Computer Specifications Help for adobe photoshop and coreldraw applications

The 4790 will be better in graphics applications due to the additional hyperthreads and the fact that it has a larger CPU cache, 8MB smartcache versus 6mb smartcache on the 4460. Both have the same integrated graphics so there will be no advantage there. For the applications you intend to run, a discreet dedicated graphics card would be highly recommended whether it's a gaming or workstation card. The HD 4600 graphic iGPU is rather weak for high end graphics applications.

It's fine for watching HD video, but will suffer in 3D, rendering and large resolution images with many layers.

Possibly. Are you in the US or another country? I ask because the HD 530 graphics on the newer Skylake processors or the Intel Iris Pro graphics on Broadwell might be a much better choice if you're going to use an iGPU, so if the price difference isn't terribly great depending on where you are, it's probably a much better platform for you.

Sounds good.

Generally, for non-gaming systems, bottlenecks aren't REALLY an issue. At least not in the same way they are for gaming machines. You'll still be limited, but by the GPU card performance in your application, not by being comparatively weaker than the CPU. The GT 730 is actually rather weak. It's probably enough for what you're wanting to do now, but if you get into anything slightly more advanced, you're probably not going to happy with the performance and capabilities. It's not much better than some of the newer iGPUs, if it's any better at all.

I probably wouldn't recommend anything tiered lower than the GTX 750 or higher, or R9 270 or higher, to be honest. Photoshop and CorelDraw can pretty thoroughly chew up resources, but they CAN run on lower end hardware, just not as well.

I might do something like this.

CPU: http://pcx.com.ph/components/intelr-coretm-i5-4690k-processor-6m-cache-up-to-3-90-ghz.html

Motherboard: http://pcx.com.ph/components/gigabyte-ga-b85m-hd3.html

Memory: http://pcx.com.ph/components/gskill-ripjaws-8gb-f3-12800cl9d-8gbxl.html

PSU: http://pcx.com.ph/components/antec-vp450p-450w.html

GPU card: http://pcx.com.ph/components/palit-gtx-750-1gb-ddr5-128bit-oc-stormx-graphics-card.html


And whatever you want to do with storage drives and case. It's an option anyhow. I wouldn't go with the GT 730 for a graphics machine though. Not even a low end one.

Every there is doable except the Corsair 450w power supply. You can make a much better purchase than that. The Corsair CX, CS, VS, and RM units are tiered rather low and we see a lot of premature failures on these units when paired with systems that incorporate discreet GPU cards or overclocked systems, as seen here:

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-2547993/psu-tier-list.html


I'd look for an Antec VP-450, EA-450 or pretty much any XFX, Seasonic, Super Flower or another Tier 1 or Tier 2 unit as listed on the Tier list linked to above.

I agree with getting a tier 3 or better psu. Actually, hyperthreading is not beneficial for Photoshop. The two most important things are having adequate RAM and single core frequency. A recent test (no longer published) comparing the Skylake i7 6700K with the i5 6600K actually showed the 6600k to be better at smaller Photoshop tasks and equal to the 6700k at larger Photoshop tasks. I don't know why the 6700K did not pull ahead- perhaps the test was faulty? At any rate, the Haswell 3.6GHz might be slightly better than the i5 3.2GHz, perhaps up to 10% improvement.

https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Adobe-Photoshop-CC-Multi-Core-Performance-625/

I would increase your RAM to 16GB (matched).

The video card will probably make a slight improvement now, and probably more in the future as Adobe moves functions to GPU processing. I would go for the GTX 750ti if you can with the new Maxwell processing engine. You can always add a video card later, so there would be no harm in trying the on-board processing first to see how it does for you.

https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Adobe-Photoshop-CS6-GPU-Acceleration-161/

I would probably go with your first option, but increase the RAM, choose a better PSU, and get the GTX 750ti in place of the 750 (or try on-board processing first). If the cost is not an issue, go ahead and move up to the i7.

Here is some Photoshop testing with the i7 4790K:

http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2836099/computer-specifications-adobe-photoshop-coreldraw-applications.html

That Pugetsystems article is contradictory. First they say cores/threads are not beneficial because most Photoshop processes are single or lightly threaded, and that Photoshop is not optimized well for threaded processing or utilizing additional cores, then they turn around and say it IS, up to 8 cores, and all of the CPUs they recommend are models with at least 4 cores and 4 hyperthreads. While I generally applaud most of their testing and articles, whoever wrote that one must have been smoking dope. A thing either IS or IS NOT, beneficial. If it's beneficial SOME of the time, then it's beneficial PERIOD.

Multi-threaded actions hit a point of diminishing returns after around 6 CPU cores, and most completely stop improving after 8 CPU cores. This includes effects like color mode conversion, many blurs, hue/saturation, brightness/contrast, and shadow/highlight. The best multi-threaded effect (converting to Lab Color mode) had a decent multi-threading efficiency of about 94%, but most of these effects had an efficiency closer to 80% which isn't so great.

One thing we want to point out is that the raw number of cores different Photoshop effects can utilize is only a starting point when choosing a CPU for Photoshop. Even though Photoshop may at times be able to use eight or even ten physical CPU cores, our testing has shown that it doesn't typically do so very effectively. Because higher core CPUs also tend to have lower operating frequencies, this means that the best CPU for Photoshop will be one with a moderate core count but a high operating frequency.

