PS and LR video cards SLI benefit?

[TeleFragger]

ok so since my computer is back up and running now..
evga 780i, 8gb ram.. i have one dead 9600gt...
im not going to game anymore on my computer...

is it worth it to upgrade the video card for photoshop and lightroom?
im just wondering as maybe i shouldnt sink the money in... if i will see no performance gain..
i know cpu will limit in some things and video in others...so just curious...

 

[zero2dash]

For Ps...basically the GPU is only used for OpenGL drawing acceleration, nothing more. I don't believe there's any benefit to a GPU in Ps for anything other than the view, 2D or 3D.

By comparison - in AE and Premiere you can do a lot of stuff on a GPU that ends up being a lot faster than using the CPU for those tasks (such as rendering and encoding).

If your sole use here for the GPU would be Ps and LR (and assuming LR uses a GPU the same way Ps does).....you could get away with using a throwaway card or even onboard video and still get by just fine. Even though I'm in and out of CS5.5 all day at work, I've had no problems relying on my onboard video (880G chipset....Radeon 4250 graphics). Even my home system which has a much more substantial GPU (a 6950)....I still really don't see much benefit there, at least not for Ps.

If I was a heavy AE or Premiere user, I'd probably put my spare GTX 260 back in and use it for those apps...but I'm not really using either of those apps. If you're not either, you could get by with almost anything because Ps doesn't really use a GPU for much.