Photographer's build

[Wyatt79]

Hi all, I am a professional photographer but no longer work with images out of a digital camera but with high resolution film scans. This means big, layered, files nad my old Athlon 64 system is starting to show its age. The filled out questionnaire from the sticky should show the rest of my needs.

1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
Mostly Photoshop CS4/5 for colour balancing and retouching image scans for display on web and printed, no 3d malarky here, very occasional video, book and web design, normal stuff, and I wouldn't be too upset if I could run a new game or two like the upcoming Alien vs Predator game and Modern Warfare 2 when being lazy.
2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
About £1500 all in
3) Where do you live?
UK
4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. Please be very specific.
I was thinking i7 920, ASUS P6T (not sure which version and worried about the RAM issues some have experienced), 12gb RAM (possibly 1333 instead of 1600), maybe a 5770 GPU (but open to ideas), looking for a classy case without the disco appeal of some gamer rigs (I like the huge Lian Li PC-X1000B but it's about a foot too tall), a couple of 320gb WD Caviar Blues for OS etc and a couple of 1tb WD caviar blacks for internal storage, guess I'll need a CPU cooler as well so looked at Thermalright Ultra 120. Might be worth throwing in a SATA DVD drive as well for fun and to lose the IDE cables.
5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
I have a Thermaltake Toughpower Cable Management 750W PSU in my old system I can reuse, an Eizo CG222W I'll be keeping along with a generic 15" screen for tool pallettes, a Saitek Gamers keyboard and Logitech MX-510. I presume my old Coolermaster Wavemaster (I think thats what it is, looks the same but in black and buttons are bottom right) won't be up to the task of cooling the new system.
6) Will you be overclocking?
Maybe, if it won't affect reliability.
7) What size monitor do you have and/or plan to have?
22" 1680x1050 is my main monitor, second is 15" 1024x768
8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
As soon as possible really
9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? etc.
RAID would be nice unless there really is a very strong arguement to use a separate controller, Firewire is a must really, Crossfire and SLI, well, nice to have the option but not essential.
10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If so, what OS? 32bit or 64bit?
Will be upgrading an XP key to 64bit Windows 7


So I hope you guys can help with any advice, I'm lost in a world of confusion right now

Cheers all,

Dave

 

[MrGuvernment]

if your data is important get some ext HD's to store for backups or something

i would say a raid 0 working drives if these files are really big! raid 0 with 2 drives should do to start, then you could have say a raid 1 to save data on, using intel matrix raid.

the hardest part is going to be the monitor if your worried about color reproduction and things looking proper.

i would suggest a fresh install of windows 7, no upgrade stuff.

 

[Elledan]

1,500 pounds is cutting it close if you want a professional monitor. These beasts generally start at 1,000 pounds and up. You could get by with a non-professional monitor with H-IPS or better screen, but you'd lose nice things such as hardware calibration and the 10+-bit LUTs, instead having to deal with the 8-bit LUT of the videocard, which will lead to far worse results when calibrating.

If you already have a decent monitor, then this budget shouldn't be an issue

 

[Wyatt79]

Yep, have an EIZO CG222W which is a great screen with a 12-bit LUT and uses Eizo's Color Navigator software so my monitor needs are well covered. I have a i1 display 2 for monitor calibration and get paper profiles for my printing custom produced by a local shop. So its really just the box and innards I am looking at upgrading. A Wacom tablet would be nice but not essential by any means.

 

[Concentric]

4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. Please be very specific.
I was thinking i7 920, ASUS P6T (not sure which version and worried about the RAM issues some have experienced), 12gb RAM (possibly 1333 instead of 1600), maybe a 5770 GPU (but open to ideas), looking for a classy case without the disco appeal of some gamer rigs (I like the huge Lian Li PC-X1000B but it's about a foot too tall), a couple of 320gb WD Caviar Blues for OS etc and a couple of 1tb WD caviar blacks for internal storage, guess I'll need a CPU cooler as well so looked at Thermalright Ultra 120. Might be worth throwing in a SATA DVD drive as well for fun and to lose the IDE cables.

What you've thought of so far seems decent, although if you could fit an SSD into the budget instead of the 320GB Blues I think it'd be worth it.

