I recently posted on this board about guides for a first timer like myself and in that thread it was recommended that I post the system I am planning to buy and have all the experts here give me some feed back; so here it goes:
Purpose:
This system is actually for my father. He will use it mostly as a PhotoShop work station. He is an avid amature photographer and has been yearning for a better machine to use for photo editing. He might also do a little software development stuff (VB and SQL Server) on the side, but this is being built to optimize PhotoShop. He never plays games.
Components:
<b>Motherboard - Abit IS7 [$108]</b>
(This board received the best benchmarks for Springdale and Canterwood mobo's and is a lot cheaper than the P4P800)
<b>Processor - Pentium 4 2.4C [$172]</b>
(Seems to be a pretty good consensus on this CPU, I don't expect much debate)
<b>Memory - 2X Corsair 512 MB PC3200 CL2.5 [$97 per stick = $194]</b>
(PhotoShop is a major memory hog so I think a GB is reasonable. Went with CL2.5 because there is no plan to overclock)
<b>HDD (Operating System) - Maxtor 60GB 8MB Cache EIDE [$77]</b>
(I've heard conflicting opinions on the 8 v 2 MB cahce issue, but it seems likely to benefit system performance)
<b>HDD (Scratch Disk and Storage) - 2X Maxtor 120GB 7200 RPM SATA in RAID 0 [$125 per drive = $250]</b>
(This was recommended to me by a PhotoShop guru, these drives will be used mostly for caching all the huge files that are associated with PhotoShop workspaces. Access to these files is a major bottle neck for PS hence the RAID 0. Plus when you shoot hundereds of images a month lots of storage is good.)
<b>CDRW - Lite On 52x24x52 [$45.99]</b>
(Didn't put a lot of thought into this one, just seemed to be a good performance/cost ratio.)
<b>DVD ROM - Lite On 16x DVD [$34.99]</b>
(Same as above)
<b>Video Card - Matrox G650 [$158.25]</b>
(Everyone seems to agree that you can't beat Matrox for 2D and dual monitor support, both of which are important for this system. And he doesn't play games, so Matrox really makes sense.)
<b>Case - Antec Sonata [$110]</b>
(This is one part we can't decide on. He wants a case that looks decent but not wild like the Xaser. Also a front IEEE 1394 port is a big plus. And of course noise is a consideration too. PLEASE recommend some other cases if you know of a good one.)
<b>Power Supply - Antec True380 PSU [comes with Sonata case]</b>
(I hear the Antec PSUs are high quality and quiet. I think 380W should be enough, but then again the system does have 3 hard drives. Please advise if this is not a good choice.)
Total Price: $1,150.23
Cost is a consideration, but if there is a part that is deffinately better for the job, he is willing to pay for it.
Please give any advice/constructive criticism you can think of. These boards have been extreamly helpful in getting me this far and I'm sure I've still got a thing or two to tweak before I build it.
Thanks in advance.
Purpose:
This system is actually for my father. He will use it mostly as a PhotoShop work station. He is an avid amature photographer and has been yearning for a better machine to use for photo editing. He might also do a little software development stuff (VB and SQL Server) on the side, but this is being built to optimize PhotoShop. He never plays games.
Components:
<b>Motherboard - Abit IS7 [$108]</b>
(This board received the best benchmarks for Springdale and Canterwood mobo's and is a lot cheaper than the P4P800)
<b>Processor - Pentium 4 2.4C [$172]</b>
(Seems to be a pretty good consensus on this CPU, I don't expect much debate)
<b>Memory - 2X Corsair 512 MB PC3200 CL2.5 [$97 per stick = $194]</b>
(PhotoShop is a major memory hog so I think a GB is reasonable. Went with CL2.5 because there is no plan to overclock)
<b>HDD (Operating System) - Maxtor 60GB 8MB Cache EIDE [$77]</b>
(I've heard conflicting opinions on the 8 v 2 MB cahce issue, but it seems likely to benefit system performance)
<b>HDD (Scratch Disk and Storage) - 2X Maxtor 120GB 7200 RPM SATA in RAID 0 [$125 per drive = $250]</b>
(This was recommended to me by a PhotoShop guru, these drives will be used mostly for caching all the huge files that are associated with PhotoShop workspaces. Access to these files is a major bottle neck for PS hence the RAID 0. Plus when you shoot hundereds of images a month lots of storage is good.)
<b>CDRW - Lite On 52x24x52 [$45.99]</b>
(Didn't put a lot of thought into this one, just seemed to be a good performance/cost ratio.)
<b>DVD ROM - Lite On 16x DVD [$34.99]</b>
(Same as above)
<b>Video Card - Matrox G650 [$158.25]</b>
(Everyone seems to agree that you can't beat Matrox for 2D and dual monitor support, both of which are important for this system. And he doesn't play games, so Matrox really makes sense.)
<b>Case - Antec Sonata [$110]</b>
(This is one part we can't decide on. He wants a case that looks decent but not wild like the Xaser. Also a front IEEE 1394 port is a big plus. And of course noise is a consideration too. PLEASE recommend some other cases if you know of a good one.)
<b>Power Supply - Antec True380 PSU [comes with Sonata case]</b>
(I hear the Antec PSUs are high quality and quiet. I think 380W should be enough, but then again the system does have 3 hard drives. Please advise if this is not a good choice.)
Total Price: $1,150.23
Cost is a consideration, but if there is a part that is deffinately better for the job, he is willing to pay for it.
Please give any advice/constructive criticism you can think of. These boards have been extreamly helpful in getting me this far and I'm sure I've still got a thing or two to tweak before I build it.
Thanks in advance.
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