Upgrade hardware for Photoshop CS4

[F4celess]

Ello there.

I have recently begun working on quite large canvases (6000x4000). and I realize that my computer lags more than I need it to while using big brushes.

So what I ask is advice on what components Photoshop are the most intense on and what I should upgrade to. since it's getting outdated.

These are the computer specs:

Motherboard: Asus M3N78
CPU: AMD Phenom Quadcore 9650
RAM: 4GB Corsair DDR2
GPU: Asus Radeon 4850 512mb
PSU: 450w Corsair

Now I heard that Photoshop mainly use the CPU to do stuff. while the GPU isn't very useful for other than games and password cracking. is this true? best scenario is that I need to upgrade my GPU. since it's a lot simpler than changing CPU.

I also do some video editing, and gaming.

Anyway. any kind of advice is helpful. I built this PC in 2009 so it's quite old.

Thanks in advance

[darkmagistric]

Your desktop rip seems powerful enough in the CPU department. Lord knows I've thrown CS4 on far weaker specs with good results.

Only thing I can think of is upgrading your ram. 4gb is for the most part sufficent, but Photoshop benefits primarily from the CPU and Ram

8 gb would help overall with large files, but it wouldn't really effect the brush size lag. How big (pp wise) are the brushes your using? Some brushes if their big enough will lag regardless of your hardware.

[mookyNUKE]

The motherboard you have is very outdated (AM2 socket), along with the cpu, a Phenom I @ 2.3 ghz with four cores. Memory is eww DDR2.

I would get a new motherboard and memory, you can keep the cpu if your on a tight budget. The AM2 cpu socket will fit in a AM3 and AM3+ socket, also you can overclock your CPU up to 2.8 ghz (stable) to squeeze another year out of it.

With a new motherboard you can get DDR3 memory and memory is VERY cheap, so cheap you may want to look for a motherboard that has a max of 16 gigs of memory. You only live once, buy 16 gigs worth.

You may have issues with the Harddrive, I think your motherboard is ATA only? Todays motherboards are slowly if not all together phased that out .. may need a new Harddrive. Which is a bad thing since prices have skyrocketed due to a mass flooding in .. some country.

Your videocard can go into the new motherboard (backwards compatible).

As for the power supply, errr you should be ok. May need to upgrade in the future with higher end upgrades.

By going the motherboard route you can port over some old hardware and upgrade a year down the line or whenever your budget allows to upgrade the videocard and or cpu without breaking your wallet.

You may also consider an after market cooler for the cpu if you overclock, I'm assuming your using a stock cooler. A full tower case would also be nice for cooling and would allow higher end hardware to fit (videocards and massive cpu heatsinks.

I could list some options but there is no budget listed.

[pollostar]

You system configuration is nice but you should increase your system RAM its not enough for photoshop you should increase upto 10 GB.

[Portus]

When I had an HD4850 it didn't play nice with Photoshop, panning and moving the files around the screen was very choppy, not saying that's the cause but AMD drivers and Photoshop can be problematic sometimes. If you use many layers more RAM will do wonders as long as you can use it.