Please suggest new rig for Photo Ediiting

[thatsright]

My computer which I build 6 years ago (really) has been flaking out on me a bit. Thus it’s time to think about replacing this stuff. I might use my current PC maybe 5hrs a week and pretty much only for photo editing (Photoshop CS 6). I DO NOT DO ANY GAMING OR TWEAK ANYTHING. See the notes below. If I build myself, at least need a new mobo/cpu/ram. One option I was thinking of is to buy a prebuilt rig (Dell, $500 or so?) and add a few of my below existing hardware. But doesn’t seem very future proof if I do that. But could be wrong. Maybe $600-700 budget?

A few notes:

- I don’t need a high end CPU or Vid card. But a minimum i7 for CPU. Don’t need the latest generation CPU to save some $$$.
-Photoshop doesn’t really tax the system frequently, in terms of Mem or CPU usage. But might in the future.
-Don’t need a big SSD. Just installing Win 7 O/S and Photoshop (and other programs) on the SSD. All data (Image files, etc) are going onto other drives.
-Would like 16GB mem minimum, with option to expand in future.

What I have now:

-Core i7 2.8GB Quad core circa 2009.
-12 GB of DDR3 RAM
-Gigabyte X58 LGA 1366 Motherboard w/ Triple channel memory
-EVGA GeForce GTX 750 1GB RAM PCI-E 3.0 (Hope to reuse. Bought within the last year.)
-80GB Intel X-25 SSD (Get a new SSD that is same speed, or faster. Doesn’t need to be big GB size.)
-SoundBlaster 2 Audigy ZS card. (Hope to reuse)
-LiteOn DVD-RW SATA Drive (Hope to reuse)
-ATX Mid-size tower case /w 530 (I think) PSU. (Hope to reuse.)

Please suggest.

 

[Ken g6]

OK, here's some parts. I hesitate to say it's a build because you need to reuse so many parts.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i7-6700 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor ($324.99 @ Best Buy)
Motherboard: *ASRock Z170M Pro4S Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($82.98 @ Newegg)
Memory: *G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2800 Memory ($76.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Samsung 950 PRO 256GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive ($177.99 @ B&H)
Total: $662.95
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
*Lowest price parts chosen from parametric criteria
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-03-29 11:22 EDT-0400

You actually do want the latest generation of Intel processors. They do much better at Photoshop than anything else.

If you absolutely refuse to go into the BIOS and turn on "XMP", you could settle for slower RAM and a cheaper board.

-EVGA GeForce GTX 750 1GB RAM PCI-E 3.0 (Hope to reuse. Bought within the last year.)
-80GB Intel X-25 SSD (Get a new SSD that is same speed, or faster. Doesn’t need to be big GB size.)
-SoundBlaster 2 Audigy ZS card. (Hope to reuse)
-LiteOn DVD-RW SATA Drive (Hope to reuse)
-ATX Mid-size tower case /w 530 (I think) PSU. (Hope to reuse.)

You can re-use all of these except your sound card. Just use onboard sound - it's good enough. The M.2 drive I suggested is an order of magnitude faster than your old Intel drive, but you can re-use it too.

 

[thatsright]

OK, here's some parts. I hesitate to say it's a build because you need to reuse so many parts.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i7-6700 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor ($324.99 @ Best Buy)
Motherboard: *ASRock Z170M Pro4S Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($82.98 @ Newegg)
Memory: *G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2800 Memory ($76.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Samsung 950 PRO 256GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive ($177.99 @ B&H)
Total: $662.95
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
*Lowest price parts chosen from parametric criteria
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-03-29 11:22 EDT-0400

You actually do want the latest generation of Intel processors. They do much better at Photoshop than anything else.

If you absolutely refuse to go into the BIOS and turn on "XMP", you could settle for slower RAM and a cheaper board.


You can re-use all of these except your sound card. Just use onboard sound - it's good enough. The M.2 drive I suggested is an order of magnitude faster than your old Intel drive, but you can re-use it too.

