NEED YOUR INPUT ON BUILDING A PC FOR PHOTOGRAPHY

[greatday57]

Hi,

I'm a growing my photo business and need a very efficient machine which can handle processing large photo files (Canon 5D). I have an idea of a machine in my head and want to know what the professionals think:

Asus P5w DH
Intel E6600
1900xt 256 mb
Seagate 500 gb x 2 (Raid 1)
Lian Li case
Corsair 2gb XMS PC6400
Hiper 580 watt PSU
NEC DVD-RW x 2

I would like for the system to be very cool as I want to OC. At the moment my present computer is a P4 3.2 HT, will I see a big difference?

Please help I value all your suggestions.

Thanks,

JP

 

[ikjadoon]

Looks fine to me. You may want to invest in larger hard drives. I know it may sound overkill, but photography will eat GBs like there's no tommorow.

I don't know much about photography other than it requires CPU Power, memory, and lots of space. Is the gaming GPU for the rendering and what-not or do you just like to game? The X1900XT puts out a lot of heat, but it shouldn't interfere too much with your OC. What cooler are you using for the CPU?

Difference should be huge.

On the motherboard: DFI is releasing it's Intel 590 Parts in a while, should make great OC'ers...What about the Gigabyte DS6?

What about Quad-Core? You know, it's coming out a month from now. Helps tremendously with rendering, etc.

Good luck!

~Ibrahim~

 

[greatday57]

Looks fine to me. You may want to invest in larger hard drives. I know it may sound overkill, but photography will eat GBs like there's no tommorow. Your absolutely right, maybe 750 gb.

I don't know much about photography other than it requires CPU Power, memory, and lots of space. Is the gaming GPU for the rendering and what-not or do you just like to game? The X1900XT puts out a lot of heat, but it shouldn't interfere too much with your OC. What cooler are you using for the CPU? Not really into gaming but this card has been highly reccomend by many users here.

Difference should be huge.

On the motherboard: DFI is releasing it's Intel 590 Parts in a while, should make great OC'ers...What about the Gigabyte DS6? Not sure, just going by what most reccomend.

What about Quad-Core? You know, it's coming out a month from now. Helps tremendously with rendering, etc. I would love one of these but I've heard it's going to be big $$$$. I don't no if I will se a difference betwenn Conroe and Kentsfield to justify price.

Good luck!

Thanks for all your help, I appreciate it.

JP

~Ibrahim~

 

[DeathwingX]

id get a firegl or a nvdia qurado, and more hdd space, and why raid 1 and not raid 0 or JOBD?

 

[ikjadoon]

Yeah, RAID 0 would be faster, but RAID 1 is better in this instance.

Well, that card is recommended for GAMING. Unless you're gaming, you don't need it. Any card will suit you. If you are doing some light gaming, the 7600GT or X1300XT will be fine. The former is faster, but not nearly as fast as the X1900XT, of course.

I personally like the Gigabyte DS6, good reviews.

Well, you could use the saved money from the GPU to put towards a good Quad-Core, if possible. Otherwise invest that money in bigger hard drives. The Seagate 750GB is nice, albeit expensive.

~Ibrahim~

 

[greatday57]

I thank everyone for there input, I'll have to modify my list a bit. Since I do watch movies on my pc and do a little bit of video editing (home movies) is it better for me to get the x1300 still or go for the x1900xt for $249.

 

[ikjadoon]

Video editing requires CPU muscle and a bit of GPU power. What I say is get the best of both worlds: Mainstream. The 7600GT is around $140. Get this one, the fastest of them all:

XFX 7600GT

~Ibrahim~

 

[kukito]

Up your memory to 4 GB, if possible. The more memory the less your image editing software (Photoshop?) will need to use the scratch disk. You should also consider a separate hard disk partition for the scratch disk.

Good luck!

 

[bull2760]

Buy an Apple. The new power Mac kicks ass and Apple is the prefered way to go for graphics art.

I own 4 macs and 2 pc's. I use the apples for editing photos and making movies, and the pc's for playing games. Wouldn't have it any other way!

 

[Nitro350Z]

id get a firegl or a nvdia qurado, and more hdd space, and why raid 1 and not raid 0 or JOBD?

I agree on what the others are saying about the raid array.

but Why would you recomend a FireGL or NV Quadro card? Those are only used in OpenGL Rendering, Mostly used for graphic design and CAD apps, like Maya, Solidworks, AutoCad, 3DSMax, ect...
He said he is doing photo editing ect, that doesnt require openGL rendering.

Like others have said, any video card will do with his needs.

 

[kukito]

Buy an Apple. The new power Mac kicks ass and Apple is the prefered way to go for graphics art.

The problem with getting a Mac for digital photography is that Photoshop is not yet available as a universal binary so it needs to run under Rosetta emulation. That problem will be solved when Adobe releases CS3 next year but until then, you're better off keeping your Power PC Mac or buying a Windows PC.

 

[waylander]

I am going with everyone else on the video card, if you don't need it then get something cheaper.

