Photographer PC Upgrades... help!

[Orlandoech.com]

I'm upgrading my PC. This PC will be used MAINLY for Extensive Photoshop work as I am a freelance Automotive Photographer for various Tuner Magazines. You can check me out at www.Orlandoech.com

The only game I RARELY play is Battlefield Bad Company 2. When I say RARELY, I mean once a month.

My current build is;
W7 x64
Antec 900
eVGA 750i FTW
eVGA 9800 GTX+
Creative X-Fi Xtreme Gamer
8GB OCZ DDR2-800 @ 5-5-5-15
2 x OCZ Vertex 60GB (RAID0) - OS
2 x WD 500GB - DATA

INTEL ROUTE:
ASUS Rampage III Extreme
Intel Core i7-960
Mushkin Enhanced Redline 6GB DDR3


AMD ROUTE:
ASUS Crosshair IV Formula AM3
AMD Phenom II X6 1090T Black Edition
Mushkin Enhanced Redline 6GB DDR3


Any suggestions or different recommendations?

 

[Silenus]

I do a lot of photo editing myself. The 6 core is really not going to do much for most photo editing apps, unless you use Bibble. I'd go for the Core i7 myself....but certainly NOT the 960. Why not just an i7-930 and overclock? Even if you just want to match the speed of the 960, overclocking the 930 to 3.33 should be a walk in the park.

 

[mfenn]

Both would serve you well IMHO. Agree with Silenus that 960 is not worth it.

HOWEVER. Both motherboards and the ram kit that you picked out are hilarious rip-offs. As a general rule of thumb, don't pay:

• more than $225 for an X58 mobo, instead GA-X58A-UD3R
• more than $150 for an AM3 mobo instead GA-790XTA-UD4
• more than $180 for 6GB of DDR3 1600 instead get this 6GB kit for Intel or 2 of these 4GB kits for AMD