Thanks Ken! Now this is the part where I nit-pick

-Memory and Mobo look good.
-However for the CPU, in reading the reviews the CPU you mention is fractions of a second faster. I'm talking difference between skylake and one generation behind i7 is like .67 seconds slower. Don't see the value in that, but convince me :-0).
-New question: if I got one gen i7 CPU behind and wanted to upgrade to SkyLake later on, would I have to buy a completely new mobo?
-The SSD seems a bit overkill. I saw this on newegg for about $100 less.

The most important thing for Photoshop is fast memory. Then CPU-so contradicting myself on CPU part

 

[maddogchen]

-New question: if I got one gen i7 CPU behind and wanted to upgrade to SkyLake later on, would I have to buy a completely new mobo?

Yes, new motherboard

 

[Ken g6]

-However for the CPU, in reading the reviews the CPU you mention is fractions of a second faster. I'm talking difference between skylake and one generation behind i7 is like .67 seconds slower. Don't see the value in that, but convince me :-0).

Did you not look at the graphs at the link I posted?

You should also upgrade to Win10. With both, the new architecture is up to 50% faster than the last generation.

-The SSD seems a bit overkill.

The 950 has significant benefits.

If you want to save money, I'd first suggest an i5 instead of an i7. Second would be moving to a SATA SSD.

 

[thatsright]

Thanks Ken!

Anyone else have any thoughts/opinions?

 

[Cerb]

I think going cheaper on the SSD would be fine, especially if it would mean going bigger.

With Skylake and Win10, you may need CC, rather than CS6, to benefit much, though. Not sure about that one. That said, Haswell is not much cheaper, so just get the Skylake parts. You'll be better off with them, if you plan to keep this PC for 3+ years with only minor upgrades.

 

[thatsright]

After reading up, and going out to Microcenter, I'm starting to change things:

-I think I'll go with the i7-5820k Haswell 6 Core CPU. It actually will perform better with Photoshop vs SkyLake, as Photoshop is a heavily thread dependent app, which this CPU has vs i7-6700k. It also has more memory bandwidth. These two kind of cinch it for me.

-Will get the Samsung SSD recommended above.

-At the store, the salesman showed me the ASRock X99 Extreme mobo for about $180. Is this a good one for the CPU? Please suggest something if you can think of it.

-I'll get 4x4GB of DDR4 to start out with 16GB of memory. Have any suggestions?

-Sounds like I might also need to get a new Power Supply. I omitted from the top that I will have a lot running in the rig": CPU/RAM/Mobo/2 SATA HD's/DVD drive/SSD/Video card. I'm not sure my current one can handle the load. Can you suggest something good, with modular cables.

That's my plan right now. Thoughts?

 

[Ken g6]

Did you see Tom's Hardware's score for a 5820k? 1.06, where lower is better. Photoshop runs single-threaded fairly frequently. That's why the i7 doesn't have a better score than the i5.

 

[thatsright]

Did you see Tom's Hardware's score for a 5820k? 1.06, where lower is better. Photoshop runs single-threaded fairly frequently. That's why the i7 doesn't have a better score than the i5.

Hi Ken - Good point. That's a better bet (and a bit cheaper) than getting the 6700 CPU. However I think I'll still get the 6 Core 5820 CPU. I didn't mention it has more cache and I can run in quad channel memory as mentioned above. These two allow me the most clocks/bandwidth for Photoshop which trumps out SkyLake. Hmmmm....

 

[thatsright]

Can anyone else offer comments/thoughts.

 

[ronbo613]

I do a lot of photo and video editing. I look at things from an editor's point of view as well as a computer builder's. An SSD is something you should have for sure. No sense going smaller than 250G. Having at least one additional drive, a "work" drive, if you will, with your programs on the SSD with scratch discs and work folders on the work drive works well. A 7200 rpm hard drive is fine, enough speed and more space per $$$. A good idea to have some kind of backup budgeted into your system, additional internal hard drives, NAS, external drives, take your pick. I always get the best CPU and motherboard I can afford, not 100% for speed and power, but longevity. As long as the computer works with the software you need for your work, the longer it lasts, the better off you'll be. 16G RAM is fine for CS6. Forget the Creative sound card, onboard sound will be fine with less potential for problems. I think you would find that working with any creative software suite is going to be a lot easier with two monitors, you might consider that.

