Photoshop Build for Newbie

[Boomerm3]

This is what I put together... Any input or help would be appreciated.

Purpose: The heavy-duty application is Photoshop – editing larger images (now 20 Mb each). Other apps are standard MS business stuff. No games. No over-clocking.

Concerns: Quiet operation is a big deal. Also, the area tends to be warm – although there is adequate air flow.

Reusable parts: 2 monitors, SATA drives, SATA DVD, and KB, mouse, etc.

Strawman (Shoot it down & suggest):
-ASUS P8Z68-V Pro or P8P67 ?
-Intel Core i3-2100
- Case (mid-tower). Quiet is critical.
- PSU quiet, please.
- Memory. Probably 8 Gb (might upgrade to 16 later). Brand?
- GPU. Is this needed with this chipset? What support for dual monitors?
- 3-in-1 card reader. What does this connect to? Any way to speed up transfer?

Thanks,

peter

[Nuclear Krusader]

What's your budget? An i5, particularly the 2500K, would be way better for your purposes, but again, what's your budget?

Also, how serious are you about Photoshop? Do you need colour-managed workflow or is this just hobbyst stuff?

[Boomerm3]

Originally Posted by Nuclear Krusader What's your budget? An i5, particularly the 2500K, would be way better for your purposes, but again, what's your budget? Also, how serious are you about Photoshop? Do you need colour-managed workflow or is this just hobbyst stuff?

BUDGET: $400-$500 USD

Photoshop - yes I'm serious (but not professional). I often return home with 2000+ images to process. I do calibrate my monitor.

peter

[Nuclear Krusader]

The Z68 is a better chipset, but I wouldn't go with onboard video, no matter how good it is. Look into an nVidia video card with at least 1 GB of memory and a memory bandwidth of at least 192-bit; a 550 Ti or 560 Ti would be alright. 8 GB in RAM is the bare minimum you should consider (and for the time being I don't think you'd need more, but do leave room to grow in the future); choose from Crucial, Corsair, Kingston or A-Data.

[glc]

BUDGET: $400-$500 USD

I'm afraid that is unrealistic for a Photoshop machine.

[jdeb]

Originally Posted by glc I'm afraid that is unrealistic for a Photoshop machine.

I agree. Look at around 700 to 800.

[Khalil]

Try this if you need to build something now, this is how my daughter's machine is built, she does a lot of photoshop work with it and it performs very well.

Newegg.com - Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-bit - Operating Systems

Newegg.com - AMD Athlon II X4 645 Propus 3.1GHz 4 x 512KB L2 Cache Socket AM3 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor ADX645WFGMBOX

Newegg.com - Kingston Value 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 Desktop Memory Model KVR1333D3S8N9K2/4G

Newegg.com - Antec EarthWatts Green EA-380D Green 380W Continuous power ATX12V v2.3 / EPS12V 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Active PFC Power Supply

Newegg.com - ASUS M4A78LT-M LE AM3 AMD 780L Micro ATX AMD Motherboard

Newegg.com - Western Digital Caviar Black WD7502AAEX 750GB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

Newegg.com - COOLER MASTER Elite RC-310-BWN1-GP Black Steel / Plastic ATX Mid Tower Computer Case

Newegg.com - ASUS 24X DVD Burner - Bulk 24X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 12X DVD+R DL 24X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM Black SATA Model DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS - CD / DVD Burners

You can always later upgrade it to 8GB DDR3 memory and add a low end video card to take the load off the CPU.

There are professionals out there who do intensive Photoshop work with older slower equipment, than what I listed above.

[glc]

Please list the exact models of your SATA drives. Do you need an operating system as part of that budget? Are your monitors VGA or DVI or both?

[Boomerm3]

How about a few suggestions for:

-ASUS P8Z68-V Pro or P8P67
- Case (mid-tower). Quiet.
- PSU quiet.

Thanks.

[glc]

Those motherboards are out of your budget.

Please - answer my last questions.

[Boomerm3]

Easy to keep asking questions...

[glc]

Seems to me it's easy to answer them too........

I gotta have that info to advise you properly and answer YOUR questions.

[Rev_pizzaguy]

Originally Posted by Boomerm3 Easy to keep asking questions...

Sounds like you don't want help. If you want the valuable opinions of users like glc and Nuclear Krusader, then you should answer their simple questions, which will help them come up with a tailored plan for your situation.