PC build for extreme bitmaps

[malgorzatag6936051]

Hey I hope you can help me with my issue. I'm working mostly on crazy high res bitmaps (30.000 px and up) and working in scale is not an option. Those have 10+layers, and I tend to use brushes in 500-1000px. This is huge data load. I'm traing to build PC dedicated for work with those files. I know  it won't be cheap but I do not have unlimited budget (pc will be provided by my client ^^). I'd say about 5k usd is maximum for my client. Resolution is huge issue here - I cannot downscale as print quality is extremley important - I cannot go vector - for now i cut file to samller pieces and work separately but it generates so many problems... 

So building crazy PC able to wok with behemoth files - anyone here able to help? 

[Guest]

Hi

This may help

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

[malgorzatag6936051]

Thank you.  I know the site. Problem is - I have very specific needs and I'm not sure what's the most iportant for this kind of work. Most people don't work on gigapixels so usual hardware recommendations do not focus on this topic ^^. 

[D Fosse]

In Photoshop, this basically translates to three things:

• scratch disk
• scratch disk
• scratch disk

For this, I'd set up a 2TB dedicated scratch disk, and for speed it should be NVMe/PCIe M.2 - and while you're at it, look for a motherboard with heatsink for the NVMe disks (you obviously need another one one for the OS/system, but this can be smaller).

They're not terribly expensive at the moment. A 2TB Samsung 970 EVO plus sells for about 350 at B+H now.

I'm not even sure 2TB is enough...

[malgorzatag6936051]

Suprising thing is - scratch disk is not as important as you might think. Currently I have 1tb m2 - it's way more than enough - scratch files are at most 500MB. I suppose most important thing would be cpu - question is - does GPU play big role in this kind of work? how big? What else is important here? RAM i suppose? 128 GB? what would help with brush? Ammount of data with this resolution is crazy - it can take several seconds to calculate single stroke. 

[D Fosse]

The scratch disk is every bit as important as I think. Scratch sizes can be very unpredictable. The point here is that if you run out of scratch space, it's a brick wall. Then Photoshop will just freeze and stop responding. But as long as there is available scratch space left, Photoshop will always keep working.

The scratch disk is Photoshop's main memory. RAM is just a fast access cache. There is no such thing as "enough RAM", no matter how much you have.

Yes, GPU matters, especially nowadays when the GPU is used to perform a lot of the actual math. You'd probably want a card with 8GB VRAM or more (it will use system RAM if it runs out).

But to get really down to it, a good system is a balanced system. You need good specs all around.

[malgorzatag6936051]

I do not run out of scrach dist atm - as I said 1tb is way more than enough. My problem is with photoshop being slow with large files - and not utilizing GPU and CPU correctly. My current setup i7 6700 / gtx 970 - with large brushes lag is crazy (in every possible performance setup) nd yes gpu usage 20% cpu 40%. I am planning on buying 128gb ram thats for sure. But when photoshop slows down with 40% ram usage 40% cpu and 20% gpu - I'm worried buying better pc won't solve this at all. I'v tried working on my friends i7 7800 rtx 2080 64 GB RAM 1TB m2 scratchdisk  - brushes are just as slow - I see no difference. Working with files and layers is better - but nothing spectacular. 

[D Fosse]

Slow brushing is most likely the video card - not necessarily because the card is underpowered, but because the driver may be buggy.

I usually recommend Quadro cards for Photoshop. That's not to say Geforces can't perform perfectly well, but Quadros are specifically targeted for graphics/3D/CAD, and specifically not intended for games.