Posted by Howard Cihak on August 7, 2013 at 8:38 AM
I'm just about ready to pull the trigger on a 64 bit desktop computer with Win 7 Pro so I can download CS-PS6. I rarely process multiple images at the same time, and can't say I really found my 32 bit CS-5 set-up slow on more than a few occasions.
So, with that in mind ...
I'm looking at a Sandy Bridge i5 quad-core 3.0 gHz.
Is there any advantage in getting a more powerful processor?
I'm also looking at 8gb of 1333 RAM.
Is there any advantage in getting faster RAM?
How about 61gb instead of 8gb?
Your comments and suggestions will be greatly appreciated.
Posted by Jack Garrett on August 7, 2013 at 10:28 AM
If you can afford an I-7 processor, go for it.
I would go with no less than 16gb DDR3-1600, 32gb will help some with rendering...no difference in price at my store for going to the higher speed.
Here is the big kicker...get a solid state drive if you can afford it...huge difference in accessing apps and files. You can get a 512Gb SSD for less than $400.00
Posted by Paul DeCesare on August 7, 2013 at 1:55 PM
Howard, you know you'll get 17 different answers to that question, and most of the 17 will be sound replies offering a rig setup that will work great. There are some areas where you'll spend a lot more than you need to for something you may not fully use, so here's a few suggestions. For the record, I use Photoshop in two places, home desktop PC that I built, and my ho-hum Dell corporate-supplied desktop at work. However, I did a couple things to make Photoshop scream on that work PC where it runs quite satisfactorily, even compared to my home rig which is beefed up for video editing (24GB ram, 6-core i7, eight hard drives incl 2 SSDs, RAID cards, you name it).
Here's the best bang for the buck, IMO:
* Save $100 or more and go with an i5 processor. BELIEVE ME, a year ago I would have fumed if someone didn't buy an i7, but because of SSDs, the game has changed. You stated you just work on images and not that many open at once. I'm also going to assume you just work on still images, not video. And the biggest factor is that you think a 32-bit system with 4GB of ram or less is OK. That means your new i5 with an SSD will run like a Saturn V rocket compared to what you now have. For 30% more money for an i7 you won't see a 30% gain with the way you work, at least for now. But if money isn't totally restricted and you want to invest once now for many years to come, then go for the i7.
* RAM: One of the cheapest commodities in your PC. Now is trhe time to buy RAM, it has been for a while, but that may change and it could surge in price again. Absolutely get 16GB of ram at a minimum, there's no reason not to. Windows and Photoshop will love you for it and so will you when you see the speed of your system. DDR3 1600 is a good speed but 1333 is no slouch. The slowest link in the chain without a doubt are hard drives.
* Hard Drives: SSD for your C drive is an absolute MUST. You can go for the 512GB but it's expensive and not much storage. Here's a recommended setup to keep cost down and get incredible performance, but it does change your environment a little: Get a small 128GB SSD for $80 or so on sale and that will be your C drive. You'll install Windows and Photoshop and Office and whatever other PROGRAMS you have, but no user files or photos. Get a good hard drive for photos like a 2TB Western Digital Caviar Black and store your photos and docs on there. You'll put your "My Documents" and all the other user folders on the 2nd drive. Windows 7 has Libraries which work great, just point the My Documents Library to the other hard drive and the way you work won't be different, and your files will be where you expect.
* Video Card: Photohop greatly improves when using a good video card (especially the Clone Tool) but you don't need the massive things gamers use. A very popular card is the GTX 550 Ti, it's around $120 and packs a great punch. You can easily drive two 30" monitors at 2560x1600 with that card.
So that's it. The combo of i5/16GB Ram/SSD/Video Card will provide you with some serious editing power. If the budget allows, yes, hop up to an i7 but don;t make that a dealbreaker. My work PC is an i3 processor, not much power compared to my i7-980 6-core at home. I tried installing Photoshop on that work PC and the slowness was maddening. So I bought a 128GB SanDisk SSD and made that the C Drive, and the existing hard drive got formatted and became my data drive. The difference is immeasureable, I can use Photoshop on it now easily, what a difference. It's only 8GB ram and with several programs open I can tell things get crowded performance wise, so that's why 16GB of ram is pretty crucial (no pun intended... "Crucial" is a company that manufactures ram, lol).
Posted by Karl Buiter on August 7, 2013 at 4:59 PM
If you do go i7, you dont need the Extreme 3960. The 3930K at about half the cost is a great deal and almost the same. Sandy Bridge-E gets you 6 cores.
For uprade purposes, the LGA 2001 boards should be able to support the 8-core Ivy-Bridge-E chips when they arrive later this year. For that matter, those chps will support 1866 Mhz DDR3 memory. I know, its hard to buy for the future, but I rarely like buying a box canyon.
Paul has some good advice on the cost-savings end. He proposes a good box.
For my purposes, this is what I have - AsRock LGA 2011 Extreme 11l; Core I7 3930k; 32 Gb of 1866 DDR3 (mostly RamDrive for PS); 256 Samsung 840 SSD; FirePro W5000 (for 10-bit/channel workflow). I got the Extreme 11 board for the high grade LSI 8-drive RAID support - plan to build a striped/mirrored array soon. I'm running into a NEC PA-271 and PA241 to complete my 10-bit workflow. I kinda focused on that.
