New PC required - CS3 and Lightroom 3

Andy_S_T · 15 Aug 2011

My editing PC is dying and I am need of replacing it. I currently just use CS3, but have been thinking about purchasing Lightroom 3 to help speed up my workflow and keeping CS3 for any serious editing I need to do.

I haven't been up to date with computer tech for quite some time, so I am looking for some advice from you fellow photographers. I originaly considered going mac. But that would mean purchsing a new copy of CS which is an expense that I would like to avoid.

What knid of spec machine do I need to happily run CS3 and Lightroom 3? The machine will almost solely used for editing with a little internet/email etc, I don't play games on the PC as I prefer my PS3 (when time allows!!). Is their much difference between the Intel powered machines and AMD equivilents

Any advice you can give me will be greatly welcomed.

Andy

arad85 · 16 Aug 2011

Second gen (Sandy Bridge) i5 or i7 is what you want. The second gens have ix-2xxx naming. As much memory as you can afford....

John Mc · 16 Aug 2011

Do you have a budget? Newer is always better, but if your budget is low, there's not much point trying to get a next gen pc for £200

Snapsh0t · 16 Aug 2011

Try putting a request in the 'wanted' section here. You never know what will pop up.....

neil_g · 16 Aug 2011

what andy said but depends on budget, also what is your current machine as it might be upgradable.

Andy_S_T · 16 Aug 2011

Current machine is way past upgradeable, it's a 2GHz P4 so is getting pretty long in the tooth running XP. It's only been the RAM that's been keeping it usable.

Budget would be around but hopefully below the £500 mark.

John Mc · 16 Aug 2011

Recycle the Case, power supply,and DVD drive. I reckon you could get a first gen i7 CPU, mobo and ram for that, aswell as a 1tb hard drive

neil_g · 16 Aug 2011

id question what the power supply is before suggesting using in an i7 rig to be honest.

John Mc · 16 Aug 2011

Yeah, valid point! But there not too expensive to replace I guess

neil_g · 16 Aug 2011

£60 should get you a good quality branded PSU at about 500W.

Andy_S_T · 16 Aug 2011

Didn't think I'd be able to reuse the case, but that'll stop the wife noticing a new computer!!!! Ha Ha, thought they would have changed the power adapters etc though. Will check the PSU when I get home later.

DVD burner is dead, died on me last month (it'll read but not burn) but they seen really cheap these days. Current hard drives are IDE so am I right in think they are pretty much useless?

How do the 1st Gen i7s compare to the 2nd Gen i5s? Are the AMD Phenoms worth a look or have AMD really fallen a long way behind?

John Mc · 16 Aug 2011

Hdd isn't useless, but it would be better to get a new one. The 1st gen i7 work as you'd expect, fantastic! The 2nd gen are better though. Faster, better hyper threading, some cases use less power. I'm not an expert at amd.

SCM · 16 Aug 2011

Andy_S_T said:
Didn't think I'd be able to reuse the case, but that'll stop the wife noticing a new computer!!!! Ha Ha, thought they would have changed the power adapters etc though. Will check the PSU when I get home later.

DVD burner is dead, died on me last month (it'll read but not burn) but they seen really cheap these days. Current hard drives are IDE so am I right in think they are pretty much useless?

How do the 1st Gen i7s compare to the 2nd Gen i5s? Are the AMD Phenoms worth a look or have AMD really fallen a long way behind?

For what you will be using it for an AMD processor option wouldn't be an issue really. As John said the IDE drives aren't uselss but with the new motherboard you would need for an i7 or AMD option a sata drive for your main drive would be best then you can use the ide drives as storage only.

neil_g · 16 Aug 2011

you might struggle to find IDE compatible motherboards, certainly ASUS dont do any P67 based boards with IDE from what i remember.

Andy_S_T · 16 Aug 2011

I've put a ad in the wanted section, so I'll see if anything pops up.

For photoshop etc is there much difference with video cards? Would the following be sufficient?

http://www.dabs.com/products/asus-ati-radeon-5450-hd-1gb-pci-express-2-1-hdmi-746G.html

Will have to buy a copy of Windows 7 too so that's another £100 on top!

John Mc · 16 Aug 2011

I'll have a look at some of my old pcs I have when I get in and drop you a pm if anythings fairly usable?

arad85 · 16 Aug 2011

AMD processors don't compete with Intel on performance. They are aimed squarely at the budget end of the market. As an indication of performance for photoshop/Lightroom (only an indication as the rest of the system has a bearing), take a look here: http://cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html (also as a searchable list here: http://cpubenchmark.net/cpu_list.php). From that list, you'll see why people are suggesting second gen i5/i7....

Andy_S_T · 17 Aug 2011

Think I'm gonna go with Snapsh0ts offer here

Thinking off completing it with the following;

Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-Bit - OEM
BeQuiet Pure Power L7 530W '80 Plus' Power Supply
Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM
Samsung SH-S222AL/RSMS 22x DVD±RW SATA Lightscribe ReWriter (Beige/Black/Silver) - Retail

That all in total should give me an 1st Gen i7 system for under £500 including the OS.

Are there any better options than the ones I have chosen?

Mike1980 · 19 Aug 2011

arad85 said:
AMD processors don't compete with Intel on performance.

Nonsense. Enthusiast level CPUs (i7; I'd exclude i5 from that category) do beat the AMD competition, but not by that much. The Phenom II CPus are a real bargain with the eagarly anticipated release of AMD's Bulldozer chips.

As well as considering the CPU performance vs price, you need to factor in the cost of upgrades. Intel change their sockets the way I change my boxer shorts; monthly

AM3+ motherboards will take a Phenom CPU now and also a Bulldozer should the OP want to upgrade in a few years. AMD motherboards are cheaper for the same performance as an equivalent Intel board.

