~$700 photoshop build

[saranac]

1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
95% Photoshop CS 5, 5% web browsing, 0% gaming.

I like intel processors and could probably use a good bit of ram

2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
$700-800 shipped. Would prefer the lower end of the budget.

3) Where do you live?
Upstate NY

4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. The word "Everything" is not a valid answer. Please list out all the parts you'll need.
CPU, RAM, case, graphics, PSU, DVD, mobo

5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
Kingston SSDNow V100 64GB.

6) Will you be overclocking?
No

7) What size monitor do you have and/or plan to have?
1920x1080

8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
This week

9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? USB 3.0? SATA 6Gb/s? eSATA? Onboard video? etc.
eSata or USB 3.0 would be nice for backups. Video needs to be just enough for running photoshop and a 1920x1080 monitor.

10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If yes, what OS? Is it 32bit or 64bit?
Yes. Win 7 64bit.

 

[saranac]

How does this sound?

DVD: Sony Optiarc link - $20
Case: Coolermaster CM 690 II link - $80
GFX: Sapphire 5570 1GB 128-bit DDR3 link - $50
PSU: Antec NEO ECO 520C 520W link - $55
RAM: G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 1333 link - $80
MOBO: ASRock H61M/U3S3 LGA 1155 usb3 sata III link - $75
CPU: i5 2400 link - $190

Total: $566 shipped.

Any problems or something I should upgrade?

 

[Joe S]

Most of that seems good for what you want. Seeing as you're still under your budget, the only upgrade I would suggest is maybe a little bit better of a GFX card. Maybe something with 256-bit and GDDR5. You also may want to add in a regular HDD to have a larger strorage drive.

 

[saranac]

I forgot to mention that I have a 500gb 7200rpm hitachi drive that I will be using for storage.

Do you have any recommendation for a video card? I'm really clueless in that department, but am under the assumption that Photoshop make some use of OpenGL but that it doesn't rely on a video card too much.

Since this rig will never be used for gaming or video editing I'm not sure if anything more will be overkill.

Thoughts?

 

[Joe S]

I'm sure someone probobly has a more specific and accurate answer than I do but I believe CS5 does make use of certain acceleration and rendering features when it detects certain types of graphics cards have these features. Hopefully somebody who knows a bit more can pop in here and help you out.

 

[Lycidas]

you're going to want an NVIDIA GPU since CS5 will use NVIDIA's CUDA features whereas AMD cards don't support that and are more built towards gaming builds.

I wish I could recommend one but I don't know NVIDIA all too well.

 

[saranac]

you're going to want an NVIDIA GPU since CS5 will use NVIDIA's CUDA features

Yeah, I can't really figure this one out. Some people say Photoshop will use it for resizing/textures, others say that Premiere is really the only CS app that uses CUDA while Photoshop relies more on OpenGL...

I went with ATI only because I'm more familiar with them.

 

[Dangman]

Since you're using Photoship which has tradtionally required as much RAM as possible, you shouldn't be gimping yourself with that mobo since it only has two RAM slots. Spend the extra $35 for this CPU + mobo combo instead:
$292 - Intel Core i5 2400 CPU + Asus P8H67 Pro/CSM Intel H67 mATX Motherboard Combo

Nets you a mobo with four RAM slots which means 16GB of RAM later on.

GPU wise, I'd go for the GT 430 1GB and call it a day:
$60 - eVGA 01G-P3-1432-LR GeForce GT 430 1GB PCI-E Video Card