Thanks for the responses. Perhaps I should explain the reason for asking. I'm not shopping for a video card. Im already *very* happy with a Sapphire Radeon x1300 because it uses a heat sync (no fan) and is *silent*.

I teach commercial Photography at a local collage and students ask questions such as "Do I need a video card with lots of RAM to do *2D* photo editing with Photoshop?" and I would like to offer an informed answer.

I've been using Photoshop since v2.5 (on a PC) so I've been through most generations of video cards since the old EGA, ISA, VGA. PCI, AGP and now PCIe interfaces, and from analog to current digital interfaces for LCD monitors. But one thing that's always been constant was the fact that Photoshop did not require anything more from a video card than its ability to display 'millions' of colours (24 or 32bit). A fast video card with a fast RAMDAC, such as was found in the Matrox G400Max, would help with scrolling images quicker. But 8megs of RAM was all that was ever needed for 2D photo editing on a monitor running at 1200x1600 resolution.

So I'm looking for a good answer. I'm leaning towards:

"For 2D editing with Photoshop it really does not matter what video card you buy or how much RAM it has as they all currently exceed what Photoshop needs. Getting more RAM will offer no benefit whatsoever once Photoshop is able to display 24bit colour onscreen, noting that 1200x1600 resolution requires only 8mb VRAM. Photoshop CS3 does require more RAM for its new 3D features. But if you dont do that then the amount of RAM on the video card does not matter. A purchase decision should be based on availability and stability of good drivers for your operating system. If you're using a CRT you should also be concerned about the Digital->Analog conversion quality where Matrox has historically excelled, though their 3d performance is poor. For digital interfaces with LCD monitors all brands are capable of similar 2d performance. The difference is so negligible that 2D quality performance is rarely mentioned in modern video card reviews. Most video card performance problems are due to poor drivers, so buying a reputable brand is recommended."

So, what's wrong with this?

That's what I meant when I said I was 'just trying to get my facts straight'. There are LOTS of smart folks in this forum and I'm hoping someone can tell me where I'm going wrong.

Thanks :-)

Russell

Until recently I was running a 2nd computer with a Matrox G400Max with 32M RAM which I pulled because of the noise the fan makes. I replaced it with an x1300 Radeon w/256M ram and I really don't find there is any difference except for the silence (ahhhh...). I'm tempted to drop an old 4M Millennium PCI card into that system to see what it slows down. Yes, video RAM is dirt cheap. But that's no reason to state that CS3 NEEDS a MINIMUM of 128MB video RAM if it makes no difference whatsoever over using much less. Anyone do any benchmark testing to prove their case?

Hmm, if CS3 is now using video RAM for some of it's chores it makes me wonder if that might be the root of its poor performance when doing some things compared to CS2?

Russell