Photoshop on a budget

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Wouter Termont

Wouter Termont

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Aug 13, 2013
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Hi, I'm assembling a system for a friend on a budget. She'd mostly use it for regular office/student-work (typing, browsing), playing music and video, BUT she is also an avid Photoshop-user and occasionally plays WoW or similar games.

Searching for the best budget-cpu I could find, it seems to me the AMD A8-6600K APU would be fine. This would omit the need for a dedicated gpu and still play WoW very decently. While single-threaded performance lacks a bit, the only heavy application (being PS) is very good at multithreading.

Now my only question to you: am I right? I'm having a tough time convincing her she doesn't need a dedicated gpu.

(FYI: the rest of the system comprises of 8Gb Crucial Ballistix Tactical on a MSI FM2A75 Micro-atx board, an Antec VP450P psu and a Scythe Big Shuriken 2 or possibly a CM Hyper 212 EVO depending on the case, which I'm still deciding on)
 
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getochkn
I've played with the GPU acceleration in photoshop on my 6core Phenom and 7770 GPU and didn't notice a huge gain really, so needing a video card for casual photoshop usage isn't something I see as a must have.

Besides, the CPU does have a GPU and acceleration should work on that GPU just as it would with a dedicated card.

I know people always like trash the AMD APU chips because some site says this here or this benchmark is low, but until you've built 4 or 5 of them for people in the real world, they shouldn't comment much. I'm surprised none of the ANTI-APU trolls have showed up so far in this thread.
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Wouter Termont

Wouter Termont

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Aug 13, 2013
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@getochkn: tried that, but I can imagine an invisible gpu doesn't doe it for her :p thanks anyway for the encouraging note!



Like getochkn said, apu's do have a gpu, and according to some reviews it performs rather wel. I'll ask her about the use of those effects, thanks for the link. Any idea for a small mAtx-case? (offtopic, I know).
 
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getochkn

getochkn

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Jul 2, 2006
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I've played with the GPU acceleration in photoshop on my 6core Phenom and 7770 GPU and didn't notice a huge gain really, so needing a video card for casual photoshop usage isn't something I see as a must have.

Besides, the CPU does have a GPU and acceleration should work on that GPU just as it would with a dedicated card.

I know people always like trash the AMD APU chips because some site says this here or this benchmark is low, but until you've built 4 or 5 of them for people in the real world, they shouldn't comment much. I'm surprised none of the ANTI-APU trolls have showed up so far in this thread.
 
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Wouter Termont

Wouter Termont

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Aug 13, 2013
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@bigwoofer: thx for the case, looks decent, though she'd go for something a bit more elegant (doesn't need all those external bays). I'll search a bit more ...

So a dedicated gpu isn't neccessary for PS, but can she still play WoW and the likes without a problem?
 
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Sangeet Khatri

Sangeet Khatri

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May 26, 2013
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Well... The a8 is not powerful enough for handling photoshop without issues. I mean you should at least go for a FX 6300 for photoshop usage or at least a Phenom II X4 965 BE.

What is your overall budget for this build and do you need an OS? We might recommend something better.
 
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Wouter Termont

Wouter Termont

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Os excluded it should be about 300-350 euro's, that's some 465 USD. Problem with the FX series is their integrated gpu is much weaker. Making this the cpu (or an i3 for that matter) would mean a dedicated gpu is neccessary for playing a game from time to time. This would surely become much to costly, methinks. Any ideas?
 
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Wouter Termont

Wouter Termont

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I'm buying from afuture.nl, but I take it you don't speak dutch. Here' a link to the cpu list. But their nearest (and only) FX is almost 30 euro's more, gpu not included. Of course I can find an other store where they sell the lower FX's, but do you really think a 15-euro gpu would be comparable to the APU integrated HD8570D?

On what do you base your opinion that the A8 won't do?
 
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getochkn

getochkn

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A8-5600k vs 4300, not even a 6600k as there charts don't have that CPU in there yet.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/676?vs=700 A8-5600k beats the FX in photoshop retouch artists test.

As for how well it runs on that CPU, it's runs fine. I have one 5 feet from me that I built myself, with photoshop on it and it works fine. Do you want to open images a million by million pixels on it? no. Don't want to do that on a FX 4300 either. Does it run decently. Yuppers.
 
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