They are aimed squarely at the budget end of the market.

Nonsense. Top end machines are more likely to have an Intel CPU. However,

As an indication of performance for photoshop/Lightroom (only an indication as the rest of the system has a bearing), take a look here: http://cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html (also as a searchable list here: http://cpubenchmark.net/cpu_list.php). From that list, you'll see why people are suggesting second gen i5/i7....

Hyper threading from the Intels will make negligible difference to Photoshop. Very few of its processes / functions can make use of logical (as opposed to physical) cores.

Instead of recommending an unbalanced i5 or i7 system because of benchmarks, think about the budget and what will make the most difference to the OP.

500 GBP isn't enough for a balanced i5 system.

Andy_S_T said:
Think I'm gonna go with Snapsh0ts offer here

Thinking off completing it with the following;

Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-Bit - OEM
BeQuiet Pure Power L7 530W '80 Plus' Power Supply
Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM
Samsung SH-S222AL/RSMS 22x DVD±RW SATA Lightscribe ReWriter (Beige/Black/Silver) - Retail

That all in total should give me an 1st Gen i7 system for under £500 including the OS.

Are there any better options than the ones I have chosen?

Think about an AM3+ board and C3 revision Phenom (AMD) processor. There are some bargains around.

Power Supply - stick with Corsair, Antec, Seasonic or Enermax. 350w will be fine. A bad power supply can kill your PC.

With the money you save with an AMD system, think about a graphics card. Nvidia's CUDA will give you a noticeable performance increase in Adobe. ATI now have OpenGL but it appears to be less effective than CUDA. Something like a GTX460.

Faster RAM will speed up the system. 2x4Gb would be perfect for you. With DDR3 RAM prices plummeting, you could always go for 4x4Gb in the future if you think you need it.

You can easily get IDE - SATA converters. Prob cost less than a fiver. You won't notice any difference in read/write times using a mechanical HDD.

arad85 · 20 Aug 2011

Mike1980 said:
Nonsense. Enthusiast level CPUs (i7; I'd exclude i5 from that category) do beat the AMD competition, but not by that much. The Phenom II CPus are a real bargain with the eagarly anticipated release of AMD's Bulldozer chips.

Take a look here: http://cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html

The nearest AMD (at a sensible price) to the second gen i7-2600k (which can be overclocked by ~20%) ~10000 comes in at around 6000. I think that's a fair gap (and for compute iintensive stuff, I've found my experiences of the various processors I've used on that list to be pretty much in line with those figures. If you're saying an extra 50% is "not that much" then....

Mike1980 said:
Hyper threading from the Intels will make negligible difference to Photoshop. Very few of its processes / functions can make use of logical (as opposed to physical) cores.

That's total BS. I have a hyperthreaded CPU and generally, when doing any processing that can be parallelised (i.e. most functions) all 8 CPUs (4x2 cores) are lit up in equal amounts and all hit 100% when there is some serious number crunching to do.

Mike1980 said:
With the money you save with an AMD system, think about a graphics card. Nvidia's CUDA will give you a noticeable performance increase in Adobe. ATI now have OpenGL but it appears to be less effective than CUDA. Something like a GTX460.

Misinformation at best

OpenGL runs on both Nvidia and ATI. Photoshop/Lightroom ONLY use 2D OpenGL acceleration (unless you are doing 3D manipulation). This will run equally as well on a lowly £25 graphics card from a few years ago.

Mike1980 · 20 Aug 2011

arad85 said:
Take a look here: http://cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html

The nearest AMD (at a sensible price) to the second gen i7-2600k (which can be overclocked by ~20%) ~10000 comes in at around 6000. I think that's a fair gap (and for compute iintensive stuff, I've found my experiences of the various processors I've used on that list to be pretty much in line with those figures. If you're saying an extra 50% is "not that much" then....

That's total BS. I have a hyperthreaded CPU and generally, when doing any processing that can be parallelised (i.e. most functions) all 8 CPUs (4x2 cores) are lit up in equal amounts and all hit 100% when there is some serious number crunching to do.

Misinformation at best OpenGL runs on both Nvidia and ATI. Photoshop/Lightroom ONLY use 2D OpenGL acceleration (unless you are doing 3D manipulation). This will run equally as well on a lowly £25 graphics card from a few years ago.

How about an i7 950 vs a Phenom 1090T. The Phenom's $160 and the i7 950's $260. That's before the cost of the mobo's factored in. Don't get me wrong - I have an i7-970 (overclocked to 4.3Ghz). Intel can outperform AMD CPUs, but I wouldn't go down that route on a budget machine. Also, a 2600k is almost half of the OPs budget.

Adobe themselves (I'm using my phone so I'll look for links later) have said that a small %age of their tasks will take advantage of logical cores.

arad85 · 20 Aug 2011

Mike1980 said:
Adobe themselves (I'm using my phone so I'll look for links later) have said that a small %age of their tasks will take advantage of logical cores.

The second gen cores are much better than the first - and far cheaper when comparing performance.

As far as logical cores are concerned, they just appear as another core to the OS. I haven't seen ANY evidence of only 4 "real" cores being used (and idling the "logical" cores) by CS5/Lightroom in any testing I've done. If it can be parellelised, they will be used and PS/LR certainly see both my i7-26xx based machines as having 8 cores.....

Andy_S_T · 24 Aug 2011

Thanks for the help people. I am now the proud owner of an i7 860 (running at 3.8GHz) system. It came in below £450 including windows 7.

Stunned at the performance increase, nice to just click on PS and it instantly launch!