RAM or Faster Processor?

tenyearsafter

tenyearsafter

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Martin
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I am looking for a new laptop on which I will be running PS Elements. I have a budget of around £450 and want a 17" screen.

For that I have found machines with either

8GB RAM and Intel Core i3 chip 1.9GHz
Or
4GB RAM and Intel Core i5 chip 2.6GHz

I know, well I have read, that it's easier to add RAM but in the real world which would be the better machine as it stands for editing photos? Or am I unlikely to actually notice any difference? Or is there some other aspect of spec I should be more concerned about in terms of speeding up Elements?

Any advice from people who know about these things would be appreciated.

thanks.
 
I would say the i5 but it is rather short of RAM but you can always add that, although that might infringe any warrant you may get.

I personally think the i3 would be a little too slow, depending also on the size of the images you will be editing.
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Depends what i5 it is (dual or quad), but yes memory is easy enough to add.

Not sure about the warranty but. Most machines have a user accessible memory slot. Generally changing the ram won't break a system unless you're completely ham fisted.
 
If i change the ram i find it useful to keep the old ram,then if anything else goes wrong you just put the old stuff back in :)
 
4GB is pretty useless these days. I had 4GB back in 2008. Having said that it should be easy to rectify that situation unless you buy certain new macs or surface pro.
 
My development machine has 3GB RAM and currently 1.2GB of that is free (Windows 7 64 bit).

Currently running on it : mail client, development environment (MSVC2008), editor (pspad), winscp, some putty sessions, various firefox instances, some command prompts, hxd and the vSphere client with connections to a couple of VMs on the ESXi host. All in 1.8GB.
 
I have no idea what Elements is like as a memory hog but if you use lightroom and only have one or two apps running at once, 4GB will do. 8G is definitely preferable though. Having said that, you can (normally) upgrade memory in a laptop. You can't upgrade the processor.... Also Win 8.x seems to be less memory intensive, so tends to run in a smaller footprint.
 
I have an old laptop running intel p processor @2.2ghz with 4gb ram. The HDD swapfile is the bottle neck. Loading 1 raw file into PS CS6 is slow but to edit there is no delay. Saving is also slow.
Increasing ram would decrease the use of the swapfile and allow multiple images to be loaded.
Having said that, you normally can't change a processor in a laptop but ram and hdd are easily changed. Just chech the maximum ram the board will recognise.
 
Faster Processor add RAM later (easier) and make sure its 64 bit so it uses all the available RAM
 
Can't offer any techy advice but I just bought a Dell 15" inspiron with 1Tb ram and i5 processor for less than £400. Dell might not but be be the best brand ever but seemed a good deal and works like a dream with Photoshop CC and lightroom.
 
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blondie606 said:
Can't offer any techy advice but I just bought a Dell 17" inspiron with 1Tb ram and i5 processor for less than £400. Dell might not but be be the best brand ever but seemed a good deal and works like a dream with Photoshop CC and lightroom.
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1 TB RAM? - What are you, the NSA?:D

Do you mean 1TB HDD?
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Be careful in buying a low spec ram laptop! Most only allow/limit an upgrade of 2gb of ram!
You would be better waiting another month (December) for the xmas deals on laptops!
 
blondie606 said:
Ahhhh...could be....I know it's 1TB of something to do with memory...just checked the site...8gb memory .1TB hard Drive.....

I'll get me coat :coat:
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Don't give up your day job blondie :D
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boliston said:
i3 vs i5 means very little without the actual model number as this could incude anything made in the last 4 to 5 years! see http://ark.intel.com/#@Processors for the full list!
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I think we're giving the OP enough knowledge that they would only be presenting reasonably current models of i3/i5... Whilst there are a few 3rd gen i3/i5's out there, they are only ~10% slower than the 4th gen on a clock for clock basis.
 
If you get a 4Gb machine, make sure that it is upgradable to at least 8.

If it has a slot, it should be upgradable to at least 8. Some machines have only got one memory slot which means you need to take the 4 out and fit an 8, others have the main memory soldered on and another slot.

But yea, make sure it is upgradable :D
 
John Young said:
Faster Processor add RAM later (easier) and make sure its 64 bit so it uses all the available RAM
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What has not been mentioned is the Operating System, and if its 32 Bit or 64 bit.

If its 32 Bit than than the OS can only use just over 3Gb so waste of money to buy more, but if 64 bit adding more Ram is not a problem.
 
If the i5 is a quad core and the ram is not soldered onto the motherboard, then the i5 would get my vote.

That said, I'm running Win 8.1 onna Celeron 1007u with 4 gig of RAM and I'm surprised at how spritely it is. It feels faster than Linux Mint.
 
stryvya said:
What has not been mentioned is the Operating System, and if its 32 Bit or 64 bit.

If its 32 Bit than than the OS can only use just over 3Gb so waste of money to buy more, but if 64 bit adding more Ram is not a problem.
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Yep that is what I was referring to.......
 
neil_g said:
and remember to get a 64 bit OS (if anyone even offers a 32 bit these days)
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stryvya said:
What has not been mentioned is the Operating System, and if its 32 Bit or 64 bit.

If its 32 Bit than than the OS can only use just over 3Gb so waste of money to buy more, but if 64 bit adding more Ram is not a problem.
Click to expand...

Should've gone to spec savers :D
 
John Young said:
Yep that is what I was referring to.......
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OK, just reread whole Thread, cannot see anywhere else a warning regarding 32Bit maximum Memory usage so thought it sensible to say, your post may of referred to it (somehow) but to someone not in the know about the OS it does not make it clear.
 
stryvya said:
OK, just reread whole Thread, cannot see anywhere else a warning regarding 32Bit maximum Memory usage so thought it sensible to say, your post may of referred to it (somehow) but to someone not in the know about the OS it does not make it clear.
Click to expand...

No worries just messing with you and yeah if it helps the OP then great
 
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