grichie5

I am using a five year old Dell 8500 with an early i7 processor, an ssd hard drive and 12 gb of ram. Photoshop seems somewhat slow in some actions, most notably in opening the print dialogue box. Increasing the memory available to photoshop helped somewhat.

I am wondering if increasing the ram to 24 or 32 gb would help speed up Photoshop. I presently have 2 2gb chips and 2 4 gb chips. Replacing the two smaller modules with two eight gb modules would be relatively inexpensive; but is it worth it.

frankraney Loc: Clovis, Ca.

Increase.......minimum 16gb, 32 is better..... That's basically for anything, any computer.

Earnest Botello Loc: Hockley, Texas

16gb would be better, 32gb would be best, what ever you decide, get four matching set.

markngolf Loc: Bridgewater, NJ

My PC motherboard & i7 3770 processor are from 2012. I upgraded the power supply, installed a new 2 GB GPU and increased RAM from 16 to 32 GB. I also have a 1TB Samsung 850 EVO SSD. The upgrades made a significant difference.

Mark

MT Shooter Loc: Montana

Lenovo i7, 32GB RAM & 540GB SSD and my Photoshop never hesitates, even when merging large files into Panos or stacking.

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

Sounds like my system. I am using a i7-2600K and overclocking, otherwise very similar.

JohnSwanda Loc: San Francisco

Photoshop loves RAM, and if it doesn't have enough it uses hard drive space, which is slower.

juan_uy Loc: Uruguay

This. The matching set and how they are installed is important in some motherboards, as you may slow down the newer sticks with the old ones.

Strodav Loc: Houston, Tx

Typical lifespan of a desktop is 4 - 6 years depending on what you do with it. For image processing, it's more towards the 4 year side if you want higher levels of performance. As you get closer to the end of your machine's lifespan you should ask if it makes more sense to buy a new machine rather than throw money at an old one. If you are going to upgrade, I totally agree the 1st thing to look at is more high speed main memory, 2nd thing is a new high end graphics processor as PS can use it if you tell it to (edit -> preferences -> performance), 3rd would be a faster i7. You need to be careful when upgrading making sure what you are buying is compatible. There are some good 4th of July sales out there right now. I'd look for a higher end gaming computer.

Rich1939 Loc: Pike County Penna.

I'm still using an I5-4460 3.2 GHZ processor, with 16GB ram, a 1 gig GPU and a SSD hard drive. The only time the system shows its age is when loading or saving large multi-layer files. When working on those files though the system speed is just fine.

amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA

Increasing the computer's RAM would definitely help....

But, do you have a "scratch disk" set up for Photoshop? Giving it a dedicated space to place temp files is one of the best ways to improve Photoshop performance. It needs to be a "separate disk", exclusively for PS to use. Can't be the same drive where PS resides. This "scratch disk" is also the first place that PS "overflows" when it doesn't have enough RAM for a function. (And spooling print file can be pretty intensive.)

However, a partition can work quite well too, even if it's on the same drive. If you're unfamiliar with partitions, it's similar to dividing one drive into two or more smaller drives, as far as the computer is concerned, each of which will appear like a separate drive on a map of the computer. Partitions can be set up in various sizes and actually can be on any drive in your computer.... even the "boot" drive, if you have sufficient space Depending upon your operating system, you'll have to look into how to set one up.

I have a second 3TB hard drive in my computer where I've set aside an nearly 100GB partition exclusively as a scratch disk for PS (the rest of that drive is only used for photos and documents related to them). 100GB is probably more than is necessary. I just checked and there's only about 20GB of data on there, so I could probably reduce it to 50GB or even less, if I wish. The next time I build a new computer, I'll probably get a small SSD to use as a PS scratch disk. I think that would work even better than the hard drive I'm using now, since SSD speeds are more similar to RAM. (Although the 3TB drive I'm using is a 7200rpm "enterprise" class with a 64MB buffer.)

Once you have the space set up for it to use, you have to go into PS's preferences and tell it where the scratch disk is located. I forget which tab that's on, but if you click through the preferences you'll find it pretty easily.

There may be other things you can do to help PS work better, such as adding a graphics card, if you don't already have one installed. I use one with 2GB of it's own video RAM. This probably wouldn't help printing speed, but may help with other things.

Bobspez Loc: Southern NJ, USA

How much RAM do you allocate to Photoshop in the Photoshop Preferences?

ecobin Loc: Paoli, PA

I close my browser whenever I use PS and then no issue - also old computer - had 12 gb ram & upgraded to 16 gb with minor improvements. Close most everything else and see if that works.

AirWalter Loc: Tipp City, Ohio

Make sure your motherboard will recognize that much ram. What kind of video card do you have?

Dan Mc Loc: NM

As far as I understand it, the Dell 8500 and 8700 (I have one of the latter) can only manage 16 GB...anything beyond that is mere eye candy and bragging rights.