Anyone suggest a good desktop rig for photography?


Overlord4101

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Jul 30, 2010
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using Adobe CS5 for photoedit, anyone can suggest a good value for money DIY desktop rig?
 

If you are looking for DIY , go hardwarezone , download pricelist for PC Themes . Physically located at Sim Lim Square #-0-19 ( I think ) . Quite reliable . As for the configuration , that will have to depend on your budget . If you have only like $500 to spend , miracles cannot be worked .
 

say if you're shooting with a 21MP FF body, I would recommend you to get at least:
Processor: Intel Core i5
Memory: 4GB and above
HDD: SSD for O/S, 2x 1TB SATA on RAID0 as Photoshop scratch disk, and ample space for your photo archive

Throw in a decent IPS panel from Dell/HP/NEC... that's about it. Anything above that grants you marginal improvements.
 

But if you have at least 1200 to spend , we dun need to work miracles . That's just my view . Please correct me if I am wrong or mis informed
 

set aside more for ram and enough hdd space for scratch disk. the rest doesn't affect photoshop that much.

i am using 4gb ram now and upgrading to 8gb soon. set up 2x1tb wd hdd in raid o as scratch. gpu doesn't affect much for most of the features currently and cs5 doesn't utilise all the cores as well.
 

i agree. i ran cs5 with an i3 and 4gb ram. no gfx. performance was still very good.
 

btw want to add using a ssd for cs5 doesn't help as much as it seems. better off spending the money on raptors instead.
 

Here is what i use for my photo editing.

Intel i7 875k Unlocked
4GBgb DDR3-1333MHz
Sapphire Ati 5870 1 gb
64gb SSD for O/S Win 7
2x 1tb hd.

for me this is very good enough. Photoshop launches and processes large images very fast.
 

If you're using a 64-bit OS, I recommend getting at least 6GB RAM when working with Lightroom, or especially Photoshop.
 

if i were to build a desktop for photography, these would be my criteria.

Processor: Any i5 would do. i would personally look into the i5-540M.
Hdd: any with 7200rpm and >8mb cache. up to you for the sizes. get two if budget allows and separate data from the OS disk
Ram: 4gb (Minimum). get the best ones to match/maximize your motherboard (MoBo) in terms of speed.
MoBo: make sure you have extra connections. this is for installing more HDDs inside your case.
Vid Card: any. but im tempted get one with 512mb or 1gb. would be nice to watch hi-def videos once in a while or play Starcraft 2.
Monitor: if budget allows, get an IPS monitor. for dell, they're called "Ultrasharp".

Currently using a dell latitude with the spec below, i have yet to fully utilize or run sluggish with the setup. i normally have 5-10 12mp files open for editing in photoshop cs4, and around 500+ in lightroom. so the above suggestion should be a good start.

T7300
120gb 5400rpm 8mb cache
4Gb Ram
64bit Windows 7
integrated graphics

Hope this helps
 

I'm on an Athlon X4 3.2Ghz, 8GB RAM, Win7 x64. 4x1TB in RAID 0+1. Smooth for gaming too.
 

I'm on an Athlon X4 3.2Ghz, 8GB RAM, Win7 x64. 4x1TB in RAID 0+1. Smooth for gaming too.

amd seems more suitable for video at the moment. keen to do a amd rig for my next setup but the hex cores seems useless when editing photos though. too bad.

for ram and more hard disk is the way to go it seems.
 

What is photoshop scratch disk?
 

say if you're shooting with a 21MP FF body, I would recommend you to get at least:
Processor: Intel Core i5
Memory: 4GB and above
HDD: SSD for O/S, 2x 1TB SATA on RAID0 as Photoshop scratch disk, and ample space for your photo archive

Throw in a decent IPS panel from Dell/HP/NEC... that's about it. Anything above that grants you marginal improvements.

phenom x6 is a viable alternative also. what i'm using. runs very efficiently. :)

though as people point out... just running photoshop alone won't make a difference.

but if you're outputting RAW, stitching a panorama + doing photoshop...
 

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6GB Ram, i5 or i7, fast HDD like a SSD or WD velociraptor for OS/PS scratch disk/LR catalog and Tons of storage for Data.
 

HHhmmm. good thread, needed some information too!

cause, the rig below (5 yrs since 2005) cannot run cs5 smoothly:

AMD X2 3800+ (first gen dualcore)
2gb ram
Asus SLI 32
7800 GTX
HDDs:
160 GB (primary)
1 TB (upgrade)
on win 7
..

hope I didn't miss anything else.

I bought the 1 TB hdd recently for more photo storage, but I set aside 30gb for LR/PS scratch disk. It didn't...really feel any better.

First upgrade option was of course ram, but as the PC5300 (i think it was...DDR400?) is too obsolete, it is even more expensive than some other DDR3 rams to get 4gb of ram. (or 2gb + existing ones.) Something to the point of 2gb DDR 400 can get 4gb DDR3 ram + a little more, last I checked. I was hoping the above scratch disk helped.

That made me research for the entire set-up, BEFORE I got my DSLR. Once I got the cam...poof no more budget for com :p

(and my japan trip ...lol.)
 

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