New PC - Unsure of what spec required

sbeecroft · 17 Mar 2014

Hi,

I am in the market for a new desktop PC. It has been a few years since a bought my last one. Specifications and configurations have come a long a lot.

My main needs are heavy Photoshop use, I ofter have a dozen or so images all with many layers and various filters and effects on.

i am also getting into video editing using Premiere Pro - nothing to massive here but using footage from 7D for say max 10 minute videos. Using basic effects and transitions - Would maybe create more adventurous projects as my skill level improves in this area.

My main question is not necessarily about where to get a PC from or on what price things are. Its more to try and get some guidance on what my spec of machine requires. My current processor is a core 2 duo and I have 4GB of RAM because I have 32bit. I Know will go 64bit to increase the RAM well past this, but is 8Gb sufficient or do I really need 16. Processor is similar. I know an i7 is better but how quick actually is an i5. Is there anything to really think about here.

At least with RAM and Processor I do understand the specs and how they improve with their ranges and numbers.

Graphics cards seem to be an absolute minefield to what is best. I have tried to do research but the more research the more conflicting reports are.
I found this link http://www.adobe.com/uk/products/premiere/tech-specs.html which says what is supported by Premiere but doesn't say what is best between GTX or Quadro, the Quadros seem a lot more expensive but the GTX seem to have better specs in terms of RAM and some of the numbers seem higher, this confuses me more!

So basically any help or pointers in the level of machine I need to buy would be great. Please let me know if I have missed any information that people require to help.

Thanks in advance.

Wissel · 18 Mar 2014

It really depends on budget tbh.

The Haswell i5 processors will be fine and unless you have a very high spec PC I doubt you would see much difference from an i7 (4 core). Spending a little extra on a slightly better motherboard and CPU cooler should give you better performance, especially with a slight overclock.

RAM definitely helps and more is usually better. It doesn't need to be the fastest RAM on the planet, 1600mhz is fine and quite cheap now. Faster RAM tends to have higher latency so isn't much different in real world.

For graphics the GTX cards are the best bang for buck. If it's mainly for Photoshop then the GTX 650ti is nice and cheap now and works very well. If you use more than one monitor the 2gb card would be a good buy.

You haven't mentioned hard drives? CC likes drives. I would suggest a fast 2tb main drive and maybe a 240gb SSD boot drive and a 60gb scratch drive. This is a nice combo for Photoshop. More is better when it comes to CC and drives.

A lot of it really does come down to budget. My main PC cost over £3k and was built to run Premiere Pro as fast as possible. I also do a bit of editing on my media PC which is a lower spec but only cost about £1200. It's still fine for everything - just a little slower on renders. At the other end of the scale I'm in the process of designing a system for about £500 for my Father-in-law to run Photoshop and Lightoom.

If you have a budget I'm happy to help with spec if you want? I'm new here but well known on PC forums.

Good luck, David

sbeecroft · 18 Mar 2014

Thanks very much for your reply. I would say budget is about £1000-£1300.

I would be using two monitors. I didn't know this made a difference to graphics card but I suppose it's obvious now you mention it.

I did plan to have an SSD for OS and a 2t for normal storage. What extra benefit does have the third drive make? Not heard of doing that.

I take it you buy all the components your self or do you buy from a custom build website and if so which one do you use or would reccomend?

Thanks again.

wave01 · 18 Mar 2014

think about a iMac

neil_g · 18 Mar 2014

wave01 said:
think about a iMac

i love a well formed post..

sbeecroft · 18 Mar 2014

I currently use an iMac at work and it is really decent for most things. Why I want to have a PC at home is for things like 2 screens the same (I already own them) I would like a blu ray writer. I would like more storage in the machine and I think I can get a much more powerful machine for my money. I don't need to get involved in a PC v mac argument because I currently use both so I know what each has to offer mad made my mind up I need a new PC at home.

Wissel · 18 Mar 2014

With regard to having a second SSD as a scratch drive it would be worth reading this:
http://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/kb...photoshop-cs4-cs5.html#main_Solid_state_disks

The scratch drive doesn't need to be huge (60gb would do it) so it's not an expensive upgrade.

For your budget you can get a great machine with an i7 4770 processor and great components. If you need to get one built for you I think overclockers do this?

