Help building $20000 no monitor Adobe CS6 rig

jdb264c

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Oct 16, 2012
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Hi, I would love the communities thoughts about this build:
I'm in the process of building a new computer for my girlfriends job, with the following principles:

1. She will use it for Adobe Photoshop CS6, InDesign CS6 and Illustrator CS6.
2. She will NOT use it for video rendering.
3. She will NOT use for gaming.
4. Her only knowledge about hardware is that "Macbooks look good" so I'm thinking that it has to be really silent and look rather distinguished (i.e. no flashing lights etc).
5. The budget is rather flexible would the absolute maximum would be $2000.

She's already got an Samsung 27" SyncMaster SB970D as a monitor so there's no need for a new one.

I find the absolute hardest part being deciding between AMD/Intel on the CPU part, and AMD/nVidia on the graphics part. It seems, correct me if I'm wrong, that AMD uses OpenGL/CL in a way that for the moment would be an advantage over nVidia but I'm even less certain when it comes to the CPU. Advice appreciated!

So here's my thought and suggestions:

Case:
Fractal Design Define R4 :: $135

PSU:
Seasonic x850 850W :: $290

Fans:
Something from Fractal Design or Scythe. As a CPU fan maybe the Noctua NH-U9DX for $96

System HD:
Samsung 830 Series MZ-7PC128 128GB :: $128

Scratchdisk for Adobe programs:
Samsung 830 Series MZ-7PC064 64GB :: $92 (Or maybe switch the system and the scratch disk)

General HD:
Western Digital Caviar Black WD2002FAEX 64MB 2TB :: $223

CPU:
AMD FX-Series FX-8150 3,6GHz Socket AM3+ :: $230

Motherboard:
Asus Crosshair V Formula-Z :: $323

Graphics card:
Some Radeon 7970, not quite sure yet, possibly ASUS. :: Approx $540

RAM:
G.Skill TridentX DDR3 PC19200/2400MHz CL10 2x8GB


So, what should I change? Gladly anticipating the verdict from the forum!

Regards
Johan
 


i was quite shocked when i saw $20k?? how on earth ppl would spend this much on a pc? 😱 i would rather pay for mortgage or simply just buy a car with that money..
 
i think you are minimaxing somethings, but blowing out your budget on others.

1) I believe for Adobe, a $150 gaming card (like a 7770) is going to do the same hardware acceleration as the $500 gaming card. This is 25% of your budget and not pulling it's weight I think.

If you really are ONLY Adobe and want to spend $500 for hardware acceleration I think you need to look at the specialized workstation graphics cards. (i am not an expert, but other adobe pros please step in)

2) You are also better off taking some of that money and bringing ram to 32gb for only ~$80 more, or even higher. I suppose you can do this afterwards

3) Given your budget, your 2ndary SSD, I would get 128gb for just the $30 more. No point in minimizing here, you will be stuck later if you are undersized. Then spending $200 for a HDD is also wasted money. Bulk storage is bulk storage, get a 2tb for $100.

4) I would get the intel i7 platform over the amd

5) For fan, I think the hyper evo212 will be fine. You're not pushing for most fps...

6) Also note the r4 reqarded as being a nice pick for quiet (silentpcreview) is a bigger case. If your girlfriend is an artist, perhaps she'd prefer something more svelte. If you can find an r3, maybe that's cool.

7) potentially you can reduce the power supply wattage, as these higher wattages really are only needed to power gamers dual/tri video cards to save some money ,but seasonic is good.

8) accessories. sort of an afterthought, but don't forget.
Throw in a bluray/dvd writer (get the retail with software to avoid software hassle)
if your case doesn't already have cardreader slots, throw in a card reader.
if you need wifi or new speakers throw those in.
Although these are relatively cheap extras, they count for a lot of utility for the actual user.
 
Just a few thoughts. Intel has the best processors. You want a fast processor with multiple cores. I'd go with an Intel 3930

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116492

With this you will need a 2011 motherboard. Be sure to include plenty of ram and use all four channels. Since it is so cheap, go for 32G ram.

You do not need a big, expensive graphics board since she won't be gaming. It would be a waste of money, power, and noise. Go for something in Gigabyte Nividia 660. Low power and noise:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125443
 

Ahhh! so much wasted money!
This is huge overkill for a photoshop/illustrator computer and money is spent in the wrong places.


