Photo Editing System - suggested specs needed

Tezzer

Tezzer

Tezzer

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24 Sep 2012
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Hi Folks. I've built a few PCs over the years, so I know my way around assembly procedures. However, I've been asked by a friend who is a keen photographer to build a machine optimised to her needs, especially for using the latest versions of Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom, and I have no experience of that.
Windows 7x64 is obviously a given, but would Pro offer any advantage of Home Prem?
Beyond that what would be the best blend of MB/CPU/RAM (make and models please) and in particular what would be the best graphics card for this useage (I appreciate that the top end graphics cards are really for games (which it won't be used for), and these can suck up a lot of dough which might not be cost effective for what is essentially a 2d application). Would the built in GPU of the current ivybridge i5 do the job well?
Would an SSD realise any benefit?
I want to offer her price point options of a total of say £500, £750 and £1000
Cheers Tezzer
 
Taken from Adobes website


Solid-state disks



Installing Photoshop on a solid-state disk (SSD) allows Photoshop to launch fast, probably in less than a second. But that speedier startup is the only time savings you experience. That’s the only time when much data is read from the SSD.

To gain the greatest benefit from an SSD, use it as the scratch disk. Using it as a scratch disk gives you significant performance improvements if you have images that don’t fit entirely in RAM. For example, swapping tiles between RAM and an SSD is much faster than swapping between RAM and a hard disk.
 
Hi

My old Q6600 does the job, I have 4 pc's on PS CS 6 and are all fast.

Specs would depend more on what files sizes and how many layers you are using.

Graphics card isn't to important either. Unless you want to see what your doing on a screen ;)

But to expand on the other guys reply...

SSD: OS & APPLICATIONS
HDD: just for a scratch disk, do you understand this?
HDD: Source file where you store your orginals
HDD: For where you save your files after editing.

The above is the best solution For quickest work flow.
You can speed up the system some more with RAID. Have 2 HDD's combined on all the HDD's above.

Basically any machine in todays world will rund well if you spend £500 on a prebuilt machine. The more you spend the better, faster and more future proof.
 
£500ish


YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i3-3220 3.30GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £99.95
1 x Gigabyte Z77-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £84.98
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-Bit - OEM (GFC-02050) £83.99
1 x OCZ Vertex 3 120GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive (VTX3-25SAT3-120G) £79.99
1 x Toshiba (7K1000.D) 500GB SATA 6GB/s 32MB Cache - OEM (DT01ACA050) £43.99
1 x OCZ CoreXtreme 500w '80 Plus' Power Supply £32.99
1 x Xigmatek Asgard Midi Tower Case - Black £29.99
1 x GeIL Black Dragon 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (GD38GB1600C11DC) £28
1 x OcUK 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £13.99
Total : £511.97 (includes shipping : £11.75).




£750


YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £184.99
1 x Samsung 256GB SSD 830 Series SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Drive - (MZ-7PC256B/WW) **BTS £20 CASHBACK** £149.99
1 x Gigabyte Z77-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £84.98
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-Bit - OEM (GFC-02050) £83.99
1 x Toshiba (7K1000.D) 1TB SATA 6GB/s 32MB Cache - OEM (DT01ACA100) £59.99
1 x MSI GeForce GT 430 2048MB GDDR3 PCI-Express Graphics Card £49.99
1 x OCZ CoreXtreme 500w '80 Plus' Power Supply £32.99
1 x Xigmatek Asgard Midi Tower Case - Black £29.99
1 x GeIL Black Dragon 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (GD38GB1600C11DC) £28
1 x Akasa AK-CC4005SP01 Venom Nano CPU Cooler (Socket LGA775/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA1366/AM2/AM3) £21.98
1 x OcUK 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £13.99
Total : £755.88 (includes shipping : £12.50).



£1k


YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i7-3770K 3.50GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £269.99
1 x Samsung 256GB SSD 830 Series SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Drive - (MZ-7PC256B/WW) **BTS £20 CASHBACK** £149.99
1 x Gigabyte Z77X-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £112.99
1 x MSI GeForce GTX 650 OC Power Edition 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £91.19
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-Bit - OEM (GFC-02050) £83.99
1 x OCZ ZT 550W '80 Plus Bronze' Modular Power Supply £63.98
1 x Toshiba (7K1000.D) 1TB SATA 6GB/s 32MB Cache - OEM (DT01ACA100) £59.99
1 x Zalman Z9 Plus Tower Case with Fan Controller - Black £49.98
1 x Prolimatech Panther CPU Cooler (Socket LGA1155/1156/AM2/AM2+/AM3) £31.2
2 x GeIL Black Dragon 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (GD38GB1600C11DC) £28 (£56.00)
1 x OcUK 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £13.99
Total : £998.28 (includes shipping : £12.50).




Apparently from what i read photoshop utilizes hyper threading so an I7 would be beneficial.

SSD as i posted above is good if you use it has a scratch disk and not just the disk the app is installed on.

Photoshop likes lots of RAM

As far as GPU's go, they do get used but i dont know to what extent. i think ti will be beneficial to have a small GPU in and on the 1k build slammed a 650 in as the cuda cores of nvidia card will most likely be best. and will allow some gaming on side if wanted :D
 
I built the PC in my sig with my photography in mind. I'm planning on getting a new Nikon D600 if the price drops soon. Needed the grunt for the huge RAW files and the SSD for applications (Lightroom etc.). The 2Tb is for the rather large amount of storage required for images that size.
 
more HDD space on 1k build


YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i7-3770K 3.50GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £269.99
1 x Samsung 256GB SSD 830 Series SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Drive - (MZ-7PC256B/WW) **BTS £20 CASHBACK** £149.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 3TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST3000DM001) £109.99
1 x MSI GeForce GTX 650 OC Power Edition 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £91.19
1 x Gigabyte Z77-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £84.98
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-Bit - OEM (GFC-02050) £83.99
1 x OCZ ZT 550W '80 Plus Bronze' Modular Power Supply £63.98
1 x Xigmatek Asgard Pro Gaming Case - Black £34.99
1 x Prolimatech Panther CPU Cooler (Socket LGA1155/1156/AM2/AM2+/AM3) £31.2
2 x GeIL Black Dragon 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (GD38GB1600C11DC) £28 (£56.00)
1 x OcUK 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £13.99
Total : £1,005.29 (includes shipping : £12.50).

 
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