This build look ok for 2D graphics work?

evil-onion

evil-onion

evil-onion

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Ok i currently have a rock gaming laptop, spent a fortune on it and the thing blew up, and they have quoted roughly 3 month waiting time before they will try and fix it!

So, sadly im going to have to buy another machine as i can't work on this 9" eec netbook anymore!

I develop websites and also do a lot of heavy photoshop work on modelling portfolio's etc so the machine is mainly being used for those two things.

I have an xbox 360 for playing games, and the only games i have for the pc that i like playing are neverwinter nights etc, and unreal tournament 3004 online.

Spec i thought about getting after reading custom pc reviews and other website reviews:

Intel core 2 duo E8400 3.0ghz

Asus P5Q deluxe motherboard

Cosair dominator 4GB ram 1066mhz

Antec 300 case (i already have a huge antec tower case but its too big really)

I already have a 500watt psu

I have a dvd drive and a usb dvd burner i bought for the netbook so wont be needing those.

As for graphics, as im doing mainly 2d work i was just going to get a cheap as chips one around £40-50

The reason i was looking at the E8400 was that custom pc got thiers to 4.4ghz, and the asus motherboard they got to 550mhz fsb which was the best results they have had. Combining the two i figured would give me good results.

I was going to keep it all cool with either the freezer 7, or preferably the fenrir as its had great write ups.

Any advice with this build? budget is around the £500 mark.. would prefere not to spend more as the rock laptop cost me 2500 and its just a bloody big paper weight :( Im basically trying to get as much bang for buck as i can.

i7 quad core etc doesnt interest me as its no quicker for 2d graphics work. (and expensive)
 
oh, forgot the hdd...

for speed i was considering the raptor 10,000 rpm drive... fast load times for both windows and photoshop etc, plus working on files would be quicker?

i know i can get a 1TB drive from samsung for the same money but it would be a lot slower wouldnt it?

Storage isnt an issue really as i burn work to dvd's and also have several usb backup drives.
 
I'd go for a e5200 really, almost £100 cheaper and can still be oc'ed to around 3.5-3.8ghz. However, if you feel necessary, go for the e8400 by all means.

Also, have you considered the AMD phenom II 550? Might be a good alternative.

Edit: graphic-wise, get a 4670. Best card around the £50/60 range.
 
Cheers for the reply :)
what sort of real world speeds would i be looking at with regards to my 2d work?

The E5200 is 2mb cache and 800mhz fsb where as the E8400 is 6mb cache and 1333mhz fsb.
Thats the main reason i went with the 8400, but does this see much of a difference?

Its hard to find information that isn't gaming related on the internet...


edited to add: didnt really consider amd as they seem to get poor reviews with benchmarks compared to the intel chips for 2d work.
 
yes, the old athlon x2s are no match for C2D (like the one in my rig :( )

However the new AMD CPUs (out yesterday) are fantastic according to reviews

phenom II 550: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-249-AM&groupid=701&catid=6&subcat=

CPU:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-335-AS&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=1377

DDR3 ram:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-109-OC&groupid=701&catid=8&subcat=1387

It's AM3 socket, which is more future proof than the dead 775 intel socket. Also you can use faster DDR3 ram. Oh, and cheaper too.
 
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certainly looks like a good system! £100 cheaper as well.

Last time i used amd was my old tower which is a amd 2700+ with 128mb graphics... so a few years ago. I take it they dont run as hot as they used to? i always found amd chips ran hotter thann intel for some reason...
 
Well, I don't know about the temp for the 550, but i can say that my 5000+ (which is the 90nm version) idles around 40C and never exceed 55C on load. It won't be much of a problem.

Use the money saved towards a 4670 minimum or a 4850 (bargain for £75), and you can say bye-bye to your 360 :P, I've got a 360 myself, not played on it for months due to my pc :P
 
I really won't be playing games on the pc, well, its not the plan anyways lol. i'd like to keep it focused on work, that way i won't start spending silly amounts of money.

Right build so far:

motherboard: Asus M4A78T-E AMD 790GX

CPU : AMD Phenom II X2 Dual Core 550 3.10GHz

Ram : OCZ Platinum 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C7 1333MHz

GPU : Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 4670 512MB

Case : Antec 300

Cooler : Thermalright Ultra-120 Extreme (fenrir says am2 but not am3)

Hdd : Either raptor 74gb from another site, or 150gb raptor from here, or go cheaper and get a normal hdd.

