Unfamiliar territory

[Sentrosi2121]

A friend of mine is in need of a new PC for his wife. She's a professional photographer in the town they live in. And as such, they don't have a lot of $$ to spend. As I mostly build PCs for gaming, this is unfamiliar territory here.

So my general questions are;

1) Should I spec out a quad-core or a 6-core PC?

2) Assuming that RAM might be a premium for a build like this, minimum RAM = 6-8Gb?

3) Video Cards: Is on-board video good enough for this? Or should I go with something like a 5770/4850?

4) Should probably recommend a monitor, so I'm assuming a S-IPS?

 

[darkewaffle]

This is all really going to depend on how they work on the photos and in what kind of scope, but chances are a quad core will be more than sufficient.

4GB of RAM will probably be alright, unless they do a lot of post processing on a lot of photos.

An IGP will be fine. While unlikely, an Nvidia card for CUDA support could benefit them depending on what kind of apps they use, but it's definitely not necessary.

IPS is definitely the go-to pick for visual work. Dell has some not overly expensive IPS options at 22-24", or you could check NEC's refurb shop. Could get lucky on the forums or Craigslist as well.

 

[ScorcherDarkly]

IMO the monitor, storage space, and backup solutions are going to be more important than CPU or RAM. That's where the money should be spent. A quad core and 4GB are the baseline for decent systems now, but I don't see a need to go over that.

 

[KLC]

What software does she use for her photos? Photoshop is the standard and Anand has a Photoshop cpu test that is in the cpu bench. Lightroom is also popular with photographers. Both programs are multithreaded but both perform better on i5 and i7 cpus than on AMDs, even six core Thubans. If money is a concern I think one of the higher end i5s would do fine.

What kind of camera does she have? Some of the newer ones can create 24mb raw files which will turn into 75+mb files if saved in tiff or psd format. Files that large in PS and LR take advantage of more ram, I would definitely go with 64 bit OS and 8 gb.

Photo software generally doesn't require much from video cards. Some of the newer PS versions have some features that use nvidia cuda but they aren't essential. Good on-board video will be fine.

Two photography forums that have computer specific forums are http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/board/16 and http://photography-on-the.net/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=129.

 

[Sentrosi2121]

Thanks for the advise everyone. I was going to go big on the storage, with a recommendation of purchasing an external drive (1TB minimum) and explore options with a service like Carbonite. This way she could have access to her raw files wherever she goes.

 

[mfenn]

IMO the monitor, storage space, and backup solutions are going to be more important than CPU or RAM. That's where the money should be spent. A quad core and 4GB are the baseline for decent systems now, but I don't see a need to go over that.

:thumbsup:

I agree. I would probably look into the U2311H or U2211H from Dell.

Carbonite is a good solution, just make sure that you set it up for them so that they don't "forget".

 

[KLC]

IMO the monitor, storage space, and backup solutions are going to be more important than CPU or RAM. That's where the money should be spent. A quad core and 4GB are the baseline for decent systems now, but I don't see a need to go over that.

It all depends. If she takes jpgs, rarely does post processing and uses simple software like picasa or irfanview to manage her photos then cpu and ram are relatively unimportant.

But if she has a canon 5DII, shoots raw files and applies lots of the post processing effects in photoshop that are very popular right now then cpu and ram become critical. If she skimps on those she'll spend a lot of time waiting for her computer and for a professional photographer time is money. Spending more on cpu and ram now might be the wisest choice but without knowing more details it's hard to say.

 

[mfenn]

It all depends. If she takes jpgs, rarely does post processing and uses simple software like picasa or irfanview to manage her photos then cpu and ram are relatively unimportant.

But if she has a canon 5DII, shoots raw files and applies lots of the post processing effects in photoshop that are very popular right now then cpu and ram become critical. If she skimps on those she'll spend a lot of time waiting for her computer and for a professional photographer time is money. Spending more on cpu and ram now might be the wisest choice but without knowing more details it's hard to say.

That's true, but the standard build nowadays is a Phenom II X4 955 or an i5 760. You're not going to get a huge amount faster than that without spending $$$.