Looking for Photoshop build

[Grizzle]

Hello everyone,

I am trying to build a decent PC for running Photoshop for my Wife's business. I will answer the questions below:

1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
Photoshop

2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
$800-900, tax and shipping would be included if possible

3) Which country do you live in? If the U.S, please tell us the state and city if possible.
Boise, Idaho USA

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.
MOBO, CPU, MEMORY, VIDEO CARD, POWER SUPPLY, HARD DRIVE, CASE, WINDOWS 7

5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
None, she's switching from a older MAC

6) Will you be overclocking?
No

7) What is the max resolution of your monitor? What size is it?
22" 1680X1050 - At some point she will buy a larger IPS monitor.

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

9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI
support? USB 3.0? SATA 6Gb/s? eSATA? Onboard video (as a backup or main GPU)? etc.
Nothing I really need, just enough space to keep adding HD's for backups.

10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If yes, what OS? Is it 32bit or 64bit?
Windows 7 Professional 64 bit - New

Thanks in advance, I really appreciate it. She doesn't need anything fancy at all - just enough power to rock Photoshop.

 

[Jim G]

Is she doing 2D or 3D Photoshop work? If it's only 2D stuff there's a good chance that Intel's HD3000 graphics would suffice.

 

[Grizzle]

Just 2d. I wasn't even aware there was 3d haha!

Would the price difference be much higher for 3d? that might be something she would be interested in doing..
Shes a photographer so she just edits photos and doesn't do any graphic design or anything

 

[MrGuvernment]

search the forums for photoshop, may find various rigs.

 

[Dangman]

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

So wait, you need a copy of Windows 7 to be part of that $800 to $900 budget? If so, why Windows 7 Pro?

 

[bonehead123]

Photoshop needs 3 things to function well:

1) Tons of ram- Win7 & 64bit PS both can utilize as much as you can give them.....
2) Big fast HDD's- at least 1 or 2 for scratch disks in addition to the one it is installed on.
3) Reasonably fast CPU, and/or GPU if your version of PS is capable of GPU-assisted rendering.

from Adobe.com: (bolds, underlines etc added by me)

How much RAM can Photoshop access?

Photoshop version OS version Maximum amount of RAM that Photoshop can use
CS4, CS5, 32 bit Windows 32 bit 1.7 GB
CS4, CS5, 32 bit Windows 64 bit 3.2 GB
CS4, CS5, 64 bit* Windows 64 bit As much RAM as you can fit in your computer

For more information on performance and 64-bit Photoshop, see 64-bit operating system benefits and limitations | Photoshop CS4, CS5.

For instructions on allocating RAM to Photoshop, see Memory Usage.

Use a fast, large hard disk:
Photoshop reads and writes image information while working on an image. Therefore, the faster the scratch disk or the disk that contains the image, the faster Photoshop can process image information. To improve Photoshop performance, use a disk with a fast data transfer rate, such as an internal hard disk. Network servers (hard disk accessed over a network) or removable media has slower data transfer rates. Removable media are also more easily damaged than non-removable disks.

Photoshop CS4 and CS5 require at least 1 GB of free hard-disk space (Windows) or 2 GB of free hard-disk space (Mac OS). Additional free space is required for installation, and more hard disk space is recommended for virtual memory and scratch disk space.

Fast RAID 0 arrays make excellent scratch disks, especially if the array is used exclusively for your scratch disk. Also make sure that the array is defragmented regularly, and isn't your startup volume.

Solid-state disks:
Installing Photoshop on a solid-state disk (SSD) allows Photoshop to launch fast, probably in less than a second. But that speedier startup is the only time savings you experience, because that’s the only time when much data is read from the SSD.

To gain the greatest benefit from an SSD, use it as the scratch disk. Using it as a scratch disk gives you significant performance improvements if you have images that don’t fit entirely in RAM. For example, swapping tiles between RAM and an SSD is much faster than swapping between RAM and a hard disk.

If your SSD doesn’t have much free space (if the scratch file grows bigger than can fit on the SSD), you can add a secondary or tertiary hard disk (after the SSD).

Also, SSDs vary widely in performance, much more so than hard disks. Using an earlier, slower drive results in little improvement over a hard disk.

Note: Adding RAM to improve performance is more cost effective than purchasing an SSD. If money is no object, you're maxed out on installed RAM for your computer, you run Photoshop CS5 as a 64-bit application, and you still want to improve performance, then consider using a solid-state disk as your scratch disk.

Set Performance preferences
The Performance preferences you specify greatly affect Photoshop performance. To set Performance preferences, choose Photoshop > Preferences > Performance (Mac OS) or Edit > Preferences > Performance (Windows). Then, specify options in each of the following areas:

Memory Usage
Scratch Disks
History & Cache preferences
GPU Settings
Memory Usage
The more RAM available to Photoshop, the faster Photoshop can process image information. The Memory Usage area of the Performance preferences dialog box tells you how much RAM is available to Photoshop. It also shows you an ideal range for your system.

Note: Available RAM is not your total RAM. Photoshop subtracts RAM needed for the operating system.

By default, Photoshop uses 70% of available RAM. You can assign more or less RAM to Photoshop by changing the value in the Let Photoshop Use box, or by dragging the Memory Usage slider. Restart Photoshop for changes to take effect.

The default RAM allocation of 70% is fine for most people running the 32-bit version of Photoshop. To find the ideal RAM allocation for your system, change it in 5% increments and monitor performance in the Efficiency status indicator. See Keep an eye on the Efficiency indicator.

If you run the 64-bit version of Photoshop and you experience out-of-RAM or out-of-memory errors, increase your RAM allocation. With no other applications running at the same time, you can increase the RAM allocation to 100% to improve Photoshop performance.

If you run the 32-bit version of Photoshop, you can experience out-of-RAM errors if you set the RAM allocation to 100%. If you get out-of-RAM errors, reduce the RAM allocation to 85% to 90% and retest. If problems continue, reduce the RAM allocation in 5% increments. Retest until the error stops occurring, or use the 64-bit version of Photoshop if you can.

Scratch disks:
Set the scratch disk to a defragmented hard disk that has plenty of unused space and fast read/write speeds (see Defragment the hard disk). If you have more than one hard drive, you can specify additional scratch disks. Photoshop supports up to 64 exabytes of scratch disk space on up to four volumes. (An exabyte equals 1 billion GB.)

Adobe recommends that the primary scratch disk is a different hard disk from the one that the OS uses as a startup drive. See Assigning scratch disks in Photoshop CS5 Help for more information.