Pro Photoshop computer build

[GuitarDaddy]

I totally agree with HO, and 1500-2000 is the bare minimum(as HO demonstrated) and won't even cover all the basics

For example a more highend photoshop workstation would be as follows:

Tyan dual socket dual core motherboard $539
2 x opteron 265 dual core CPU's 2 x $715 = $1430
8 x Corsair 1gb ECC ram $165 x 8 = $1320
2 x 150gb 10k raptors $286 x 2 = $572
2 x Seagate barracudda 300gb $159 x 2 = $318

As you can see I'm over $4000 and haven't included a case, PS, opticals, videocard, or an OS. Fully loaded a system like this will be over $5000, and is still short of what I would call a "state of the art" Photoshop workstation

And to utilize the memory over 3gb, you should be looking at MS server 2003 for the OS not that beta windows64 crap.

 

[Mik3y]

Originally posted by: Ricemarine

Originally posted by: LarryK
sweet thanks Ricemarine does ram heavly effected the preformence of photoshop? or should i be looking at CPU? the drivers i would be missing are with the new hardware or stuff like flash drives and printers stuff like that?

It probably would since it involves large files... 2 GB of ram should be plenty. As for cpu, you can keep the X2 3800+ as well. As for the missing drivers, it could be anything. For me, I can't use my webcam, and there are no mouseware drivers for logitech mice (even though you don't need them). Printers, not sure... But it's best to stick with 32-bit. No point really in 64 bit.

i concur. the only drivers I couldnt get are the ones for my printer and webcam. Since those cost me $$ and i do use them often, I swtiched back to the normal version. Once vista comes out, I assume that the 64-bit version will hit big too, so i hope that more 64-bit drivers will be readily available.

 

[HO]

Originally posted by: Madwand1
Bit of a shame to go to all the trouble to build a dual opty board and not take advantage of its main driver, >4GB RAM. I think this setup is asking for a modest budget increase, to the full 6 GB, XP-64, and some decent drives for maximum results / cost.

I agree. The list I posted was just a guideline of what is possible at the low $ end and not an endorsement of any of those particular parts (except maybe the Optys).

The decision has to be made about whether this is going to be a serious machine or something a step down--"pro-sumer" level. I have a pro-sumer model at home based on a Tyan K8E with an Athlon 4400+ and 4GB of RAM. I spent about $2400 building it using 3 HDs (no RAID, but a SCSI OS disk), the Matrox card, and an NEC DVD burner. This is a good machine but not as fast and certainly not nearly as scalable as the dual Opteron system I first mentioned.

 

[akugami]

Originally posted by: Tostada

Originally posted by: akugami
The only thing I can comment on is that as far as video cards go, look for something with dual link DVI in case you ever need to drive a very large monitor. I'm not sure what Matrox is offering but they have some of the best video cards for 2D.

Do you think that's really reasonable to suggest he upgrades the video card just in case he later decides to get a $2,500 LCD?

What card would you suggest? A $600 dual link Matrox Parhelia? A $600 dual link FireGL? A $600 Quadro?

I think there are some $200 Radeon 9600 Pros that support dual link, but those are AGP.

Dell says their dual link 30" screen works on the XPS 400, which you can get with a card as cheap as the X300 SE, which is only a $50 card, but ATIs specs specifically say the X300s max resolution is 2048x1536. Are there some cheap dual-link cards out there? Even the 7800GTX cards that I look up only say they go up to 2048x1536. Does Dell have some special OEM stuff?

ATI's pages say that the X1600 series has dual link DVI, but I think it also has to be specifically supported on the actual card, and I just don't see any X1600s that specify. That would really be nice to know, because for $125 the X1600Pro is a decent card, even though it's only 128-bit so most people would still prefer the GF6800XT for the money.

I'm not suggesting they go out and buy a super expensive card. I've never done much research on what card supports it as I don't plan on getting a monitor any time soon (within 2 years) that's larger than what "regular" DVI supports. But with the resolutions and sizes of the images he's working with, he might very well get one at a later date.

