New Machine for Photoshop CS4 Usage

Poulsonator

Golden Member
Aug 19, 2002
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1. What YOUR PC will be used for
Mostly Photoshop CS4 usage. Absolutely zero gaming.

2. What YOUR budget is
As close to $1000 as possible

3. What country YOU will be buying YOUR parts from
USA

4. IF YOU have a brand preference
Intel, Western Digital...other then that, I'm open to anything

5. If YOU intend on using any of YOUR current parts, and if so, what those parts are.
This will be built from new parts, and I have ordered only two so far:
- WD 'Green' 1TB hard drive
- Vista Home Premium 64-bit

6. IF YOU have searched and/or read similar threads.
Darn near every single thread on this topic, including all of the gaming rigs. I am a veteran builder, but I've not built a machine solely for Photoshop usage

7. IF YOU plan on overclocking or run the system at default speeds.
Default speeds

8. WHEN do you plan to build it?
Immediately


This machine will be used at work. I am 1/2 of the IT department, and my counterpart will be getting this machine. She will be using it for mainly Photoshop CS4, with a few other daily tasks thrown in. As I said above, this machine will NOT be used for gaming.

Here's what I've been thinking of putting together (I've had about 10 different builds in my cart at Newegg, but haven't been able to pull the trigger because something nags at me...I just want to be sure I'm getting the right hardware for PS):

WD 150GB Velociraptor for the OS/applications
WD 1TB for storage/scratch
8GB RAM minimum
Antec 900 case (for the airflow, space inside, looks)
E8400 Proc
GIGABYTE GA-EP45-UD3R (might be overkill, but I like the eSATA, Firewire, etc.)
Corsair modular PSU (again, may be overkill but I LOVE these power supplies...how powerful of one would I need? 520W? 620W?)
Video card - honestly, not really sure on this one. I'm so used to going high-end on this, but I know it's not needed for this build. Definitely needs to support dual-monitors, one is a 24", the other may be that big
Heatsink - ASUS V60? I like that one because it screws in, although I've had nothing but great luck with my personal ARCTIC COOLING Freezer 7 Pro

I guess that's about it. Nothing is set in stone outside of the OS and that 1TB drive, so any suggestions/advice is welcome.

Thank you for reading all of this if you made it this far. :)
 

racolvin

Golden Member
Jul 26, 2004
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Photoshop doesn't much care about the case, power supply, etc :)

Personally I found the Shuttle SP35P2 a very solid box and very nice price-wise. It's a case, mobo, and PSU all at once, all you have to do is add RAM, HD, CPU, and video card. Bought mine from Newegg and have been very happy with it.
 

zerogear

Diamond Member
Jun 4, 2000
5,611
9
81
TBH, your 8GB ram, use RAM disk for 4gb and use that as scratch disk instead of the 1TB scratch disk would be much faster.
 

Poulsonator

Golden Member
Aug 19, 2002
1,597
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76
Originally posted by: racolvin
Photoshop doesn't much care about the case, power supply, etc :)

Personally I found the Shuttle SP35P2 a very solid box and very nice price-wise. It's a case, mobo, and PSU all at once, all you have to do is add RAM, HD, CPU, and video card. Bought mine from Newegg and have been very happy with it.

Was looking into a Shuttle, but once again, I couldn't get my head out of a gaming rig situation.

What video card would you recommend? I saw in this thread:

Text

that a cheap GTX 260 was recommended. Is that too much? Isn't that too much of a card for one of those barebone systems?


Originally posted by: zerogear
TBH, your 8GB ram, use RAM disk for 4gb and use that as scratch disk instead of the 1TB scratch disk would be much faster.

Will do.
 

dixon

Member
Mar 10, 2009
93
0
0
i just bough an antec 900 and regretted it, the case is very very small so unless you have a lot of patience to do all the cable management stuff get something bigger
 

themisfit610

Golden Member
Apr 16, 2006
1,352
2
81
I think splitting your RAM like that is a terrible idea.

Why would you bother, since CS4 is fully 64 bit native, and can use all the RAM you can throw at it? 8GB is fantastic.

Regardless, I'd skip the velociraptor. It's quick, but I think going with a pair of WD Caviar Black HDDs would be better.

Also, a 520W Corsair is plenty, especially if you don't have a monster GPU.

I always suggest a quad-core CPU, but if you're not interested, the E8400 is a terrific performer.

I really like the Asus P5Q Pro Turbo motherboard : http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16813131377 Lots of copper, eSATA, FireWire, and it's a good price.

As far as a GPU, definitely get something relatively recent, but not super powerful. I'd say a 9600GT would be your best bet. Photoshop's GPU acceleration tends to work best with nVidia cards in my experience.

~MiSfit
 

zerogear

Diamond Member
Jun 4, 2000
5,611
9
81
Originally posted by: themisfit610
I think splitting your RAM like that is a terrible idea.

Why would you bother, since CS4 is fully 64 bit native, and can use all the RAM you can throw at it? 8GB is fantastic.

