New computer build for Photoshop CS3 usage.

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kindasmart

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A friend is building a new system and sent me his specs. I would greatly appreciate any input from the experts here.

- This system will be used primarily for Photoshop CS3. No gaming.
- $1400-1600 Budget (incl tax/shipping).
- Wants a RAID-1 setup.
- NO overclocking.
- Want to build system ASAP.
- Will buy from Newegg and ship to SoCal.

I have some concerns regarding CS3, 64-bit Vista, and large amounts of memory. Any problems getting CS3 to actually run under Vista-64? AFAIK CS3 is a 32-bit app. Are there restrictions on the amount of memory available for its usage? Any benefit going from 6 to 12 GB ram?

Will a RAID-1 setup slow things down? Or would the system run faster with a conventional C: and D: with OS and swap/scratch files placed on separate disks?

Any other "gotchas" I need to be concerned about?


Mobo: GIGABYTE GA-EX58-UD4P - Retail - $259.99 (FREE SHIPPING)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128374

CPU: Intel Core i7 920 - Retail - $288.99 (FREE SHIPPING)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115202

Memory: 12 GB (2x 6 GB kits) G.SKILL DDR3-1600 - Retail - $135.99 x2 = 271.98 (FREE SHIPPING)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231225

PSU: CORSAIR CMPSU-650TX 650W - Retail - $99.99 (FREE SHIPPING)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139005

HDs: 2x Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB - OEM - $129.99 x2 = 259.98 (FREE SHIPPING)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136284

Video: EVGA GeForce 9500GT 1GB - Retail - $69.99 ($7 SHIPPING)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130395

DVD: LITE-ON Black DVD Burner - Retail $25.99 ($7 SHIPPING)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827106264

Case: COOLER MASTER ELITE 335 RC-335-KKN1-GP - Retail - $44.99 (FREE SHIPPING)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119161

OS: Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 64-bit - OEM - $99.99 (FREE SHIPPING)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116488




Re-use old: Monitor, printers, keyboard, mouse.

cost: $1421.89 (2x HDDs and 2x memory kits)
cost: $1285.90 (2x HDDs and 1x memory kit)
+ tax/shipping.

As you can tell by the ancient computer in my sig I'm not up to speed on the most current/best hardware so please feel free to rip apart the above list and make any suggestions and/or comments you can. TIA.
 
SoCal huh?

I recommend getting most of your parts from Amazon.com then so that you don't have to pay tax.
Intel Core i7 920 CPU - $288
Western Digital Caviar Black WD1001FALS 1TB SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - $120
Corsair 650TX 650W PSU - $100

The above should save you about $52 in taxes.

Anyway to your questions:
- Max memory usable by most 32bit apps is 2GB of RAM IIRC. Or was it 4GB? I forget.
- If you're extremely heavey Photoshop user, yes. Some of that 12GB of RAM can be turned into a RAMdisk. Put your scratch disk on that RAMdisk and your system will fly. Great story on why a RAMdisk is good for Photoshop:
Joe Average said:
In other words, as I said, the cost of the devices + the cost of populating them becomes absolutely ridiculous. Grab two Velociraptors and have fun... or even a handful of SSD drives and RAID 'em together. The overall price-to-performance ratio will blow these iRAM devices clear off the planet surface...

Sad, really, because I've been a proponent of actual RAMdisks for decades now. Hell, I used to boot my Amiga 500 off a RAMdisk, so I've seen pretty much every attempt at making such devices as the iRAM that have appeared, and they all suck, period. They just can't do the job adequately and keep the price-to-performance ratio anywhere near a reasonable level.

I built a RAID 0 box for a small image studio 2 weeks ago, a new startup here in Vegas that is making waves. They wanted a "demo" workstation to see what's possible for processing as they don't want to create a massive server-type situation in the office, but 3-4 workstations that are equal in performance and then just using simple file sharing as required. Very simple setup in terms of the network, but the workstation I built used 2 300GB Velociraptors (tried to sell 'em on SSD but the amount of data they're dealing with wouldn't be practical - again, a price-to-performance and ROI issue).

The hard part was getting them to spring for 16GB of RAM because of the cost, but a few weeks ago I saw that sale for 4 4GB sticks of RAM for about $450 and made a few phone calls and snagged a similar deal.

I set up Photoshop CS3 for 'em (their legit retail copy) on Vista Business x64. They started messing around with it, loading some rather large TIFF files in excess of 150MB a pop, several at a time, performing some basic scripted actions on 'em, blurs, filters, etc. Using the Velociraptors in RAID 0 meant very snappy and consistent performance, as well as having 16GB of RAM too. Also, it's a Q6600 based machine running rock solid at 3 GHz.

They were very pleased with the performance at that point, but I had a surprise for 'em. ;)

I asked if I could have 20 mins 'alone' with the workstation to "rewire it" as Tim Allen might say. That consisted of grabbing a trial version of SuperSpeed Software's RamDisk Plus 9 and installing it, doing the simple configuration, and then creating a 10GB RAMdisk and told Photoshop "Ok, you want a scratch disk? Here, try this on for size."

