Workstation for Illustrator, Photoshop & Indesign

[Froberg]

I'm a bit out of my depth here, as I'm really not well-versed in the requirements of the Adobe Creative suite.
My father has asked me to build him a new computer, the scrap-one I built for him is getting a bit long in the tooth, being a Core 2 Quad with 8 gigs of memory.
I've done my due diligence and research, of course, but I am still somewhat conflicted.

My initital thought was trying out a Ryzen platform since it has so many cores - and I figure that's great for the specific workloads he's going to be running.
I was also going to gift him my old HD7950 which I recently replaced with a Geforce 1080 for my own desktop - which should be more than adequate for the minimal GPU usage of these applications - and it should keep the build cost down.

Rough build idea;

Ryzen 1700 or 1700x (Price v performance matters, and the 1800x doesn't perform so well that I think it's worth the added cost)
Spend high on mobo and PSU
2x16GB memory for possibility of future expansion to 64GB, I hear 3200Mhz is the way to go?
5TB internal storage
256/512GB nvme M.2 SSD for OS and applications
Scratch disk? I put one in the one I built for him earlier, but he's reported limited success using it.

Since he's using this for his business it must be absolutely rock-solid. And since we live far apart, I won't be able to tinker with it once he's gotten it.
My budget is around 2000$ USD for the workstation, but I also want to include a NAS for him, so he can backup reliably. He's unable to get a fast internet connection so the cloud is out. As such I'm considering something like a 2bay synology setup with mirroring. I got him a large external drive earlier which, at 2TB, is already showing it's limits - he'll be using that for mission-critical backups which will be stored off-site. Any recommendations? It has to be idiot-proof as far as disk-replacement and management goes.

Anyone with experience using the creative cloud suite of applications, I'd love to hear your thoughts. Budget is somewhat flexible if the argument is good enough, but price v performance does matter.

Cheers!

 

[k1114]

The adobe software mentioned are actually lightly threaded. You'll see in benchmarks where the 7700k wins every time and by a decent amount. Getting an expensive mobo does nothing for performance or reliability.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amd-ryzen-7-1800x-cpu,4951-8.html
https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Photoshop-CC-2017-1-1-CPU-Comparison-Skylake-X-Kaby-Lake-X-Broadwell-E-Kaby-Lake-Ryzen-7-976/

 

[Froberg]

The adobe software mentioned are actually lightly threaded. You'll see in benchmarks where the 7700k wins every time and by a decent amount. Getting an expensive mobo does nothing for performance or reliability.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amd-ryzen-7-1800x-cpu,4951-8.html
https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Photoshop-CC-2017-1-1-CPU-Comparison-Skylake-X-Kaby-Lake-X-Broadwell-E-Kaby-Lake-Ryzen-7-976/

Appreciate the feedback
By going higher on motherboard you'll likely have more upgrade options. He'll be running the platform for some time. It's always how I've built my own workstations, and I've not regretted it.
Looking at the review, I'll ignore Puget since they seem to be an intel-only house and have a commercial bias, I'm still left with the impression that Ryzen is best from a price/performance perspective.
But you're saying that for the applications he'll be running a higher core clock with fewer cores is better? One would think they'd improve over time through Adobe software updates.
I found a vid discussing the topic; https://youtu.be/No7eZZb3jdA - seems like, from the video, that PS does utilize multiple cores well?

 

[k1114]

An expensive mobo doesn't offer more upgrade options per se. That would depend on other factors. But if you are referring to going with hedt rather than mainstream than that would make a bit more sense as they will be more expensive but being more expensive isn't the reason for more options.

You won't see software add more threads but rather gpu acceleration on more tasks. Gpus are much more efficient and offer much higher parallelization. Adobe has been adding it to more and more features over time but cpu thread usage hasn't changed in like a decade since cs1 was out.

The video didn't state specs but it's an old ivy bridge cpu so of course it's going to lose to ryzen which has higher ipc. But a 4 core sky/kaby is going to beat both ib and ryzen. I never said it doesn't use multiple cores. A 4c/8t i7 7700k does better than a 4c/4t i5 7600k. If you look at the tom's link, it has all the adobe software mentioned. You might have missed it if you didn't scroll through the other pictures.