Regardless, I'd skip the velociraptor. It's quick, but I think going with a pair of WD Caviar Black HDDs would be better.

Also, a 520W Corsair is plenty, especially if you don't have a monster GPU.

I always suggest a quad-core CPU, but if you're not interested, the E8400 is a terrific performer.

I really like the Asus P5Q Pro Turbo motherboard : http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16813131377 Lots of copper, eSATA, FireWire, and it's a good price.

As far as a GPU, definitely get something relatively recent, but not super powerful. I'd say a 9600GT would be your best bet. Photoshop's GPU acceleration tends to work best with nVidia cards in my experience.

~MiSfit

Because having RAM as your scratch disk, Photoshop rull go through filters, processes faster. Unless you're working on 32 megapixel photos, there isn't any reason why Photoshop would need 8GB ram. In the end the scratch disk for photoshop is the most limiting factor, since even if you have 16GB of RAM, Photoshop will always write to a scratch disk (which is bottlenecked by your HD)
 

dguy6789

Diamond Member
Dec 9, 2002
8,558
3
76
Originally posted by: zerogear
TBH, your 8GB ram, use RAM disk for 4gb and use that as scratch disk instead of the 1TB scratch disk would be much faster.

Why? You can just set Photoshop CS4 to have access to all of that memory. Shouldn't have to touch the hard drive much at all in the first place. Having PS use 4GB of ram and then 4GB of ram in scratch disk form is a waste of time.
 

racolvin

Golden Member
Jul 26, 2004
1,254
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0
Originally posted by: Poulsonator

Was looking into a Shuttle, but once again, I couldn't get my head out of a gaming rig situation.

What video card would you recommend?

I don't recommend the full-size cards, particularly the Nvidia ones in the Shuttle case. Not because I'm an ATI fanboi or anything but there are physical issues with those big things in that little case. The larger cards block a large portion of the air intake and the power connectors for the mobo can get in the way of those larger cards with the plastic housing all over them.

For photoshop work you should be fine with a 9600GT or an ATI 4850 and those fit in the case just dandy, no airflow issues or anything.
 

rob25

Member
Apr 1, 2009
48
0
0
"Will setting up a RAM disk as a scratch disk make Photoshop run faster? There's no reason to do that, because Photoshop can work with your operating system automatically to treat the available RAM above 4GB as a RAM disk for scratch data."

Quote from Adobepress

Dont know what youre doing right to get so much feedback ??????
I feel like a leper, I could also use some advice in my thread. :roll:

I got the information about wattage here:Antec Power Supply Calculator.
 

zerogear

Diamond Member
Jun 4, 2000
5,611
9
81
Originally posted by: Hacp
Originally posted by: zerogear
Also, having a good GPU also may be worth it, nVidia/ATI card, and considering CS4's main feature is GPU/OpenGL acceleration, it is definitely worth investing into:

http://www.photoshopsupport.co...gpu-graphics-card.html

http://techreport.com/discussions.x/15571

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

Edit, wrong url.

But you don't need anything high end IIRC.

Nah, a good one just means its not anemic, not high end :)
 

Poulsonator

Golden Member
Aug 19, 2002
1,597
0
76
Originally posted by: themisfit610
I think splitting your RAM like that is a terrible idea.

Why would you bother, since CS4 is fully 64 bit native, and can use all the RAM you can throw at it? 8GB is fantastic.

Regardless, I'd skip the velociraptor. It's quick, but I think going with a pair of WD Caviar Black HDDs would be better.

Also, a 520W Corsair is plenty, especially if you don't have a monster GPU.

I always suggest a quad-core CPU, but if you're not interested, the E8400 is a terrific performer.

I really like the Asus P5Q Pro Turbo motherboard : http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16813131377 Lots of copper, eSATA, FireWire, and it's a good price.

As far as a GPU, definitely get something relatively recent, but not super powerful. I'd say a 9600GT would be your best bet. Photoshop's GPU acceleration tends to work best with nVidia cards in my experience.

~MiSfit

I am definitely not against a quad-core. I will skip the raptor and put that $$$ towards a quad-core proc. I'd rather have it anyway.

I like that mobo as well. Thank you for the suggestion.
 

WaitingForNehalem

Platinum Member
Aug 24, 2008
2,497
0
71
Go with Core i7.

ZipZoomFly has teh MSI X58 PRO Core i7 920 for $170 AR and $265 AR. They also have 6GB of Corsair DDR3 1333 for $67 AR.
 

rob25

Member
Apr 1, 2009
48
0
0
As far as Hardrive setups go from what ive read its best to have your os, scratchdisk & large image files on seperate drives for faster unshared acces.
I would recomend 5 cheap drives like segate baracuda II 32 mb buffer drives which cost around 55? each as opposed to 260? for a 300 velociraptor.
This would be the configuration:

2x500 gb in raid 0 /raid 1 1x1tb drive for Image files.

1x500gb drive for os / you could partition this drive & maybe use only 150 gb for os & the other partition for other data.

1x500gb for scratch

This set up would cost about 300?