As far as what specific video card is best, it doesn't matter. 3D performance will have zero impact on 2D performance. I believe all Radeon X1300's support 1 regular DVI and 1 dual link DVI. If they all don't, at least the "Built by ATI" ones do and so does the HIS X1300 IceQ 256MB DDR2 PCIe. Should be around $150-200'ish.

And for the serious professional artist, I'd recommend a good CRT like the Sony GDM-FW900. Cheaper and better than almost any but the most expensive LCD's for serious 2D work.

 

[Tostada]

HO:

You're putting a lot of effort into specifics when he hasn't answered what size files he works with. You could very well be grossly overestimating his need for RAM, and therefore grossly overestimating the need for a server board. I've worked with multi-layer 3000x3000 scans (200MB PSDs) with just 512MB and Photoshop never started to choke until I opened multiple 300DPI scans.

You get massively diminishing returns after 2GB, so you want to be sure it's going to be useful. I would get 4GB for a dedicated Photoshop machine, but he may have no real reason to hassle with XP64 and a server board.

 

[Crescent13]

Don't get a DFI Expert board, it corrupted files left and right when I got it. RMAed it and got my A8N32-SLI Deluxe. No problems so far . If you really want raid 5, get a raid card with a better mobo.

 

[abhong]

Why don't anyone recommend any of the higher end workstation graphic cards?
shouldn't it be better for photoshop?
say the Quadro 1400?

 

[HO]

Originally posted by: Tostada
HO:

You're putting a lot of effort into specifics when he hasn't answered what size files he works with. You could very well be grossly overestimating his need for RAM, and therefore grossly overestimating the need for a server board.

Yeah, well, when I see PRO Photoshop Computer... the wheels start turning.

Originally posted by: Tostada
You get massively diminishing returns after 2GB, so you want to be sure it's going to be useful. I would get 4GB for a dedicated Photoshop machine, but he may have no real reason to hassle with XP64 and a server board.

I don't consider a 40% speed up (6GB, active caching instead of scratch disk) to be a diminished return. But I understand that, in the end, dollars dictate the course of action. I just want the OP to be aware of the ramifications of his choices. And don't forget, when 64bitness goes mainstream, 4GB of RAM is not going to look like all that much.

 

[HO]

Originally posted by: abhong
Why don't anyone recommend any of the higher end workstation graphic cards?
shouldn't it be better for photoshop?
say the Quadro 1400?

No advantage for Photoshop, which would be very happy with 32MB of Video RAM on a solid 2D card.

 

[gotsmack]

in the 1.5 to 2K range he can't be doing anything too serious or else he would have a bigger budget for something he has to put his reputation on the line for.

maybe try using:
Asus P5WD2 Premium
WD Caviar RE 320 GB X4
1 gig sticks of 667 or 800 DDR2 X4
P4d 920 or 930

just throwing options out there

 

[gotsmack]

Originally posted by: abhong
Why don't anyone recommend any of the higher end workstation graphic cards?
shouldn't it be better for photoshop?
say the Quadro 1400?

I always thought those cards were for cad and other 3d modeling stuff

 

[Ricemarine]

Originally posted by: Tostada
Holy crap! Whatever you do, don't listen to Ricemarine.

RAID5 is pretty much ridiculous. You should just get good hard drives, and backup stuff to a different drive and store it on a DVD-R now and then. Now, if you have over 200GB of stuff that you need to keep a constantly current backup of, then get the RAID5, but for regular Photoshop work, just backup your projects like a normal person.

Just use common sense. Getting an overclocker SLI board that costs $194 is dumb.

A 500W PSU is overkill for a system without SLI. And you can get better PSUs than Antec for $100.

There's really no need for a 6600GT or a 6600GS if you're not gaming. Those are gaming cards.

I really would like to flame... But rather not... To back up each topic.

