Laptop for Photoshop
- Thread starter yottie
- Start date
Sponsored Links
Which version of PS do you use?
Personally I'd plump for a i5 or i7 for photoshop work, especially on a laptop which is going to suffer because unless you have a firewire external drive or similar then your scratch disk is going to be on the same as windows/ps. But then a i5 will be £100 more expensive and an i7 £200.
I assume you're looking at this
http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/5084760/Trail/searchtext>C660.htm
if so then Amazon for £50 more gets you 4GB instead of 2GB of RAM which will help out a lot. (Just make sure you run a 64bit OS
)
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Toshiba-Sat...1_1?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1305488129&sr=1-1
The toshiba will survive quite a bit, I had a Tecra back in the days and it would survive nothing short of a nuclear bomb.
Personally I'd plump for a i5 or i7 for photoshop work, especially on a laptop which is going to suffer because unless you have a firewire external drive or similar then your scratch disk is going to be on the same as windows/ps. But then a i5 will be £100 more expensive and an i7 £200.
I assume you're looking at this
http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/5084760/Trail/searchtext>C660.htm
if so then Amazon for £50 more gets you 4GB instead of 2GB of RAM which will help out a lot. (Just make sure you run a 64bit OS
)http://www.amazon.co.uk/Toshiba-Sat...1_1?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1305488129&sr=1-1
The toshiba will survive quite a bit, I had a Tecra back in the days and it would survive nothing short of a nuclear bomb.
Thanks Kris for great help. I am at the moment using Elements 4 on an Aspire 1363 on XL (not quite steam driven !), have updated RAM in the past but have recently started using some serious RAW files via Canon 550D. I'm using the supplied Canon software for the RAW files then using El 4 which does the job OK. For the first time ever I got "scratch disk full" yesterday, after tweaking to another partition I was up and running again but Oh so slowly. I have quite a large USB external hard drive. Was thinking of a £450 limit for the laptop. Afraid I don't understand the reference to 64 bit ?
64bit processors have been developed to allow operating systems such as windows to allow access to more than 4GB of RAM. 32bit limits you to 4GB so anything over this is not seen by the OS.
So if you have a 64 bit processor (and virtually all are these days, then getting a 64bit version of windows allows you access to more than 4GB of RAM (amongst other advantages)
The i3/i5/i7 allow hyper threading and multicore which basically means that an application such as PS can utilise more than one CPU to do its business.
Personally given your budget I'd go for the C660 4GB version (from Amazon or where-ever) and look at maybe getting a firewire drive to act as scratch space. The reason you should have separate drives as opposed to separate partitions is because the head on the drive has to seek (move to and from) the locations of the partitions so partitioning does very little other than convenience and limiting "fragmentation".
Just noticed that the C660 does not have a firewire port, USB2 would probably do.
An alternative would be the HP G62
http://www.amazon.co.uk/G62-b32SA-N...Windows/dp/tech-data/B004QJM1IA/ref=de_a_smtd
its an i5 processor with 3GB RAM and an integrated media reader which would be useful for transferring photos off cards.
So if you have a 64 bit processor (and virtually all are these days, then getting a 64bit version of windows allows you access to more than 4GB of RAM (amongst other advantages)
The i3/i5/i7 allow hyper threading and multicore which basically means that an application such as PS can utilise more than one CPU to do its business.
Personally given your budget I'd go for the C660 4GB version (from Amazon or where-ever) and look at maybe getting a firewire drive to act as scratch space. The reason you should have separate drives as opposed to separate partitions is because the head on the drive has to seek (move to and from) the locations of the partitions so partitioning does very little other than convenience and limiting "fragmentation".
Just noticed that the C660 does not have a firewire port, USB2 would probably do.
An alternative would be the HP G62
http://www.amazon.co.uk/G62-b32SA-N...Windows/dp/tech-data/B004QJM1IA/ref=de_a_smtd
its an i5 processor with 3GB RAM and an integrated media reader which would be useful for transferring photos off cards.
Sponsored Links
Thanks for that. Kris mentioned i3/i5/i7 processors for Photoshop, am unsure whhether this Acer fills the bill or is it better ? My main purpose initially for upgrading was for PS but perhaps not if I have to sacrifice other aspects of a machine too much ?
The 6200 is a dual core running at 2.1ghz
the i3 mentioned (380) is a dual core running at 2.53ghz
the i5 mentioned (460m) is a dual core running at 2.5ghz but with turbo (ie the core will overclock themselves to a faster rate as long as thermal constraints are maintained.
They are all dual core so you can assign 1 core to PS dedicated and 1 to the rest of the OS.
the i3 mentioned (380) is a dual core running at 2.53ghz
the i5 mentioned (460m) is a dual core running at 2.5ghz but with turbo (ie the core will overclock themselves to a faster rate as long as thermal constraints are maintained.
They are all dual core so you can assign 1 core to PS dedicated and 1 to the rest of the OS.
Better RAM, better HD. Less processor but you prob wont see the difference with elements, if you upgrade to PS CS5.5 you'd probably only notice a small increase with the i3 and a moderate increase with the i5.
I'd say go with the Acer.
I'd say go with the Acer.
Just taken del of the Acer. Easy set-up and so fast ! Installed the Canon program for RAW files but W7 won't have my dear old El 4. Would appr advice on it's replacement, something very similar with not too many bells & whistles (64 bit ?)
PS Elements 9?
£45
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Adobe-Photo..._1_1?s=software&ie=UTF8&qid=1305830571&sr=1-1
There is ways of getting PS El 4 to work with Win7 but its so old why bother?
If you wish then do this, Im assuming it installed and isnt failing during install
click start , all programs and find the PS El 4 icon, right click and select properties, then there should be a compatibility mode, in this tab choose Windows XP.
If it wont install, then right click on the install icon and click "Troubleshoot compatibility"
Some features may not work though.
Free alternatives are GIMP http://www.gimp.org/screenshots/ but if youre happy with PS El then £45 upgrading 5 versions would be worthwhile
£45
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Adobe-Photo..._1_1?s=software&ie=UTF8&qid=1305830571&sr=1-1
There is ways of getting PS El 4 to work with Win7 but its so old why bother?
If you wish then do this, Im assuming it installed and isnt failing during install
click start , all programs and find the PS El 4 icon, right click and select properties, then there should be a compatibility mode, in this tab choose Windows XP.
If it wont install, then right click on the install icon and click "Troubleshoot compatibility"
Some features may not work though.
Free alternatives are GIMP http://www.gimp.org/screenshots/ but if youre happy with PS El then £45 upgrading 5 versions would be worthwhile
Sponsored Links
