Recommended Spec for new PC for Photoshop CS5 (2 Viewers)

[tuftyhill]

I'm about to order a new PC and haven't a clue what sort of spec to look for. I know I need at least 4GB RAM. I'm currently running 1GB on our 8 year old PC !!
Just started to configure one online and the choices were unbelievable.
I just need a few pointers really.
First question - AMD or Pentium ? I've had AMD on both previous PC's with no problems
Is it recommended to have a separate Hard Drive for the Windows OS ?

Then there are the Graphics Cards.......

And before a few reply with "Have you considered a MAC ?"....yes I have but that's not an option. I am aware they are superior machines especially for running PS.

 

[Mono]

MACs superiority in Photoshop stopped sometime in 1997, all they are now are premium end PCs with a different operating system.

I would get what you can afford, no difference really between AMD or Intel but get a i3 or i5 or whatever the AMD equivalent is. Get at least 4GB of RAM 8 would be better if you are doing lots of image processing. A 1GB graphics card will be fine, unless you are into gaming. There is little point in getting a separate hard drive it can complicate things and in any event you should always back up to an external drive, so it adds little to data security.

One other thing make sure you get the 64 bit version of Windows!

 

[Duke Leto]

Buy a mac, irrespective of any argument you'll get a machine that simply works, isnt bugged by forever looking for patches, upgrades and through forums.
Not saying there perfect but compared with any windows based machine I have ever owned or forced to use at work my iMac just does it and doesn't stop doing it.
You'll thank yourself for ever, they may be more than a PC but I guarantee that if I sold my 3 year old iMac today I'd still get a reasonable amount for it.
Anyhow you don't sell an iMac you hand them down lol

 

[Mono]

"Have you considered a MAC ?"....yes I have but that's not an option.

Buy a mac

Say it all about mac owners! DON'T DRINK THE COOL AID!

 

[captaincarot]

Say it all about mac owners! DON'T DRINK THE COOL AID!

pretty much sums up apple owners apple on one end idiot on the other, a triumph of style over substance

as for specs mono's initial post will see you right, alternatively read the minimum specs for the programs you want to run double whatever they require and you wont ever have any problems

 

[Duke Leto]

Irrespective of what was the ask, it doesn't stop a forum member of highlighting the obvious choice.
A triumph for enlightenment over ignorance

You buy an apple cos you don't want months of misery unless your a pc wizard

Ironically I had a look at posters galleries and found little evidence of photoshop usage, if there are any websites that support the request made by the origional poster please add them to this thread

 

[captaincarot]

You buy an apple cos you don't want months of misery unless your a pc wizard

i think you would find if you removed your apple shaped blinkers that they wouldn't hold a candle to any pc built to do the job other than in the price stakes where they would far out run the pc.

as for pc's being nothing but trouble as you are a mac user i fail to see how you can comment on this as you don't have the experience of it.

i'm far from a pc wizard yet i've built quite a few of them without any problems at all

 

[Duke Leto]

As someone who was programming / supporting pc's running DOS back in the 80's, playing with all flavours on MS systems including WAN / LAN environments and being IT support for a UK network in an earlier engineering life I think I'm qualified to comment.
For someone who finally gave up after 3 decades playing with PC's and ending up building overclocked gaming PC's for my son (the last one is a footrest in my office as I like the case, now theirs irony) I think I'm allowed to compare my life with Apple products and the nightmares I had with Microsoft based PC's and laptops.
I, my 2 children have moved to apple as I have with there phones and guess what whilst at University I never get calls saying that its crashed, locked up, stopped working or generally misbehaving. Whilst they were at school and 6th form with pc's I was almost monthly doing something, adding a new patch, upgrading hardware so new stuff would work, or worst still ploughing through forums looking for similar issues to a problem.
My life with apple is more relaxing, it just works, now I still have 2 windows based machines ( my wife's laptop and my corporate laptop, the wifes will be upgraded to an apple soon because it regularly stops, crashes gives up the BSOD or needs tlc and that eats in to my birding time, the corporate one theres nothing I can do, I have to put up with it, at least someone else fixes that.
My iMac is 3 years old, it has worked since day one, it runs PS and handles multiple RAW images on 4Gb RAM, it can manage 9 image HDR processing as well as running all the background tasks like Pop3 and HTTP, it does hourly backups. My life is peaceful with an iMac, that kind of performance is worth its weight in gold. Oh yes its silent there is no noise from it and I don't need a base unit clogging up the floor space, and don't get me talking about the screen quality

