Suitable for Photoshop CS5?

jammy_pc

Member
Hi,
Basically, I want a computer to deal with Photoshop CS5, with no issues at all. Would this do?

Case
COOLERMASTER CM690 MKII ADVANCED CASE + 2 FRONT USB
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7-870 Quad Core (2.93GHz, 8MB Cache) + Turbo Boost
Motherboard
ASUS® P7P55D PRO: USB 2.0, SATA 3.0GB/s, CrossFireX™ / SLI SUPPORT
Memory (RAM)
4GB KINGSTON HYPER-X BLU DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz, X.M.P (2 x 2GB KIT)
Graphics Card
768MB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX460 GDDR5 PCI EXPRESS - DirectX® 11
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
640GB WD CAVIAR GREEN WD6400AARS, SATA 3 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE
2nd Hard Disk
1TB WD CAVIAR GREEN WD10EARS, SATA 3 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Memory Card Reader
INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT
Power Supply & Case Cooling
600W Quiet 80 PLUS Quad Rail PSU + 120mm Case Fan (£59)
Processor Cooling
SUPER QUIET 22dBA TRIPLE COPPER HEATPIPE CPU COOLER (£19)
Sound Card
Sound Blaster® Audigy™ SE (£19)
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)
 

SteveB

Gold Level Poster
Hi Jammy_pc,

I am in the process of having a pc built for the exact same reason check out the below link and also check youtube as they have some vids which helped me out

http://www.nvidia.co.uk/object/adobe_photoshop_uk.html

Edit: I would try to go for 6gb ram as from what I understand 3 moduls will perform alot better (3 x 2)
Also go for the 1333 rather than the 1600 as 1600 is more for overclocked machines

If your budget will allow add an SSD drive for your software as this will make things alot faster
you should be ok with graphics card if its only photo editing you intend to do but check the above web site
 
Last edited:

Gorman

Author Level
Trust in SteveB for he has seen the light, If your not going to be gaming at all then his path is the only true way.
 

jammy_pc

Member
Cheers Steve,

Unfortunately as much as I would like a SSD drive, it pushes the quote above my budget, also I tried changing my quote but I could only get either 4Gb (2x2) ram or 8Gb (2x4) ram, would it be safer to get the 8gb? And finally on a different note what monitor do you use or plan to get? Sorry for the questions.
 

Gorman

Author Level
Corsair 600T

Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Processor i7-950,

ASUS® P6T7 WS SUPERCOMPUTER: SUPPORTS CUDA TECHNOLOGY,

PNY QUADRO 4000 2GB GDDR3, 12GB SAMSUNG DDR3 TRI-DDR3 1333MHz,

80GB Intel® X25-M 2.5" SSD, 1TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD1002FAEX,

10x BLU-RAY RE-WRITER DRIVE,

CORSAIR 750W PSU.

These are the basics of Steve's spec which we both would recommend for pure CS5.

The core components are the CPU and the Quadro card, everything else you can play with to match your budget.

http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/computers/intel3_ddr3/
 

SteveB

Gold Level Poster
Ok I'v done my best and come up with the following I have guessed your budget based on your first spec

The below will give you more of what you are looking for with regard to photo processing, I can't promise it will run cs5 seemlessley as I would have liked more cuda cores but I reckon its not far away
See the below link also regarding GPU's

http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/forum...ed-before-I-order!&p=7620&viewfull=1#post7620

Case
COOLERMASTER CM690 MKII ADVANCED CASE + 2 FRONT USB
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Processor i7-950 (3.06GHz) 4.8GTs/8MB Cache
Motherboard
ASUS® P6T WS PROFESSIONAL: NEW ERA CORE i7 WORKSTATION
Memory (RAM)
6GB SAMSUNG DDR3 TRI-DDR3 1333MHz (3 X 2GB)
Graphics Card
PNY QUADRO FX380 256MB GDDR3, CUDA ENABLED - 2 x DVI-I
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
1TB WD CAVIAR GREEN WD10EARS, SATA 3 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Memory Card Reader
INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT
Power Supply & Case Cooling
600W Quiet 80 PLUS Quad Rail PSU + 120mm Case Fan (£59)
Processor Cooling
SUPER QUIET 22dBA TRIPLE COPPER HEATPIPE CPU COOLER (£19)
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
FREE Microsoft® Office Starter 2010 (Limited functionality Word & Excel)
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 9 to 12 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £987.00 including VAT and delivery.
 

