Graphic Designer = needs more memory

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lifeisgood416

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Aug 12, 2006
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To all of the graphic desigers who go against the grain and use PC's to design, what RAM are you using? More specifically DDR1 RAM. If you need more info, my specs are in my signature.... I use Adobe CS2, Macromedia Studio 8, and Premiere 2.0... As you see below, i have 1GB of Corsair XMS, would it be best to buy another stick of the same RAM, or do you think i should upgrade to OCZ Platinum 2GB (2 x 1GB).

P@
 
For graphic design (Adobe Suite etc.) it really doesn't matter much WHICC ram you get, but it certainly matters HOW MUCH ram you get. 2x1GB should be minimum, and if you're working with really large files (300DPI or more) with lots of layers in Photoshop 4GB wouldn't hurt either (although there are some limitations with 4GB ram setups, depending on the OS you're using - you can google it).
 
yeah i think my down fall is that i'm not running 2 sticks of ram on a dual channel board. I know XP doesn't recognize 4GB's of RAM, however, i think x64 does.
 
I run 1GB atm in my laptop and im hoping to upgrade later this year to 2GB of RAM them to 3/4GB
 
lifeisgood416 said:
yeah i think my down fall is that i'm not running 2 sticks of ram on a dual channel board. I know XP doesn't recognize 4GB's of RAM, however, i think x64 does.
Click to expand...

What do you mean? the 32bit architecture allows up to 4GB - so it'll recognize it just fine. The problem however is the virtual address space of processes and applications is still limited to 2 GB unless the /3GB switch is used in the Boot.ini file.

So with 4gb of ram (the max for xp sp2 32bit) you can enable 3GB to be used by programs and the other 1 GB is still useful for the O/S.

Also, make sure you have a fast HD (I see you have a raptor), you could even run in Raid 0 between two drives, and set the scratch disk and pagefile there; and set the pagefile to approriate sizes. The size varies from whom you speak with... but I always say 1.5xmin -> 3x max for <2GB ram and 1x -> 1x for >2GB ram (to force the O/S to work from your much faster ram)

I'm a graphic designer and run 4GBs with 2GB as a ramdisk/scratch disk for photoshop. I don't use the /3GB switch, but if I was working with REALLY large files I could.

and other option is use a 64bit O/S. There's a 16TB ram limit... although I think photoshop will only use like 3-3.7GB no matter what.

O yea, and always have your ddr1 running in dual channel... 1 stick isn't a good idea; you'll get much better performance with 2.
 
Depends on what kind of graphic design, but I think 2gb's of ram would definitely be a minimum. 4gb would be great if you can get it, but I think you could live with 2. I did over a year's worth of photoshop work (as a photography intern) on an incredibly outdated imac with only 1gb of ram.

But I do think that 1gb more would definitely give you a little boost.
 
IMO, get 4 x 1gb DIMMs of value RAM. If you are doing critical work and/or making a living with that machine, you don't really need an OCing monster. And, even with a 32bit OS, you should still be able to use 3gb+ for apps which is a significant improvement over 2gb.
 
I design with photoshop, imageready, illustrator, and dreamweaver usually opened at the same time. Anywho i'll suck it up and buy another stick of corsair in about a week or two
 
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