Advice for build please

[The Orange Crab]

1. This computer will be used mainly for running Adobe CS4 programs.

2. price range: around 1K

3. Buying parts in U.S.

4. I think I might prefer a nVidia card from past positive experience, other wise I am not too
attached to brands.

5. I'll be using my old case, DVD/CD drive, Monitor, keyboard/mouse, hard drives

6. I have read similar threads, I am unsure mainly on whether I can do a cheap i7920
build (to have upgrade options over the years) or have to lower the standards

7. Probably will stay at default, I don't have any experience OCing.

8. 1920x1200

9. I plan on buying parts within a month or two

Thank you for your help!

 

[elconejito]

For adobe CS4, definitely go with a quad core. The i7 CPUs are a level above everything else. Intel's Core2Quad and AMD's Phenom II X4 are pretty close in price/performance if you wanted to drop the price a little. The i7 and Phenom II X4 give you better upgradability down the road (as much as can be expected anyway).

For just a general all-around graphic machine you could go with either:
Intel i7 920 ~ $280
S1366 mobo ~$200
6GB DDR3 RAM ~$100, I'd HIGHLY recommend 12GB for ~$200-$250
WD 1TB Black Hard drives ~$90, I'd HIGHLY recommend 2 of them for ~$180
low-end video card ~$75
Good/Quality 500-700w PSU ~$100
TOTAL: $1085

OR
AMD Phenom II X4 955 ~ $190
AM3 mobo ~$150
4GB DDR3 RAM ~$75, I'd HIGHLY recommend 8GB for ~$150
WD 1TB Black Hard drives ~$90, I'd HIGHLY recommend 2 of them for ~$180
low-end video card ~$75
Good/Quality 500-700w PSU ~$100
TOTAL: $845

Specifically, what programs in the suite will you mainly be using? And what type of files will you be working with?

If you're mainly using photoshop, you don't need a high-end video card. The GPU accelerated features are mainly display-based such as zooming, panning, etc. So you don't need a lot of horsepower. If you're using Premiere or After-Effects, then a higher-end card might be warranted. Or if you will be gaming on this machine. Basically, any 9XXX or better Nvidia card, or ATI 4XXX or better. Spend as little as possible, but you will get better performance out of a card with more RAM so don't get anything less than 512MB, and preferably 1GB+

If you are doing a lot of video encoding, then you might need a 3rd drive as a scratch drive. Or if you are dealing with really massive photoshop files like for panoramas.

I chose to replace your hard drives because a) its within your budget and b) unless you have really recent drives these are likely WAY faster. You can use your old drives as backups and storage. If you have really nice hard drives already, let us know because then you might spend that $$$ towards an SSD or something.

You see you can adjust the cost a little bit by getting less RAM, or one less hard drive. On the AMD side, you can go down to an X4 945 or X4 810 to save a little bit. If you can stretch the budget a little bit, the first thing I would add is probably an SSD for OS/apps.

 

[The Orange Crab]

Thank you for taking the time for such a nice reply. I'm lucky that I am by a Microcenter so I can get a $920 for around $200. Where are you seeing a mb for i7s for $200? The range I've seen is more like $250-280? For video cards I was looking at a gtx 275/high mid
range card. I use Illustrator/Photoshop a lot and work with big files but am getting more into Flash animations. I just don't want any performance issues, such as stalling, etc. You'd be amazed how quickly it becomes tiresome to deal w/lagged zooming & panning.
I have one good 7200 drive, less than a year old so that is why I passed on getting a new one for now. When you say to buy 2, do you mean to raid or just have 2 drives?

 

[Maverick2002]

CS4 (to my knowledge) has hardly any 3d acceleration. PS CS4 has a little bit iirc. Quadro CX allows for some of the apps/plugins to use the GPU for acceleration, but it's a huge money sink.

Everything else is CPU/RAM based. You'll want a quad core for AE multi-core rendering. You'll want tons of RAM too, especially if you do multi-core rendering on AE (as of CS3 2gb per core/process is optimal).

