Photoshop CS PC Specs?

[mzbinden]

My wife is getting into photography. Our 5 year old Dell isn't cutting it for Photoshop. I believe I've narrowed down my choices for building a new PC for her, but wanted to get some input, as I'm still a bit confused by everything I've read.

Keep in mind the sole focus of this machine is Photoshop CS (not 7.0). From the research I've seen and on-line tests, Intel P4's with HT are the fastest for CS. If I was building a PC for any other use, it seems AMD would be the way to go. Thoughts? Do you agree? Are there other tests that show otherwise using CS?

I was thinking about the following configuration. Not sure on a couple of components.

-Antec Sonata Case (380watts) - Noise is a concern since the PC is in our bedroom.
-Intel P4 530 3.0GHz OR a few bucks more for a P4 550 3.4GHz (is the 550 worth the extra cost?)
- Intel 925XCVLK Mobo OR Intel 915PBLL Mobo (so I can use DDR memory if that's a better choice)
- DDR2 or DDR memory? Best for this use? Purchasing 1GB.
- Bought 2 WD 80GB Sata drives. Plan on running Raid0.
- Decent 128MB PCI-Express Videocard

Figure this should run about $850 - $950.

Any thoughts or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

-Marc

 

[mzbinden]

Anyone? Some one must have feedback on this.

PLEASE...feedback would be very helpful or even advice on where else to look.

-Marc

 

[PhoenixOrion]

Welcome to the forums.

I recently built two photo/video-editing boxes for two different people. One was AMD fx-55 setup (total cost for box was close to $3000) and an intel box P4 HT.

The intel box using photoshop 7:
Motherboard: Abit IS7 $94
CPU: socket 478 Northwood core 3.0Ghz $190
DDR memory: Patriot 1GB PEP1G3200LL x 2; 2GB sys memory makes a big difference $197 x2
Hard Drive: 250GB x2 (non-raided as one as scratch disk and the other one has OS and pagefile) $120 x2

Hope this gives you some idea; amount of memory makes a big difference especially when you have large files and multiple layers.
Hard drives on the market that are SATA with 8MB at 7200K rpm are fairly fast for this use; look at Western Digital, Seagates and Maxtors; great prices for 250GB space.

 

[ScottMac]

My recommendation would be to go with DDR2, save the few bucks and stay with the 3.0, and use the extra cash for more hard drive (and / or more RAM).

Adobe products like Photoshop and Premiere will take and use 1/2 of the available RAM (and that's about it).

If (your | your wife's) workflow will be such that there are a lot of images up AND / OR an image or two with lots of layers, then you should consider maybe going to two gig RAM, or at least get a MOBO & RAM combination that will allow you to add another gig later without having to toss the "old" RAM.

As a side, when looing into the peripherals (monitor, printer), check to see if they support "Color Management." Color management device have "ICC Profiles" that can be applied in Photoshop so that the image from the camera, the displayed image on the monitor, and the printed image (or web image) are all consistant. It'll save you a lot of grief down the road.

Some of the photo papers have ICC profiles so you can colormatch the final print. I know Epson papers and Kodak papers have ICC profiles that can be downloaded from their site. I'd expect that HP and Canon do also, but I haven't checked.

Good Luck

Scott

 

[mzbinden]

Thanks guys for the welcome and the feedback.

I knew RAM made a difference, but didn't realize 2GB would make that much of a difference. I will see if I can fit that into the budget.

As far as HD space. I was starting with the two 80GB drives (Raid0). We have a fairly new 200GB IDE drive in our old machine, that I was going to move to the new PC to simply archive/backup photos. The new drives would be the "working drives". I plan to add more later. Side note...we do also have an external HD for backing up as well.

Bottom line is that anything I put together for her will be a vast improvement from what we have. I just wanted to maximize what we get. Thanks again for the input.

 

[ribbon13]

Just so you know. If you get socket 939 nF4, you leave open an upgrade path to Toledo dual-core A64, which Photoshop would love. SMP would annihilate any lead by Intel. Intel dual-cores will take a new motherboard.

 

[mzbinden]

When are the dual-cores suppossed to be out? Is there a speculated price range?

My only concern is what everyone says..."there is always something better". Plus if something better is coming out soon, then it should drive down costs of current hardware. I hear what you are saying though.

Thanks for confusing me more

-Marc

EDIT - BTW, if I did go the AMD route...what comparable setup would you suggest?