 

[thatsright]

Did you see Tom's Hardware's score for a 5820k? 1.06, where lower is better. Photoshop runs single-threaded fairly frequently. That's why the i7 doesn't have a better score than the i5.

So this is the part where I backtrack.....

Ken, after more, too much thinking, long walks on the beach and soul searching, I won't get the Haswell CPU but will go with the i7-6700 CPU. It has more raw clock speed that Photoshop will take advantage of vs a slower 6-core Haswell CPU. With that said:

-Don't want an mini-ATX mobo, but full size. Can someone suggest a nice board that I can use the Samsung 950 Pro SSD to get maximum bandwidth. (I'm still a bit unsure about the M.2 technology.) Also with nice internal audio. Something around $150 plus or minus.

-Was going to get the Cooler Master Evo 212 Heastsink/cooler. I have it on my current rig, and it was a nightmare to get setup properly. Is there a 'good enough' HSF that is easier to install of good quality? Like the Intel HSF that use to come with the boxed retail processors. I'm not, nor will ever be overclocking.

 

[mnewsham]

Ken, after more, too much thinking, long walks on the beach and soul searching, I won't get the Haswell CPU but will go with the i7-6700 CPU. It has more raw clock speed that Photoshop will take advantage of vs a slower 6-core Haswell CPU. With that said:

If you don't plan on overclocking either one, the higher base clock on the 6700 is going to be best for you.

The 5820k would likely be better if you were going to overclock (as it can usually fairly easily hit over 4.2Ghz without much of a voltage increase) but as long as you are keeping everything stock, the 6700 is going to be a better bet.

 

[Ken g6]

-Don't want an mini-ATX mobo, but full size. Can someone suggest a nice board that I can use the Samsung 950 Pro SSD to get maximum bandwidth. (I'm still a bit unsure about the M.2 technology.) Also with nice internal audio. Something around $150 plus or minus.

Micro-ATX should be fine too. But if you want full-ATX, here's a nice, cheap Gigabyte board, with good sound. Or ASRock if you don't like Gigabyte, or MSI if you don't like either of the other two. (Some people are picky about motherboard brands.)

-Was going to get the Cooler Master Evo 212 Heastsink/cooler. I have it on my current rig, and it was a nightmare to get setup properly. Is there a 'good enough' HSF that is easier to install of good quality? Like the Intel HSF that use to come with the boxed retail processors. I'm not, nor will ever be overclocking.

The 6700 (and 6600) non-K come with an Intel HSF. If you're looking at the K versions, which are clocked slightly higher, perhaps the Hyper TX-3, which uses Intel-like pushpins?

 

[thatsright]

Micro-ATX should be fine too. But if you want full-ATX, here's a nice, cheap Gigabyte board, with good sound. Or ASRock if you don't like Gigabyte, or MSI if you don't like either of the other two. (Some people are picky about motherboard brands.)


The 6700 (and 6600) non-K come with an Intel HSF. If you're looking at the K versions, which are clocked slightly higher, perhaps the Hyper TX-3, which uses Intel-like pushpins?

For that Gigabyte Gaming 3 board, Should I be concerned if I use two M2.3x4 Ultra drives, AND another SSD and two SATA 6 spindle drives and separate video card? Will is saturate the bus and cause performance issues? Sorry guys, its been a long time and I'm unfamiliar with hardware specs and pci lanes and what not.

Will also get the 6700k and a decent HSF.

 

[Burpo]

Anyone else have any thoughts/opinions?

With your motherboard, and for your uses, it's easy to just drop in a hexcore Xeon and get about 50% performance gain.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Intel-Xeon-...295831?hash=item1a114b4757:g:w3kAAOSwgApXBBNL

Add a bigger SSD & upgrade later, when it's more compelling to do so