Advice on a photoshop/gaming spec please (~£600-£700))

face256

face256

face256

Associate
Joined
28 Sep 2008
Posts
18
Hi guys, looking for some opinions/advice on a spec for a pc that will be used predominantly for heavy photoshop work but that can also perform really well for gaming, and be able to do so for years to come.

It will be used on a monitor at a resolution of 2048x1152. I came up with the following parts based on reviews around the net, but i dont know which motherboard to go for.

Intel Core i5 3350P 3.10GHz
GTX 660 Ti 2GB GDDR5 Graphics Card
Coolermaster K350 Case and Elite 500W PSU Bundle - is 500W enough?
Crucial 128GB M4 SSD - 2.5" SATA-III - Read 500MB/s Write 175MB/s
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium.
8GB

without the mobo, the avg prices for all of this comes to about £600. Dont really want to go over £700. Considering what its needed for, is this spec suitable? I dont want to spend money on things that are not really going to be needed.

Would really appreciate any help! Thanks :)
 
The PSU is budget, the SSD is slow and you can get better bang for buck from the GPU by going AMD. Also you'll need more storage

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-4570 3.20GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £149.99
1 x MSI HD 7850 OC 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Cards with FREE GAMES £125.99
1 x MSI Z87-G43 Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £95.99
1 x Samsung 120GB SSD 840 EVO SATA 6Gb/s Basic - (MZ-7TE120BW) £86.99
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-Bit - OEM (GFC-02050) £83.99
1 x Antec High Current Gamer 520W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £59.99
1 x GeIL Black Dragon 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (GD38GB1600C11DC) £49.99
1 x Xigmatek Asgard Midi Tower Case - Black £28.99
1 x OcUK 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £17.99
Total : £714.00 (includes shipping : £11.75).

 
Hi thanks for the replies! forgot to mention that already have an external hard drive for storage. that spec looks good, only thing im not sure is the suggested GPU. Just did a quick google of 7850 vs 660 and opinions and benchmarks seem to really favour the 660, but then again that 7850 you mentioned is a lot cheaper :) but one big downside with that 7850 is that it seems to have only one DVI connection so bit undecided atm.

Also is 520W enough for this spec? I really have no idea
 
face256 said:
Hi thanks for the replies! forgot to mention that already have an external hard drive for storage. that spec looks good, only thing im not sure is the suggested GPU. Just did a quick google of 7850 vs 660 and opinions and benchmarks seem to really favour the 660, but then again that 7850 you mentioned is a lot cheaper :) but one big downside with that 7850 is that it seems to have only one DVI connection so bit undecided atm.

Also is 520W enough for this spec? I really have no idea
Click to expand...

Photoshop favors Nvidia (however for 99.99% of stuff it makes no difference), 128GB SSD is not enough if you are installing Creative Suite as you'll be constantly moving files around. You should get at least an internal 1TB scratch drive in addition to the SSD. 5400RPM "green" drives are generally sufficient.

Anything left over, buy a Wacom tablet.
 
Last edited:
Hmm ok. This pc is actually for a friend who does the same stuff i do, photoshop, games etc. On my pc i have 128GB ssd and internal 1TB hard disk. I have windows and photoshop cs4 installed on the ssd, games and other media i have on the HD. The set up works for me fine. She already has an external 500gb seagate hard drive, i was thinking maybe she could just use that for her other stuff. Would that do or should it really be an internal HD?
 
I would suggest the best (non amd) card you can afford and a larger SSD.
I run CS6 ext on a fairly humble machine with no probs at all.
As I understand it, the SSD should be used as the only scratch drive, am I wrong?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom