2600 vs 8800 for photoshop cs3 work?

[Vick77]

anybody have any preferences on which graphics card to use for photoshop cs3 work? I won't be doing any motion or 3d imagery, just standard photos and flash work in flash pro.

I've realised many people prefer the 2600 for light usage (no games) and the 8800 is for the gamers, but which one would be most suited to the photoshop users?

Thanks in advance

 

[Blue Velvet]

It doesn't matter at the mo. Photoshop currently only uses the GPU for 3D acceleration which is for rendering 3D layers, and that's an app preference that has to be enabled... so if that's important to you, get the best card you can. If not then don't worry about it.

Future versions of Photoshop have been rumoured to make more potential use of the GPU.

 

[hologram]

For still images it makes no difference.

Until recently, I was using my 9 year old g4 with a 32mb graphics card and it worked just as well using Photoshop CS3 (and the rest of the CS3 suite) as my new iMac 24"/2.8. It just took longer to launch and perform some operations, and most of that was due to the processor, not the graphics card.

You have far more power in the 2600 than you'll ever use. That's like wondering whether the 5-pound paperweight or the 6-pounder is better at holding down a sheet of paper.

It's easy to get wound up in numbers games that don't make any difference in real life. You said yourself you won't be doing any motion or 3d imagery, so there's your answer.