1. The DFI expert motherboard. Overclocking mobo, yes. Tweaks yes. But what's the most important part is that it comes prepared with raid 5. Seriously, who would keep spending $20~$50 for 100 DVD-R's and then back it up like crazy? I mean sure. $190 for a motherboard, expensive yes. But raid 5 cards (for SATA) range in the $170's- $600's.

2. Common sense eh. Efficiency much? For a rig like that, quality PSU's are important, with enough wattage so that it would have a high guarantee the computer would work. $100 for an Antec NeoHE 500w, not bad. Take into the fact the efficiency starts at around 80% and lowers (since ambient temps in a case is usually NOT 25 degrees celsius. Plus more likely in the future he'd be adding extra hard drives, which means the 500w will come in handy (even though overkill. Overkill in this case is GOOD.)

3. an EVGA 6800gs... Who wouldn't want to experience games like CoD2 and CS:S? Sure, a lot of people may not. But, for $2000, you can easiliy put a $180 video card in there, which is also good at gaming. Though more likely this is for pure photoshopping... Who wouldn't want to buy a good video card?

4. Seriously, who'd stick 8 GB of ram in a mobo? Only those who can afford it. In this case he cannot. 2 sticks is worth enough. Putting 4 sticks would only make the ram run at ddr333 instead of ddr400, and possibly 2T timings.

 

[Madwand1]

Originally posted by: Tostada
You're putting a lot of effort into specifics when he hasn't answered what size files he works with. You could very well be grossly overestimating his need for RAM, and therefore grossly overestimating the need for a server board.

I agree that this is a valid point. I made an estimate based on output size, guessing output resolution and color depth, but it would be more important to consider input file sizes (and aggregates if he happens to be stitching them). If he needs a large output size, but has only modest input sizes, then the upsizing only needs to be done before printing, and shouldn't really drive the overall memory needs.

 

[Tostada]

Originally posted by: Ricemarine
I really would like to flame... But rather not... To back up each topic.

1. The DFI expert motherboard. Overclocking mobo, yes. Tweaks yes. But what's the most important part is that it comes prepared with raid 5. Seriously, who would keep spending $20~$50 for 100 DVD-R's and then back it up like crazy? I mean sure. $190 for a motherboard, expensive yes. But raid 5 cards (for SATA) range in the $170's- $600's.

You can't seriously think he'd need 100 DVD-R's for his regular backups, and even if you did, that doesn't make RAID any more legitimate than just putting a separate drive in there for backups, or using a 400GB firewire drive that you can keep somewhere safe.

Even if you did think RAID-5 was the way to go, a $194 motherboard obviously doesn't have real hardware RAID-5, so it won't perform well, it's going to beat down your CPU, and I certainly wouldn't trust its ability to rebuild an array as my only backup. A software RAID-5 is not a smart move for a Photoshop system that has to do massive writes all the time.

Originally posted by: Ricemarine
2. Common sense eh. Efficiency much? For a rig like that, quality PSU's are important, with enough wattage so that it would have a high guarantee the computer would work. $100 for an Antec NeoHE 500w, not bad. Take into the fact the efficiency starts at around 80% and lowers (since ambient temps in a case is usually NOT 25 degrees celsius. Plus more likely in the future he'd be adding extra hard drives, which means the 500w will come in handy (even though overkill. Overkill in this case is GOOD.)

I'm not perpetuating another PSU argument. If you think a 500W Antec PSU is the best way to spend $100 that's great.

Originally posted by: Ricemarine
3. an EVGA 6800gs... Who wouldn't want to experience games like CoD2 and CS:S? Sure, a lot of people may not. But, for $2000, you can easiliy put a $180 video card in there, which is also good at gaming. Though more likely this is for pure photoshopping... Who wouldn't want to buy a good video card?

So he should get a $180 gaming card in case his art professor wants to play CoD2 and CS:S?

Moving on...

Originally posted by: Ricemarine
4. Seriously, who'd stick 8 GB of ram in a mobo? Only those who can afford it. In this case he cannot. 2 sticks is worth enough. Putting 4 sticks would only make the ram run at ddr333 instead of ddr400, and possibly 2T timings.

