System for Photoshop
 

A friend wants to build a new machine for their photo studio. They are not looking to overclock so I would think a quad core, lots of ram and storage would be ideal.

Intel i5 750 @ stock ($235)
Gigabyte GA-P55M-UD2 ($108)
OCZ (OCZ3G1333LV4GK) DDR3 PC3-10666 1333MHz Gold Edition Low Voltage 4GB (2x2048MB)
Asus ENGT240/DI/1GD3/A nVidia GeForce GT240 OCZ Ram (debating over which flavor of PC2-8500 offerings)
WD HDD - black edition
A simple case (or reuse old case)

• Antec Three Hundred Gaming Case ATX
• Cooler Master Elite 335 Black ATX
• CM Centurion 590 looks nice but not available from my supplier

PSU TBD
DVD-RW (debating which sata burner)

Would you recommend:
- anything different?
- a g-card (or add later)
- any other missing hardware

Thanks!

For a photo studio? What are they doing? Composition, light balance, some touch ups?

Buy a Mac Mini.

Hi, I will forget the Seagate, get Western Digital. the Black One. A SSD will be nice for the OS , but Photoshop still long to load even on SSD As i said in an other post, if you use the antec 300,, add a fan in front of the HD, they have the place ready for a 120mm

Make sure he have a way to backup is photo, as a photographer. Not in the same computer, and something he can bring at home after work, fire rubbery, etc. can happen and they happen.

Mac mini is not robust enough , get some thing more powerful if you want go with Mac. I'm not talking Imac here, I means Mac Pro , Time is money...

SSD for photoshop? I wouldn't.

Use a lot of ram and hdd storage for the scratch disks.

Photoshop isn't multicore enabled either but is CUDA enabled if I recall.

Off course you don't put the scratch on the SSD :thumb: , you put it on the black , just the application and the OS on the SSD ( but honestly I don't see improvement in the loading time ) I just remark the OP have no mention of the GPU ?

Thanks for the input!

Mainly for touch-up and editing of shots.

I will look at WD black drive series (what is good about the black drives versus the others?).

Definitely will add fans to the list. I like the antec cases for simplicity - wish the SLK3000B was still around. A decent semi-tower.

They have an external drive back-up system and burn photos to disk.

An SSD for the OS would be nice but out of the picture for now.

On second glance at this board, there is no on-board video. So a video card is also required. Nothing too expensive just enough to run the monitor at a decent resolution.

Thanks again for the input!

let's start with 5 years warranty, and they perform too.

1. You went with DDR2 ram. P55 needs DDR3. Choose the cheapest 2Gb modules x4, speed does not matter. 8Gb is overkill, 4Gb would be quite fine.
2. Quad-core if P55, but a Dual-Core (E8400) would work quite well on a P45 board.
3. I use Photoshop 64bit on a SSD, it's wicked fast. Don't know how you guys messed up the install, but mine flies. I did a similar install for a Customer, that was the best investment for the whole rig. 30Gb SSD for apps, 640Gb Black for the OS.
4. CM Centurion 590 for a case. Clean looks, good airflow.
5. GPU? nvidia GT240 is all you need.
6. 700W PSU? Are you kidding me? Corsair 550W - heck, even the 450W can power that rig.

I just fallow the instruction of AkG :ph34r:....yes it's really fast when you are inside the application , it's the loading of PS that I was referring, but if I quote AkG, he use PS in his HD review especially because it's bloat to Open :thumb: all true I have CS3 32 bits...... I will have to plunge again in the wallet to upgrade to 64