Raptor has a seek time of 4.2 compared to about 8.9 of the other hdd's out there.

So far with the 150gb its sat at £480 so i've already saved enough to have everything under budget which is great, if i went for a samsung hdd id be looking at a budget of around £450 delivered (plus i can claim vat back) so i wonder what the real world difference is between the samsung spinpoint and the raptor.
 
Obviously there's the extra cost to consider, but it's worth going for a quad if you're doing graphics work, as Creative Suite is multithreaded and so are quite a few other apps. Not to mention the fact that you'll be switching between lots of different apps at once.
 
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AM3 has the same socket as AM2, so don't worry about the fenrir if you want it?

74gb isn't a lot of space, I'd get the 150gb version if that's your only internal drive.

With regards to the temp of the phenom IIs, my tri-core in the same case, same cooler as you have specced is VERY cool - don't worry about that :-)

That should be a very nice system, quick on its feet and excellent for 2d work.
 
reflux said:
Obviously there's the extra cost to consider, but it's worth going for a quad if you're doing graphics work, as Creative Suite is multithreaded and so are quite a few other apps. Not to mention the fact that you'll be switching between lots of different apps at once.
Click to expand...

Tbh, it's only really photoshop and dreamweaver i use at the same time... I then have firefox, ie and filezilla running in the background which get used every now and then to check my work.

I dont use any of the other CS programs as i have corel draw for my vector work and i dont have time to learn actionscript 3 to make it worth while getting flash up and running.

Does photoshop make use of quad now then?
All the reviews i was reading yesterday seemed to point to an overclocked dual core being just as good as a quad when it came to 2d work?

Cost is also a really big issue as ive just paid out for a high spec pc, now im having to buy another :(
 
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Audigex said:
AM3 has the same socket as AM2, so don't worry about the fenrir if you want it?

74gb isn't a lot of space, I'd get the 150gb version if that's your only internal drive.

With regards to the temp of the phenom IIs, my tri-core in the same case, same cooler as you have specced is VERY cool - don't worry about that :-)

That should be a very nice system, quick on its feet and excellent for 2d work.
Click to expand...

I was looking at the fenrir as it had the best reviews? when it comes to cooling i want the best, omitting water cooling of course ;)
 
evil-onion said:
Does photoshop make use of quad now then?
All the reviews i was reading yesterday seemed to point to an overclocked dual core being just as good as a quad when it came to 2d work?

Cost is also a really big issue as ive just paid out for a high spec pc, now im having to buy another :(
Click to expand...

Yup, Photoshop has had multithreaded filters for over 10 years now, but I believe proper quad core support emerged in CS2 or CS3.

That said, don't sweat it; obviously a quad is a lot more money, and personally I design websites on a dual core fine (although I wouldn't say no to moar powah :D).
 
Tbh im not sure i wouldnt notice a huge difference with the kind of work i do... although that said, any ideas if the motherboard that was picked could support a quad core amd at a later date?

as upgrading would always be an option later on... never know, might end up frying the chip when i overclock it lol
 
evil-onion said:
I was looking at the fenrir as it had the best reviews? when it comes to cooling i want the best, omitting water cooling of course ;)
Click to expand...

The TRUE will be quieter and with that case and chip there's no need for the extra degree or two the titan offers, it will stay plenty cool enough :-)
 
I'd suggest just getting 2 western digital 640gb drives and putting them in raid 0, similar performance to a raptor, less cost and more storage space
 
only prob there though is that i know absolutely nothing about raid :/

just a thought, but do i actually need a graphics card when all im doing is photoshop etc?
i always figured the gpu was for 3d games etc...?

So if i got a motherboard that could accept a dvi input that would do away with the need for one to start with?
 
I'm told that photoshop is gpu accelerated these days. I'm skeptical of this, but it may be true.

Anyway, graphics work is number crunching. The e8400 is a fantastic chip, but your applications are multithreaded enough that a quad core is going to pull ahead. Your options on that budget are go second hand quad or amd tricore. I vote Intel for your purpose.

You don't want the raptor. Not at all. If you want faster performance, raid 0 two F1 samsungs, or if you don't need that capacity a 60gb vertex walks all over the samsung raid. SSD + large backup/data hard drive is rapidly becoming the standard as it works excellently.