When you say "Will be upgrading an XP key to 64bit Windows 7" do you mean that we should include it in this £1500 or are you getting it seperately? I've assumed you meant the former.

Here's a line up from scan.co.uk:

i7 920 £209.35
MSI X58PRO-E £134.15
2x 6GB (3x2GB) Corsair XMS3, DDR3 PC3-10666 (1333) £256.08
1GB MSI HD 5770 £130.40
80GB Intel SSD Gen 2, 2.5" £193.64
2TB WD20EADS Caviar Green £139.27
Corsair CMPSU-550VXUK £65.76
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit OEM £79.98

Total
£1,219.72

Did you also want a DVD drive or case? Maybe an aftermarket CPU cooler if you want to overclock.

 

[Elledan]

Yep, have an EIZO CG222W which is a great screen with a 12-bit LUT and uses Eizo's Color Navigator software so my monitor needs are well covered. I have a i1 display 2 for monitor calibration and get paper profiles for my printing custom produced by a local shop. So its really just the box and innards I am looking at upgrading. A Wacom tablet would be nice but not essential by any means.

You should be set display-wise, then

I got a Wacom Bamboo and it's pretty nifty if you're doing a lot of touch-ups and such. It's a lot easier on your hand than using a mouse for hours on end.

I'd suggest the Core i7 860 over the 920, BTW. Cheaper, don't really need the triple-channel memory (not that I know of, at least) and performs better at quite a few tasks.

 

[Wyatt79]

Did you also want a DVD drive or case? Maybe an aftermarket CPU cooler if you want to overclock.

I have an IDE NEC DVD drive I can use but for £20-30 I might just get a Sata one to help with reducing cables.

Yes I need a case, ideally one of more subtle design like an FT02 or something by Lian Li. CM RC-1100 V2 might be OK but might be a bit too flashy for me, still deciding.

 

[Wyatt79]

A couple of things that have been confusing me, I read that it is not recommended to use 2x 6gb matched sets, instead you should use 1x 12gb set. How true is this? See the Corsair FAQ: http://www.corsair.com/faq/default.aspx#Q6.

Also, what about the problem people seem to have with the Asus boards not seeing all of the RAM when all six slots are filled? Has this been solved? The boards I am looking at all have 6 slots which would have 2gb in each to make the total 12gb.

 

[Wyatt79]

if your data is important get some ext HD's to store for backups or something

i would say a raid 0 working drives if these files are really big! raid 0 with 2 drives should do to start, then you could have say a raid 1 to save data on, using intel matrix raid.

I'm planning on an external esata box for back ups, so then have the 2 320gbs Raid 0 and the two 1TB drives Raid 1 inside the main case yeah?

the hardest part is going to be the monitor if your worried about color reproduction and things looking proper.

All sorted

i would suggest a fresh install of windows 7, no upgrade stuff.

Any reason why in particular?

 

[MrGuvernment]

well installing one OS, then "upgrading", i just feel leaves you will far less potential issues, cause now you got the remnance of and old OS still lingering around, with dll and drivers and such..

i do beleive though with Windows 7, you dont actually upgrade so to speak, it takes the XP install, moves it to somefolder windows.old and then just installs windows 7 all together, i would just buy an OEM copy of win home premium x64 and be done with it.

 

[Squalish]

*There's a point to getting an i5 750 (NOT an 860) rather than an i7 920, but that leaves you with motherboards that can only use 8GB of RAM without resorting to expensive 4GB DIMMs.

*Keep the Coolermaster Wave, clean it out thoroughly of dust & dirt, and pick up 8 quiet 80mm ball-bearing case fans for periodical replacement, and it will last you another five years. I wouldn't say the cooling situation has changed drastically since it was released, particularly if you're not overloading on multiple GPUs. The only big difference is that everyone wants lower RPM, slightly less irritating 120mm fans nowadays.

What Concentric posted is about right, though I don't have the time to comment on the particular brands noted. What you may want to think about is the storage situation.

Raid 0 HDDs are pretty much dead for small amounts of data - even though they're 20x the price, SSDs offer several orders of magnitude improvement in read latency, and can potentially offer significant increases in sustained transfer rates as well. My preferences tend towards the PCIE-based SSDs, which can do 600+MB/s and insane number of IO/s. That's the final word in speed unless you're running RAMdisks.