Also, I wouldn't necessarily recommend that you OC a computer that you're going to be doing any work on. OC is great for gaming guys who can deal with any issues that come up and enjoy it but for a business I would suggest you keep it stock. I'm guessing that you're going to be writing this off as a business expense so don't screw up any of your warranties by OC'ing.

Also, since the quality of the picture, especially the color, is important what kind of monitor are you getting?

 

[kittle]

Everyone but Waylander seems to have missed this one.

What monitor do you have? or are going to use?

The nicest vid card and PC arent going to be worth much if your monitor distorts the colors.

 

[greatday57]

Hi Guys,

Thanks for all the info, this is why I rely on professionals like you to give me the right info. I'm tired of going to best buy or dell and buying a system that doesn't perform to my expectations. I was using an apple 20 lcd monitor but ran into a 20 NEC CRT (FE2111SB) that rocks but well have to see the prints once I get them back from the lab. I really miss an LCD screen and I'm contemplating buy another cause this crt takes up half of my desk space. Any suggestions on a 20+ lcd monitor will be greatly appreciated. Also I read that ATI has AVIVO which gives better color rendition how true is this and do Nvidia cards have a simular feature.

 

[kittle]

Lots of different reviews here on THG on LCD monitors.

They are a good place to start, but as Ive found out -- nothing beats a trip to Best Buy, Fry's or CompUSA to actually SEE them.

I use a Samsung 970p 19" LCD. Got one due to reviews here. and ive not been dissapointed.

 

[greatday57]

Ok so if I shift my priorities around a bit and set up to a X6800 will this be much better than a e6600 or should I buy an e6600 and once kentsfield go down in price pick one up? I read on another thread simular to mine that I should only use DDR2 that is 533 mhz, is this true or is 800 mhz better.

 

[waylander]

@ mp: I've been around a bit but travelling a lot due to work.

@ op: I think you're going to have to decide on how much performance you are willing to pay for. The 6800 is only 15% faster than the 6600 for photoshop CS2 rendering 5 photo's at 66mb. Is a processor that is almost 3x more worth 15%? I'm not sure about you but I also use photo shop for my rendering for photo's taken with my 20D and that isn't worth it to me.

As to the DDR2 533, I believe that was probably meant as a minimum not as a optimal, the 800 will work faster.

 

[FLA94FD]

Hi,

I'm a growing my photo business and need a very efficient machine which can handle processing large photo files (Canon 5D). I have an idea of a machine in my head and want to know what the professionals think:

Asus P5w DH
check
Intel E6600
Unless you do a lot of batch jobs this is an overkill
1900xt 256 mb
overkill

Seagate 500 gb x 2 (Raid 1)
Lian Li case
Corsair 2gb XMS PC6400
4 gb or with XP 64 will give you the biggest bang for the buck with CS2
Hiper 580 watt PSU
Major overkill
NEC DVD-RW x 2
Why 2?

I would like for the system to be very cool as I want to OC. At the moment my present computer is a P4 3.2 HT, will I see a big difference?
I personally don't thing that you will notice that much of a difference unless you do batch jobs. The files just aren't large enough. I suppose if you use the artistic filter there might some improvement. I just never had photoshop run slow becuase of the CPU even when working 100MB plus files. As for the mac guy I'll wager my E6600 will run circle around it, even at stock speeds.

I would put my money in a good high res LCD that switch landscape to portrait. This will cost you big bucks but I would be the best use of your money. My Samsung 204B is nice but I would want something much better if I was looking for color accuracy.

I wouldn't trust Toms for LCD, printer, or camera reviews they just don't have the expertise in this area as of yet. Seek out the photo review sites were like minded professionals focus on image quality.

Lastly Best Buy isn't likely to sell HQ computer hardware.


Please help I value all your suggestions.

Thanks,

JP

 

[photoguru]

I just built my Core2 rig for graphic/video stuff. Photoshop CS2 takes around 3 seconds to load with all my plugins. An 8MP image run through the Noise Ninja 2.1 plugin takes about 2 seconds! My old computer (P4 1.5Ghz with 786MB Rambus ram) took over 30 seconds! If you want something to overclock and do some mild gaming on it for $1,500 (w/o monitors) check this out.

ASUS P5W DH Deluxe
Intel E6400 (OC to 3 Ghz)
Corsair 2GB XMS2 PC6400 CL5 (running 1:1 @750 4-4-4-12)
Thermaltake Armor VA8003SWA case
Zalman CNPS9500 heatsink (only 28db at full fan speed)
WD Raptor 36.7GB OS drive
Seagate 7200.10 250GB drives (x2 in ez-raid 0)
Maxtor 300GB raid backup (always backup files on multiple drives!)
Hitachi 250GB external drive
WD Caviar 120GB drive
HIS Radeon X1600XT video card
NEC ND-3550A DVD burners (x2 for multitasking and redundancy : )
ANTEC TPII-550 power supply

For monitors, I'm running dual 19" Viewsonic VX-900 lcds (from my old rig) on a Moview stand. Also make sure you invest in a nice wireless keyboard/mouse setup. I personally like my Logitech LX 700 as well as the 4 other Logitech ones I've abused through Best Buy's service plan. I recommend getting it somewhere with a service plan. Same goes with the printer. I use an Epson R340 and it's my 5th swap on another Best Buy service plan. This one has lasted much longer than the other ones I've had (2 ink rounds or about 10 months). I only use my printer for doing test proofs and then send out for the final copies at Sam's Club.

