Few questions about building a PC

[sonny_c]

It's been many moons since I built a PC (at least 3 years). Coincidently my HP machine of three years may have breathed its last breath. I have some questions I'm hoping my fellow techies can answer for me. This PC will mainly be used for heavy photo editing (PSCS3, Bridge CS3, and a little Lightroom), listening to music, a little movie viewing (but not much), and your regular MS Office 2007 usage.

Power Supplies - What is the minimum wattage I should consider for the following configuration:


Intel Core 2 Duo E6750
Not sure on a mobo yet
1 Maxtor 80GB SATA 3.0 (OS and proggies ONLY)
1 maxtor 80GB SATA 3.0 ( Photoshop Scratch Disk)
1 Maxtor 500GB (docs, music, vids, and etc...)
Nvidia 7600 GS-256MB DDR2 Dual DVI PCI-E
Geforce FX5200-128MB DDR PCI Dual VGA
Sound Blaster Audigy Sound Card
4GB DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 667 (PC2 5400) Dual Channel
DVD Burner
PS/2 Keyboard, USB 2.0 Mouse, 4GB Cruzer (for ReadyBoost)


Sata DVD Burner - I have a HP DVD Writer dvd530i (http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/fastFaqLiteDocument?lc=en&cc=gb&dlc=en&docname=c00213485#). It does what I need, but would I benefit from getting a Samsung SH-S203B (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827151153)?

Vista 64bit - I'm running Vista Ultimate 32bit and love it!!! And no I am not going back to Win XP Pro.:beat: Again I ask, how much of a performance boost would I gain by using Vista 64bit and stocking up on the memory? 6GB or 8GB?

Dual vs Quad - Would I even be able to use all the processing power of a Quad Core? Let's say I'm batching over 500 RAW files in Bridge and converting them into jpgs. Is the Quad Core 'overkill' for my situation?



In a nutshell, I'm looking for the best preforming PC for my dollar. Definitely not the most expensive. I look forward to reading your responses and advice,
-Sonny

[adamo99]

You can never have too much power, computing power, or memory. Buy the most you can afford, in each of those categories.

I'd recommend a quad-core CPU, running 64-bit Vista, and as much memory as you can throw at it. 6-8Gb is perfect.

[scot079]

That thing will fly thru RAW files. I'd get a 600 watt PS for the parts you mention up top.

Ps-Why 2 video cards?

[Eagle]

Can you run two video cards that are different?

[Moppie]

Can you run two video cards that are different?

You can run as many as you have space for.
Quite why you would want 4 video outs for I have no idea.



sonny_c, have a look at this thread: http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=461635

It appears that HDD and Ram can sometimes be more of a limit than CPU performance.

This thread: http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=170063
gives some even better examples.

However, it does appear that having as much RAM and CPU cycles as you can throw at it, does help photoshop.
Eventualy however you run into other barriers in the system, usualy before you run out of ram and CPU cycles.
These tend to be memory controllers and HDD speeds.

That said, given the cost of the E6600 quad core compared to the dual cores, I can't see why you wouldn't choose it.
At the very least it will speed up multi tasking.


With regard to power supplies, it appears that modern PC are useing less, and less power.
400W should be more than enough for your planned system, 500W would be on the conservative side, and 600W would be twice would it could use.

[sonny_c]

Can you run two video cards that are different?

Thank you guys for your replies. i appreciate the help.

I'm using the 7600GS on two color calibrated Dell's UltraSharp 2005FPW and the FX5200 on a HP 1825 and HP 1755. The two 20" monitor is where I do all my photo editing. It allows me a ton of monitor real estate and to layout my palettes in photoshop so that they are not squished up in one monitor. The other monitors I use for surfing, open folders, email, music...small stuff like that. When I'm filling customer orders it helps a lot to be able to look at 5 different things at once without having to flip threw minimized windows.

A multi display adapter is easy if you know how to setup them up properly and install each driver correctly, you will not experience any problems.

I don't have a pic of my current set up but this one was taken back on 1.19.06.
http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b318/cantu2005/IMG_3594Large.jpg

[jonnythan]

Get the quad.

And a P35 motherboard. Doesn't really matter which.. just find one that has the ports you want and a price you like. Gigabyte and Asus both make some nice lower-end P35 mobos that will do you good.

Vista 64 will give you no performance boost.

Those 80GB drives are going to be *slower* than larger drives, like 160 or 250GB drives. I don't know why you would want to put the OS and scratch disks on your slowest drives.

You also won't benefit from more than 4GB of RAM.

The PSU wattage isn't critical, but you need a quality stable PSU. Corsair is currently in vogue for having quality PSUs with good price tags. Many Antecs, Thermaltake, and Sparkel PSUs will fit the bill as well.

[Moppie]

Vista 64 will give you no performance boost.


You also won't benefit from more than 4GB of RAM.


These two kind of go hand n hand.

If your running a 32bit OS, then anything more than 4gb is wasted.

Of your running a 64bit OS, then 4gb might not be enough.
8 is recomended, remember 64bit applications actually use more ram than 32bit ones, even 32bit ones run under emulation.

As for the HDD's, SATA2 is twice as fast as SATA, I would hape SATA 3.0 is faster than SATA 2.

