Video Card better?

[AndrewLikesBacon34]

So I'm using my desktop, and have been doing my PS stuff with just the integrated Intel integrated graphics.  I've been serious thinking about upgrading to a pretty good Mid-range GPU.  Will I notice of a performance increase in performance?

[D Fosse · Accepted solution]

It won't go any faster. This is just a question of whether certain GPU-resident functions work or not.

That said, buggy video drivers can cause slowdowns and other problems. But if you don't have any issues now, a new card won't do much.

In ACR and Lightroom, GPU support is supposed to speed up rendering on 4K/5K displays. On a standard display, the GPU can actually slow it down. So not much to gain there either.

[AndrewLikesBacon34]

Thank you very much.

[Trevor.Dennis]

I'm not sure that is true Dag.  OK from the point of view of how Photoshop works generally, but features that use the GPU specifically would be faster with a decent GPU.  Things like Liquify that work in real time since GPU support was dded to it, and a whole list of other features on the GPU FAQ

Photoshop graphics processor (GPU) card FAQ

Puget Systems does real world testing for this sort of thing.  This article dates back to CS6 and GTX6**** series NVIDIA cards

https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Adobe-Photoshop-CS6-GPU-Acceleration-161/

Check the article for the tests they did, but the GTX680 serious kicked the low end Quadro's ass.  To be fair, the other results had minimal differences.

This article might be more interesting in that it compares various Quadro cards with Intel HD630 graphics.  I suspect a GTX1080 would have wiped the floor with everything else in that test though.

https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Photoshop-CC-2017-NVIDIA-Quadro-GPU-Performance-900/

And this article gives a round up of works well with Photoshop specifically

https://www.pugetsystems.com/recommended/Recommended-Systems-for-Adobe-Photoshop-139/Hardware-Recomm...

[D Fosse]

OK, but in the context I still think ROI is minimal. I believe the money is better spent elsewhere.

BTW, Trevor, what's the latest word on M2 PCI-e SSDs? Is it worth the extra cost? I'm putting together a new home machine and have an i7-7700K on order, but I haven't yet decided on system drive. Just bought a new car, so I'm trying to keep total cost within reasonable limits.

It's time to retire the old i5-750. Back then I deliberately stepped off the bleeding edge to get a reliable workhorse system - and it's been running like clockwork for almost seven years now. But it's time to move on.