I think I'm qualified to comment

Not everyone wants a mac but I think the responses shown to my comment are blinkered not mine

Look at the thread on this forum, loads of problems with PC's not doing stuff properly Nuff said

 

[Geoff Brown]

Steve I've no great ax to grind about Macs or PCs but do wonder if you have edited video on the Mac using the latest camcorders and is it easier/more reliable to use a Mac for this task.
I have tried editing with various programmes on PCs and all of them seem to wind up with some failing or other, with the modern trend now being downloading from hard drives or SDHC cards through USB. In the good old days editing from mini DV tape via firewire seemed to cause no problems for std def but it seems HD is an whole new ball game as far as editing on computers is concerned.
What's your opinion, if you have one?

 

[Duke Leto]

Geoff please send me a PM I have already apologised to Tufty for my errant comment which started the tirade. Chat off line

 

[Jaff]

The only thing I'll say is AMD I think can be overclocked much easier and with greater success than Pentium. That's the main difference really. And make you sure you get an independent graphics card and not one that shares your RAM. A lot of Intel based machines seem to do this. If you're going the PC root I'd stick with AMD. I can also recommend PCspecialist as an online company as I got my most recent machine off them with the kind of specs I suspect you're after for a very reasonable price and it has worked faultlessly for a couple of months now.

Oh and try to build a machine with some future proof in mind, the cornerstone of which will be the motherboard. Get a really good board now and it'll still be able to accommodate some better hardware a few years down the line.

As for graphics cards if anyone uses the PC for gaming at all then stick with Nvidia cards to avoid complications.

That's about the sum total of what I can offer.

 

[tuftyhill]

Wow !! the words 'can of worms' springs to mind.
Thank you for the many useful comments.
It doesn't bother me about the debates that always start up on forums....Canon or Nikon........Apple IOS or Google Android.......PC or MAC......Leica or Swarovski....Bottom line it's all Personal Choice
Anyway back to the original thread
Jaff I was looking at PCSpecialist with a possible Spec they seem very competitive and have a load of excellent reviews. My previous PC's were from MESH and EVESHAM (both now gone !!)
I'm happy to go with PCSpecialist for a machine with 8GB RAM and I think I'll probably get a 2nd Hard drive with a Seperate Nvidia Graphics Card
Thanks again

 

[Andrew Rowlands]

For individual components, it's worth studying the returns rates here.

Buying Intel may reduce your potential upgrade routes more than going AMD. Intel seem to change their CPU types very frequently.

If you plan on filling all 4 RAM slots at some point, check with verified user reviews (eg. NewEgg/Ebuyer, etc.) and the motherboard's QVL that you are using the correct RAM. There are some combinations that just don't work.

With hard drives, spending £20-30 more on an Enterprise grade drive should give more peace of mind. For the 2nd hard drive, partition it so that there's a separate 20GB partition for a 4GB Windows Swapfile and the remaining space can be utilised by the PS scratch file; the rest of the drive can be partitioned for data storage.

Both ATI/AMD and nVidia have problems with drivers from time to time but there are more games optimised for nVidia cards; For Photoshop, it matters little. I'd look (listen!) for a quiet card, I'm more than happy sitting close to my current HD 5770, I really can't hear it and my boot time is over 10% quicker than with the 9800GT it replaced.

 

[Kentbloke]

Jaff I was looking at PCSpecialist with a possible Spec they seem very competitive and have a load of excellent reviews

I would avoid PCSpecialist. I had a machine built by them for audio mastering work and it ended up going back to them 4 times - I got it back each time with a new fault. I posted a honest testimonial on their board and it was taken down!

 

[Jaff]

I would avoid PCSpecialist. I had a machine built by them for audio mastering work and it ended up going back to them 4 times - I got it back each time with a new fault. I posted a honest testimonial on their board and it was taken down!