Intel wins from higher ipc as long as they are 4+ core cpus to take advantage of light threading. Skylake/kaby has also gotten optimizations that help a good amount for adobe software which can be seen as a bigger jump vs ipc compared to haswell or broadwell. This has to do with hardware architecture and not anything software changes can do. The price is about the same for a 1700x and 7700k system but if you want hedt, the 7740x is a probably going to come out a little more because of the mobo price. Intel is going to give 10-20% increase for the same price in ID and PS. AI is even higher, 40%. I don't see how ryzen is better price/performance for this situation. For other software, yes, but not here.

 

[Froberg]

An expensive mobo doesn't offer more upgrade options per se. That would depend on other factors. But if you are referring to going with hedt rather than mainstream than that would make a bit more sense as they will be more expensive but being more expensive isn't the reason for more options.

You won't see software add more threads but rather gpu acceleration on more tasks. Gpus are much more efficient and offer much higher parallelization. Adobe has been adding it to more and more features over time but cpu thread usage hasn't changed in like a decade since cs1 was out.

The video didn't state specs but it's an old ivy bridge cpu so of course it's going to lose to ryzen which has higher ipc. But a 4 core sky/kaby is going to beat both ib and ryzen. I never said it doesn't use multiple cores. A 4c/8t i7 7700k does better than a 4c/4t i5 7600k. If you look at the tom's link, it has all the adobe software mentioned. You might have missed it if you didn't scroll through the other pictures.

Intel wins from higher ipc as long as they are 4+ core cpus to take advantage of light threading. Skylake/kaby has also gotten optimizations that help a good amount for adobe software which can be seen as a bigger jump vs ipc compared to haswell or broadwell. This has to do with hardware architecture and not anything software changes can do. The price is about the same for a 1700x and 7700k system but if you want hedt, the 7740x is a probably going to come out a little more because of the mobo price. Intel is going to give 10-20% increase for the same price in ID and PS. AI is even higher, 40%. I don't see how ryzen is better price/performance for this situation. For other software, yes, but not here.

I do like the clock frequency of that 7700k. I believe his current one is a Quad Q6600 @2.4Ghz with 8 gigs of memory. So if I bump that to a quad core with 4.2Ghz base clock (for the K version) and 32 gigs of memory, that should be a significant speed improvement either way.
Everything I've read so far seems to suggest that GPU matters little for a workstation like this. Is an AMD HD7950 a poor choice in that case?
As for expensive mobo, what you should read in to that is a good quality motherboard from a reputable manufacturer, ideally with some overclocking functionality, because they tend to use better components on those.

Edit: Created a computer build, any comments? https://ibb.co/cjcSrk

Core i7-7700K
MSI Z270 Tomahawk Arctic
Crucial Ballistix Sport DDR4 32GB (2x16)
Noctua NH-U14S CPU Cooler
Samsung 960 EVO 500GB M.2 PCIe SSD
EVGA Power Supply 650W Gold
Fractal Design - Define C Black

 

[k1114]

The gpu does more in ps than id and ai but even the igpu is technically powerful enough for most work. Is the 7950 being re-used from the old pc? It seems odd to have something with that power in the first place when it's not needed. But it's worth it to have a quadro/firepro for 10 bit support if he has a 10 bit monitor.

More money on a mobo still isn't worth it. You may get better vrm but it's not going to matter without extreme ocing which you don't want on a workstation. Even a cheaper mobo has good caps/build quality and will last 10+ years oced. Your extreme4 is on the cheaper side and have you had issues with it?

 

[Froberg]

The gpu does more in ps than id and ai but even the igpu is technically powerful enough for most work. Is the 7950 being re-used from the old pc? It seems odd to have something with that power in the first place when it's not needed. But it's worth it to have a quadro/firepro for 10 bit support if he has a 10 bit monitor.

More money on a mobo still isn't worth it. You may get better vrm but it's not going to matter without extreme ocing which you don't want on a workstation. Even a cheaper mobo has good caps/build quality and will last 10+ years oced. Your extreme4 is on the cheaper side and have you had issues with it?

My board replaced an ASUS board that went tits up. And yeah, I've had a few issues - but only the last year or so.
He wanted a new gfx, double the memory, 512GB nvme and other upgrades from my suggestion, so we're at a comfortable 4000$US now. Backup included.