Question about a Photo PC

[jamiedennis]

I know a lot about computers, but I dont know a lot about the apps end of things --- which is REALLY weird...

Any ways, what is a relatively inexpensive PC (not a Mac, I can not afford that in any way shape or form) to build to run SOLELY CS 4, and eventually run CS5.

I have the add-ons already, roms, and drives. My monitor is good enough - I dont usually have much or any difference from screen to finished in-hand print.

Im just not sure what MOBO & PROC, and HDD to go with... I have talked with a few of my PC Retailers and have price quotes, but the systems arent what I hear every one else talking about... and I know building my own system is HELLA cheaper then buying from an on-line place --- the one place wants over 1500 for a system I can build for less then 400$... So I dont think that place is a good place to order it from.

Any help would be nice.

Thanks

[Quo Fan]

Get the best video card you can afford. Photoshop is a GPU-intensive program.

I'm an Intel guy, so I'd get either an i5 or i7 CPU and a Mobo to run it. Get a smaller solid state HDD to run the OS and programs, and an enormous one (min 1TB) for your photos. Also get an external for backing up your photos.

[jamiedennis]

Originally Posted by Quo Fan

Get the best video card you can afford. Photoshop is a GPU-intensive program.

I'm an Intel guy, so I'd get either an i5 or i7 CPU and a Mobo to run it. Get a smaller solid state HDD to run the OS and programs, and an enormous one (min 1TB) for your photos. Also get an external for backing up your photos.

KK... Do you know the AMD/Asus equivalent??? Im an AMD/Asus guy... I have a 750GB external that I use already, and I have a 300GB SATA, and a 250GB IDE internal drives that I use for my OS and files.

I figured Id have to drop a good portion of my funds into the Video card...

Thanks for the suggestions and info

[Jonbar18]

Depending on your budget, you can check out I buy power's custom configurator. You choose the specs, features, and extra junk; they build; you buy.

[jamiedennis]

Originally Posted by Jonbar18

Depending on your budget, you can check out I buy power's custom configurator. You choose the specs, features, and extra junk; they build; you buy.

WoW!
For the system that I want, its gonna cost almost double what Im allocating for my new system... WoW!

REALLY nice stuff though!!!

[SwissJon]

Hmmm..

You might be interested in the following:

Ars reviews Adobe Photoshop CS5 Extended

MPG - Apple Mac Pro Westmere 4/6/8/12-Core (Aug 2010) - When More Is Less: Photoshop Slower With 12 Cores Than 6

Core i7-990X Extreme Edition vs. Core i7-2600K. Page 5 - X-bit labs



I would suggest you stick to a maximum of 4 cores... Speed is far more important because Photoshop doesn't seem to multithread very well, from what I've read.. 64bit o/s and chuck a fair amount of memory at it.. I've got 6Gb Ram, but would be happier with 8 or even more.

I'm not so sure about the GPU... The one I have on my laptop is perfectly adequate, AMD Radeon 6650M HD.. I'm aware that the Filters don't use the GPU for example. They would seem rather important for photographers.

Fast hard drive speed for loading and saving photograps seems very important, so perhaps consider USB3, Firewire or eSATA external drives if you're not planning to keep them on board.

[ArmySoldier777]

+1 on increasing memory. Up until yesterday I was running 4GB "win 7 uses 1 - 1/2 gb just to run", and Photoshop was only utilizing about 2 - 2 1/2 GBs of ram. Well today I installed an additional 8GB of ram for a total of 12, increased the amount of physical memory CS5 utilizes in the preferences, and now it seems like Photoshop is waiting on me, instead of me constantly waiting on it lol.

[jamiedennis]

Originally Posted by ArmySoldier777

+1 on increasing memory. Up until yesterday I was running 4GB "win 7 uses 1 - 1/2 gb just to run", and Photoshop was only utilizing about 2 - 2 1/2 GBs of ram. Well today I installed an additional 8GB of ram for a total of 12, increased the amount of physical memory CS5 utilizes in the preferences, and now it seems like Photoshop is waiting on me, instead of me constantly waiting on it lol.

Thats interesting - Im running an AMD Athelon X64 Dual Core 3Ghz proc, and only 3GB of memory and Im forever waiting on PS. Im running Windows 7 as well - so if your numbers are accurate - or even close, then I seriously need hella more ram!!!

Im gonna check the specs of my board and see what its max is and then see what that cost will be... cause my system is only 1yr old, and was built for me to do photos on but Ive been waiting on PS every time I load it...

[ArmySoldier777]

jamiedennis - if you want a quick look at what's taking up what as far as ram goes, then restart windows and close down everything that doesn't need to be open after startup. Go into task manager and then into performance. On my machine, with everything closed down except for a few programs that I need to run in the background, I average around 1 1/2 GBs for Windows. So while that other 2 1/2 GBs was good enough to run quite a bit of stuff, PS was eating it up like crazy.

Are you running DDR2 or DDR3? Cause there's a huge speed difference between those as well.

[jamiedennis]

Originally Posted by ArmySoldier777

jamiedennis - if you want a quick look at what's taking up what as far as ram goes, then restart windows and close down everything that doesn't need to be open after startup. Go into task manager and then into performance. On my machine, with everything closed down except for a few programs that I need to run in the background, I average around 1 1/2 GBs for Windows. So while that other 2 1/2 GBs was good enough to run quite a bit of stuff, PS was eating it up like crazy.

Are you running DDR2 or DDR3? Cause there's a huge speed difference between those as well.

Im running DDR 2, and my board is the M2N-MX SE Plus - which I didnt realize was maxed out at 3 GB of ram... Sooo I need a new MOBO, more ram, and likely a bigger proc. since mine is likely un-compatible with anything new... WHICH SUCKS!

My roms, HDD's, etc. are all fine to transfer over - or replace later on as funds allow it.

Any prebuilt systems that are known that would be a good fit for a photo pc??? I dont follow prebuilt systems at all - The last system I looked into was an AMD K6 2x266 with 256mb of ram... and that was back in the mid 90's... since then Ive just built my own systems but since getting into photography 3 yrs ago Ive not followed up on the PC stuff much... hahahaha