You suggested 2GB of RAM. You said more was overkill. This is simply incorrect for a professional Photoshop system. Whether or not it's worth going beyond 4GB (and having to get a server board and use XP64) depends on exactly what he's doing.

I don't think you have to be a total genius to figure out that DDR333 is still faster than writing to the hard drive.

Come on. Listen to yourself. You're saying someone who uses Photoshop professionally should save $180 by leaving the RAM at 2GB and then spend $180 on a gaming video card. You might as well suggest that he quit his job altogether and move into his mom's basemenet so he can do important things like play online shooters.

 

[Ricemarine]

Originally posted by: Tostada
Come on. Listen to yourself. You're saying someone who uses Photoshop professionally should save $180 by leaving the RAM at 2GB and then spend $180 on a gaming video card. You might as well suggest that he quit his job altogether and move into his mom's basemenet so he can do important things like play online shooters.

With around $1500-$2000, who wouldn't

 

[batmanuel]

Originally posted by: akugami
The only thing I can comment on is that as far as video cards go, look for something with dual link DVI in case you ever need to drive a very large monitor. I'm not sure what Matrox is offering but they have some of the best video cards for 2D.

I'm not so sure about that. The low-end Matrox cards have stagnated terribly in the last couple of years. Their entry-level G450 and G550 cards are priced at $100 an up even though their frame buffers are laughably small and their DVI output is limited to 1280x1024. These cards were great in the days when 22" Trinitrons walked the earth, but the world has moved on.

There are plenty of consumer cards that will do just as good a job as those ancient G-series cards for a lot less money. Also, the G-series won't support Aero Glass. This could be a major problem if you decide to go with Vista 64 in the future and Adobe upgrades Photoshop to use Vista's WPF to hand off some of the work to the graphics card (The CS3/CS4 version of Illustrator might even get a boost, too, since the WPF rendering engine can even pass off vector operations to the graphics card via Direct X).

The Parahelias are quite a bit better, but they are usually priced not that far from an EVGA 7800GT that has a dual-link DVI connector for that 3007FPW that you know you want. Most of the Parahelias are single link, except for one model that requires a 64-bit PCI-X slot to function at its full potential (sorry, no PCIe version).

I will readily admit that on the ultra high end, Matrox has some really nice products, like the HR256 Parahelia that can support the crazy-expensive 9MP panels. It just annoys me that they haven't updated their low end for people like the OP that are just looking for a high quality 2D card for around $100. Their G-series suck if you have a decent 20"+ LCD, while their Parahelias are too costly for use as a 2D-only card (and get owned by similarly priced Quadros and FireGLs in professional OpenGL 3D apps). I'd LIKE to recommend Matrox to someone, but I'm not sure what they excel at anymore except the extreme high end.

 

[bob4432]

i just saw this and wanted to throw in my .02:

i agree pretty much with HO. personally to lower the intial build cost and make room for upgraes i would definately go a tyan dual 940 board, but at first just fill it up with 1 dual core cpu. this will let you upgrade later to another dual core thus having a quad system.

i would go the 4GB route and do xp32 for the moment and the main reason at this point would be driver availabilty. if you do go 64, and go through all the trouble of building this rig and there are driver issues, it will be a pain in the a$$. just be sure you get the correct ram which is either ECC or registered for the skt940 stuff, can't remember

gpu doesn't really mater in ps.

