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Laptop for Photoshop

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  • 01-07-2013 2:25am
    #1
    wellboys
    Registered Users Posts: 191 ✭✭


    Hi Guys,

    Starting a course which means I will be using Photoshop extensively on a daily basis. I want to get something that will keep up with whatever I throw at it. I'll also be using it for web browsing and your basic day to day requirements but I'm mainly using it for Photoshop.

    I was looking at Apple but realised that I can get a much better machine for much less! Budget would be €650 - €800 max.

    Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated.


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    #2
    mcw92
    Registered Users Posts: 1,496 ✭✭✭mcw92


    Photoshop would definitely require a good processor compared to anything else.
    An i5 or i7 Processor is recommended, 6GB ram or more and a SSD would give great performance.
    GPU is not too important. But if you wanted one anyways, a 640M would be a good one on the cheap.

    This one looks good.
    i5, 10GB Ram, 128GB SSD, 640M GPU.
    And it has a excellent battery.
    +£10 for delivery.

    An even better option would be to buy a good spec laptop, and buy and fit the SSD yourself.
    Would you be interested in doing this?
    You could get a better processor spec's laptop with a normal HD, plus SSD are gong for fairly cheap these days when you get a good deal.


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    #3
    Overheal
    Registered Users Posts: 81,989 ✭✭✭✭Overheal


    Nothing wrong with a MacBook to be fair aside from the high asking price. Arguably some of the most straightforward machines to use for photoshop, but yes you can save a large chunk of money on a PC. They are an easier to swallow investment when you're basically already a pro, and if you want to go totally HAM I'd get a Mac Pro tower and a Cintiq screen. Cheap? Helllllll no, but jaw droppingly awesome? Yes. Yes it is. Helps you spend more time doing and less tinkering. But unless you're making the income off the productivity to match the high costs of MacBooks and such, go with PC. AMD chipsets btw have partnered with companies like adobe to ensure the chipsets outperform intel under a lot of conditions. I'd say either an A10 based machine would be grand but if you want to go farther get an i7 and an AMD based GPU


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    #4
    5uspect
    Moderators, Arts Moderators Posts: 10,516 Mod ✭✭✭✭5uspect


    Photoshop performance is generally much more RAM dependent than CPU. A faster CPU will mean that you have to wait less for some filters to apply to large images, but you're not going to be able to do much to those images with out enough memory to open them in the first place. Also, on this note, PS uses large amounts of scratch space, make sure this won't affect an SSD. It can also use your GPU, so you'll need to see which mobile GPUs are supported.

    Photoshop has a pretty broad range of uses. What kind of work are you going to be doing with it? Web design, photography, 3D? This could dictate the hardware requirements.

    What other software will you be using? I can't imagine a whole course on just Photoshop alone. Will you be using other Creative Suite applications? Does the course recommend one platform over another? Could be difficult to be the only mac user in a windows world. The software requirements may affect your decision. OSX has better (native) pdf support, unlike windows, as well as things like a factory calibrated screen.

    There is an Apple Educational Discount which works out at about 15% iirc.


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