Memory & Motherboard upgarde needed for Graphic work.

Satish · 9 Sep 2011 at 02:08

Hello

I kneel benevolently at the greater wisdom of the overclockers community. I need some advice on a upgrade. I work in Graphic Design quite often working with ginormous (not a real word but should be) Photoshop & Illustrator files. Unfortunately 4gb of DDR2 doesn’t seem to be cutting it. My Gigabyte GA-MA790X-UD3P motherboard only supports DDR2 Ram and i feel its about time to hit some DDR3!

So I’m going to need a new motherboard & Ram, I currently have a ATI Radeon HD 5850 card and a AMD Phenom II X4 955 3.2GHz. I don’t believe I need to upgrade these. I was thinking of going for 16gb’s of DDR3. I don’t mind spending a few bob if its worth it. I will need a AMD motherboard to go with it too.

With regards to other pc functions all I care about is that I can play Battlefield 3 at 1920*1080 with good fps and decent graphics.

Hmm thinking about it, i could be tempted to upgrade the CPU if its worth it.

Also thinking of getting a SSD and putting my most used applications & OS on it. Would it be worth it?

Cheers (advanced) for any recomendations!

Orcvader · 9 Sep 2011 at 02:21

Considering Bulldozer is near, I would keep your CPU and GPU. Go for this board as it should be Bulldozer ready: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-350-GI&groupid=701&catid=1903&subcat=2046

I would go for an 8gb kit to see how it goes, if you feel you do need more then just buy some more. Apparantly RAM prices will drop later on anyway: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-290-CS&groupid=701&catid=8&subcat=1517

As for an SSD, for Photoshop and Illustrator it will help boost your performance by loading the files faster, especially with large raw files where pagefiling will happen. Go for the M4 64gb, it's a brilliant drive, or if you have the money, go for the 128gb.

As for BF3, no one knows yet what it actually requires to play smoothly, so I would try overclock your CPU to 4ghz if it's possible. Hopefully Bulldozer will perform better in games compared to the Phenom, and the 5850 "should" be enough for games at 1080p.

Satish · 10 Sep 2011 at 14:34

Thanks for the reply Orcvader

Between upgrades i get completely out of touch with latest PC Tech News. I had no idea about Bulldozer. It seems as though it has been constantly getting delayed. I think i will sit on that for a while and just go for the SSD. I'm trying to work out if i really need the 128gb. But i think i'll cave in and go for it anyway.

As i'm not 100% committed to a going AMD at the moment i'll wait till next month before getting the motherboard/ram and possible CPU.

King Damager · 10 Sep 2011 at 14:54

For SSD I'd recommend 128GB - I've only got 19GB space left on my 60GB Drive..

Definitely go for an i5 2500k, or if you can afford it i7 2600k (you'd really benefit from the i7 in your photoshop stuff)

Basically -
i7/i5.
ASrock Extreme 4 Gen 3
Gelid Tranquillo CPU cooler
16GB XMS3

kd

Satish · 16 Sep 2011 at 15:25

Yup i went for the 128GB Going to stick the OS on it and use it as the scratch disk for Photoshop/Illustrator etc. I decided to go all out 2600k, the motherboard you recommended, 16GB Ram and a Artic Cooler Freezer 7 Pro. Future Proofing myself for the possibility of hyperhthreading being taken advantage in the apps i use. Can't wait!