the storage or backup? They do have options for just having a single drive on the computer. I use a backup service now (Acronis) for backing up my computer.

Anyone have any advice for me?

Yes, it makes a difference with photoshop to use a higher end graphics card, especially if you use multiple displays. The Radeon 7500 is pretty old and the gpu is very slow by today’s standards. You wouldn’t necessarily need the best of the best graphics card, but I think you’ll see quite a difference if you spend a little extra on a better one.

 

[Tall Timbers]

2. or 3. on the graphics cards would be plenty good with power to spare. I personally stick with nvidia cards because during their entire history they've provided driver support for their cards. The company that AMD purchased that got it into high end graphics cards was notorious for not updating drivers when a new Windows version released. I had an experience where I purchased their best card at the time (can't remember the name of the company) for about $600. A couple months later I updated Windows to a new release and that video card never got updated drivers. I don't know how the driver situation has been with AMD, but I have a long memory when it comes to things like that.

NVMe drives are the way to go and the difference between those and plain ole SSD when working in photoshop can be significant.

I always liked to have two hard drives in my computers so that by default I could keep my data files on a drive separate from the OS. As you know, back in the day it was common for some glitch to require the reinstall of the Windows OS. The situation often meant that the drive wasn't accessible to most people and they'd end up losing all of their data on the computer with a clean install. I'd just as soon just have one large hard drive now because I backup (replicate or copy) all of my data files to two separate sources so if my computer fails, I don't have to worry about the data. That's my recommendation for a workstation, one hard drive and a USB drive or networked NAS that receives frequent backups of all of your data files. Personally, I'm through with SATA drives myself.

On a computer we had that stopped working towards the end of last year, I removed the drive used to store data and put it into another computer to retrieve all of the data, but Microsoft now considers something so small a change to the computer that requires you to call them and get permission. Instead of doing that I just removed the drive and forgot about the data. It was another family member's data and all but maybe the last day or two of their stuff was copied to an NAS drive anyway. That's one big pain with Microsoft. There's not much you can do change-wise with a computer without having to get on the phone with them for permission... Back in the day, it used to be more significant changes that would require getting permission from Microsoft.

 

[mattfivefour]

Fire what ours worth, moving from SATA to NVMe drives significantly increased the speed of my Win10 system. Since my mobo is AMD based, I like using AMD based internals. Nowadays AMD is more than a match for Intel, imo, and for less cash. My video card is a Sapphire Nitro+ 8GB RX580 SE (special edition). I do a lot of Publisher, Word, graphic and video editing. The card works great with my twin 32-inch 1440p monitors.

 

[Chris]

Thank you for the thoughts and advice.

I've got 16GB of RAM on my machine now. If I was forced to choose between extra RAM (say to 32GB) or to get a better graphics card which would you spend money on?

Also, what is the top dollar you would spend on a good computer?

Thank you.

 

[GEOINTAnalyst]

If you like Dell then you might want to check out Alienware -

Personally $2000 is my limit on a computer and I like NVIDIA GPUs as far as CPUs go I really do not have a preference anymore between Intel or AMD, but then I run Linux not Windows

​

 

[Tall Timbers]

Thank you for the thoughts and advice.

I've got 16GB of RAM on my machine now. If I was forced to choose between extra RAM (say to 32GB) or to get a better graphics card which would you spend money on?

Also, what is the top dollar you would spend on a good computer?

Thank you.

I used to be able to build a really good computer for around a $1000. Prices used to always trend down. Now prices are trending higher due to changes in the dynamics of the computer market, and tariffs. There is usually a place where you can get the most bang for the buck, or the most value for your money, but that's if you consider the whole market and not just a specific brand. Any hows, prices are much higher now than I've paid in the past. The top dollar really depends on your needs, what you're willing to buy brand wise, etc. It's better to spend 3K and get a computer that pleases you than spend 2K and live with a computer that's not a pleasure to use.

I believe in getting what you need even if you have to pay a little more. Given the choice between more memory and better graphics, it would depend on what you're changing your graphics card from to to. If the lower cost graphics card would exceed your needs or meet them nicely, then memory. If not, then graphics card.