Happy to spec a PC up if you want, am I allowed to post links to other sites on this forum?

sbeecroft · 18 Mar 2014

If you were able to spec something up within that price range that would be great. I think you are allowed to post links, I certainly have in the past.

hollis_f · 18 Mar 2014

sbeecroft said:
I did plan to have an SSD for OS and a 2t for normal storage. What extra benefit does have the third drive make? Not heard of doing that.

If your SSD is large enough then there's no real advantage to having a third drive.

sbeecroft · 18 Mar 2014

That adobe document in performance is interesting reading. Although just makes you think about more and more options and possible configurations. Such a headache!

topcat07 · 18 Mar 2014

Hi

Wissel said:
It really depends on budget tbh.

The Haswell i5 processors will be fine and unless you have a very high spec PC I doubt you would see much difference from an i7 (4 core). Spending a little extra on a slightly better motherboard and CPU cooler should give you better performance, especially with a slight overclock.

RAM definitely helps and more is usually better. It doesn't need to be the fastest RAM on the planet, 1600mhz is fine and quite cheap now. Faster RAM tends to have higher latency so isn't much different in real world.

For graphics the GTX cards are the best bang for buck. If it's mainly for Photoshop then the GTX 650ti is nice and cheap now and works very well. If you use more than one monitor the 2gb card would be a good buy.

You haven't mentioned hard drives? CC likes drives. I would suggest a fast 2tb main drive and maybe a 240gb SSD boot drive and a 60gb scratch drive. This is a nice combo for Photoshop. More is better when it comes to CC and drives.

A lot of it really does come down to budget. My main PC cost over £3k and was built to run Premiere Pro as fast as possible. I also do a bit of editing on my media PC which is a lower spec but only cost about £1200. It's still fine for everything - just a little slower on renders. At the other end of the scale I'm in the process of designing a system for about £500 for my Father-in-law to run Photoshop and Lightoom.

If you have a budget I'm happy to help with spec if you want? I'm new here but well known on PC forums.

Good luck, David

Hi David,

I am in the market for a £500 PC and just wondering what you are specing up for your dad? I will also need a similar use as him + gaming at high quality .

I have been looking at this one on chilblast :

http://www.chillblast.com/Chillblast-Fusion-Canon-PC.html

what do you think good value for money or not? wondering if an i5 processor would be a big performance boost over this ?

Look to get every penny of value out this build as it needs to last at least 5-6 years min

Really sorry for hijacking your thread Stephen

Hope you dont mine

Wissel · 19 Mar 2014

sbeecroft said:
If you were able to spec something up within that price range that would be great. I think you are allowed to post links, I certainly have in the past.

The system below would be great for your needs imo.
It gives you a very high spec i7 system with very good components and has room for upgrading in the future if you need to. The motherboard is part of Asus's Pro range so it's bulletproof, the graphics card is more than Adobe needs and the Ram is sufficient. If in the future you find your working with huge files you have space to slot in another 16gb of Ram.

The hard drives I've listed are great and I use all of them myself. The main Caviar Black is nice and fast and the boot SSD (Samsung) is great. The Kingston would be the scratch drive. A good reason to use a separate SSD for scratch is that SSD's tend to slow down when they are more than half full so having an operating sytem and programs on the same drive isn't the best solution. Also, SSD's have a finite amount of times they can be written to and a scratch disc will reach the end of it's life quicker than the boot drive with this config. This means that when it does eventually fail (will be years) you won't lose any programs etc and it will just need swapping for a new drive.

For cooling the Noctua will be quiet and reliable for ever (I have a 6 year old version still in one of my PC's) and the power supply is great for the money.

For the case I just picked something cheap with good airflow but any descent case will be fine.

Hope this helps,
David

Your basket
Product Name Qty Price Line Total

Intel Core i7-4770K 3.50GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £239.99
(£199.99) £239.99
(£199.99)

Gainward GeForce GTX 760 Phantom 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £185.99
(£154.99) £185.99
(£154.99)

Samsung 256GB SSD 840 PRO SATA 6Gb/s Basic - (MZ-7PD256BW) £169.99
(£141.66) £169.99
(£141.66)

Western Digital Caviar Black 3TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (WD3003FZEX) HDD £149.99
(£124.99) £149.99
(£124.99)

Asus Z87-PRO Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £147.95
(£123.29) £147.95
(£123.29)

Kingston HyperX Beast 16GB (2x8GB) PC3-19200C11 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX24C11T3K2/16X) £139.99
(£116.66) £139.99
(£116.66)