HO - maybe you can answer this question - with a 650MB psd file, how much ram does it actually take up in ps? i have never used files that large, but if i open up a file that is 3MB saved, when in ps it shows it is using 6.5MB. again this area is foreign to me as my work with ps has either been with web, video stills which are only 720x480 @ most 100dpi, or at extreme largest 11x17 @ 300dpi with only 5 layers thus i have never crested 1GB in total ram usage.

my reason for asking this question is if he can keep most of the work in the ram, then a raid 1 setup with 2x(insert size here)GB hdds and then a 3rd smaller os hdd and maybe a 4th scratch hdd would not be a bad idea. then also backup to an external hdd with something like acronis for off-site protection.

this setup would leave the op with a upgrade route - add more ram when switching to xp64, put in another dual core processor, etc and still keep the intial cost down.

also for this rig i wouldn't go with a antec psu. antecs are good for the $$$ if you can catc them on sale, but for something this serious i would get a better psu than a antec - seasonic, pc&p, etc.

 

[kpb]

Originally posted by: bob4432
HO - maybe you can answer this question - with a 650MB psd file, how much ram does it actually take up in ps? i have never used files that large, but if i open up a file that is 3MB saved, when in ps it shows it is using 6.5MB. again this area is foreign to me as my work with ps has either been with web, video stills which are only 720x480 @ most 100dpi, or at extreme largest 11x17 @ 300dpi with only 5 layers thus i have never crested 1GB in total ram usage.

It varies based on what your doing. Some filters or other operations require more memory than others. Settings like cache levels, numbers of plugins, number of fonts can all effect this. The one i've always heard is 4 to 10 times the size of the file in memory. Even if he's on the low end of that scale a 650mb file could easily eat 3 gbs of memory.

 

[bob4432]

Originally posted by: kpb

Originally posted by: bob4432
HO - maybe you can answer this question - with a 650MB psd file, how much ram does it actually take up in ps? i have never used files that large, but if i open up a file that is 3MB saved, when in ps it shows it is using 6.5MB. again this area is foreign to me as my work with ps has either been with web, video stills which are only 720x480 @ most 100dpi, or at extreme largest 11x17 @ 300dpi with only 5 layers thus i have never crested 1GB in total ram usage.

It varies based on what your doing. Some filters or other operations require more memory than others. Settings like cache levels, numbers of plugins, number of fonts can all effect this. The one i've always heard is 4 to 10 times the size of the file in memory. Even if he's on the low end of that scale a 650mb file could easily eat 3 gbs of memory.

thanks. how does ps handle the win32 2GB per program issue? or is there a fix for it?

 

[pkme2]

For graphic cards, I recommend the ATI FireGL for PhotoShop and Illustrator work. I work with a Matrox Parhelia 128MB on my Graphics machine. I plan to built a new machine later this year and the FireGL is on the top of my list. Unless you plan to do gaming, my suggestion is to use these graphic cards for your work.
I like the removeable hdd trays because I can pop them out and move on to move onto other machines. No need for raid, though available.
I believe that 2GB is more than enough. I use 1GB right now for my PhotoShop & Illustrator work.
I would suggest getting a 20' LCD at least. For serious work, a 20 incher would be wonderful; but a 24" would be heaven. The prices are getting to be reasonable as I keep watching eBay.......

 

[Madwand1]

Originally posted by: bob4432
how does ps handle the win32 2GB per program issue? or is there a fix for it?

There are a couple of different options that are available; the most trivial one is /3GB in the boot.ini for a supported OS and flagging the application as large address aware. Another requires a lot of special coding.

/3GB is not needed on Win64 - all large address aware apps get 4 GB address space.

 

[LarryK]

I hope I learned this right this is what I came up with $1292

Antec LifeStyle SONATA II Piano Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case 450Watt SmartPower 2.0 ATX 12V V2.0 for AMD & Intel systems Power Supply - Retail

Western Digital Raptor WD1500ADFD 150GB 10,000 RPM Serial ATA150 Hard Drive - OEM

ASUS A8N5X Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail

ATI 100-505083 FireGL V3100 128MB DDR PCI Express x16 Video Card - OEM

G.SKILL 2GB (2 x 1GB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200) Unbuffered Dual Channel Kit System Memory Model F1-3200USU2-2GBHS - Retail

AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ Manchester 1GHz FSB Socket 939 Dual Core Processor Model
ADA3800BVBOX - Retail

Microsoft Windows XP Home With SP2 - OEM

NEC Black IDE DVD Burner Model ND-3550A - Retail

ORION Pro Series Red 18" 180 and 90-Degree-Angled, SATA (SERIAL ATA 150) Cable, 2-Head (RED) Model 700-201-05 - Retail

Reply
Right now he said he was runing a Dell with 2GB's of ram most likely singel core with basic IDE hardrive thats my assumtion he realy didn't know what he had. If i my self run across files that are 300mb i am sure he runs across atleast that. Opteron sounds like a good idea.. I have a feeling i am geting over my head.. i gess i knew less then i thought.