 

[ShadowBlade]

i dont deal much with intel, but i do know theyre supposed to be better for media editing...definitely go with DDR2...oh and i saw this a while back, you will not need anything this expensive or extensize, but its remotely related, so ill link http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProductDesc.asp?description=14-124-115&depa=1

 

[ShadowBlade]

for AMD...
~Athlon 64 3400+ (socket 939) (+$200)
~Most motherboards will do (PCI-e not for SLI (as far as i have seen) will be harder to find for AMD boards)Dont need to spend more than $150
~1024MB PC3200 DDR400 RAM (+$120)
~WD/Maxtor/Seagate 120GB+ 7200RPM Hard Drive (SATA is better)
~eVGA nVidia 6600GT AGP Video Card(+$200)

Notes:
I reccomend a Microsoft wireless desktop elite keyboard and wireless intellimouse explorer 2.0...the mouse is very comfortable and if youre going to have your hand on it all day, it should be comfortable
If youre going to do anyhing with video, i reccomend any nVidia 6800 card (eVGA is one of the best brands) and a TV Tuner...a TV tuner can allow you to capture video from an analog camcorder or vcr tape

 

[ribbon13]

Dual core should be available this fall. This would be extremely quiet. Evercase is known for nice quiet stuff, and it takes a 120mm fan. And the Seasonic is highly renowned for being quiet too. Also, by getting a single 1GB stick you can upgrade later without losing 1T, because running 3 DIMMs would lower the commandrate to 2T, which would impact performance

$35 EverCase E4252BB-53
$9 Evercool Aluminum 120mm Fan
$75 Seasonic Tornado 400w PSU

$119 Gigabyte GA-K8NF-9
$149 Corsair VS1GB400C3
$190 AMD ADA3200BIBOX

$180 MSI 6600 GT

$759

$908 for 2gigs

 

[halfadder]

Have you seen that video clip of Steve Balmer jumping around screaming "Developers, Developers, Developers"?

Well, to answer your question:
Memory, Memory, Memory!

Unless you're going to be working with really complex filters or constantly running scripts, you don't really need the fastest CPU on the market. Instead focus on RAM. If you're going to be working with several 5+ Mpixel images at the same time with many layers at the same time, make sure you get at least 2 GB.

 

[alteredNate]

I can say that after working for 2 years on a laptop with 512MB RAM, the move to 2GB made SUCH an enormous difference in photoshop, it's incredible. I tend to work with large images and several files at once, sometimes with 20+ layers, so my old machine would bog down to a halt at times.

Also, having 2 physical hard drives, and configuring the windows scratch disk indepandantly to the photoshop scratch disk (meaning, one on each physical drive) can also make a huge difference. It did for me.

I'm running on an older 754-based Athlon 64, and the performance in photoshop is great. I haven't tried a P4 with HT, so I can't comment, but if the P4 prices are higher, I'd say bag it.

 

[Malak]

Yeah 1GB helped, but I can tell you it's still not enough for PS. I'd love to have 2GB just for PS.

 

[KeithP]

Here are some performance tips that Adobe has provided.

As others have mentioned, it is important that PhotoShop's scratch disk be on a separate physical drive than Window's VM. If you only have two drives, it would probably not be best to configure them in a RAID 0.

How much RAM will be useful will be dependent on the size of the files that your wife has open in PhotoShop at any given time. The general rule of thumb is that you need 4 to 5 times your images' file size as your RAM allocation for maximum performance. In other words, if you wife generally has 100MB worth, or less, of files open at a time, you would want PhotoShop to have at least 500MB of RAM to use. Also remember when I say "file size" I am not talking about the size of the file on disk since that can be a compressed format. I am talking about the size of the file reported by PhotoShop when it is opened. Forgive me if you already know this, but I have been in the printing industry for 20 years and talk to a lot clients about this subject and many times they use the file size on disk for this estimation.

-KeithP

 

[compusaguy]

If you're getting a comp for photography, scrap the build and buy a Dell Dimension with a 2001FP monitor. That monitor has a portrait mode which is perfect for you. If you buy all together, you'll get the computer and monitor for the same price or maybe much less than building.

Description
Dimension 8400
Date & Time: March 06, 2005 3:11:43 PM
SYSTEM COMPONENTS
Dimension 8400 Qty 1
Pentium® 4 Processor 630 with HT Technology (3GHz, 800 FSB), Microsoft® Windows® XP Home Edition Unit Price $1,992.00
Dell Home Customers: Save 25% off the Dell Dimension 8400!
Limited Time Offer!
- $498.00
Catalog Number: 29

