New build for photoshop

[GaryRW]

My friend has asked me to put together a new build for her. She is a semi-pro photographer in her part time and that's pretty much all she wants to use it for. Apparently her old Dell P4 that's about 7+?? years old isn't cutting it!

So far I have:

• Intel CPU Core i5 2500K - £162 - http://www.scan.co.uk/products/intel...-cache-95w-oem
• Gigabyte GA-Z68XP-UD3 Intel Z68 Express Socket 1155 Motherboard - £104 - http://www.scan.co.uk/products/gigab...a-on-board-atx
• Antec 300 case - £44.50 - http://www.scan.co.uk/products/antec...u-(new-version)
• Be Quiet BN185 Efficient Power 350W PSU - £43 - http://www.scan.co.uk/products/350w-...t-fan-atx-v231
• Corsair Memory XMS3 8GB DDR3 1600 MHz CAS 9 Dual Channel Desktop - £35 - http://www.scan.co.uk/products/8gb-(...s-9-9-9-24-15v
• 60GB SSD Corsair Force Series 3 Series SATA III - 6Gb/s SSD - £80 - http://www.scan.co.uk/products/60gb-...0mb-s-80k-iops
• Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit OEM Operating System - £73 - http://www.scan.co.uk/products/micro...tem-single-oem

That all adds up to about £540. I've got an old 500GB drive and CD drive etc... she can have. Don't think I've missed anything else

The plan is to have the SSD as a cache using the Intel SRT thingy - has anyone used it? Is it as simple as it sounds as a set up and leave?

(Keep in mind that a couple of years ago I put in a 1TB for the same friend as she'd run out of space on the single HDD that was in her machine. 6 months ago I got asked to look at the pc again as it said it was running out of space. There was about 20mb free on the C drive, and about 1TB free on the other drive... So while I would personally choose what to put on the SSD, I think the idea of a cache for a bigger drive suits her perfectly.)

As for Photoshop am I right in thinking that it's only the full fat version of photoshop that has GPU acceleration? Any one heard anything about Elements? I guess I could always add in a discrete GFX card at some point, but my understanding is that it has to be a pretty beefy card to really help out e.g. a core i5.

so any suggestions as to better alternatives? Any comments would be very welcome, as I've thrown the above together pretty quickly so may have missed something obvious.

[Pob255]

It looks good

I've not used the SRT but afaik it's just a matter of turning it on and pointing it at the ssd and can be added or removed at any point not just at the initial setup.
And this sort of seamless system sound ideal for her (I know similar people, tip for the future, move the "documents and settings" default location on to the 2nd drive and then they start using it, although they'll still install things on the c

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

A few things to consider:
1.)I would get a normal non-K CPU. For long term reliability I would NOT be overclocking the CPU especially for someone who is using it for work purposes and knows nothing about hardware.
2.)I would get a Crucial M4 SSD or at least one which uses synchronous NAND. The 64GB version of the M4 is very reliable and on xtremesystems someone has written 171TB of data to one.

I would ditch the motherboard and get a cheaper H67 based one. I would get this CPU:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/intel...tio-80w-retail

It does not have an IGP,but the following card should do the job:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/512mb...i-i-hdmi-d-sub

Alternatively get a standard Core i5. The Core i5 2400 is actually better value for money than the standard Core i5 2500:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/intel...che-95w-retail

The PSU also uses a sleeve bearing fan:

http://www.jonnyguru.com/forums/show...3&postcount=27

I would get one with a ball bearing or rifle bearing fan.

Edit!!

The following build uses parts from Scan.



The Xeon E3 1230 only has an 80W TDP and is basically a slightly underclocked Core i7 2600 with the IGP switched off. The case has USB ports are towards the top which should make it easier to plug in the camera or an external card reader.

For a few quid more this case would be better IMHO:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/silve...su-best-seller

The USB ports are right on the top of the case.

Another thing - what monitor is your friend using??

I would really consider spending some of the budget on a monitor with reasonable colour accuracy if they don't already have one. You can get monitors with an IPS panel for under £150.

TBH,I would get a Core i3 2100 and a better monitor than a Core i5,Core i7 or Xeon CPU and a poor monitor for image editing purposes. Remember that a Core i3 will be a huge upgrade over a Pentium 4.

I would also consider a better backup strategy - it seems like your friend is relying on only one hard drive for image storage. This is rather risky!!

[GaryRW]

Thanks chaps.

Cat - thanks for the various suggestions. Cases are good shouts as I'd not really looked too closely at them. Accessible USB3 will be a handy option I'd not thought about for her.

If I go the H67 route, although the gfx card and mobo come out the same cost, won't she lose out on using the SSD as a cache for a larger HDD?

I've also just done some googling and still seems that Elements doesn't use GPU acceleration (yet...) so not sure she'd gain much from the gfx card - other than the chance to use the Xeon you mentioned.

Hmmm..... (goes to google) ... I can't find any direct info on whether Photoshop Elements, or CS4/CS5 use hyperthreading. This http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/287?vs=288&i=25 would suggest that there is some minor benefit to the i7 2600k vs the i5 2500k - looks to be about 10%. I assume that also covers the 8MB vs 6MB cache advantage of the Xeon. So I'm not sure that she'd benefit that much from the Xeon - very interesting idea though!

You have made it much clearer to me though that the SSD caching option isn't £80 extra - it's closer to £130 as you can get much cheaper motherboards if I went e.g. H61 rather than z68. Obviously she'd lose out on overclocking, but as you can tell from the lack of a cooler, I'd not planned to do that for her straight away anyway (I saw it as something to do for a bit of extra kick when the warranty's run out )

So: Gigabyte GA-H61M-D2H-USB3 Motherboard - £47 - http://www.scan.co.uk/products/gigab...hdmi-micro-atx

As against the board i had chose at £104, I lose the SSD caching, and any overclocking on the CPU. I also lose the 2x Sata 6gb/s ports, a few USB2 ports and an internal USB3 header. I don' think there's anything else?

So in those terms, maybe it's just better to spend the £57 saving from the H61 board on a 120GB SSD. Decisions decisions...

Again, thanks for the comments.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I was trying to illustrate that for around the same price as your original list you can get a faster PC overall.

Also does your friend have decent monitor which is calibrated?? This is an important part of the workstream.

I am not sure about the whole caching idea TBH. I would rather just use the SSD on its own as it should be more reliable in long term IMHO.

That H61 motherboard should do the job although newer SSDs do benefit from SATA3.0 AFAIK. However,an SSD will be faster than most hard drives.

This Z68 motherboard is under £80 and will support the features you want:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/asus-...dvi-d-hdmi-atx