If all this is essential to your career, I would think seriously about investing quite a lot of money in backup capabilities, ranging from an external HDD to a Drobo to a server in the closet to dedicated cloud storage. RAID 1 is better than nothing, and you may want to go that route if you're not storing terabytes of data, but it's not sufficient.

How much storage do you need? How much do you need to access on a daily basis? How much of it changes each day (and would need to be pushed through incremental backup)?

 

[Wyatt79]

*There's a point to getting an i5 750 (NOT an 860) rather than an i7 920, but that leaves you with motherboards that can only use 8GB of RAM without resorting to expensive 4GB DIMMs.

I'm more tempted to go for a system that can support more alog the lines of 12gb RAM so that it will last as long as my current system, probably up till the death of CS6. Why would an i5 750 be better though?

*Keep the Coolermaster Wave, clean it out thoroughly of dust & dirt, and pick up 8 quiet 80mm ball-bearing case fans for periodical replacement, and it will last you another five years. I wouldn't say the cooling situation has changed drastically since it was released, particularly if you're not overloading on multiple GPUs. The only big difference is that everyone wants lower RPM, slightly less irritating 120mm fans nowadays.

I assumed the new build would have problems fitting in the case, its a tight squeeze at the moment and 4 HDDs might be too much. Also, it only has 2 fans, one in front of the haddrive bay and one at the back near the CPU. WOuld this be enough?

What Concentric posted is about right, though I don't have the time to comment on the particular brands noted. What you may want to think about is the storage situation.

Yeah it looks good although I read reviews of the MSI mobo and it seems less capable than Asus, but then the Asus have issues with 12gb apparently so this is where I am a bit stuck. Scan have good deals in their Today only section so I may end up grabbiong an i7 920 and mobo and Ram off there as a package, just need to be aware of anything to avoid.

Raid 0 HDDs are pretty much dead for small amounts of data - even though they're 20x the price, SSDs offer several orders of magnitude improvement in read latency, and can potentially offer significant increases in sustained transfer rates as well. My preferences tend towards the PCIE-based SSDs, which can do 600+MB/s and insane number of IO/s. That's the final word in speed unless you're running RAMdisks.

So do you mean one 80gb SSD would be a better OS and programs drive than 2x320gb in a Raid? Related to this, where should I set up Page file and scratch disk partitions?

If all this is essential to your career, I would think seriously about investing quite a lot of money in backup capabilities, ranging from an external HDD to a Drobo to a server in the closet to dedicated cloud storage. RAID 1 is better than nothing, and you may want to go that route if you're not storing terabytes of data, but it's not sufficient.

I was very tempted by the Drobo but have since read less than stellar reports so to replace my aging IDE drive based firewire 8 bay tower I'm think an eSata enclosure with maybe 4 HDDs in a Raid (is it 5 that allows redundancy?) essentially making my own Drobo like device. All files on this will be backed up to DVD or potentially Blu-Ray for backup. This device will hold everything, not just the final edits which will be held on the drives in the main tower.

How much storage do you need? How much do you need to access on a daily basis? How much of it changes each day (and would need to be pushed through incremental backup)?

At the moment I have about 2tb in an external firewire case. About 10000 of the images there are digital originals and the rest are scans from film. I have returned to shooting film so my back ups for those are having the negatives and 5000x5000pixel scans saved both to external HDD and DVD. Digital originals are saved on HDD and DVD as RAW files. The only work I need to have regularly accessible is the final edits of each piece of work, usual 10-40 ish images and only normally a few such sets per year, but all sets from the past 5 years need to be quickly accessible due to having to resize and send off to various galleries on a regular basis. Daily changes aren't that great, once a series is finished then it can be archived and I only need access to it to produce prints and different sized jpegs for different clients. Everything is catalogued in the woefully annoying Expression Media 2, but edited in Photoshop CS3 (will be 4 with this new build -mainly because the clone tool is much better). The other work I take on is in retouching and art duplication services for validation by museums and never lasts more than a few days on one set after which they can be archived offline most likely never to be used again unless there is another print order in the future.