Video card recommendation

[1415]

I'm planning to have built for me in a local computer shop the following system to be used by my wife for Photoshop.

HAF 932 case COOLER MASTER HAF 932 Advanced Blue Edition RC-932-KKN3-GP Black Steel ATX Full Tower Computer Case $160

Noctua NH-D14-2011 Dual Radiator Cooler with PWM fans, LGA2011 $90.

Corsair 850W Powersupply $169.99 CORSAIR Professional Series HX850 $170

Intel 510 Series (Elm Crest) SSDSC2MH120A2K5 2.5" 120GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD). $280

ASUS Sabertooth X79 TUF Motherboard - ATX, Socket R (LGA2011) $340

Intel i7 3930K processor $599.99

G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 16GB (4 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1866 (PC3 14900) Desktop Memory Model F3-14900CL9Q-16GBXL $130


Western Digital Caviar Blue WDBAAX5000ENC-NRSN 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822136784 $85 at Amazon.

Western Digital Caviar Blue WD1600AAJS 160GB 7200 RPM 8MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive $80

Asus GTX550 video card $129.99
ASUS ENGTX550 TI DC/DI/1GD5 GeForce GTX 550 Ti (Fermi) 1GB 192-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card

DVD: ASUS DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS Black SATA 24X DVD $19.99

Koutech IO-RCM630 Multi-in-1 USB 3.0 SuperSpeed Front Panel Internal Card Reader with USB 3.0 Port (3.5") $33

Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-bit - OEM $100

A couple of experts on another forum commented: "Why such a cheap video card?"

What video card would the Anandtech experts recommend?

Thanks, CMA

 

[TakeNoPrisoners]

That is a lot of PC for photoshop, you don't need such an expensive case btw.

 

[upsdriver]

You have a $600 cpu, which is why the video card seems cheap in comparison. The video card is fine, the rest of the computer is just overkill.

 

[tweakboy]

For Photoshop it uses OpenGL hardware accel ,,, so video card is actually important,, for that rig ,, buy a 560 and call it a night.... it will do great in PS along with Samantha I mean,,,, Sandy,,,,

 

[MisterMac]

Infact why exactly is the 6 core SB-E beast neccesary?

i doubt your wife would feel a difference from 2500/2600 to it.
We' need to enter more serious large scale rendering before they start to really show their worth.


Your money

 

[tweakboy]

I'm planning to have built for me in a local computer shop the following system to be used by my wife for Photoshop.

HAF 932 case COOLER MASTER HAF 932 Advanced Blue Edition RC-932-KKN3-GP Black Steel ATX Full Tower Computer Case $160

Noctua NH-D14-2011 Dual Radiator Cooler with PWM fans, LGA2011 $90.

Corsair 850W Powersupply $169.99 CORSAIR Professional Series HX850 $170

Intel 510 Series (Elm Crest) SSDSC2MH120A2K5 2.5" 120GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD). $280

ASUS Sabertooth X79 TUF Motherboard - ATX, Socket R (LGA2011) $340

Intel i7 3930K processor $599.99

G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 16GB (4 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1866 (PC3 14900) Desktop Memory Model F3-14900CL9Q-16GBXL $130


Western Digital Caviar Blue WDBAAX5000ENC-NRSN 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822136784 $85 at Amazon.

Western Digital Caviar Blue WD1600AAJS 160GB 7200 RPM 8MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive $80

Asus GTX550 video card $129.99
ASUS ENGTX550 TI DC/DI/1GD5 GeForce GTX 550 Ti (Fermi) 1GB 192-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card

DVD: ASUS DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS Black SATA 24X DVD $19.99

Koutech IO-RCM630 Multi-in-1 USB 3.0 SuperSpeed Front Panel Internal Card Reader with USB 3.0 Port (3.5") $33

Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-bit - OEM $100

A couple of experts on another forum commented: "Why such a cheap video card?"

What video card would the Anandtech experts recommend?

Thanks, CMA

For Photoshop you need fast cores and 8 threads. Why spend 600 on that Sandy CPU when Ivy Bridge is going to be faster and its fastest CPU is 320 dollars,, just like Sandys price. My old man uses PS ,, he has Sandy 2600k@ 4.2Ghz 16GB RAM SSD 120GB sata 3, and 560 card. Its blazing fast, also he uses Premiere soo,, taht is good too, like scrolling through the timeline with a SSD and fast CPU its instant,, but without SSD it will lag and take time for each clip to show... gl

 

[tweakboy]

Your gonna feel like crap when Ivy Bridge comes and its 300 dollars and faster then that 600 dollar Sandy E chip..

 

[toyota]

I would go ahead and get 32gb of ram if you are spending that much on a 8 memory slot high end mobo for photoshop. you would need to get a higher version of Windows though as Home Premium only supports 16gb.

 

[1415]

For Photoshop it uses OpenGL hardware accel ,,, so video card is actually important,, for that rig ,, buy a 560 and call it a night.... it will do great in PS along with Samantha I mean,,,, Sandy,,,,

Actually, all the posters were correct about the chip, although only because I did not tell the whole story. If this new rig were only for Photoshop for my wife to use during the day, the chip would have been overkill.
However, I am a chessplayer who will be using the system overnight for chess analysis using all 6 cores. (This is my "upgrade" from a separate system with a i7-930 chip--stock 2.8 GHz and O/C to 4.07 Ghz.) So I am now assembling a new dual-use system.

I will get a 560 videocard. Thanks, tweakboy.

 

[aphelion02]

Eh, you haven't been here long enough, but tweakboy's advice is something you just tune out.

 

[1415]

Eh, you haven't been here long enough, but tweakboy's advice is something you just tune out.

I'm a not an expert on video cards or components for that matter. So I'm open to video card ideas.

 

[upsdriver]

From http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/404/kb404898.html

Photoshop CS5 and CS4 leverage the video adapter's chip (the graphics processing unit, or GPU) instead of the computer's main chip (CPU) to speed some functions. Photoshop accesses and uses the GPU when the GPU:

supports OpenGL, a software and hardware standard that accelerates video processing when working with large or complex images, including 3D.
has at least 256 MB of RAM.
has a display driver that supports OpenGL 2.0 and Shader Model 3.0, which the GPU uses to perform rendering effects.

 

[lehtv]

No need for a full tower case. Can shave off $60 to $100 there, e.g. HAF 912 or Fractal R3.

The $90 cooler would suggest you want an uber high overclock. But a $50 Scythe Mugen 3 or a $35 CM 212 Evo would achieve a decent enough OC.

A 500 watt PSU would be quite big enough. If silence is key, Seasonic X-460 $100 AR. Otherwise CX500 V2 $30 after promo and rebate would do fine.

No point paying a premium for Intel 510 when Crucial M4 and Samsung 830 are practically just as fast and reliable.

$940 for a motherboard and CPU combo that is only marginally faster in Photoshop than a $350 combo of i5-2500K and a Z68 motherboard seems kind of senseless. i7-2600K might benefit you a bit thanks to hyperthreading, but it's not like everything you do in Photoshop is heavily multithreaded. Even with 2600K you'd be paying half the price for CPU+Mobo.

Intel's integrated graphics (in 2500K/2600K) is fully capable of Photoshopping, so -$150 there. I'm not 100% sure if there's a Photoshop performance increase to be had with a discrete GPU, and how much. It'd be good if someone shed light on this.

1866MHz memory has very little impact on system performance over 1600Mhz. You will not be able to tell the difference in performance, so it is certainly not worth the extra $.

How many USB3.0 devices do you actually have? Cos a simple card reader can be had for about $10.