Upgrade for Photoshop

ramsden

ramsden

ramsden

Associate
Joined
24 Oct 2007
Posts
131
Location
Wirral, UK
Hi,

I am looking to upgrade my current system (see sig) which is to be mainly used for image editing using photoshop - budget £500 to £600. I will be using the current case and graphics card (unless there is a reason not to) and after much searching have put together the following shopping basket:

YOUR BASKET
1 x TeamGroup Vulcan ORANGE 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (TLAD316G1600HC9DC01) £115.99
1 x AMD Piledriver FX-8 Eight Core 8320 Black Edition 3.50GHz (Socket AM3+) Processor - Retail £110.99
1 x Microsoft Windows 8.1 Pro 64-Bit DVD - OEM (FQC-06949) £106.99
1 x Asus M5A97 EVO R2.0 AMD 970 (Socket AM3+) DDR3 Motherboard £75.95
1 x Kingston HyperX 3K SSD 120GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Drive (SH103S3/120G) £62.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST2000DM001) HDD £61.99
Total : £534.90 (includes shipping : FREE).



I would be grateful if someone could take a look and make sure I havent made any big mistakes or if anyone has any suggestions for improvement this would be welcome. Also, do you think it would be OK to keep my current PSU or should I get a new one for the new build?

Thanks.
 
i know it's going to add another hundred to your budget but you can never have too much ram, depends on what you're using your photoshop for really? i easily eat up 16gb
 
Thanks for the replies :)
I'll add the cooler - the quieter the better for working. I've got the adobe photoshop/lightroom subscription for this year - if there is a significant advantage to going above 16GB of RAM I will consider it
 
Finally decided on the spec below (it's amazing how the budget goes up the more you browse!)

YOUR BASKET
1 x AMD Piledriver FX-8 Eight Core 8350 Black Edition 4.00GHz (Socket AM3+) Processor - Retail £149.99
2 x TeamGroup Vulcan ORANGE 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (TLAD316G1600HC9DC01) £115.99 (£231.98)
1 x Microsoft Windows 8.1 Pro 64-Bit DVD - OEM (FQC-06949) £106.99
1 x Seasonic G series 650w '80 Plus Gold' Modular Power Supply £99.95
1 x Gigabyte 990FXA-UD3 AMD 990FX (Socket AM3+) DDR3 Motherboard £99.95
1 x Kingston HyperX 3K SSD 120GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Drive (SH103S3/120G) £79.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST2000DM001) HDD £65.99
1 x Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro Rev 2 CPU Cooler £19.99
Total : £868.33 (includes shipping : £11.25).



I'm keeping my current case - Antec 900. Thanks for the replies.
 
I'd wait until the 8320 comes back into stock as they are better bang / buck than the 8350. Exactly the same architecture at a slightly lower stock clock rate. This won't matter if you overclock the 8320 even slightly.
 
From my experience with Photoshop basic tasks are limited to 1-2 cores.

For more advanced processes like most filters and transforms etc 2-4 cores are pretty much standard, there are some processes that will use 8 core/or hyper threading, but you do get diminishing returns for the extra cores used.
(Based on CS6, Adobe Creative Cloud might be different, but I doubt it)

Given you already have a quad core CPU see how much CPU load you get when using Photoshop?
Depending on what CPU processes you use now will tell you what CPU to go for.

Also you can get some performance gains with a just above entry level graphics card with OpenCL and OpenGL acceleration.
It's quite possible an AMD A10-5800K Black Edition with it's APU will give better results.

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/photoshop-cs6-gimp-aftershot-pro,review-32461-13.html

But this does come down to what you do with Photoshop? :)
 
Thanks for the comments. I have a Nvidia 560 TI that will be going into the build. My current use of photoshop is excuciatingly slow - a lot of this us probably due to RAM issues but I am hoping I can use this new system for a while (I dont upgrade too often). I'll take a look at my CPU load tomorrow during normal photoshop tasks and see how it performs.
 
As said above, most photoshop work is 1-2 core based, so you need a CPU with good core power.. Thats why i'd 100% rule out the AMD chips. As they rely on "hyperthreading" (not the intel kind) to get their performance. Where as the intel chiops have a very strong core.. perfect for photoshop work.

Getting an i5 would be perfect for this..

If i was you i'd look secondhand and get a 2500k with a Z68/Z77 motherboard and overclock it to the hills. The chip will cost about £100, the board about £40-£50 Max.. Then you can get the rest of the gubbins you specced if you wish. :)

EDIT:

YOUR BASKET
1 x **B Grade** Asus P8Z77-V LX2 Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £50
Total : £58.70 (includes shipping : £7.25).

 
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