Corsair RM Series RM 550 '80+ Gold' 550W Power Supply (CP-9020053-UK) £71.99
(£59.99) £71.99
(£59.99)Kingston HyperX 3K SSD 120GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Drive (SH103S3/120G) £65.99
(£54.99) £65.99
(£54.99)

Noctua NH-U12P SE2 Dual Fan Quiet CPU Cooler £52.99
(£44.16) £52.99
(£44.16)
Corsair Carbide 200R Compact ATX Case - Black (CC-9011023-WW) £47.99
(£39.99) £47.99
(£39.99)
Sub Total : £1,060.71
Shipping cost based on delivery to paypal address, PL25 4DH with:
FREE SHIPPING (DPD Next Day)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping :
VAT is being charged at 20.00% VAT : £212.14

(I had to delete a few of the pictures as system only allows 8 in one post)

Wissel · 19 Mar 2014

topcat07 said:
Hi
Hi David,
I am in the market for a £500 PC and just wondering what you are specing up for your dad? I will also need a similar use as him + gaming at high quality .
I have been looking at this one on chilblast :
http://www.chillblast.com/Chillblast-Fusion-Canon-PC.html
what do you think good value for money or not? wondering if an i5 processor would be a big performance boost over this ?
Look to get every penny of value out this build as it needs to last at least 5-6 years min
Really sorry for hijacking your thread Stephen

Hope you dont mine

Not a problem

I think you could do much better for the same money than the system you've linked to and here's why.
The processor in that machine is slow (I know, I have one almost the same in my PC in my Camper Van - HERE if your interested) and for your budget you could probably get an i5 system. It also only has a 1tb drive (which will fill quickly with photo's I suspect) and no SSD so will be slow.

If you can stretch your budget a little then this would be a good alternative for gaming as well:

Your basket
Product Name Qty Price Line Total

Intel Core i5-4440 3.10GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £139.99
(£116.66) £139.99
(£116.66)

MSI GeForce GTX 750Ti OC 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (N750Ti-2GD5/OC) £109.99
(£91.66) £109.99
(£91.66)

Kingston HyperX 3K SSD 120GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Drive (SH103S3/120G) £85.99
(£71.66) £85.99
(£71.66)

Gigabyte H87-HD3 Intel H87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £71.99
(£59.99) £71.99
(£59.99)

Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3X2K2/8GX) £67.99
(£56.66) £67.99
(£56.66)

Toshiba 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6GB/s 64MB Cache - OEM (DT01ACA200) HDD £56.99
(£47.49) £56.99
(£47.49)
EVGA 500W 80 Plus Bronze Power Supply (100-B1-0500-KR) £39.95
(£33.29) £39.95
(£33.29)

BitFenix Comrade Midi-Tower - Black £29.99
(£24.99) £29.99
(£24.99)

Raijintek Themis Direct Contact CPU Cooler £19.99
(£16.66) £19.99
(£16.66)
Sub Total : £519.06
Shipping cost based on delivery to paypal address, PL25 4DH with:
FREE SHIPPING (DPD Next Day)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping :
VAT is being charged at 20.00% VAT : £103.81
Total : £622.87

I haven't included an operating system just in-case you already have one.

As well as the faster, quad core, processor I've added the GTX 750ti graphics card as this will run all the modern games with ease at 1080p. Also a 2tb drive and separate SSD boot drive.

If Photoshop is just a hobby and you mainly game then not having a scratch drive is fine, if you mainly use Photoshop then I would use the SSD as a scratch and put your operating system and programs on the main 2tb drive (this will make your whole system slower to start, shut-down and open programs but will make Photoshop run faster) The other alternative to get the best of both worlds would be to add a 60gb SSD as a scratch (£40ish).

The above system uses all good components and will be fast, reliable and upgradeable for years to come.

If you want to cut the costs a little then you could swap the motherboard for something like a MSI H81M-P33 which is only £35 but doesn't allow much in the way of upgrading in the future. You could also swap the graphics card for something like a HD7770 which is about £70. This would bring the total to about £540ish so about the same as the one you linked to.

If you want to spend less again you could have a good system built around the AMD 6300 processor for under £500.

Hope this helps and good luck,
David

sbeecroft · 19 Mar 2014

Thanks very much David, really appreciate you going to the time of getting this spec together for me. Its made things a lot clearer of what i need and can actually put together.

Matt-P · 26 Mar 2014

Thanks for the tips on here, going to help me a lot when it comes to build my next one.