2 gb ddr 3 ram or a 1gb graphics card ?

gauravgaurav
in Computers & Internet

Hii i am using AMD Phenom 64 bit architecture with 3.2 ghz processor, i have a ram of 2gb ddr3 . I am unable to decide with what to go with, either a 1 gb graphics card or shoud i get a 2 gb ddr3 ram. I am not into much gaming. But heavy applications i use most is adobe photoshop and lightroom, also i use pinnacle for video editing sometimes.

So basically my work is image and video manipulation, so what should i get a 2 GB DDR3 RAM or a 1GB graphics card??

Comments

  • dik-bdik-b

    I do wish you could have included more info on your system. A Phenom using 2GB DDR3 is undoubtedly a second gen unit. As the Phenom II units running at 3.2 GHZ are quite capable of handling much more RAM, it is dependent on the motherboard's limitations, i.e. does it have 4 slots, is it capable of handling 4 GB sticks if it has only 2. BTW, RAM in your system is the most cost effective upgrade you can get.

    A 1GB video card will offer some benefits for your stated uses. I do know that some recent versions of Photoshop can use video card acceleration for certain tasks, and IIRC they are different for AMD and Nvidia cards but both benefit if they are recent. Lightroom, I cannot say. Pinnacle video editing software will gladly take whatever system RAM you have and ask hungrily for more, IDK about video cards in this. If you do go with a video upgrade, get a recent card, a Radeon 6700 or 6800 if you can, or a Nvidia 550 as these are more likely to have acceleration features.

    I would say to do both with the RAM first as this will give a boost to your entire system, irrespective of whether you do the video card or not.

    Good luck.

  • michaelmichael

    To be honest most applications rarely use more than 4 gigabytes or ram, in fact many games only use 1 gigabyte during loading sequences. So therefore I would recommend that as instead of getting more of the same ram you get faster ram, like these ram DIMM's I found just now.

    http://www.scan.co.uk/products/2gb-(2x1gb)-corsair...

    http://www.scan.co.uk/products/4gb-(2x2gb)-corsair...

    There are loads more options available on the website I used (link in the source's). And when it comes to speeds of ram you are look for low Cas Latency and high MHZ (e.g a ram stick with latancy of 9 9 9 24 is faster than one with 12 12 12 34, same goes for the MHZ as a stick with a speed of 1600Mhz is fast that one with 1066Mhz, kind of like higher Miles Per Hour).

    Although a new video card can also be useful as there are increasing numbers of programs using the power of the gpu to do video encoding and editing, just like the video enhancing program VReveal which uses the gpu (however only a gpu from NVidia at the moment) to decrease the time taken to enhance the video (sharpen, enhanced colours, stabilized video playback etc.). If you do choose to get a new video card then I would recommend the GT 440 from NVidia.

    http://www.scan.co.uk/products/1gb-msi-gt-440-40nm...

    I hope this helped

  • anonymousanonymous

    If you will mostly use it for video editing and editing tons of images in photoshop, get the 2GB ram.

    A graphics card can help accelerate editing but not necessary if you already have one since the performance gain is hardly noticeable.

    Video editing requires a lot of ram, at least 4gb.

  • ralphralph

    yeah upgrade the ram, and when you have more money upgrade the video card too.

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