Photoshop Builds

[JusticeToad]

Hey community, I am working on three different builds for photoshop workstations (~$1666, ~$3333, ~$6666). I am trying to stick to professional graphics cards, ECC RAM, gold/platinum power supplies (and trying to stay modular), and liquid cooling. Here are the builds I have worked out at the moment, please give advice if any:

Processor: Intel Xeon E3-1275 V2 ($357 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819117282)
Motherboard: ASRock Z77 Extreme4 ($143 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157293)
Graphics Card: PNY Quadro 2000D ($433 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814133382)
RAM: Kingston (4x4GB) ECC 1333 ($112 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820139262)
SSD: Crucial M4 128GB ($130 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148442)
Hard drive: Western Digital Red WD20EFRX 2TB ($130 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822236343)
Case: Antec Three Hundred ($66 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129042)
Power Supply: Rosewill CAPSTONE-550-M ($174 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817182262)
Burner: Lite-On ($17 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827106289)
Cooling: Corsair Hydro H50 ($50 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835181010)
Operating System: Windows 8 Professional ($140 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832416552)

Total: $1661

For this guy I chose the E3 for the Ivy architecture, the quadro 2000 for the best professional card within range, the RAM for the ECC and 4gb size, and the crucial m4 because I have a fetish for them... I think I am pretty happy with this design, but if you have any change suggestions I certainly will listen!

Processor: Intel Xeon E5-2670 Sandy Bridge-EP 2.6GHz (3.3GHz Turbo Boost) ($1540 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819117263)
Motherboard: ASRock Z77 OC Formula ($250 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157328)
Graphics Card: PNY Quadro 2000D ($433 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814133382)
RAM: Kingston (4x8GB) ECC 1600 ($240 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820239235)
SSD: Crucial M4 256GB ($200 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148443)
Hard drive: 2x Western Digital Red WD20EFRX 2TB ($260 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822236343)
Case: Antec P280 ($110 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129179&Tpk=p280)
Power Supply: Kingwin AP-550 ($126 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817121094)
Burner: Lite-On ($17 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827106289)
Cooling: Zalman LQ-320 ($60 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835118136&Tpk=lq320)
Operating System: Windows 8 Professional ($140 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832416552)

Total: $3335

For this one I opted to super upgrade the processor instead of upgrading the graphics card. Since photoshop does not need the graphics as much as the processing power, I thought this would be acceptable. Although I feel dirty doubling the budget and not upgrading the graphics and would appreciate any suggestions on the matter. I doubled the size of the RAM and increased the speed to 1600 and double the SSD/HDD space as well.

Processor: 2x Intel Xeon E5-2687W Sandy Bridge-EP 3.1GHz (3.8GHz Turbo Boost) (3.3GHz Turbo Boost) ($3800 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819117272)
Motherboard: ASUS Z9PE-D8 WS ($580 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157328)
Graphics Card: PNY Quadro 4000 ($700 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814133324)
RAM: Kingston (8x8GB) ECC ($480 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820239235)
SSD: Crucial M4 256GB ($200 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148443)
Hard drive: 2x Western Digital Red WD20EFRX 2TB ($260 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822236343)
Case: Fractal Design Define R4 ($135 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131817)
Power Supply: Corsair AX760 ($174 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139042)
Burner: Lite-On ($17 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827106289)
Cooling: Zalman LQ-320 ($60 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835118136&Tpk=lq320)
Operating System: Windows 8 Professional ($140 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832416552)

Total: $6496

Finally, the monster. For this guy I chose to double up the processors with the 2687's. I changed into the quadro 4000 this time, making me feel less dirty from before. I also filled out the RAM slots on the motherboard.

Additional questions: What differences (if any) would there be between a computer specifically built for photo editing and video editing?

Thank you!

 

[mesab66]

Hi, bit of a beast that last build
With these kind of budgets, have you also posted into a few dedicated pro gfx forums e.g. Adobe? sry can't help much more beyond the usual advice - which you clearly understand (maybe 2nd SSD / RAMDrive for scratch etc?). Maybe Quadro/FirePro/etc folk here could help?

 

[smorizio]

be care full on mixing server chips onto retail desktop boards. some mb dont support server chips and some features of the retail mb wont work with a server chip. on the z77 chipsets. also in your builds your over priced on the power supplys. you can get a good sesonic or cosair 600-750w unit for less money. if your going to use ecc ram check that most new retail boards supprt it. most retial mb look for non ecc ram.

 

[k1114]

You're better off going with an i7 on a single cpu setup and ecc isn't going to make a difference for photoshop. Even though the psus have higher efficiency, the price increase will take 10+ years to pay off which will probably never happen. On the second build, you have a lga2011 cpu and a lga1155 mobo. On the third build, that case will not fit that mobo. Air coolers would be better price/cooling/noise. PS does not take much graphics power unless you are doing 3D. I don't know what you are doing in photoshop but I doubt it would even need more cpu power than a single i7 quad core.

BTW don't put parentheses after links, all of your links are broken.

 

[JusticeToad]

Hi mesab66, I somehow did manage to forget to split the SSD's into 2 for all of the machines, 1 for OS/apps and 1 for scratch. Good notice on that one.

smorizio. Wow, I can't believe I listed desktop motherboards here. I could have swore when I was breaking things down I clicked the 'server motherboards' option. Apparently not...

 

[JusticeToad]

You're better off going with an i7 on a single cpu setup and ecc isn't going to make a difference for photoshop. Even though the psus have higher efficiency, the price increase will take 10+ years to pay off which will probably never happen. On the second build, you have a lga2011 cpu and a lga1155 mobo. On the third build, that case will not fit that mobo. Air coolers would be better price/cooling/noise. PS does not take much graphics power unless you are doing 3D. I don't know what you are doing in photoshop but I doubt it would even need more cpu power than a single i7 quad core.

BTW don't put parentheses after links, all of your links are broken.

Why an i7 instead of xeon? In what workstation circumstances is it better to go xeon? Also, isn't it important for work computers to contain ECC? The psus is more of a sell point for efficiency than an actual logical thing. Yeah, my motherboards are definitely screwed up, I think I flip flopped my photostation and gaming computer build motherboards.

Sorry about the broken links, will not do next time.

 

[smorizio]

because you put server chip and a retial desktop board..that why i posted about not using ecc ram. there are a few retail power supply vendors that make good power supply like sesonic. if you dont want to ever have a failure look into the gold and platinum lines of of power supply's.

 

[k1114]

I7 and xeon will get the same performance. There are some xeon that are better performance for the price but the ones you chose are not. Take for example the e3-1230 v2, $240 3.3ghz 4c/8t, but the i7 3770 is $300 for only a .1ghz. Even the 1240 v2 is better price/performance, but after that the xeons are worse. If you take into account overclocking then there is even more reason to not get xeon unless it's for multiple cpus.

For photoshop ecc is not needed. You will never run into critical errors that could mess up your work. For video editing you would because you don't want the long renders to have any possibility of crashing.

Some desktop mobos will accept xeons and ecc may also work as well. Those boards even have them on the support list.

You wouldn't be typing that all out would you? If you see someone on this forum post something like that, they are mostly likely using a script. I believe this is the one I use. https://userscripts.org/scripts/show/98750 But most of the time I can just use http://pcpartpicker.com/