advice building a graphics machine

There doesn't seem to be an ideal forum for this question, but I need advice for building a current graphics machine.

This machine will be used at work and should cost under $1,000. I need it to run programs like paintshop, photoshop, pagemaker, and other graphic-oriented appplications fast and efficiently. I need to be able to work at 1:1 size for advertisements that won't often exceed 9"x11".

Specifically, what combination of cpu, video card, and memory should I consider? A co-worker pushes celerons, but I think they're crap for design work (maybe I'm wrong about this?). For a video card, what's a good one to take some of the graphics workload off of the processor? And for the memory, I know more is always better, but would 1GB be sufficient?

If you've built an affordable machine for graphics work, your input would be especially appreciated.

Thanks much,

Ted

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by tjacoby3 on 01/08/04 10:14 AM.</EM></FONT></P>

AS a Graphic designer I would have to say If your doing image editing, (photoshop) RAM is one of the most important things, 1G is most definiatly enough for 9x11 type sized work But DO NOT go less then 512.

As for video card, you won't need anything top of the line, but its always best to get the best price/performace as that will keep your machine from depreciating too quickly. therefore I too would recommend the 9600(Pro)

As for Processors, I'd recommend a P4 2.x, something that will last a long time and not cost too much.
(as for Hyperthreading, thats up to you, it costs a bit more, but i don't realy know how much its going to help, might be sometihng some one else can help you with)

I don't realy know all to much about AMD side of things, just that they usualy run hotter so they might be lowder, at least they used to be. If thats not a problem they are usully better priced.

you'll be working with Large Data files so i would aslo recommend a HD with 8Mg buffer

you should easily be able to stay under $1000 US or Canadian with that, less software of coarse.

Good luck, and let us know how things go

<b>on the verge of catastrophy (y1.999...k)</b>
ASUS P4S8X - P4 2.4B - 2 x 512M DDR333 - ATI 9500 Pro - WD 80G HD(8M) - SAMSUNG SV0844D 8G HD - LG 16X DVD - Yamaha F1 CDRW

Mephistopheles was right!

But don't forget to get a good HDD too, spend a few extra $$$ to have a 8Megs cache and 7200 RPM drive. This will make a diff. on load/write.

As usual avoid Celeron processor, they are only good at merketing high MHz for low cost. You will be disapointed of their performance. As mentioned by others, get 1Gig for ram.

For the video card the Radeon 9600 is good. But for best 2D quality, I think Matrox still got the edge. Their cards usually have very good signal quality, so better image quality. If you buy a "crappy" Radeon 9600 you might get some artifact, I'm not sure anyone could notice this, but I konw professional graphic workers that tend to notice any glitch/artifact.

And the P4 are still better than AMD in Photoshop, check this bench :
<A HREF="http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/athlon64-3400_13.html" target="_new">http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/athlon64-3400_13.html</A>

MY CHOICE WOULD BE :
- P4C 2.6GHz or more
- 2 x 512 Megs of DDR400 (for dual channel, with CS 2.0 or 2.5)
- 7200 RPM / 8 Megs Cache HDD
- Any good P4 motherboard (don't get the loaded version, you don't need 6 channel audio to do graphic things)
- Matrox or ATI with good RAMDAC (for good output signal quality)

--
Would you buy a GPS enabled soap bar?

I don't think Matrox is out of the question here...Since he won't be doing 3D stuff and doesn't need something like a quadro, a G550 would be great...

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