I'm sorry to hear that. It's unfortunate that when things go wrong they seem to really go wrong. The reports I read before I got mine suggested that a few had difficulties with them when their computers went wrong but the vast majority were very happy with them. In the end I concluded that the competitive nature of their prices and the fact I knew exactly what was going into my computer (after I had been totally ripped off by a local computer shop) was worth the risk. I haven't regretted if for a moment so far. At any rate I opted for the 1 year collect and return policy should anything happen, nothing yet though and the performance is phenomenal.

 

[Kentbloke]

Jaff, I guess it's just the luck of the draw. I had the year free return policy (thankfully) but it cost me £9 in phone call to them and also I had the thing apart under their direction simply to avoid yet another return. I still use the machine, built to my spec, and it's a superb performer but it still has a minor fault, but I'd given up dealing with them any more and put it down to experience!

One final thing is that there are forums out there which have a more balanced view than their own moderated (censored) forum, so my advice is look around first.

 

[BarryH]

I'm pretty much in the same state as Tufty, getting ready for a new PC. I'm still trying to work out about 32 and 64 bit differences and Windows7. I've been on XP for quite a while now and I'm a bit worried that going down the 64 bit route will mean I need new or upgraded programmes. Lightroom, CS4 and CorelDraw.

The only bit of advice I can offer about new PCs is, if at all possible, buy locally. A fair number of fellow photographers I know have bought systems from reputable companies and had problems getting their PCs back to the makers to sort problems out. Buying locally for me just means a quick trip in the car with the PC and collect the same day. I'm sure we all get the problems associated with Windows machines.

 

[Jaff]

I'm pretty much in the same state as Tufty, getting ready for a new PC. I'm still trying to work out about 32 and 64 bit differences and Windows7. I've been on XP for quite a while now and I'm a bit worried that going down the 64 bit route will mean I need new or upgraded programmes. Lightroom, CS4 and CorelDraw.

The only bit of advice I can offer about new PCs is, if at all possible, buy locally. A fair number of fellow photographers I know have bought systems from reputable companies and had problems getting their PCs back to the makers to sort problems out. Buying locally for me just means a quick trip in the car with the PC and collect the same day. I'm sure we all get the problems associated with Windows machines.

The same reasoning I had but believe me it doesn't always work out that way. I basically had this local company put a system together which I reckon the spec of which was worth half of what I actually paid for. The trouble with small locally based companies is that the will have their own suppliers that may not have access to the mainstream hardware brands and the companies may have long term contracts with those suppliers for certain brands that means they get those parts cheaper, for example parts which are maybe slightly dated and need to get shifted. I think this is behind how I got shafted.

If you do go to a local company Barry make sure you know EXACTLY what components you want to go into that machine and whether or not they can get them. Having been through it all I'd recommend you opt for an online company like the one mentioned.

 

[Mono]

The only new programs you need for 64bit are things that work very closely with the OS, Virus Checkers being the main thing. You will also need new drivers, so if you have any expensive peripherals then I'd check that 64bit versions are available.

But 64 bit is the way to go, you won't look back.

 

[BarryH]

The same reasoning I had but believe me it doesn't always work out that way. I basically had this local company put a system together which I reckon the spec of which was worth half of what I actually paid for. The trouble with small locally based companies is that the will have their own suppliers that may not have access to the mainstream hardware brands and the companies may have long term contracts with those suppliers for certain brands that means they get those parts cheaper, for example parts which are maybe slightly dated and need to get shifted. I think this is behind how I got shafted.

If you do go to a local company Barry make sure you know EXACTLY what components you want to go into that machine and whether or not they can get them. Having been through it all I'd recommend you opt for an online company like the one mentioned.

Jaff, I have been down both routes, buying systems for home and business use. The system I had most problems with was one bought online. As I mentioned above, the locally bought ones simply need a quick trip back to the makers to be sorted. No waiting weeks for a return or wondering how the white van man is treating it in transit.

As far as parts and components go, the company I use always let me have a quote showing all major bits listed, from power supply to operating system. Every system I've bought from them so far came as per the quote I went for.