Upgrading my PC for Photoshop

[slippry]

I built a budget gaming PC about 2 1/2 years ago and I wanting to upgrade. My wife has a photography business and the PC is showing its age when she is editing. So I was wanting to upgrade some of the components and keep some of them if possible. The parts I would like to upgrade are the CPU, Ram and motherboard but I wanted to make sure my video card and power supply were capable of handling photo editing.
Video Card: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814133232
PSU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817148027

Other upgrades like hard drives etc. will come later as we are on on a pretty tight budget. The processor I had in mind is the
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115071&cm_re=i7_2600-_-19-115-071-_-Product

The motherboard and ram I am open to suggestions as I have been out of the game for quite sometime. I would also like to overclock and used to have a water-cooled system back in the day and overclocking/benchmarking was a hobby. Anyways please let me know if my current Video Card and PSU will be compatible with these components. Please feel free to give any suggestions.I would like for everything to be under $700 and that is more than I want spend. Thanks

 

[striker410]

Hi Slipp, welcome to the forums.

I have a few ideas, but I need some more info. Can you do me a favor and fill out this form? http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/261222-31-build-advice It would make it easier on me and the other forum members since we have all the info we need right there.

Thanks and expect to hear from me soon

 

[slippry]

Approximate Purchase Date: Next Month

Budget Range: Under $700

System Usage from Most to Least Important: Photo editing and some gaming

Parts Not Required: Hard Drives, Optical Drive, Video Card (possibly), power supply (possibly)

Preferred Website(s) for Parts: NewEgg

Country of Origin: USA

Parts Preferences: Intel CPU

Overclocking: Yes

SLI or Crossfire: NO

Monitor Resolution: N/A

Additional Comments: I am looking to upgrade my system to run Photoshop for my wife's business. I am hoping to only have to upgrade the CPU, motherboard and Ram. The parts I currently have I want to make sure will be good enough and compatible with new parts are

PNY VCG88512GXEB-FLB GeForce 8800 GT 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814133232&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-_-RSSDailyDeals-_-na-_-na&AID=10521304&PID=4176827&SID=v13naxfr3dqc

APEVIA ATX-CW500WP4 500W ATX Power Supply
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817148027&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-_-RSSDailyDeals-_-na-_-na&AID=10521304&PID=4176827&SID=zajv1440q1w9

 

[striker410]

Hey Slip thanks for getting back to us. I have a few more questions. The first one is, could you please list the rest of your build? On $700, it's going to be tough to make a full CS5 powerhouse without a bit of recycling. I am mainly interested in addons, like case & heatsink.

Anyway, the first thing I can tell you is that your PSU is a piece of crap. While is has served you admirably in the past years, it's time for a new one. Cheap PSU's like that do not age well. Also, they usually don't output what they advertise when brand new.

For the 8800, it's an old card. I would really suggest getting an update, as even a $100 card would easily smoke it in performance/power consumption and heat.

Please get back to me with the rest of the components.

Here's what you might wanna take a look at for your new build.

Intel Core i5-2400 Sandy Bridge 3.1GHz (3.4GHz Turbo Boost) $189
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115074&cm_re=i5_2400-_-19-115-074-_-Product

ASRock H67M-GE (B3) LGA 1155 Intel H67 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 $105
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157234&cm_re=asrock_h67-_-13-157-234-_-Product

G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 $40 (with promo code)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231275&cm_re=g.skill-_-20-231-275-_-Product

EVGA 01G-P3-1351-KR GeForce GTS 450 (Fermi) 1GB 128-bit $109
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130663&cm_re=gts_450-_-14-130-663-_-Product

Waiting for rest depending on parts already owned.

 

[slippry]

Sorry that I didn't mention the case before as I do want a new case because my current one is not very good. The rest of the components are:

GIGABYTE GA-EP43-DS3L LGA 775 Intel P43 ATX Intel Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128347

Intel Pentium E2180 Allendale 2.0GHz 1MB L2 Cache LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor BX80557E2180
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116052

Western Digital Caviar Blue WD2500AAJS 250GB 7200 RPM 8MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136113

OCZ Gold 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model OCZ2G8002GK
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227124

The heatsink on the CPU is the stock one. In your opinion would it be better to wait a couple of months to save up a bit more and spend a $1,000 instead of trying to do this on $700? How much more power would I get from $1,000-$1,200 build compared to the $700 build?

 

[striker410]

Yes, I would wait and save up a bit. If you can hold off for even a month, prices should drop significantly with the release of AMD bulldozer. I suggest holding off for a month, and then check back with us. If you have a pressing need we can make something work, but I suggest wait for the price drops.

 

[slippry]

Thanks for the information. Is the bulldozer something to look into or will the prices of the new product be really expensive? If it will save me money to wait another month that is more than alright for me.

 

[striker410]

It will be out of your budget. I say wait because Bulldozer will force the prices of the intel chips down, making them much more affordable. Competition rules, amirite?

 

[slippry]

Competition is amazing. When I was OCing and benchmarking back in the day my ATi x800 XT PE was the best card. Its amazing how things have changed since then.