After I did some tests of my own using the same scripts they'd done earlier, boy... I tell ya. You haven't lived till you see 225MB TIFF files literally snap onscreen in the blink of an eye, multiple huge TIFFs with resolutions like 5000x5000 and even higher. That's what's possible with RAMdisks, because even Velociraptors in RAID 0 pumping out something like 280MB/s sustained pales to the close to 5GB a second in bandwidth of that RAMdisk.

I told 'em to come back in and rerun their test scripts.

Jaws hit the floor, folks. Well, not quite but figuratively speaking, at least.

They asked what I'd done, I told them I put the scratch disk in RAM where it should be if you have the RAM to make it happen, and they bought 4 licenses of RamDisk Plus 10 mins later, and I got a signed contract to construct 3 more workstations identical to that one top to bottom and also be their "geek" if any issues come up.

It was a very good week... ;)
Click to expand...

- Just in case: RAID is not backup. It only guarantees uptime, not actual backup of your data. With that said, a RAID1 setup would not slow your system that much.

As for parts recommedations:
Swap out the that Lite-On DVD burner for this Samsung DVD burner with free shipping:
Samsung SH-222F 22X DVD±R SATA DVD Burner - $24

Video card wise, any particular reason why that eVGA 9500GT 1GB was chosen?
 
As an Amazon Associate, HardForum may earn from qualifying purchases.
+1 on amazon or somewhere else so you dont have to pay tax

I would get 4 drive and run Raid 10 Speed and Redundancy. 4x WD6401AALS = FAST
and it will be cheaper and have more space then current picks

BTW CS3 works fine in Vistax64

With that extra memory you could make a ramdisk www.superspeed.com and put your scratch space there. Wicked fast.
 
Another rec for ramdisk... yes, thats what Danny's quote of Joe Avg. was for, hehe.

Oh, and the 750W QUAD PC P&C is only $90 @ amz.
 
Thanks for all the great tips. Lots to think about and discuss with him. Lets keep the good info coming in. :)
 
Again, Thank You for your help.

Well here is the final parts list. It didn't change much.

Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-EX58-UD4P - Retail - $259.99 (FREE SHIPPING) ($20 MIR)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128374

CPU: Intel Core i7 920 - Retail - $288.99 (FREE SHIPPING)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115202

Memory: 6 GB kit (3x 2GB) G.SKILL DDR3-1600 - Retail - $119.99 (FREE SHIPPING)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231225

PSU: CORSAIR CMPSU-650TX 650W - Retail - $99.99 (FREE SHIPPING) ($20 MIR)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139005

HDs: Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB - OEM - $129.99 (FREE SHIPPING)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136284

HDs: 2x Western Digital RE3 (RAID edition) 250GB - OEM - $69.99 x2 = $139.98 (FREE SHIPPING)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136291

Video: EVGA GeForce 9500GT 1GB - Retail - $69.99 ($7 SHIPPING) ($10 MIR)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130395

DVD: LITE-ON Black DVD Burner - Retail $25.99 ($7 SHIPPING)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827106264

OS: Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 64-bit - OEM - $99.99 (FREE SHIPPING)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116488

Cost: $1234.90
Tax: 101.88
Shipping: 10.55
---------------------
Sub-Total: $1347.33
Rebates: $(50.00)
---------------------
Grand Total: $1297.33
=====================

He's gotten every rebate he's ever applied for (not like the other 99.87% of the population.) Probably could have saved up to $200 if he really wanted to, but was less concerned with price and more concerned with getting the system build RIGHT NOW.

A 250 GB RAID-1 using the motherboard RAID controller will be C: drive and the 1000 GB drive will be his D: drive. He also has an external HD for additional backups.


A quick note regarding the build process:

When posting my initial message I knew the parts were quality (and a bit pricey) and would come together to form a good system. I mainly wanted to receive suggestions regarding things other than the actual hardware that usually come up when a parts list is posted on a message board. I also wanted to learn about problems that may come up when building a photoshop box.

I learned a lot, and a lot of things came up that I wouldn't even know to ask about. RAID-1, backup, ram amounts, ram disks, 32 vs 64 bit, double-checking power supply connectors, CS3 vs CS4, etc, etc.

Thanks for the suggestions.
 
Man I gotta question your thinking on the 2x250 RE3 for OS drive?

Those drives are not fast.
For the same price you can grab 2x WD6401AALS drives short stroke them to 250 and have faster reads/writes and access times of almost a vraptor.
 
nitrobass24 said:
Man I gotta question your thinking on the 2x250 RE3 for OS drive?

Those drives are not fast.
For the same price you can grab 2x WD6401AALS drives short stroke them to 250 and have faster reads/writes and access times of almost a vraptor.
Click to expand...

QFT. Blazing new system slightly held back by the OS HDD.
 
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