Module Description Product Code Sku Id
Dimension 8400 Pentium® 4 Processor 630 with HT Technology (3GHz, 800 FSB) S630H [221-8110] 1
Operating System Microsoft® Windows® XP Home Edition WHXP [412-0721][412-0688][412-0749][420-4834][420-4927][420-5101][463-2282] 11
Memory FREE UPGRADE! 1GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 400MHz (2x512M) 1GB4P [463-1259] 3
Keyboard Dell Quietkey® Keyboard QK [310-1582] 4
Monitor 20 inch Ultrasharp? 2001FP Digital Flat Panel 2001FP [320-3850] 5
Video Card 128MB PCI Express? x16 (DVI/VGA/TV-out) ATI Radeon? X300 SE X300SE [320-3934] 6
Hard Drive FREE UPGRADE! 160GB Serial ATA Hard Drive(7200RPM)w/ Native Command Queuing 160SP [463-6663] 8
Floppy Drive and Additional Storage Devices No Floppy Drive Included NFD [340-8442] 10
Mouse Dell 2-button scroll mouse SM [310-1871] 12
Network Interface Integrated Gigabit Ethernet IN [430-0742] 13
Modem 56K PCI Data/Fax Modem DFAX [313-2279] 14
Document Management Adobe® Acrobat® Reader 6.0 AAREAD [412-0705] 15
CD ROM/DVD ROM Single Drive: 16X CD/DVD burner (DVD+/-RW) w/double layer write capability 16DVDRW [313-3010][420-5079] 16
Sound Card Sound Blaster® Live! 24-bit ADVANCED HD? Audio SB1024 [313-2431][313-2720] 17
Speakers No Speaker Option N [313-2198] 18
Productivity Software WordPerfect®, Powerful Word Processing CORELM [412-0701] 22
Security Software No Security Subscription NS2 [412-0754] 25
Digital Music Dell Jukebox - easy-to-use music player and CD burning software MMBASE [412-0741] 27
Digital Photography Paint Shop? Pro® Studio trial, Photo Album? Starter Edition DPS [412-0744] 28
Limited Warranty, Services and Support Options 2Yr Ltd Warranty, 2Yr At-Home Service, and 2Yr Technical Support S222OS [950-1261][950-3338][950-1260][412-0360][960-2800][900-8241] 29
Dial-up Internet Access 6 Months of America Online Membership Included AOLDHS [412-0585][412-0625][420-3224][412-0687] 37
Miscellaneous Award Winning Service and Support D84SAP [463-5447] 82
Financial Software QuickBooks® Simple Start Special Edition (limited to 50 contacts) QBSSP [420-5139] 83
TOTAL: $1,494.00
Additional Discounts and Coupons
Dell Home Customers: FREE 3-5 day shipping with purchase of ANY new Dell Home System! Limited time offer. -$99.00

Limited Time Offer!




Total Price
Sub-total $1,494.00
Shipping --
Tax --
Total Price --

 

[ribbon13]

The $908 config I posted earlier would bitchslap that Dell. WTF are you smoking? What exactly do you get for $586 more? Half the ram, half the GPU, and an overrated LCD screen?

 

[compusaguy]

your $908 generic config is crap. No warranty, overkill on ram and gpu (it's a photoshop machine), crappy case, no operating system or software (gonna steal it???) and no monitor, hard drive, DVDRW, modem, keyboard, or mouse whatsoever (...real smart...that's about half a computer there). If you call that monitor overrated, it just shows you either are incompetent or have never used one. Good going. You want to start quoting prices, you'd better include everything. Remind me never to take you seriously. If I left out half the computer, I'm sure I could afford double the ram and GPU and some cool blue LEDs to go with my half-computer like yours too!

P.S.: Computers don't bitchslap each other. And just becuase you have blue LEDs and a heatsinks on your ram don't make you cool *rollseyes*

 

[ohnnyj]

If you are really worried about color reproduction then I would recommend a CRT over an LCD. LCDs have come a long way but the color accuracy is still not up to par w/CRTs, I have seen both in action and the LCDs I have seen (Dell 17" UltraSharps, 20.1" Widescreens) have color banding that is noticable. Other than that, yes you will want 2GB of RAM minimum, and a second hard drive to serve as a scratch disk is also not a bad idea. I don't know how well PS peforms on a P4 system but as other have said it is suppose to do real well, especially with HT (Hyperthreading Technology) which many have said makes Windows in general feel smoother. But then again, the Athlon64 processors are no slouch and both upgrade paths would be light years beyond what you have. As was previously mentioned the Socket 939 setup should allow for dual cores in the future as long as AMD does not change their mind and change the socket (which they shouldn't).

your $908 generic config is crap you don't even know if it will work together

It really isn't all that difficult to build these computers, but I do understand your concern in that it is not as easy as just getting it directly from a manufacturer. And I agree that Dells are very reliable (in my experience), quiet, and effiicient. The warranty helps as well.

If you have kids, however, the computer ribbon suggested might be a good idea so that can play a game or two (unless you like to play games as well).

 

[KamiXkaze]

the things you need to know when it comes to photoshop is

1.2gigs of ram believe you will need it
2. 2 hard drives and atleast let one be a scratch drive

the rest has been said by others.

KxK

 

[episodic]

I do lots of photoshopping - it flies on my machine.

Barton 3200 - 1.5 gigs of Ram.