Do I need a powerful video card for viewing photos?

[Browncoat]

Originally Posted by swampler

I don't think the video card is the bottle neck. I think it's the loading from hard disk and initial rendering done by the software.

Yes, this. ^

Unless you're a gamer, you don't really need super fast video rendering. Still photos will displace nicely on cheap and average vid cards. What you need is more power (RAM)!

[haring]

Thanks!!!! Good news. Rams are cheaper!

[poloman]

If you decide ssd, san disk 120gb sata looks good. $116 on amazon.

[UgashikBob]

I just built a PC using a i7 3770k with a Crucial 256 GB m4 2.5-Inch Solid State Drive SATA 6Gb/s CT256M4SSD2 drive and have been very pleased with it. Win7 loads in less than 30 seconds and LR4 is very quick. It is currently $203.84 on Amazon but have seen it <$200 on other sites. Before I built my pc I checked all the build sites and this SSD was the unanimous choice for value and reliability. The OS did not take much room on the SSD but programs like CS6 and LR4 and your photos do. I used a GTX670 video card which was overkill for just photo loading.

[poloman]

Originally Posted by UgashikBob

I just built a PC using a i7 3770k with a Crucial 256 GB m4 2.5-Inch Solid State Drive SATA 6Gb/s CT256M4SSD2 drive and have been very pleased with it. Win7 loads in less than 30 seconds and LR4 is very quick. It is currently $203.84 on Amazon but have seen it <$200 on other sites. Before I built my pc I checked all the build sites and this SSD was the unanimous choice for value and reliability. The OS did not take much room on the SSD but programs like CS6 and LR4 and your photos do. I used a GTX670 video card which was overkill for just photo loading.

Thumbs Up!

[gilfish]

Originally Posted by Geonerd

In general, a $50 card will do fine. Throwing 2d images and textures onto the screen takes very little horsepower.

IMO, the single greatest speedup you can buy is a <$100 Solid State Drive. Place your operating system, apps, and WIP images on it and stand back!

I agree! Using 120GB OCZ for my main machine and that was only $90 - best upgrade you can do to a pc.

[mikethompson]

Viewing photos is a no brainer for video cards. the rendering will be done on cpu.

Most applications will make a file containing the previews, and those that dont will initially show the JPEG preview in the RAW file anyway.

Like the above say, the bottleneck will be on the hard drive read speed.

[poloman]

To the Op...
What have you done?
If you did it all you should be blazing.
Kinda looked like you where trying to get us to debate for you?
Let us know how your doing now.

[James Loudon]

All SSDs will give you a big leap in performance. There are issues with stability and reliabilty. A good solid bet is the Samsung 830.
If you fit one, do not do the upgrade/migrate thing. Do a clean install. Yes, its more hassle, but makes all the difference. Then your machine really will feel and perform like a new one.
The 512gb versions are still silly expensive, so I bought a 256gb for main drive, and another 128gb just for Lightroom catalog. All data is still on a 1tb Samsung

[haring]

I have it! I have installed it today! Yes, I agree. It makes a big difference to run you OS from an SSD. Hopefully, it will speed up my photography workflow!