Opt for a larger SSD drive. 256 GB +. Maybe a 128GB paired with a 256GB.
You'll want the OS and her apps on a SSD, and preferably the files she's actively working on.

Graphics card:
You probably don't even need a dedicated graphics card but if you really want to go hog wild opt for the AMD 7850 card. My recommendation is to save your money and use the HD4000 on the following CPU: i7-3770K or i5-3570k. I really doubt she's going to max out the i7-3770k so if she's not a power user the i7-3570k should work great. You can always add a graphics card later, but I don't really see why she would need one given the usage case.

Power supply...you don't need the 850W, again you can save your money here, get a 650W or so.

Motherboard...Asrock is a good brand, you don't need to spend more than 200 bucks on one. Spending 300+ bucks for a motherboard on a non enthusiast system is madness.


 


Thank you for your advice, much appreciated!

1. Yes, maybe you're right, it might be overkill with the 7970. And the price difference is massive...
2-3. Good points!
4. What should I look for? It seems that the amount of cores would be the most relevant thing?
5. Will check this out, thank you!
 


Really nice system, thank you very much!

One question though. I first considered going for a single 256 SSD instead and partitioning it but some comment in some fora somewhere said that it really needs to be two physically different HDs when optimizing for Adobe. Is this true?

Regarding CUDA, following the discussions regarding the upgrade from CS5.5 to CS6 it seems that Adobe is leaving CUDA for Open, hence the choice of graphic card.

Thanks again!
 
If no rendering is being done directly on the machine (though at even a $2000 price point why wouldn't you??) then all that you really need is an i5 level CPU (though AMD would be better for this workload, I am not familiar with their equivilant of an i5), a decent motherboard ($350 is way overkill), lots of system ram (16-32GB) the speed of which does not matter so 1333 would be fine, and then fast SSDs.

-So knock down the CPU to a quad core
-CPU cooler is beyond overkill, and simply for looks. As the computer will probably sit under a desk and never be looked at I would suggest something more practical.
-knock down the mobo several notches ($150-225 level)
+get 32GB (4x8GB) of DDR3 1600 memory (timings do not matter)
+get a single large (512GB) SSD which is capable of OS/programs/scratch/media, and pair it with a large 2TB HDD for backups and cold storage (should spin down in sleep mode most of the time). It makes file management much simpler to do all work on a sing drive, especially for the 'technically ignorant'
+Consider getting a decent Firepro or Quadro card. As you are not rendering it does not need to be fancy, just more color accurate than standard video, and may give more connection options (video editng is so much easier when you have 2-3 monitors)


Personally I like nice small work-horse machines, and if you go with the Intel side of things you can put together a very nice mATX rig that is powerful enough to do HD editing, while cool enough to fit in a very small case that can easily hide behind a computer monitor, or be bolted on the under side of a desk. Sadly the AMD stuff runs a bit too warm to really consider doing this in such a small enclosure at this point (though the next gen stuff coming out ought to be better).
 



Thanks for answering!

So, once again a suggetion for Intel, I should reconsider :)
32Gb RAM it is, you've all convinced me.

And regarding the garphics card, see above.

Thanks again!
 



Thank you very much, these are all great advice! I'm all convinced :)
 


id rather stick to a single large SSD to keep things simple

they are both about the same with CUDA having the edge since nvidia actively works and makes things better with CUDA (AMD isnt the best in terms of drivers) and that CUDA had more time to figure things out. id just stick with CUDA but if you want to you could move over to OpenGL
 
32gb of ram is pretty overkill. if you do want 32gb, you could build a ramdisk for your extremely quick loading times for Adobe. just remember that everything is lost on the ramdisk once you power off so use it as a scratch disk.

just buy 2 sets of the ram i suggested. its sooo cheap
 


Very interesting read, I had missed that one. Thank you!
 


Very good points, thank you very much! I hadn't even considered doing an mATX before :)
I did not know that the timing of the RAM didn't matter, interesting!
 


Great points, I had completely missed the card reader etc! Thanks!
 


Thank you! I realize againg and again that the initial computer was a weird mix of unnecessary gamers demands and other overkills, will do a revised list soon :)