Thinkpads Forum

Hello all,

Thank you in advance for any help you can provide.

I have been trying to determine which video card to get in my new W520. Price is definitely a consideration. I understand that the current version of Photoshop (CS5) is not optimized to use the CUDA cores in 1000M or the 2000M cards. So from reading the specs, the cards are essentially identical except for the number of cores (96 vs 192), and the power they draw (45 vs 55). I do not do any work with 3D applications and other than Photoshop, I don't think I use any applications that are specifically optimized to utilize the CUDA cores (that I know of). I am drawn to this machine for the reliability, build quality, screen quality, fast internals, and built in color calibration system.

So, I have the following questions:
1. I don't fully understand what the CUDA cores do. If you are running an application like Photoshop that isn't built to use them, then do they just sit idle? Are they not used at all?

2. Does any one know or can anyone speculate if future versions of Photoshop will be designed to utilize CUDA cores?

On the surface it seems like the 1000M is a better choice for me, and I can use the extra $200 to buy an SSD and/or some more ram. But since upgrading the video card on a laptop is not a likely option, I would hate to miss out if those extra cores could be useful in the future.

I should also mention that I am a professional photographer/designer. So I use Photoshop for large, heavily layered files. It may be that the best thing I can do is get a larger primary (for windows) SSD and point Photoshop's scratch disk there. I am already planning on going for 16GB or ram.

Any ideas are welcome.

[edit]

I just found this link on the nvidia site that seems to indicate that there may be specific features that are only enabled with certain cards:

http://www.nvidia.com/object/adobe_photoshop.html

--snip--
Now more than ever, you can connect with the digital canvas in a natural way. Experience a new level of engagement while navigating your images with fluid viewing, immersive interaction and creative accuracy.

Want more? It’s easy - Adobe Photoshop CS5 automatically detects NVIDIA® GeForce® or NVIDIA® Quadro® GPUs to enable these accelerated features.
--/snip--

The page doesn't really say if this has anything to do with the CUDA cores or if these features only work with these nvidia cards (as opposed to a comparable ATI card).

Anyone know anything about this?


Thank you,

Rod

Hi,

I went through the same debate as yours when buying my w50 (it's yet to arrive by the way) and I settled for the 100M The official story is, the Quadro 2000M is supported by the CS5 suite. However, support for 1000M can be easily turned on, modifying a config file, so no big deal.

Now to the most important issue of performance...

Firstly, CUDA matters. See how having a a CUDA enabled graphics card makes a difference: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ado ... 770-8.html. The next question after that is, how much does it make a difference?

Unfortunately, there aren't too many benchmarks available so far, the only one I came across so far, http://www.studio1productions.com/Artic ... ereCS5.htm seems to suggest that the 96 CUDA cores in 1000M is good enough, since increasing the number of CUDA cores only give a small performance boost for the same tasks.

I choose the 1000M because the extra money I'd save can easily buy me a SSD, which will make the overall system performance a lot better than the effect of having a better GPU. And since I'm a Lightroom user, it wouldn't matter much right now anyway...

Hope that helps.

Thank you very much for the reply. I think my plan is to add all the things I know I want (FHD screen, color sensor, extra mem and ssd from newegg, etc) and see where I end up and what coupon special they have going that week. Then if I have left over cash I will get the 2000m.

I am also a big lightroom user and since that app isn't even mentioned anywhere regarding cuda cores, it may not even benefit from the more expensive card.

Well thank you again and I hope yours arrives soon.

Depending upon how large the files are you'll work with and/or the scratch/temp space needs, consider buying even more ram than you'd think and setup a ramdrive. If you'll do LOTS of I/O and can figure out what your disk space needs are, ramdrives can make a huge performance difference. Even though the diff between ramdrive vs. SSD is fairly minor on short bursts of read I/O, write I/O and long read I/O is a completely different matter. Plus, you'll not mess with worrying about trim, wear & tear type stuff compared to an SSD.

W520 maxes out memory at 16G with 4x4G sticks, and 32G with 4x8G sticks, so there's probably a sweet between 16G & 32G where you can maximize performance and minimize cost.

I've started seeing 8G sticks for < $400 this week, so prices are definitely coming down.

Order up the W520 with ONE 4G stick and purchase whatever else you'll need aftermarket; you'll save some real $$$ that way.

A ramdrive... What a great idea. I set one of those up for a friend several years ago. At the time we had to buy a software application to be able to set it up. My current machine is still xp ( ). Can this now be done in Windows 7? Or do I still need to buy an aftermarket application?

Thank you for all the help!

frodeflintstone wrote:A ramdrive... What a great idea. I set one of those up for a friend several years ago. At the time we had to buy a software application to be able to set it up. My current machine is still xp ( ). Can this now be done in Windows 7? Or do I still need to buy an aftermarket application?

Thank you for all the help!

Search for posts under my username; I've posted several good write ups on this board and over at the lenovo board. My posts here have pointers to the others on lenovo.

Briefly, you use one of many ramdisk utilities available to setup one under Win7. Cheap or free, so not a biggie deal.

Works great

I found them. Very informative! Thank you for your help.

My understanding is that Photoshop CS5's acceleration is strictly OpenGL, not CUDA. Premiere Pro / Adobe Media Encoder will use CUDA (with CS 5.5 for out-of-the-box support of the 2000M).

There may be some third-party Photoshop plug-ins that use CUDA acceleration.

Also, if you're running a 64-bit OS and 64-bit Photoshop, I'm not sure there's much point to a RAMdisk. By opening a bunch of photos and creating a few large images of rendered clouds, I was easily able to get Photoshop up well over 4GB private memory used out of my 16GB (before I got bored and stopped trying). I'd suggest just letting Photoshop use what it can directly. Windows 7 will also use the additional RAM to prefetch code you use most often, speeding system responsiveness. So, do buy as much RAM as you want, but don't be trying to out-think Adobe and MS about what to do with it They've got you covered.