Help deciding

[SteveB]

Hi all

I have put together a desktop pc for use with Adobe Photoshop cs5 but i'm not 100% convinced I have selected the right spec as my knowladge on building pc's is not great

What I really want is a well balanced, quite but fast computer that can handle cs5 without any lag

Any advice is appreciated


Case
CORSAIR GRAPHITE SERIES™ 600T GAMING CASE (£139)
Processor (CPU)
AMD PHENOM II X4 965 (3.40GHz/8MB CACHE/AM3) - BLACK EDITION
Motherboard
ASUS® M4N98TD EVO: DDR3, 2-Way SLI, SATA 3.0GB/s
Memory (RAM)
4GB SAMSUNG DDR3 DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (2 X 2GB)
Graphics Card
1GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX465 GDDR5 PCI EXPRESS - DirectX® 11
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
150GB WD VELOCIRAPTOR® SATA 3-Gb/s, 16MB CACHE (10,000rpm)
2nd Hard Disk
80GB Intel® X25-M 2.5" SSD (34nm / upto 250MB/sR | 70MB/sW)***SPECIAL***
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
10x BLU-RAY RE-WRITER DRIVE, 16x DVD ±R/±RW (£89)
2nd DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
10x BLU-RAY ROM DRIVE, 16x DVD ±R/±RW (£59)
Memory Card Reader
INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (READS XD, MS, CF, SD, etc)
Power Supply & Case Cooling
CORSAIR 750W PSU (TX750) 80+ ULTRA QUIET (£90)
Processor Cooling
STANDARD AMD CPU COOLER
Sound Card
ONBOARD 8 CHANNEL (7.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Facilities
ONBOARD 10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT
USB Options
6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD
Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79)
Office Software
NO OFFICE SOFTWARE
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Monitor
IIYAMA E2271HDS 22" LED WIDESCREEN, HDMI/DVI-D FULL HD 1920x1080 (£149)

 

[Gorman]

Very nice setup, the only ? is the HDD config.

You seem to have an SSD as the second drive, this would be better as a system drive.

Then you can have the raptor as a dedicated scratch drive or replace it with a huge drive for storage.

I take it you are using / will use an external drive for storage?

 

[Meds]

Agreed, a very good spec.

However, it might be worth noting that the Graphics Card is overpowered for photo editing - you could probably get away with downgrading the graphics card to a GTX460 or even a GTS250 (still pretty powerful cards) and using the spare cash to get a better CPU or more RAM - maybe 8GB RAM and AMD 6 Core 1090T?

 

[SteveB]

Hi Gorman,

Thanks for your reply and yes I will have an external drive for all my raw files, I have just read a post on the forum from a guy who is going to use the same software and his spec is almost double the power of the above I have put together which concerns me a little as I'm now thinking mine may not be fast enough for the software I intend to use, I'm thinking I need to do some serious research on pc componants or maybe contact Adobe and see if they can give me some advice, unless any of you guy's there have this software and are aware of what is required to get the best out of cs5?

 

[Meds]

Agreed, a very nice spec.

However I will note that the Graphics Card is probably a bit OTT for photo editing. A suggestion would be to downgrade the graphics card to say the GTS250, then use the spare cash to get a better CPU & RAM - maybe 8GB RAM & AMD X6 1090T?

 

[Gorman]

If i was going to be building a pure CS5 machine (no gaming etc) then i would be looking at this sort of spec to get the most i could, but the price im guessing is going to be a lot more than your spec.

Case
STYLISH PIANO BLACK FUSION CASE inc. 2 FRONT USB
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Processor i7-930 (2.80GHz) 4.8GTs/8MB Cache
Motherboard
ASUS® P6T WS PROFESSIONAL: NEW ERA CORE i7 WORKSTATION
Memory (RAM)
12GB SAMSUNG DDR3 TRI-DDR3 1333MHz (3 x 4GB)
Graphics Card
PNY QUADRO FX580 512MB GDDR3, CUDA ENABLED - 2 x DP, 1 x DVI-I
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
150GB WD VELOCIRAPTOR® SATA 3-Gb/s, 16MB CACHE (10,000rpm)
2nd Hard Disk
1TB SERIAL ATA 3-Gb/s HARD DRIVE WITH 16MB CACHE (7,200rpm)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
10x BLU-RAY RE-WRITER DRIVE, 16x DVD ±R/±RW (£89)
Memory Card Reader
INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (READS XD, MS, CF, SD, etc)
Power Supply & Case Cooling
CORSAIR 650W PSU (TX650) 80+ ULTRA QUIET (£76)
Processor Cooling
INTEL SOCKET LGA1366 STANDARD CPU COOLER
Sound Card
ONBOARD 8 CHANNEL (7.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Facilities
ONBOARD 10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT
USB Options
6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD
Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Professional 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£108)
Office Software
NO OFFICE SOFTWARE
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Monitor
IIYAMA E2271HDS 22" LED WIDESCREEN, HDMI/DVI-D FULL HD 1920x1080 (£149)
Warranty
3 Year Standard Warranty (1 Month Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 8 to 10 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £1,542.00 including VAT and delivery.

 

[SteveB]

Thanks Gorman, the price is more than I want to pay but unless pc specialists want to give me it for free lol I can stretch to this if it will do the job and is upgradeable should I need to
I see the graphics card there is 512MB I don't mean to be rude and question you selection as your knowladge is a damn sight better than mine but I see many others going for 1GB cards, will the 512MB give me the quality required for for HD ect, I did say my knowladge of this stuff was rubbish lol

 

[Gorman]

Thanks Gorman, the price is more than I want to pay but unless pc specialists want to give me it for free lol I can stretch to this if it will do the job and is upgradeable should I need to
I see the graphics card there is 512MB I don't mean to be rude and question you selection as your knowladge is a damn sight better than mine but I see many others going for 1GB cards, will the 512MB give me the quality required for for HD ect, I did say my knowladge of this stuff was rubbish lol

The spec i have put there is just a basic guide as to what i see a true CS5 machine including, which is most notably a GPU that supports CUDA (that will enable you to run CS5 using the power of your CPU and GPU for traditional CPU only tasks).

As the GPU is not going to be used for gaming, 512mb should be plenty.

 

[Gorman]

SteveB should you see this, please accept this as my official apology for getting distracted and walking off for lunch leaving you on livechat. oops.