 

[elconejito]

Originally posted by: The Orange Crab
Thank you for taking the time for such a nice reply. I'm lucky that I am by a Microcenter so I can get a $920 for around $200. Where are you seeing a mb for i7s for $200? The range I've seen is more like $250-280? For video cards I was looking at a gtx 275/high mid
range card. I use Illustrator/Photoshop a lot and work with big files but am getting more into Flash animations. I just don't want any performance issues, such as stalling, etc. You'd be amazed how quickly it becomes tiresome to deal w/lagged zooming & panning.
I have one good 7200 drive, less than a year old so that is why I passed on getting a new one for now. When you say to buy 2, do you mean to raid or just have 2 drives?

I just did a quick search on newegg. They start at $170. The ever popular Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD3R is $190. I just arbitrarily chose $200 as a reasonable cost for the mobo. Obviously, if there are specific features or brand that your looking for that will affect the cost.

GPU support in Adobe CS4 <- That link at Adobe's knowledgebase will give you the specifics on what is supported. In particular, follow the links at the bottom of the page for specific program accelerations. Illustrator is not GPU accelerated at all.

Here is the list of photoshop GPU accelerated features.
# Smooth Display at ALL Zoom Levels
# Animated Zoom Tool
# Animated Transitions when doing a One Stop Zoom
# Hand Toss Image
# Birdseye View
# Rotate Canvas
# Smooth Display of Non Square Pixel Images
# Pixel Grid
# Move Color Matching to the GPU
# Draw Brush Tip Editing Feedback via GPU
# 3D GPU features include:
* 3D Acceleration
* 3D Axis
* 3D Lights Widget
* Accelerated 3D Interaction via Direct To Screen

None of that needs a beefy video card. Maybe (**maybe**) the 3D stuff could use more power, but the 3D interface is so clunky and awful you're in for a world of hurt regardless.

If you were gaming, or doing real 3D work, then I'd recommend you pay more for a better vid card. But you're not, so I won't. Instead, use the cash you would have spent on the video card towards something that will actually make a difference such as more/faster hard drives, more RAM, faster CPU.

I completely understand your avoidance of lag. My fiance looked at me funny when I tried to explain to her the productivity increase in going from click, wait, click, wait, click to click, click, click. But in the apps you are using a better vid card is not the solution.

The point to multiple hard drives is to avoid concurrent writes/reads on the same drive at the same time. Worst case scenario is You are saving a file in photoshop, while photoshop uses the scratch disk, while windows uses the swap file, while your A/V runs a background scan.... all on the same drive.

Depending on the size of your files and whether or not it will fit in RAM, this may or may not be that big of an issue. If you are dealing mainly with web-sized files, this is really a non-issue. If you are making huge panoramas then it's more of an issue. If you are dealing with REALLY big files, then you would need a 3rd drive just for scratch. There was a discussion a while back as to which was better... one really fast (RAID10 or somesuch) drive versus multiple hard drives. The jury is still out on that one I think.

So in your case I'm suggesting use one drive for the OS/apps and the second drive as storage. If you have a good drive already then just get one additional for 2 drives total. Depending on what drive you have (you still haven't mentioned) it may better serve as storage or as your OS/apps drive. If it's big enough, then maybe you can use your current drive as storage and buy a new SSD for OS/apps instead of 2 new drives.

 

[BaboonGuy]

I'd toss in a nice HSF/Fan... (http://www.newegg.com/Product/...6835185098&Tpk=kabuto) this looks good to me. The overclocking potential on the i7 920s is pretty insane. Its default speed is 2.66ghz IIRC and I hear that you can easily get them up to 3.4 on safe voltage. That's a huge performance increase, and at those speeds, AMDs/Intel Q's aren't coming anywhere close to the i7. You might want to look into a bigger tower cooler like a Xigmatek but I believe it may block some of the RAM modules. 12GB is also definitely recommended.

It may be worth to up your budget and include an Intel X-25m SSD as well. Your apps and OS will load much much much faster and everything will be very snappy. It won't necessarily help with render times or whatever, but it'll increase overall system performance by a good deal.