blue-ultra Loc: New Hampshire

With the recent upgrades for Photoshop. My graphic card is no longer able to support the program. I have been spending a lot of time on line looking at different cards. Google search resulted in a very expensive suggestions around 600 to 900 dollars. I am wondering if any hoggers have found a reasonable card that will work without breaking the bank. I am using a windows machine and my operating system is Win 10. I currently have a GeForce NVIDIA card with he latest drivers for this card and it has worked very well up to this point. But, alas, no longer with the new AI updates... anyone out there run into this? Thank you in advance for any suggestions.

Bob

cfhelz45 Loc: The Villages, Florida

I had the same issue. It works but very slow.

lamiaceae Loc: San Luis Obispo County, CA

I have not upgraded anything at all and I think I will leave this Win 10 machine with Ps CS6, and wait to get Ps CC for a new Win 11 machine in a year or two. My next big hobby expense will be a new FF DSLR. Dang Pentax does not want to do a new MILC so I will settle for a Pentax K-1ii (36MP). Rather like a Nikon D810.

therwol Loc: USA

You have a ton of Pentax equipment, and I assume that many of the lenses would be compatible with a new Pentax camera. It would make no sense to invest in a Nikon D810 and have to buy new lenses, and if you were going to invest in a new system by another manufacturer, it would make more sense to look at mirrorless options. The D810 is a fine camera but offers nothing over the latest Pentax offering.

Desert Gecko Loc: desert southwest, USA

I'm no expert on this topic, but I'll share what I think I know.

I've read that you don't need the latest and greatest GPU to effectively run Ps or Lr, that just having a minimum-requirements card is as good as having a gazillion-dollar card. I think it was on Puget Systems website where I read that, and you may know that Puget Systems info regarding hardware for running Adobe apps is like gospel. You might take a gander and see if Puget has a recent article or benchmark on GPUs.

The minimum requirements, if memory serves, are a card no older than seven years and that supports DirectX 12. Oh, and whether a GPU will even help depends on what you're doing in the Adobe apps.

Once you decide on a card, you might keep an eye on Newegg's "Shell Shocker" daily deals. You can find a link (called "today's best deals") in the upper left corner of Newegg's home page. That's how I got my last two cards, an RX 6650xt (now in my son's PC) and my current RX 6750xt. I don't know how much difference this upgrade made, if any, for Adobe apps, but the 12GB of DRAM on the newer card (older one had 8GB) seems to help with video encoding and especially, with using multiple displays.

Radeon (AMD) cards are significantly cheaper than Nvidia cards with similar performance, but I seem to recall reading that Nvidia cards are better suited to Adobe apps (just as Intel CPUs are better than AMD CPUs for Ps and Lr). So why did I go with Radeon, if that's the case? Again, after meeting minimum requirements, there is no gain in performance. I shouldn't expect any additional Ps performance with a $1,600 Nvidia GTX 4090 than I get with my $340 MSI 6750xt.

blue-ultra Loc: New Hampshire

Great information Thank you. My current card is probably 8 to 10 years old was the best at the tie I never had any issues with it and don't now. However Adobe is telling e I am not getting all I can from the program unless I upgrade. Probably time anyway... I will look at the site your mention... I'll let you know how things turnout.
Thank you

Bob

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

You might find this chart useful: https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html

Something like an 8GB 3060TI can be had for ~$300 and is plenty fast enough

Grahame Loc: Fiji

Interesting. It's put my card, Quadro P620 right down near the bottom

My machine is undertaking just about all standard PS/ACR/LR operations reasonably but dead slow with AI ops. Not sure how to progress for improvements.

Desert Gecko Loc: desert southwest, USA

At that link is a link to a Best Buy sale on the card for $279.99, probably what TriX was talking about (because that card is usually mid-$300). The card has only 8GB of RAM though, so that's something to keep in mind although it probably won't affect Ps and Lr. For futureproofing and other apps, I would (did) look for a card with 12GB.

I also noticed today's Newegg Shell Shocker deals have my card, the MSI-branded RX 6750xt, for $329.99 -- which is also a very good price. The 6750xt outperforms the 3060ti only slightly overall, but the 6750 does have 12GB of RAM that would be noticeable in certain apps.

I'll add a link you might find useful, a link by the PC Builder YouTube channel. Seems he gets his data from Tom's Hardware benchmarks and probably elsewhere too. There is plenty of performance, pricing, performance/pricing, etc., data to be had there, all relative to an RX 570, a card he sees as minimum for gaming. You can click a column header and sort the data by whichever parameter suits you.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Y-XKBPTL8RyAuw_Kkcye1FIjFGlnb7dacdN3EEybWGs/edit#gid=0

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

More VRAM is always a good thing for future proofing (I have 64GB DRAM in my latest build even though I have never seen performance monitor over the mid 20s, even with a stack of applications running)

anotherview Loc: California

Time marches on. At some point, in the realm of digital means, the hardware no longer adequately supports the software. I have found that my machine lasts about 5 years, even with some upgrades. But yes, you could try a new graphic card or more RAM, or both. You may then get more life out of your existing machine.

Given so, however, I suggest the replacement of your existing machine with a new one. This option of course involves transferring your data to the new machine. Subscription software may automatically update itself when you log in from your new machine. Good luck.

bkwaters

The recently released RTX 4060 is probably the way to go. It’s fast enough, energy efficient, lower power and somewhat smaller than the other cards. They are priced in the high $200’s.

Jack 13088 Loc: Central NY

You might want to take a look a Puget Systems discussion relative to PS. Unfortunately, you will find that there no inexpensive solution to this issue. Future proofing is a frustrating and costly chase!

photoman43

If your win 10pc is 8-10 years old, you likely need an upgraded pc AND an upgraded video card.

https://www.pugetsystems.com/solutions/photo-editing-workstations/adobe-photoshop/hardware-recommendations/

Desert Gecko Loc: desert southwest, USA

I took a peek this morning at Puget's info on graphic cards. In part, here's what I found:

Adobe has been increasing support for GPU acceleration in Photoshop over the last few years, but currently there are only a handful of effects that can utilize the video card. Adobe maintains a list of effects that are GPU accelerated in their GPU FAQ: Photoshop GPU card FAQ

Although Adobe is constantly expanding GPU acceleration support to Photoshop, the current demand on the video card is actually relatively light. Even an entry video card will be able to provide a huge boost in performance for GPU-accelerated effects but there is a sharp drop in performance benefit by using anything more than a mid-range video card. A few tasks may be able to see a performance benefit to using a high-end card like the GeForce RTX 3090, but an RTX 3070 Ti is going to get you within a few percent of the best performance possible.
https://www.pugetsystems.com/solutions/photo-editing-workstations/adobe-photoshop/hardware-recommendations/#:~:text=Adobe%20has%20been%20increasing

That's the all-important gist, or nutshell. There's more, including a small benchmark. I might note that Puget's Photoshop-specific benchmarks differ significantly from other benchmarks geared toward gaming.

Amazon's Prime Day event is just around the corner, this Tuesday and Wednesday. Newegg, Best Buy, and others take advantage of this and offer competitive sales, so you might find a bargain then.