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New Computer - Photographer's Machine

J

jmackay

2[H]4U
Joined
Nov 23, 2006
Messages
3,928
Hey guys, looking for some extra advice.

I'm helping a photographer build her new computer, and was trying to decide if Quad was worth it over Dual.

The machine will NOT be used for games.

The machine WILL be used for lots of photoshop use, and transferring photos from HDs / CDs and to external HD/CDs.

Video editing might be useful down the road, but not atm.

So, I was thinking of getting either the Quad Q6600 or Dual E6600. Will be buying some 800mhz DDR2.

Also which P35 board should I pair with it?

For some reason I can't log on newegg atm (site won't load, can't ping it either :(), but I think I was looking at a Abit and Gigabyte board, both ~$100ish.

And is the Arctic Freezer Pro 7 enough for the quad or just the duals?
 
As an alternative to the Q6600 you could go with the Xeon x3210.It is a 2.13Ghz quad core with an 8x multi. If you overclock the front side bus of your motherboard to 400 you end up with a 3.2Ghz clockspeed. Obviously this would require appropriate cooling such as a Tuniq Tower.

The x3210's can be had for less than $250 shipped from ncixus.com currently.
 
Photoshop likes Hard drives, RAM and CPU power.
But it's mainly single threaded (grrr) Only some of the filters and some plug-ins will then use two or more cores. For that reason i think a Dual core CPU, spend a bit more get a E6850.
Or that's what id say then if she does want to move onto Video editing later down the line you could upgrade with a Penryn quad (make sure you get a mobo that can support them).

RAM if you could get 4gigs that would be worth it, even if she only uses 32bit, at least there is more then 2gigs which Photoshop and other image programs can easily eat up.

Photoshop loves Hard drives. Run Photoshop on a separate drive to the Operating system and have another smaller drive(maybe two in raid) for a scratch disk, which speeds up performance.

Graphics card, even though Photoshop doesn't benefit much from a graphics card, they help speed up the re-draw etc, other image programs may make more use of one, so it might be an idea to drop an ok card in there (7600).

All of that stuff would also help video editing more, the only thing then would be a CPU upgrade if she did alot of video editing.
 
A few more questions before we can help:
- What's her budget?
- What parts does she need for that budget? OS, case, Hard drive, optical drives, etc?
- And just for the hell of it, will she be overclocking?
 
$1000ish, everything except the monitor/OS, already have those.

OCing, depends on how low the temps are. Also has to be completely stable so not a huge OC.

Was probably going to get a single 500gb HD... either samsung spinpoint, seagate 7200.10, or WD. Raptors just cost too much for their small size.

Will look at getting 4gb of ram, was thinking of getting a 2600pro for the video card since I read it speeds up video creation as well.
 
OP,

BTW mine all cost $950 after shipping without monitor and OS

I JUST two days ago built a PHOTOSHOP rig.
This is what I got.

Gigabyte P35DS3L
4x1 Gig OZ Ram
EVGA 7600GS
Antec 900
Quad 6600
2x 500 gig Western Digital hd's
Corsair 520

I have the scratch drive on one of the 500 gig drives I use the other for storing photos and then back them up with a script to the other (I don't have the drive filled yet).

I like the quad cause I can use photoshop and still encode and rip dvd's in the background as well and not worry about slowing down.

I have the Artic Pro 7 too and it's dropped my temps by 7degrees over the intel heat sink and fan(i did use Artic Silver 5 paste too). I am NOT overclocking and don't think I need to because this is plenty fast.

I only have XP 32bit and so it only sees 3.5 gigs but its not an issue at all. I do have CS3 and heard that it does use multiple cores. I also use a lot of other software that requires alot of CPU power and this really does do well with what i need.

Hope that helps. Any questions just ask away.

Ryan
 
Thanks :)

I think that might be the same mobo I was looking at as well (can't log in to newegg's secure site @ work :rolleyes:)

Sounds about right price wise as well... have to deal with taxes here though :(. Where did you order from?
 
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 CPU - $279
Scythe SCNJ-1100P Ninja HSF - $36
GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS3L Intel P35 Motherboard - $88
A-Data ADQVE1A16K 2 x 1GB DDR2 800 RAM - $80
MSI RX1550-TD128EH Radeon X1550 128MB PCI-E Video Card - $30
SAMSUNG SpinPoint T Series HD501LJ 500GB 7200RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - $118
SAMSUNG SpinPoint T Series HD501LJ 500GB 7200RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - $118
LITE-ON LH-20A1S 20X DVD±R SATA DVD Burner - $33
Corsair HX520 520W PSU - $105
----
Total: $887 Plus tax and shipping.

