RAM: 1 GB vs 2 GB

Hi Everybody,

I would appreciate any help in deciding over this.
I plan to upgrade my computer, and I want to ask you:
Would you chose 1 GB of RAM or 2 GB?

I ask this having in mind photoshop and not games, or any other hardware stressfull application. Do you think 1 gig is enough? Whatever the answer, please leave a reason for your choice!

Thanks!

If you're using a dual-core processor, I'd go with at least 2GB total RAM. I am using the AMD Athlon 64 3800+ Dual Core and could tell a big difference when processing RAW photos using CS2 when upgrading from 1GB to 2 GB. You might get more answers on the other forum dealing with computers and such...
--
Ron Johnson
Brigham City, Utah; At the top of the Great Salt Lake
GMT-6 Mountain Daylight Standard Time

The only stupid question is the one that goes unasked.



http://www.pbase.com/ronaldgjohnson

Photoshop loves ram, more is always better. You can never have enough ram or storage space. Always buy as much as you feel you can afford.

zorobabel said:

Would you chose 1 GB of RAM or 2 GB?
I ask this having in mind photoshop and not games, or any other
hardware stressfull application. Do you think 1 gig is enough?
Whatever the answer, please leave a reason for your choice!

Thanks!

Click to expand...

--
Chris
=-=-=-=-=-
http://www.pbase.com/sinnettc

zorobabel said:

Hi Everybody,

I would appreciate any help in deciding over this.
I plan to upgrade my computer, and I want to ask you:
Would you chose 1 GB of RAM or 2 GB?
I ask this having in mind photoshop and not games, or any other
hardware stressfull application. Do you think 1 gig is enough?
Whatever the answer, please leave a reason for your choice!

Click to expand...

About the only time you'll ever care that you have 2GB versus 1GB is when you're doing photo editing. Does that answer your question?

My notebook maxes out at 2gb. If it allowed me to add more, I would.

If you get into panorama stitching, you'll wish you had more than 2GB.

--
K100D, DA 50-200

When it comes to Photoshop, always max your machine out with RAM.

On my Mac, I noticed an overall speed improvement in Photoshop 9.0.2 when I went from 4GB to 6GB of RAM, even though Photoshop itself cannot use more than a bit over 3GB of RAM. The OS lets Photoshop run faster beyond that by using the OS to take over some processes.

I noticed another speed bump when I went from 6GB to 8GB of RAM.

Even though the machine can take as much as 18GB, I wouldn't expect to see any significant improvement beyond 8GB, if any.

afford. I used to have 1 GB which was miserable for PS. When I upgraded I went to 4 GB (which was fairly cheap at the time, something like $75 per GB.

Now with XP Home, Photoshop only "sees" 2 GB - so you say why 4 ?

Ans 1) I could afford it.

2) Windows itself takes something like 950 KB - virtually 1 GB.

3) I do run other programs which are active at the same time.

4) 3 GB would probably have been sufficient but hard to get.

5) 2 GB is simply not enough - I want PS to have ALL the RAM it CAN use. And I don't want Windows to use any of this.

6) BE SURE to partition your hard disk with at least a 10 GB stand-alone partition dedicated ONLY to Photoshop.

'--
bill wilson

I agree with bill... as much as you can afford. And I would suggest XP Pro or Vista to handle all the RAM you thorw at it (if you're using a pc that is).

--
..:: daniel ::..
LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL
http://pbase.com/dlast1



LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL

rennie12 said:

6) BE SURE to partition your hard disk with at least a 10 GB
stand-alone partition dedicated ONLY to Photoshop.

Click to expand...

Actually…

Adobe recommends the application be installed on the boot volume, i.e. the same volume (partition) on which the OS resides.

If you were thinking about Scratch Disk, a partition will not help at all, as there is still only one set of read/write heads on the disk and both Photoshop scratch disk and the OS swap file will be competing for its use at the same time. For scratch disk, a physically separate internal hard drive works best. 10 GB is not enough for scratch disk either. Get at leas7 30GB aside for scratch. Some figure on 35 times the size of your largest file or more, depending on the number of states in the History palette, number of layers, your workflow, etc. Hard drive space is very cheap these days.

Zaldidun said:

If you were thinking about Scratch Disk, a partition will not help
at all, as there is still only one set of read/write heads on the
disk and both Photoshop scratch disk and the OS swap file will be
competing for its use at the same time. For scratch disk, a
physically separate internal hard drive works best. 10 GB is not
enough for scratch disk either. Get at leas7 30GB aside for
scratch. Some figure on 35 times the size of your largest file or
more, depending on the number of states in the History palette,
number of layers, your workflow, etc. Hard drive space is very
cheap these days.

Click to expand...

Correct, and the scratch disk should not even be on the same EIDE controller as well. Ideally...a 10,000 RPM serial drive would be great!
--
Ron Johnson
Brigham City, Utah; At the top of the Great Salt Lake
GMT-6 Mountain Daylight Standard Time

The only stupid question is the one that goes unasked.



http://www.pbase.com/ronaldgjohnson

Thanks!

for helping me out Zion Frost, sarah c, Sinnettc, David Oswald, Tom_ Brown, Zaldidun, rennie12, dlast1 !!!

I forgot to tell you that it's a PC with the AMD 64X2 4600, at least for now. I also have a second hard drive, I know about the scratch disk, didn't know about the 30 GB part dough. Why does it need to have it's own partition for that? I'm guessing seek time.

I see you are all for as much RAM as possible, but money is an issue for now, and I can't go beyond 2 GB (I'd rather buy a lens if I had the money), plus my stupid miniATX motherboard only has 2 dimm slots, and 2x2GB is a lot more expensive. Although 3 GB makes a lot of sense now Offcourse I still have the fear that 4 GB may be overkill...

Thanks again for helping me, it is clear for me now, 2 GB! I just have to find the best deal now ...

rennie12 said:

2) Windows itself takes something like 950 KB - virtually 1 GB.

Click to expand...

950KB actually less then 1MB and 1024MB give you 1GB

rennie12 said:

3) I do run other programs which are active at the same time.

Click to expand...

It is not good practice disregarding how much memory you have because there are lots of other resources except memory required (handlers for example)

rennie12 said:

5) 2 GB is simply not enough - I want PS to have ALL the RAM it CAN
use. And I don't want Windows to use any of this.

Click to expand...

This is valid reason. Another very valid reason to have as much memory as possible is to allow windows use it as disk buffer - it make disk much much faster.

rennie12 said:

6) BE SURE to partition your hard disk with at least a 10 GB
stand-alone partition dedicated ONLY to Photoshop.

Click to expand...

Incredibly silly suggestion. It is absolutely wrong practice to partition hard drives. Reason been if you have whole hard drive allocated system minimize its shaking very effectively and thus prolong its life and reliability. If you split it became two (or more) PHYSICALLY separated areas on hard drive and because system constantly required to read from / write to both of them hard-drive start to move its heads very rapidly from one side to another increasing wear and tear and decreasing performance. Ideal solution would be to get two hard drives. Small one for system (say 80 GB would be plenty, and it does not need to be very fast) and another one (ON SEPARATE CHANNEL) for data - as fast and as big as one can afford. If it seems too expensive one big hard drive would be better then partitioned one. Partitioning hard drives make no sense what so ever nowadays – just asking for troubles.

Good rule to follow - 2GB is a good starting point.

The home versions of Windows may not support more that 2GB, the pro version of XP and Vista Ultimate support up to 4GB of memory.

I think the home versions should be banned - drop the price on pro/ultimate and get the home botnet food off of the net.
--
PDL