new build for photo editing and gaming

[randomway]

Hey guys,

I guess, most of you are sick of these threads... still, after reading posts like this one and endless amount of reviews I am still a bit hesitant.
I am building a new pc mainly for photo editing (files can be 1.2Gb when opened in PS), and of course playing the latest games. I thought that the followings would suffice, but I am not sure about the motherboard and the graphic cards... I only play at 1920x1200 resolution, and I am not sure if two 8600GT cards in sli would cut it. I would appreciate some opinions..

Here's what I am looking to get:

Intel Q6700, to be overclocked to at least 3.2 (there are no q6600's with g0 stepping around)
Scythe Infinity cooler
Asus P5k Premium Wifi, I need firewire and eSata ports
Corsair PC6400 800Mhz ram 4Gb
Corsair Tx750W psu
MSI Geforce 9800 Gx2
2x Seagate F1 750Gb hdd
Coolermaster Cosmos S case

I would like it to be reasonably quiet, so I am not sure if the Gx2 card is the best choice... anyone has experience with it?

Thanks in advance,
RandomWay

 

[shadowduck]

Wait for the new video cards out by July. 9800gX2 is basically 8800GT SLI on one card.

Solid build otherwise, you should probably get 8GB of RAM for heavy editing.

 

[akhilles]

Swap the coola out with xigmatek hdt-s1283. If you want higher o/c's, consider watercooling or even TEC. There are ready-made kits so you can't have to do it yourself. The rest is fine.

Yup, if you're going 64-bit os, get 8gigs of ram. While the GX2 is 2xGTs, the noise is less than 2 x GTs. A lot less.

 

[randomway]

Thanks for the replies.

I am waiting now for the graphic card announcements, I would go for an ATI if it had similar performance at lower power consumption.

The Xigmatek is unfortunately not supplied in the shops here in Ireland, that's why my choice was the Scythe. I don't want anything loud. I had an AMD 1.7 running at 2.9, and 4 WD hhd's for a few years in my bedroom and I don't miss it to be honest. I would rather go on the watercooling route (except that it's expensive).
If I bought a Thermaltake Kandalf LCS case instead of the Coolermaster Cosmos, would that be a better choice what do you think?

I haven't seen TEC anywhere here, but I will check some UK websites. I guess they are expensive, are they?

8gigs of ram noted, I think you are right, for the PhotoShop nothing is enough.

 

[johnnymac13]

I'm not one to give advice on the harware you're looking at since I'm also getting advice here, but can talk about the photoshop application side.

CS3 is still a 32 bit application, so until CS4 comes out later this year or early next year you won't get the full advantage of the 8G of RAM. CS3 will only address 2 ^ 32 bytes, which is nearly 4G. If you do go for the full 8G now the additional RAM can still be utilized by other 64 Bit applications (like Lightroom 2.0 - which has some great color correction and batching features). Additionally, CS3 will still use the remaining 4G of ram as scratch disk space which will show a slight increase in speed.

I'm going for the full 8G now due to Lightroom 2.0 being a full 64 bit application and will upgrade to CS4 as soon as it comes out.

 

[akhilles]

He's absolutely right on the CS3 ram usage, but you missed out one important thing - CS3 isn't the only one using ram. Everything including malware. 4 gigs for CS3, the rest for others. Reason for as much ram as possible is that June will see ddr2 pricing go up until it's no longer cheaper than ddr3. Get 'em right now or it'll be expensive. Look at ddr.

If you're getting 32bit os, up to 3.5 gigs will be usable.

Well, I got my TEC refurb for $150 US + shipping. Less than half the retail. With the same warranty. Infinity is by no means garbage. It's decent.

 

[randomway]

Actually, besides PS3 I often run a scanning software, that can on it's own use up all of my 1gig ram at the moment... and I am not even scanning on the highest resolution.

It is a good advice, I might just save on the graphics and put a bit more ram into the config. Or spend somewhat more overall for the peace of mind.

What about the cooling? Is the Scythe that bad?

 

[akhilles]

Scythe Infinity is fine.