As a different point. 2.5K on a laptop is foolish, as when laptops die (which they do fairly often), you have a massive paperweight. In contrast. 2.5K on a desktop will firstly be so much faster than the laptop you'll wonder what you were doing in the first place, and secondly when a part breaks, it's no big deal.
You rma that single failed part and you're up and running again within a week. Worst case, you rma it, immediately buy a replacement. Replacement arrives next day and you're up and running, in a week a spare arrives back from rma.

Based on this I propose the following. Increase your budget significantly and get a seriously good desktop. When rock pull their finger out and replace the laptop, sell it. You'll wont get 2.5K for it, you probably won't even fund the desktop with sales from it. You'll have a far quicker system to work with, and can put the laptop down to experience and not make that mistake again.

What're the specs of the laptop out of curiosity? Fast dual core, crippled 4850?


Reminds me. Onboard graphics will hurt maximum overclock. If photoshop is in fact gpu accelerated, your system will also be slower. I read Custom PC reasonably often, and would take their overclocking sections with a massive pinch of salt. They put ridiculously high voltages through chips, as in likely to kill it voltages, then proclaim it stable. I'm yet to see what they count as stable, and not a single stability screenshot in any of the articles I've read. An e8400 might hit 4.4, but it's not likely to do it on air at sane temperatures or voltages. It's even less likely to be stable. It annoys me how amateur their overclocking ideas are.
 
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http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/405/kb405711.html#win3
nVidia geForce

nVidia 260 GTX 896MB
nVidia 9800 GTX 512MB
nVidia 9600 GT 512MB
nVidia 8800 GTX 768MB
nVidia 8800 GT 512MB
nVidia 8600M 256MB
nVidia 7900 GTX 512MB
nVidia 7900 GS 256MB
nVidia 7800 GTX 256MB
nVidia 7600 256MB
nVidia 6800 256MB
nVidia Quadro

Quadro FX 4600 768 MB
Quadro FX 4500 512MB
Quadro FX 4400 512MB
Quadro FX 3700 512MB
Quadro FX 3500 256MB
Quadro FX 1700 512MB
Quadro FX 1500 256MB
Quadro FX 1400 -128MB
Quadro FX 570 -256MB
Quadro FX 370 256MB
ATI Radeon

ATI Radeon 4850 512 MB
Radeon x3870 x2 512MB
Radeon x2900HD 512MB
ATI Radeon HD 2400 256MB
Radeon x1900XT 512MB
ATI Radeon x1800 - 512MB
Radeon x1800 256MB
ATI Fire GL

ATI Fire GL 7700 512 MB
ATI Fire GL 7600 512 MB
Fire GL V7200 256MB
ATI Fire GL 5600 512MB
Fire GL V3600 256MB
Fire GL 3350 256 MB

looks like it is gpu accelerated
 
Thanks for the great input folks, really asppreciated.

The laptop was bought a year or so ago at a big budget, at the time i was visiting a lot of clients and working freelance in house etc etc so a powerfull laptop was perfect for me. Unfortunatly rock then claimed bankruptcy and my chances of getting anything back were zero.

They are honouring the repair warrsanty but thats all, and they are fobbing me off with excuses about fixing it. so far its had a new screen twice, 4 new touchpads, new ram, new motherboard, new motherboard cables, new control module (???) new case, 2 new gpu's and i cant remember the other bits.

They have said its not thier policy to replace a buggered laptop, only fix it, and as its now rock/stone and i bought it from rock, i have to go whistle :(

I wasnt going to buy the machine origionally but i had been using an alienware laptop and found it great for my work, i went with rock as they used similar machines built with clevo, but didnt have the annoying bright blue leds that alienware were using at the time on the cases.

i should get around £500 when the machine finally gets built so at least that will help a bit towards pc budget.

I may havee to look at either upping the budget then, or maybe even look at the finance options available. Unfortunatly i live in the world of having lots and lots of bills each month and spending 1k on a pc isnt in the direct budget at the moment.

Maybe im better off starting with a lower spec intel dual core to start with, then move to quad core at a later date... or, possibly up the budget a bit and get the i7 bundle that overclockers sell?

I may go with the 4850 gpu then... ive been put off totally by nividia since having endless driver problems with the laptop and the laptop cooking 2 gpu's in a year.
 
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