Posted by Rod Kissinger on August 8, 2013 at 8:59 AM
Paul, Jack and Karl-Great information.
Howard may already have a monitor that will suffice but I would be interested in the monitors you currently have or would suggest for a new system.
Thanks!
Posted by Jack Garrett on August 8, 2013 at 10:42 AM
I have tried a number of different monitors over the years and for me, nothing beats an Apple monitor. I have a 27" iMac and the graphics and color are awesome! I know a lot of the guys here like NEC and they are very good too. Dell has a newer 27" that's supposed to be pretty good.
Posted by Howard Cihak on August 9, 2013 at 5:26 AM
O.K., I appreciate all the suggestions. For cost reasons, I'm going to go with an i5 and 16GB of 1600 RAM.
I have a follow-up question regarding the suggestion of the SSD ... what is your opinion of using an SSHD instead? According to Seagate, there's only about a 9% speed gain in the SSD vs. SSHD.
Discussion
6 repliesSo, with that in mind ...
I'm looking at a Sandy Bridge i5 quad-core 3.0 gHz.
Is there any advantage in getting a more powerful processor?
I'm also looking at 8gb of 1333 RAM.
Is there any advantage in getting faster RAM?
How about 61gb instead of 8gb?
Your comments and suggestions will be greatly appreciated.
I would go with no less than 16gb DDR3-1600, 32gb will help some with rendering...no difference in price at my store for going to the higher speed.
Here is the big kicker...get a solid state drive if you can afford it...huge difference in accessing apps and files. You can get a 512Gb SSD for less than $400.00
Here's the best bang for the buck, IMO:
* Save $100 or more and go with an i5 processor. BELIEVE ME, a year ago I would have fumed if someone didn't buy an i7, but because of SSDs, the game has changed. You stated you just work on images and not that many open at once. I'm also going to assume you just work on still images, not video. And the biggest factor is that you think a 32-bit system with 4GB of ram or less is OK. That means your new i5 with an SSD will run like a Saturn V rocket compared to what you now have. For 30% more money for an i7 you won't see a 30% gain with the way you work, at least for now. But if money isn't totally restricted and you want to invest once now for many years to come, then go for the i7.
* RAM: One of the cheapest commodities in your PC. Now is trhe time to buy RAM, it has been for a while, but that may change and it could surge in price again. Absolutely get 16GB of ram at a minimum, there's no reason not to. Windows and Photoshop will love you for it and so will you when you see the speed of your system. DDR3 1600 is a good speed but 1333 is no slouch. The slowest link in the chain without a doubt are hard drives.
* Hard Drives: SSD for your C drive is an absolute MUST. You can go for the 512GB but it's expensive and not much storage. Here's a recommended setup to keep cost down and get incredible performance, but it does change your environment a little: Get a small 128GB SSD for $80 or so on sale and that will be your C drive. You'll install Windows and Photoshop and Office and whatever other PROGRAMS you have, but no user files or photos. Get a good hard drive for photos like a 2TB Western Digital Caviar Black and store your photos and docs on there. You'll put your "My Documents" and all the other user folders on the 2nd drive. Windows 7 has Libraries which work great, just point the My Documents Library to the other hard drive and the way you work won't be different, and your files will be where you expect.
* Video Card: Photohop greatly improves when using a good video card (especially the Clone Tool) but you don't need the massive things gamers use. A very popular card is the GTX 550 Ti, it's around $120 and packs a great punch. You can easily drive two 30" monitors at 2560x1600 with that card.
So that's it. The combo of i5/16GB Ram/SSD/Video Card will provide you with some serious editing power. If the budget allows, yes, hop up to an i7 but don;t make that a dealbreaker. My work PC is an i3 processor, not much power compared to my i7-980 6-core at home. I tried installing Photoshop on that work PC and the slowness was maddening. So I bought a 128GB SanDisk SSD and made that the C Drive, and the existing hard drive got formatted and became my data drive. The difference is immeasureable, I can use Photoshop on it now easily, what a difference. It's only 8GB ram and with several programs open I can tell things get crowded performance wise, so that's why 16GB of ram is pretty crucial (no pun intended... "Crucial" is a company that manufactures ram, lol).
For uprade purposes, the LGA 2001 boards should be able to support the 8-core Ivy-Bridge-E chips when they arrive later this year. For that matter, those chps will support 1866 Mhz DDR3 memory. I know, its hard to buy for the future, but I rarely like buying a box canyon.
Paul has some good advice on the cost-savings end. He proposes a good box.
For my purposes, this is what I have - AsRock LGA 2011 Extreme 11l; Core I7 3930k; 32 Gb of 1866 DDR3 (mostly RamDrive for PS); 256 Samsung 840 SSD; FirePro W5000 (for 10-bit/channel workflow). I got the Extreme 11 board for the high grade LSI 8-drive RAID support - plan to build a striped/mirrored array soon. I'm running into a NEC PA-271 and PA241 to complete my 10-bit workflow. I kinda focused on that.
Howard may already have a monitor that will suffice but I would be interested in the monitors you currently have or would suggest for a new system.
Thanks!
I have a follow-up question regarding the suggestion of the SSD ... what is your opinion of using an SSHD instead? According to Seagate, there's only about a 9% speed gain in the SSD vs. SSHD.