PC Advice for using Adobe Creative Suite

[shafiq]

Hello ...

I've spec'd up a couple of machines on the PCS Website.
We're predominantly going to be using them with the range of Adobe Products - Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign & Dreamweaver (We're a Web Design / Photography & Print Agency)

The spec is as follows:

Case: COOLERMASTER SILENCIO 550 QUIET MID TOWER CASE
CPU: Intel® Core™i7 Six Core Processor i7-4930K (3.4GHz) 12MB Cache
Motherboard: ASUS® P9X79 LE: INTEL® SOCKET LG2011
Memory (RAM): 32GB KINGSTON HYPERX GENESIS QUAD-DDR3 1600MHz X.M.P( 4 x 8GB KIT)
Graphics Card: 2GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 770 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready
2nd Graphics Card: NONE
3rd Graphics Card: NONE
1st Hard Disk: 240GB KINGSTON V300 SSD, SATA 6 Gb (450MB/R, 450MB/W)
2nd Hard Disk: 2TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD2003FZEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
RAID: NONE
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive: 24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
2nd DVD/BLU-RAY Drive: NONE
Power Supply: CORSAIR 650W RM SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET
Processor Cooling: INTEL SOCKET LGA2011 STANDARD CPU COOLER
Thermal Paste: STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
Operating System: NO OPERATING SYSTEM REQUIRED


We intend to run the above machine on Windows 7 Pro 64 Bit.

Do you think this will be suitable?

I believe the graphics card can make a difference in terms of performance - I've been recommended using the Nvidia Quadro range of cards but that blows out our budget.

Comments?

Many Thanks

 

[nathanjrb]

I would suggest dropping the RAM to 16GB - it's unlikely you'll exceed 16GB unless you're going to be video editing.

The Six core processor may also be slightly overkill... I personally went for the quad core i7 3770k (predecessor to 4770) and it works great! I do a lot of video editing - Premiere Pro/After Effects etc.

Depends on just how intensive you're planning to be.

 

[mantadog]

Do you mind posting the budget? it could help us a lot with getting the best spec for your money.

Quadro cards are ideal for professional setups like yourself but they come at a cost obviously. The Gaming series cards work well in most scenarios so I wouldn't worry if you cant stretch to it. Since you are obviously going to be using it in a professional capacity you can justify decent components to get the job done as quickly as possible.

Even if you are pushing the software mentioned above really hard, your choice of GPU/CPU is probably going to keep up just fine. Perhaps the 32GB of RAM is slightly overkill so you could tone that back 16GB and probably still have some to spare. That should open up a couple of quid in the budget to possibly get a quadro card. Was the person who advised you to get quadro in the know about your type of work? If so they may be better positioned to advise than I am, as I have no idea what specifics of the tasks you do on the above software. However as I mentioned above, the gaming GPU's are generally decent enough for whatever you need them for.

To make more room for a quadro card you could also drop to an i7 4770, its only a quad core CPU but is a very capable chip and that makes savings in the motherboard area too. Generally the 4770 is enough until you get into 3d modelling, video editing etc, as you don't make any mention of those I would probably go so far as to recommend the 4770 as a cheaper option that is more than up to the task of Photoshop etc.

Here is a rough idea of what im talking about as a build below

Case
COOLERMASTER SILENCIO 550 QUIET MID TOWER CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Processor i7-4770 (3.4GHz) 8MB Cache
Motherboard
ASUS® Z87M-PLUS: m-ATX, USB3.0, SATA 6.0, XFIRE
Memory (RAM)
16GB KINGSTON HYPER-X GENESIS DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz, X.M.P (2 x 8GB KIT)
Graphics Card
2GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 770 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready
Free Item
FREE BATMAN: ARKHAM ORIGINS GAME with GTX 660 & 7 Series GPUs!
Free Item
FREE ASSASSINS CREED BLACK FLAG & MORE with GTX 660 & 7 Series GPUs!
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
240GB INTEL® 530 SERIES SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 540MB/sR | 490MB/sW) Intel SSD's are built to last, all SSD's degrade with every write you make to them and eventually die. For a pro user intel should last much longer. Just to clarify a SSD will sustain multiple GB/day for many many years, just intel will do it for longer.

Also forgot to add the 2TB caviar black here for you mass storage

1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Power Supply
CORSAIR 650W RM SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET (£79)
Processor Cooling
Super Quiet 22dBA Triple Copper Heatpipe Intel CPU Cooler (£19)
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Wireless/Wired Networking
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT - AS STANDARD ON ALL PCs
USB Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 4 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Power Cable
1 x 2 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Operating System
NO OPERATING SYSTEM REQUIRED
Office Software
NO OFFICE SOFTWARE
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
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 9 to 11 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £1,128.00 including VAT and delivery.

Unique URL to re-configure: http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/quotes/intel-haswell-pc/veQxmTfocP/

The comparable quadro setup is nearly £500 more which I think is probably not worth it, depend what your budget is though

 

[shafiq]

Thanks for the replies ... Much appreciated.

Re: Budget - We were looking around the £1200 mark (which i've exceeded with the spec I specified in the first post)
Re: Quadro cards - The advice I received was more from online chat rooms/forums (e.g. Toms Hardware, TWIT etc) rather than specific individuals - If we're looking at £500 for a Quadro card then that's going to be a non-starter

In terms of how hard we'll be driving the machines - One of my colleagues handles high res photos taken in RAW format and can have upto 10 open at any one time. At the same time have Adobe Fireworks & Dreamweaver open at the same time (as well as Outlook )

Thanks for tip on lowering the memory, and changing the SSD to Intel.

 

[nathanjrb]

How 'hi-res' are you talking? I take pictures in RAW with a Canon 5d.... I load up 300+ at a time and it's not really much trouble

 

[shafiq]

How 'hi-res' are you talking? I take pictures in RAW with a Canon 5d.... I load up 300+ at a time and it's not really much trouble

We have a Canon 5d mk2 as well ... If you've got 300+ raw images opened up with no problems then we should be ok

Thanks!

 

[mantadog]

Alright, I think we can bin the quadro cards ideal. I don't see it being much use to you anyway especially at the price vs GTX series.

I would say any 7xx series card would serve you well, if it was me I would probably go for the 760 because the price is almost £100 cheaper and for your sues I doubt it would be much slower.

here is a video of a GT 240 vs an i5 (its from 2010 but it gives you an idea) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKU0R31WEyc

The 760 seems like it will be more than ample.

 

[shafiq]

The 760 seems like it will be more than ample.

Nice one - That'll save a few more £££

Thanks again!