After examining the results of our testing, we believe that - of the Intel CPUs available at the time of this article - the following three models should give you the best possible performance in Photoshop CC:




Recommended CPUs for Photoshop CC
Intel Core i7 4790K 4.0GHz Quad Core 8MB 88W or
Intel Core i7 6700K 4.0GHz Quad Core 8MB 95W
Intel Core i7 5930K 3.5GHz Six Core 15MB 140W or
Intel Xeon E5-1650 V3 3.5GHz Six Core 15MB 140W

Click to expand...

I've found it to be beneficial in my own usage, AND since they were likely using a test bench rig and not running any other processes or applications during their testing, which most people WILL be doing, I'd say their results in this case are probably not as relevant and conclusive as most their testing usually is.

Also, Adobe's own dev team has indicated that MANY processes, but not all, in Photoshop, DO advantageously use hyper or multi-threading when it's faster. So some functions of Photoshop do use it while others do not.

CorelDraw definitely uses threaded processing to it's advantage as well. Saving and running various effects and processes are much faster on a quad core or higher chip than they are on say, a G3258. All that being said, it IS doubtful more than four cores/threads will ever be utilized in either of those programs which is why I suggested the much less expensive i5 might be a good choice and would allow for a more powerful GPU card, which is likely to have some affect on graphics performance as well, depending on the type of image processing you're doing.

If you will have tabbed web browsing, multiple simultaneous applications or other utilities running at the same time image processing is going on in either of those applications, it's likely you'll benefit from a 4/4 chip, especially considering windows is going to be running some processes of it's own in most cases and on most systems.

Personally, since it uses both the strengths of a fast core AND somewhat uses threaded processes, I'd say any four core or higher chip, unlocked, and overclocked, is a very good option. A 4690k or 4790k, clocked at about 4.5Ghz on a halfway decent board like the Gigabyte Z97X-Gaming 5 or ASUS Z97-A, would probably benefit from the faster core clock in all areas where threading does not offer an advantage.

Let me be clear that by hyperthreading, I am referring to virtual cores, not physical cores. Here is test they did showing the superiority of the 6700K over the 4790k in Photoshop (it's about half way down the page):

https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Haswell-vs-Skylake-S-i7-4790K-vs-i7-6700K-641/#CPUPerformance-LightroomCC

I do agree with you that the hyperthreading may be beneficial if you are running other applications simultaneously with Photoshop. Of course it is your right to disbelieve the testing done at Puget, though I think that they do excellent work.

As far as CorelDraw, I cannot comment.

I just noticed that the i5 6600k versus i7 6700k test is back up:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/skylake-intel-core-i7-6700k-core-i5-6600k,4252-5.html

Skylake is indisputably faster in the synthetics. Real world use rarely equates to synthetics though, but it may be somewhat representative of expectations. Prices for Skylake chips in the Philippine's may not be realistic for this situation compared to Haswell refresh though, plus, Haswell Refresh and even Haswell are still significant players and very relevant as options for new builds. Barring any hardware failures down the road I'd expect a Haswell refresh i5 or i7 to still be entirely capable of worthy productivity for graphics and other workstation functions in five to seven years.

Puget did testing using Photoshop actions, not synthetic testing.

I agree with you that Haswell is still excellent choice and depending on the local pricing difference, it may be the best bang for the buck.

I was actually referring to the Tom's testing, which used PCmark8. It may not be a fully synthetic test as it does use some actual program processes, but they are still not generally representative of actual usage. You can't really account for image quality, number of layers, specific photoshop processes being run, bit depth and other factors that may vary drastically from user to user, with a benchmark utility. Still, the comparative result IS indicative to some degree, so it's worth factoring in regardless.

Oh, I see. I wish someone would do some actual testing of Skylake i5 versus i7 in regards to Photoshop. If it's already been done, I haven't seen it yet.

I do as well. I'll ask our resident mod/editorial staff member about it and see if they can come up with anything. Regardless, none of those choices is BAD, so any of them should work well for you Charls. Again, I think in this case I'd probably just go with an i5 Skylake chip or an i5 Haswell refresh and opt for a higher tiered GPU card using the money you'll save. Maybe even a workstation card if price allows it.

I think that would be a good machine and if you get into more complicated graphics later, 3D or high end stuff, and find the GPU card isn't cutting it, you can always upgrade that but the rest of your system will already be very capable for a good long time. The 16GB of RAM is also a good idea. Just be sure to get a matched set of 2 x8GB modules. You don't really want modules that don't come in a matched set, together. You also don't want 4 x4GB as the more memory modules that are installed, the more stress there is on the memory controller.

Like darkbreeze noted earlier, you really can't make a bad choice here. It really depends if you have a set price and expect the computer to last you for a few to several years, or if you don't mind putting in more money in perhaps 6-12 months. If it were the same price, I would be inclined to get the i7 and no video card and see how it goes, knowing that you will likely add a video card within the next year. It's not a clear cut decision, though you'll have a great machine either way.

Honestly, I've had little problems running web type 2D graphics on Intel HD 4600 graphics on occasion. I wouldn't want to HAVE to do so, but you could if it was absolutely necessary. The GTX 750 is significantly better than that, so you should be fine until and unless you get into higher resolution, multiple layer or 3D stuff, or very involved processes using a variety of high end plugins. Print graphics is a different beast though.