 

[bob4432]

Originally posted by: pkme2
For graphic cards, I recommend the ATI FireGL for PhotoShop and Illustrator work. I work with a Matrox Parhelia 128MB on my Graphics machine. I plan to built a new machine later this year and the FireGL is on the top of my list. Unless you plan to do gaming, my suggestion is to use these graphic cards for your work.
I like the removeable hdd trays because I can pop them out and move on to move onto other machines. No need for raid, though available.
I believe that 2GB is more than enough. I use 1GB right now for my PhotoShop & Illustrator work.
I would suggest getting a 20' LCD at least. For serious work, a 20 incher would be wonderful; but a 24" would be heaven. The prices are getting to be reasonable as I keep watching eBay.......

what about the issue with ps:cs2 and hardware? i recently switched main hdds and used acronis true image, and when i started ps it said i had to re-activate...and i have read this over at the adobe forums where people have actually lost jobs because they couldn't meet deadlines because of this...

 

[bob4432]

Originally posted by: LarryK
I hope I learned this right this is what I came up with $1292

Antec LifeStyle SONATA II Piano Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case 450Watt SmartPower 2.0 ATX 12V V2.0 for AMD & Intel systems Power Supply - Retail

Western Digital Raptor WD1500ADFD 150GB 10,000 RPM Serial ATA150 Hard Drive - OEM

ASUS A8N5X Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail

ATI 100-505083 FireGL V3100 128MB DDR PCI Express x16 Video Card - OEM

G.SKILL 2GB (2 x 1GB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200) Unbuffered Dual Channel Kit System Memory Model F1-3200USU2-2GBHS - Retail

AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ Manchester 1GHz FSB Socket 939 Dual Core Processor Model ADA3800BVBOX - Retail

Microsoft Windows XP Home With SP2 - OEM

NEC Black IDE DVD Burner Model ND-3550A - Retail

ORION Pro Series Red 18" 180 and 90-Degree-Angled, SATA (SERIAL ATA 150) Cable, 2-Head (RED) Model 700-201-05 - Retail

imo i think you are going to need more ram, more hdd space, a larger case for future expandability and possibly more cpu power. i would consider this more of a enthusiast or power user's machine, not a professional graphic designer.

if the other prices for the dual dual core opterons are high, you could always buy used over at 2cpu.com, they usually have some good deals.

what does the professor currently have for a machine? those files he is working on are going to take quite a bit of power to do stuff with. you should also put in another larger hdd sinc with 2GB you are probably going to be hitting the pagefile and it has shown that using the pagefile/scratch disks on different hdds will enhance performance, especially since the files are ~685MB psd files with multiple layers...

 

[kpb]

Originally posted by: bob4432
what about the issue with ps:cs2 and hardware? i recently switched main hdds and used acronis true image, and when i started ps it said i had to re-activate...and i have read this over at the adobe forums where people have actually lost jobs because they couldn't meet deadlines because of this...

Lots information about thier activation up at http://www.adobe.com/activation/

There's no reason to miss a deadline tho. You can go into the program and tell it to transfer the activation (Help -> transfer activation) before get a new computer or cloning the hard drive to free up the activation and then activate it on another computer after installing it or cloning it there. Completely automated process assuming you have an active internet connection. If you fail to do that you just need to call thier activation line and explain the situation to them and they should manually activate it for you. The activation is really pretty reasonable and painless most of the time.