I understand people using Macs for graphics/video. I'm not a big fan of them, even though I spend almost 50% of my time on those cute bastards. Four words explain all... beach ball of death. I love my customized PC : )

 

[greatday57]

Ok all this info has helped me narrow down some of the components, if any can give me a list of all the parts (Brand name/item ) I'll need to build a complete system I would appreciate the effort. This will be my first build and I dont want to f*&% it up. Also how do I partion a part of my HD for scrath space on photoshop, should I purchase an additional 250 gb HD for this.

Thanks,

JP

 

[hammong]

Depending on how much legacy Windows-based software you want to run, you might give some serious consideration to a new Mac for photo editing. Leaving the Mac vs. PC pros and cons out of the discussion --- Apple Aperture is a fantastic photo management program, and works very well for many professional photographers. Quite a few have dropped Photoshop in favor of Aperture just because it makes some repetitive tasks a lot easier than continually tweaking batch processes in PS CS2.

Photoshop CS2 still runs under "Rosetta" on the Intel-based Macs, which means it's real-time emulation of the PowerPC processor and is significantly slower than it would be if it were native..... DO NOT ASSUME this means it runs "slow" - the Mac Pro will run PS CS2 in Rosetta faster than a P4 3.2 Northwood runs it natively under Windows.

Greg

 

[photoguru]

Aperture is Apple's copy of ACDSee Pro, which has been around for a long time. All the batch processes with metadata, file names, resizing, rotating, and a few other tricks can be done with ACDSee Pro 8 for only $130.
here's the link

I use both ACDSee and Photoshop extensively, and the difference between Aperture and ACDSee is mostly on the surface. You can customise what parts of ACDSee you want to use, which makes it much more robust and efficient.

As far as Photoshop running faster under Rosetta compared to a 3.2Ghz P4 I would say no. My 1.5Ghz P4 ran a little slower than the G5 dual 2Ghz for most batch runs, but the actual interface was much faster on my PC. Rosetta really slows down programs like Photoshop. You should only sacrifice the time spent on Rosetta if you really just want a computer that you can take out of the box, plug it in, and use without any tweaking. Apple has the edge with not needing any major end user changes, but that also means WYSIWYG. Macs are simple, PCs are complex. Blonds vs brunettes : ) Both are attractive, but have different strengths.

 

[photoguru]

here's a wishlist I set up for you with stuff I have
type in "greatday57" under title and it should bring it up.

these aren't on the list:
case & power supply
hard drive for operating system

I have a WD Raptor for my operating system, which runs fast but is very loud. It loads things about 30-40% faster than regular drives but other than that, it wouldn't be worth buying if you don't want the added noise or cost. If you don't get a Raptor, get another Seagate 7200.10 because they run very quiet and fast.


If you get at least 2GB of ram, you really won't need to set up scratch disk allocation and such. I wouldn't partition your operating system drive, because it should only be running your operating system and programs.

 

[photoguru]

And another thing... if you want to benchmark your current setup against a new Core2Duo rig click here and download the test. When you unzip it you'll get a bunch of errors (at least I did) probably because it was zipped on a mac. Open the folder "Retouch Artists Speed Test" and then "Action". Copy the file "Retouch Artists Speed Test.atn" to your "\Adobe Photoshop CS2\Presets\Photoshop Actions" folder wherever it was installed. This works with the other versions too if you don't have CS2.

Open the "READ ME.rtf" file and follow the directions for the settings in Photoshop as far as history states and cache settings.

Once you have the settings right, you should restart your computer to make sure it's all set. Start Photoshop and open the file named "Test Image.jpg" in the folder "Test Image" from the unzipped files. In CS2 the actions panel is underneath the history panel. I don't have the other versions handy to check and see, but I think they were the same way. Expand the "Retouch Artists Speed Test" and select "Speed test". Now press the play button below it. Start your timer/stopwatch/clock and then press "continue".

This test will be unrealistically slow if you don't have at least 1GB of ram, because it will constantly be accessing your pagefile or scratch disk on your hard drive. My ram ran up to the 1.4GB mark at the toughest part of the test. This isn't a fair test of how fast your normal everyday Photoshop usage is... it's more of a stress test to try and max out the weakest aspects of your computer for Photoshop.

My computer's best time is 52 seconds. My computer's worst time is 1:32. The only thing that I changed between the tests was which drive was selected for primary scratch disk and which drive contained the source file. My best score came from having both the scratch disk and the source file on my raid 0 drive array. My worst score came from having both the scratch disk and source file on my operating system drive.

 

[greatday57]

Thanks to all for the info. I have a few more questions:

1- Will I see a difference between 667mhz and 800mhz ram?

2- Will I see a difference between e6400 and e6600 cpu?

3- What is the difference between 2mb cahe and 4 mb cache?

4-Will I get good quaility video from a dvd using a 1600pro crossfire edition. Will I see a diference from a 12 to 16 pipe lines.