I didn't include a case because I believe that's a personal choice item. Let her pick the case in addition to the mouse and keyboard. 1TB of space should be enough for photoshop work. In case your friend chooses an mATX case, you should go with this mATX mobo with onboard video to save some space:
GA-G33M-DS2R mATX Motherboard - $133

The Scythe Ninja is a much better cooler than the AC7 Pro and will keep that Q6600 a bit cooler. Added a cheapo video card in case what Scotty_SFF says turns out to be true. I went with Samsung drives because they're very quiet drives and are just as fast as a Seagate 7200.10 drive. However, if your friend doesn't really care too much about than the Western Digital drives are a cheaper alternative:
Western Digital WD5000AAKS 500GB 7200RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - $110
 
sorry, i know this is [H] and all but

DO NOT OVERCLOCK her system

are you going to be responsible for perhaps the 1 in a million chance of her working on some project for a customer, applied filters for hours, touching up, et cetera and BAM system freezes.....work is lost...


i also suggest a raid 1 for her work to be saved on, and a seperate drive for working..
 
I am in FL. I ordered the Mobo, CPU, and GPU from Club IT. They had free shipping and a 20 MIR on the mobo. The CPU was $295, but i was ok cause I was guarenteed G0. There was a $10 MIR on the board too. The 7600 cost me $60 I think.

The Harddrives I got from Newegg when they had the $20 off $100 paypal order.

The AC Pro 7 I got from ewiz for $25 free shipping
The Case from CompUSA for $90
The PS I got from Mwave for $80 free shipping after MIR
4 Gigs RAM was $80 per pair so another $160 no MIR though and free shipping from mwave I believe

Hope that helps.

Ryan
 
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Quad-Core Processor 2.4GHz, 1066FSB, LGA775, 8MB cache Retail ***Free Shipping***
Remove $282.50 $282.50




INTEL BOXDG33TLM Core 2 Quad Socket 775 1333MHz PC2-6400 (DDR2-800) mATX Motherboard Retail ***Free Shipping***
Remove $129.98 $129.98




Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3320620AS 320GB Serial ATA 7200RPM Hard Drive w/16MB Buffer ***Free Shipping***
Remove $79.98 $239.94




Corsair HX Series CMPSU-520HX 520W Power Supply Retail ***Free Shipping***
Remove $105.00 $105.00




OCZ OCZ2P800R22GK 2GB Kit DDR2 PC2-6400 Platinum Revision 2 Dual Channel Memory Retail ***Free Shipping***
Remove $99.90 $199.80



Subtotal: $957.22
Click to expand...


3 harddrives, set 2 of them in raid 1 (mobo supports raid) and the 3rd as the main drive os/apps et cetera.


personally if someone was building me a editing rig, i want it stable and know it is stable %11000000.

case and vid card need to add.
 
Thanks all

Ordered it last night

Intel P35 Motherboard
Quad Q6600
2x2Gb AData Ram ($90 and has $30MIR) CAS 4
Antec Solo
Corsair 520hx (love my 620hx!)
Sapphire 2600xt (Had coupon code from newegg)
2x Samsung Spinpoint 500gb drives
Microsoft Digital Media Pro keyboard (needed something semi cheap and USB)
SATA DVD Burner (can't remember what brand atm, good one though)

Think I'm missing something but can't view my order history from work <.<
 
Looks good, jmckay! I recently built a new Photoshop rig that will be used heavily for bulk raw image conversion as well:
  • Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600
  • Gigabyte GA-P35-DQ6 motherboard
  • 4x2GB PC2-6400 5-5-5-12 RAM (mix of Patriot and OCZ... long story)
  • 2 x 74GB WD Raptors (OS, paging, apps, scratch)
  • eVGA GeForce 8800 GTS w/ 640MB (need my gaming fix!)
I'm bringing over a couple terabytes of eSATA storage from my old machine, as well as a 24" and 30" displays, Wacom tablet, etc., etc. This beast *flies* with Vista Ultimate 64-bit!
 
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