jammy_pc

Member
Once again, thanks guys for the feedback.:D
Now a bit of background info to help, I was looking at creating a pc that Photoshop would benefit from, it won’t purely be used for Photoshop. Initially I was torn between a Mac and a PC, but seeing what kind of pc I could make, for the same amount of money as a Mac, I decided to stay with pc. Budget is a £1000, but it can sway a little if needs be
I know these quadro graphic cards are top of the league, but aren’t they more beneficial for CAD programmes:confused:
 

Gorman

Author Level
I know these quadro graphic cards are top of the league, but aren’t they more beneficial for CAD programmes:confused:

They are strong 2D accelerators with a lot of dedicated hardware bells and whistles for video encoding etc, Adobe made CS5 in bed with Nvidia, but yes you are right, they are work cards for professional use. If you want to game you will need a strong 3d card like the GTX series, both famalies offer CUDA.
 

jammy_pc

Member
I see what you are getting at, between the differences of NVIDIA GeForce or NVIDIA Quadro that one is more for 3d, the other more for 2d. But to quote a section from SteveB’s first link

“Adobe Photoshop CS5 automatically detects NVIDIA® GeForce® or NVIDIA® Quadro® GPUs to enable these accelerated features.”

This seems to imply that Photoshop works well with either one.
 

Gorman

Author Level
Correct, however Photoshop is 2D, and will excell on the Quadro, games are 3D and will excell on the GTX series.

The FX380 and FX580 Quadros are cheaper than most of the GTX range, so if your not gaming, there is really only one conclusion to draw.
 

SteveB

Gold Level Poster
I know what your going through i went through the same dilema, Its a fair bit of cash your parting with and you want to get it right

I googled your question on CAD and this was one of the first things I saw.


Just don't get a gaming card to act as a workstation card, you won't be impressed. I bought 2 workstation cards for the CAD guys at my previous job and they specifically asked for a certain Quadrio series and they ran about $700 a card.


Depending on what you are doing you won't need a card that runs more than $500 or so. Just DO YOUR HOMEWORK! Some cards may be vastly better at doing one task than another.
 

Michael89

Bronze Level Poster
One important question would be: would do you use photoshop for? Are you a professional that works in stupidly high res poster sized files exceeding 100-200mb, a casual user/worker that edits photos or uses the creative suite for painting and general editing functions or would you be using it in conjunction with 3D programs to utilise the 3D painting it offers?

If you're the 1st, then by all means get 6-8gb of ram and don't look back. Make sure to actually assign your ram to the program within the settings/prefs menu.

If you're the 2nd, then I used to use my old PC for this with a 2.4ghz duel core, 2gb ddr and a 7900GS nvidia card. It only ever stuttered when I was doing things like smudging large areas or painting on docs within the several million pixel range. (I used top end macs for the intensive stuff).

If you're the 3rd, I don't envy you for 3d artwork is the devil and build your PC like the 1st with a nice tasty nvidia card.

This is based on CS4 as I've not upgraded to CS5 yet and I don't know how demanding their auto-fill function is.
 

jammy_pc

Member
Now with all the advice given, hopefully this should be my finally PC setup:-

Case
COOLERMASTER CM690 MKII ADVANCED CASE + 2 FRONT USB
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Processor i7-950 (3.06GHz) 4.8GTs/8MB Cache
Motherboard
ASUS® P6T7 WS SUPERCOMPUTER: SUPPORTS CUDA TECHNOLOGY
Memory (RAM)
6GB SAMSUNG DDR3 TRI-DDR3 1333MHz (3 X 2GB)
Graphics Card
PNY QUADRO FX580 512MB GDDR3, CUDA ENABLED - 2 x DP, 1 x DVI-I
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
640GB WD CAVIAR GREEN WD6400AARS, SATA 3 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE
2nd Hard Disk
1TB WD CAVIAR GREEN WD10EARS, SATA 3 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Memory Card Reader
INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT
Power Supply & Case Cooling
450W Quiet 80 PLUS Dual Rail PSU + 120mm Case Fan (£29)
Processor Cooling
SUPER QUIET 22dBA TRIPLE COPPER HEATPIPE CPU COOLER (£19)
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)

A dell monitor,
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B003R7K32S/ref=s9_simh_gw_p147_d0_i4?pf_rd_m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=0F87CWNZRN2PK60A806H&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=467128533&pf_rd_i=468294

But one last question, if I decided to go for Photoshop cs5 extended, would the quadro, cope with the 3d side of things, maybe not excel but still cope?


Cheers for the help guys,:cool:
 

SteveB

Gold Level Poster
Looks good to me, The 3D side of things is a different matter though as it will really depend on what kind of 3D work you want to do? even the card I have chosen isn't upto some 3D tasks as only the Quadro 5000 and 6000 will perform well but then they should for the amazing price tag
 
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