Buyer’s remorse for Photoshop user

[thatsright]

Building a new rig to replace my 7 year old P4. I DO NOT do any gaming. All Photoshop baby! (Mostly work with files under 250 MB in PSP) My original plan was to go with:

-i7 920 CPU
-6 GB of Patriot DDR3 CAS7 Ram 1333
- MSI X58 Pro-E LGA 1366
-Intel X25 80GB G2 SSD Drive

Initially I thought of getting the i7 860 CPU with a P55 mobo. But I love the Tri channel setup for huge memory access w/ X58 chipset I will need in Photoshop CS4. This is the main reason I went with the X58 and i7 920 CPU setup. (Though I am definitely not a hardcore PS user.) But, now I have my doubts. After re-reading several reviews a strong case is made for the i7-860/P55 Mobo as well. Here is where it’s better or maybe not:

-i7-860 has better Trubo Mode (But I will prob slightly overclock the 920 to 3Gz or so).
-i7-860 performs (slightly for PS usage) better in some benchmarks I’ve seen. (But would I really notice anyway at these speeds...?
-i7-860/P55 mobo is cheaper than the 920/X58 setup. (But with the local Microcenter store, I will save substantially on the i7-920 CPU vs the 860. I will save $90 with Boxed i7-920 compared to Newegg.)

For both platforms, they are about the same in price so this is not a factor. One negative for the i7-860/P55 platform is to maintain dual channel support I will need to buy 8GB of ram compared to 6GB of Tri-channel for the X58 setup. This adds about $100. Now here is the killer, last night I bought the i7-920 Retail CPU @ Microcenter for $200. I can only return it for an exact replacement, no cash back. So if I was going to go to –i7-860 I would have to sell this thing on eBay or similar. (A major PITA.)

What do you think? For a Photoshop user is it worth to change course and go with a i7-860/P55 system? I’m wondering if I would even notice the difference in performance going to the i7-860!!

 

[Dubb]

I don't think you'll notice.

For me at least, the biggest noticable slowdown with photoshop is disk access when loading and saving large files, and waiting for the damn program to launch. Decent SSD? you've got that. I don't have enough hands on experience to say this definitively, but you might be better off with an SSD that has higher sequential write speeds (for those save scenarios) than the intel - just a thought.

 

[brblx]

you could probably run photoshop on slow core2 and never know the difference.

as posted above, PS is all going to be about memory and hard disk speed. and memory should be a moot point in most newer systems.

 

[Tsavo]

Do not worry about a few % here and there, especially considering what you are upgrading from.

You'll be blown away by any Core i7 system you put together.

 

[Sumotku]

You'll see the biggest improvement in PS usage from enhancing read/write performance, I'd concentrate more on that aspect. 250MB is not a small file, think about 2,3 or 4 hard drives in RAID 0 array if you really want ease of handling in PS. Of course, a separate drive for backing up to for security of data. Best move I ever made for PS use, very tangible difference, not to mention drives are cheap now.

edit: The X-25 noted shows write specs of up to 70MB/s, with only two drives in RAID 0 I'm seeing consistent write speeds closer to 200MB/s. I've read of folks seeing 400MB/s with 4 drives. I'm using onboard RAID as well.

 

[Cattykit]

The difference you'll notice will be close to nothing. No matter which one you choose, I'm sure you'll be more than satisfied because I also made a jump from P4 2.4 - Q6600 3.2 - i7 860 3.7.

As far as memory goes, the more is better but more might give you no benefit. I can't tell you, it's the thing only you know. I have a friend who scans series of medium format images in highest settings. I'm not sure on exact numbers but they were just insanly HUGE. If you're like him, you need i7 920 without a doubt. You'd also need fast HDD.

In my case, I use 21MP 5d mk2 and it does eat up quite a bit of memory but 8GB with regular 7200rpm 1TB HDD speed has been more than enough.

Also, get nVidia GPU. Since you don't game, that wouldn't be a problem, I guess. The reason is because of CUDA. Video RAM is important as well. Currently, CS4 utilized OpenGL and it needs large video ram. If you deal with large images, 512mb might not cut it; go for 1GB version.

 

[ChaiBabbaChai]

Hmmmm... well 920's are a 125w TDP, so they need a better cooler, and more $$$$ for RAM. I'd buy the 920 from you for your purchase price if you take credit cards Seriously, but I am buying a car in a month or so, so maybe someone else here at AT is like myself without the purchase of a car hanging over their head...