Posted by Glenn Starr on September 22, 2009 at 7:58 PM
Thinking about replacing my 5 yr old computer with new that I can use with Photoshop CS4 in 64bit. I'm looking to the high-end gaming type computers configured as follows:
Genuine Windows Vista Home Premium with Service Pack 1 (64-bit)
Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-950 processor (3.00GHz, 1MB L2 + 8MB shared L3 cache with QPI Technology)
9GB DDR3-1066MHz SDRAM [5 DIMMs]
1GB NVIDIA GeForce GTS 250 [2 DVI, HDMI and VGA adapters]
Wondering if I'm wasting my money or would I really see performance enhancements with this type of system. So that my question is not too dumb, I'm looking to be able to use CS4 without being limited by system performance (i.e. HDR, blending multiple images, multiple layers, and someday large 24 MP RAW/TIFF files.
Any insight would be appreciated.
Posted by Don Miller on September 23, 2009 at 9:09 AM
The newer i7-860 is a better choice. You could also go to a lower nvidia card with 1gb.
This machine will be much faster than any 5 year old machine. I suggest waiting a few weeks and get one with Windows 7. Also, it should have at least three physical disk drives.
Posted by Kent Staubus on September 23, 2009 at 9:25 AM
I just bought a new computer a few months ago with slightly less hardware and a bunch less money. AMD quad core Phenom II 955, 8gb DDR2 ram, Radeon 4850 video card with 1gb DDR3. This set up really flies with both CS4 and NX2. I think I paid about $850 for it. I put almost that much on a LaCie 324 graphics monitor. I bought the monitor first to make sure I had enough $$ for it, since it's the most important thing. The other thing I did was put in a 750 watt power supply. The new video cards seem to require a lot of power to run well. Operations in CS4 are pretty much instantaneous. One of the reasons I went with AMD was they are less money, but also they tend to not change motherboards as often, meaning I can upgrade my cpu next year if I want.
Kent in SD
Posted by Glenn Starr on September 23, 2009 at 9:32 AM
Don,
I was planning on 2 1TB disk drives. Why 3?
Posted by Glenn Starr on September 23, 2009 at 9:48 AM
Don
I was planning on having two 1 TB drives. Why 3?
Glenn
Posted by Don Miller on September 23, 2009 at 11:16 AM
Two is O.K.
But three would be
C: OS and program files only. (OS page file) Never more than 50% full
D: Photos and lightroom DB
E: All PS and lightroom cache file in first partition, Non photo stuff in second partition
With two disks you end up having your photos and all the cache type files on the same disk. It will still be fast, but the processor will wait for data more often.
I suggest you add your own drives with a minimum of Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB ($100). High capacity drives are faster because of data density. I also suggest you add your own memory. i7 chips don't benefit much from fast memory. Regular desktop memory is fine.
Posted by Kelly Rowe on September 23, 2009 at 11:42 AM
I would always recommend Mac over the PC platform, but CS4 for Mac isn't 64-bit yet. Does Windows 7 let you set up a RAID disk set during installation? If it does, I would get 3 (or more) drives and set up a RAID 5 volume to install everything on. It'll keep you from being blown out of the water when you have a single drive failure (notice I didn't say if?).
Posted by Glenn Starr on September 23, 2009 at 2:23 PM
Would like to go MAC but everytime I price out the system it is significantly more expensive than a windows platform. Don't know about RAID 5 during Windows 7 install. Also, learned the very painful drive lesson just a few weeks ago, which drives another part of my decision to upgrade and maximize storage.
Discussion
7 repliesGenuine Windows Vista Home Premium with Service Pack 1 (64-bit)
Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-950 processor (3.00GHz, 1MB L2 + 8MB shared L3 cache with QPI Technology)
9GB DDR3-1066MHz SDRAM [5 DIMMs]
1GB NVIDIA GeForce GTS 250 [2 DVI, HDMI and VGA adapters]
Wondering if I'm wasting my money or would I really see performance enhancements with this type of system. So that my question is not too dumb, I'm looking to be able to use CS4 without being limited by system performance (i.e. HDR, blending multiple images, multiple layers, and someday large 24 MP RAW/TIFF files.
Any insight would be appreciated.
This machine will be much faster than any 5 year old machine. I suggest waiting a few weeks and get one with Windows 7. Also, it should have at least three physical disk drives.
Kent in SD
I was planning on 2 1TB disk drives. Why 3?
I was planning on having two 1 TB drives. Why 3?
Glenn
But three would be
C: OS and program files only. (OS page file) Never more than 50% full
D: Photos and lightroom DB
E: All PS and lightroom cache file in first partition, Non photo stuff in second partition
With two disks you end up having your photos and all the cache type files on the same disk. It will still be fast, but the processor will wait for data more often.
I suggest you add your own drives with a minimum of Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB ($100). High capacity drives are faster because of data density. I also suggest you add your own memory. i7 chips don't benefit much from fast memory. Regular desktop memory is fine.