Help: advice for a graphics / photoshop PC

[tfboy]

Hmm.

If overclocking isn't required, but a quiet system is, what is the current situation with AMD CPUs.

My latest rig is built on q6600 and it's great to have it running 3gig instead of 2.4 with minimal voltage tweaks. But if it's not required, presumably AMD still offer the better value for money?

A bit of a noob question, sorry I'm not up to date with the latest episode of medium performance AMD vs Intel war

[Webby]

Currently clock for clock the Intel CPU's are the more powerful. The Q6600 is the better CPU no doubt about that really. The real question I guess is does the additional performance seen for the Q6600 translate into real world benefit for the particular application? And secondly would the benefit confered by the better IGP outweigh this?

Price wise the Processors are about the same cost wise, the motherboards well the 780G can be found for £50 790GX for £70 and G43 £70 G45 £85. I would probably go for the 790GX or the G45 so a £15 saving to be made there or with 780G a £20 saving over G43.

Saracen also suggested that Quad wasn't really that much benefit for Photoshop and the fasted duel core you could find would be a better bet, well for £137 you can get an E8400 (3GHz) or a X2 6000+ 3.1GHz costs £73.

If overclocking comes into the equation then the Intels will win hands down you could go for the E5200 (2.5GHz) and clock it well past 3GHz and it costs £63.

All in all I don't really know what to suggest

[MSIC]

My gut tells me to always get a CPU with bigger cache (assuming it's not silly slow latency cache).
To be fair however, this X-bit labs review of the Celeron E1200 shows how, compared to a Core 2 Duo, it is indeed speed that helps rather than cache (in Photoshop CS3).

[Webby]

Yeah I think that either for the performance drop you are likely to see from a 6MB of cache on a E8*** to the 3MB on an E7*** and then the 2MB on the E5*** that the cheaper processor when overclocked is the way to go, as long as the person using the system is knowledgable enough to deal with any OCing issues or the person building it is prepared to sort them out should they arise.

One other thing concerning AMD chips the 780G board is only suitable for processors up to 95W so the fastest Phenoms are a no go on that board.

[tfboy]

Hmm thanks for the info and links guys, it's really useful

[Maccer101]

I saw that article a while ago and it completely changed my perspective on CPUs, since I don't game I'll always be buying the cheap CPUs from now on and OCing them. the E2180 cost me £25 off ebay and I can't realy tell the difference between that at 2.66-2.88ghz when compared to my Q6600 at stock.

When you consider the E5200 has that great multipler (12.5) that really would be my choice plus if you want you can buy a cheaper mobo because you probably won't push the FSB past 288. Spend another £15-25 on a nice cooler and you're away

[Webby]

If I had a E5200 I would probably push the FSB to 337 and lower the multiplier to 9.5 for a clock speed of 3.2GHz a faster FSB is an advantage in of itself. And you still wouldn't require anything overly special in terms of motherboard. So for £80 you would get CPU and a Xigmatek S693 cooler which will give very good performance

[tfboy]

Still working on this

Looking at graphics cards (assuming I'm not going with G31 or 790GX).

What is available that's passive/fanless and has dual DVI and is cheap?

He doesn't have a dual DVI need now - I think he has two LCDs but one of them is analogue. I could get a cheap DSUB + DVI card but if he changes to have two screens both DVI, it would seem a shame to run VGA, especially if it's a high resolution monitor where noise starts to become apparent.

[tfboy]

I've had a bit of a rethink on this, and have changed it a little.

Thoughts are now:





Gigabyte GA-EG43M-S2H iG43 mobo. Has on board DVI / HDMI + VGA so will be enough to get him going. If he ends up getting two DVI monitors, we'll add a dedicated PCIe dual DVI graphics card. It has enough USB slots and firewire (amazing how many intel boards don't have firewire). uATX is big enough - the 5 SATA ports will suffice and with 4 DIMM slots, we can add more RAM later if needs be.

The Antec case is nice and small and quiet yet looks smart enough. And it's quite cheap

I found a couple of reviews of the Be Quiet PSU and it seems pretty good. Modular too so won't have too many cables in the case. £10 cheaper than a modular Corsair HX of similar power.

Still debating whether to go quad core of a higher speed dual core, thanks to Saracen and other people's recommendation. I'll do a bit of reading regarding the more recent 45nm CPUs, guess they're cooler and cheaper to run. Not sure if they overclock as well as the G0 stepping quad core. But then again, the higher stock speed of an E8400 45nm will probably be as fast and cooler than a 65nm quad core at 2.4GHz stock speed, and it's £10 or so cheaper.

One thought - I'm thinking of adding an aftermarket CPU HSF. Any idea on what's a good, relatively cheap and quiet one?

640GB Samsung seems well regarded. I might add another one or two to run as scratch disks. Will depend on how much he wants to spend.

But overall, having it under £500 still seems pretty good. For comparison, I did look at Dell and the closest spec I could find was a similar quad core, 4GB RAM, 640GB HDD at around £480 but it was maxed out and had no real room for expansion from what I could tell so I guess self-build is still the more flexible and cheaper option in the long run.