[Moppie]

Thank you guys for your replies. i appreciate the help.

I'm using the 7600GS on two color calibrated Dell's UltraSharp 2005FPW and the FX5200 on a HP 1825 and HP 1755. The two 20" monitor is where I do all my photo editing.

4 Monitors? !!! :eek:

Thats a huge amount of screen real estate, have you considered property development?

[jonnythan]

These two kind of go hand n hand.

If your running a 32bit OS, then anything more than 4gb is wasted.

Of your running a 64bit OS, then 4gb might not be enough.
8 is recomended, remember 64bit applications actually use more ram than 32bit ones, even 32bit ones run under emulation.

As for the HDD's, SATA2 is twice as fast as SATA, I would hape SATA 3.0 is faster than SATA 2.

If you're running a 32-bit OS, anything more than 3-3.5 GB literally doesn't exist.

If you're running a 64-bit OS, your system can address as much RAM as you can fit in. But I don't forsee this user doing anything that will require *more than 4GB* of RAM anytime soon, yanno?

SATA 3.0 is a faster bus than SATA 1.5, but those 80GB drives aren't going to saturate 1.5Gbps SATA. It's just a bus. "SATA 3.0" is SATA2. SATA2 is 3.0 Gbps. SATA is 1.5 Gbps. So you often see them as "SATA 3.0" or "SATA 1.5" or "SATA2" etc.

"SATA 2" is actually an incorrect, though common, method of distinguishing SATA 3.0 from SATA 1.5.

[sonny_c]

After doing some reading on this forum and others here's what I got so far:


To start I like the SeaSonic M12 SS-500HM (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151029) or the CORSAIR CMPSU-520HX (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139001&Tpk=corsair%2b520) PSU. Both of these (by user recommendations) are solid and reliable PSU. Plus they are both modular!

For the processor, I am fond of the Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 or the Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 as Moppie suggested. The Q6600 is only 6 bucks more.

I hear the Abit IP35 is a great inexpensive but stable mobo! Also the ASUS P5K-E and GIGABYTE GA-P35C are just as good if not better.


Now one thing I totally over looked is the HSF. Do I use the stock one or get and after market?


Driver stability is my major concern with moving to Vista 64 bit. I cannot personally confirm this but that's what I hear. Then again I hear the same thing about Vista 32 bit. Right now I'm using Vista Ultimate and have not encountered any problems. Maybe it's best I stick with what's working and skip any future headaches by loading Vista 64 bit. I've used Win XP Pro for 7 and it served me well. Actually 8 years if you count the year we beta tested it at HP. If the older folks remember, the same issue were happening when XP was first released. Give it some time and Vista will be fine. That and MS will begin phasing out support for XP..

[Moppie]

If you're running a 32-bit OS, anything more than 3-3.5 GB literally doesn't exist.

If you're running a 64-bit OS, your system can address as much RAM as you can fit in. But I don't forsee this user doing anything that will require *more than 4GB* of RAM anytime soon, yanno?

http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=441063
It might not see all of it, but it is useing it.
Besides, 4 x 1gb is cheaper and easier than 3 x 1gb and 1 x 512mb.

As for how much?
sonny_c has made it pretty clear he does a lot of batch processing, and a lot of multitasking.
If he runs a 64bit OS with 8gb of ram he can give photoshop the full 3gb it can use, put another 3gb into a ramdrive for it to use as a scratch disk, and still have 2gb left over for the OS and any other programs he might be running.
As for the limit, be aware that some versions of 64bit windows are limited by how much ram they can see: http://www6.tomshardware.com/2008/02...op/page12.html (http://www6.tomshardware.com/2008/02/15/vista_workshop/page12.html)


"SATA 2" is actually an incorrect, though common, method of distinguishing SATA 3.0 from SATA 1.5.

I see, I will let know western digital know they labeled my SATA "3.0" drive wrong.
Clearly some manufacturers refer to it as SATA2 and some as SATA 3.0 which might get mislabled as SATA 3 by retailers and wholesalers.

As for what speed is needed?
Again, its one of those the more you throw at it, the more PS will use.

[Moppie]

Driver stability is my major concern with moving to Vista 64 bit.

You can dual boot Vista.
It doesn't like it at first, but with a bit of tweaking, the odd bit of a chocolate and some flowers, it does submit.

This would get around any potential driver issues.

[jonnythan]

http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=441063
It might not see all of it, but it is useing it.
Besides, 4 x 1gb is cheaper and easier than 3 x 1gb and 1 x 512mb.

As for how much?
sonny_c has made it pretty clear he does a lot of batch processing, and a lot of multitasking.
If he runs a 64bit OS with 8gb of ram he can give photoshop the full 3gb it can use, put another 3gb into a ramdrive for it to use as a scratch disk, and still have 2gb left over for the OS and any other programs he might be running.
As for the limit, be aware that some versions of 64bit windows are limited by how much ram they can see: http://www6.tomshardware.com/2008/02...op/page12.html (http://www6.tomshardware.com/2008/02/15/vista_workshop/page12.html)



I see, I will let know western digital know they labeled my SATA "3.0" drive wrong.
Clearly some manufacturers refer to it as SATA2 and some as SATA 3.0 which might get mislabled as SATA 3 by retailers and wholesalers.

As for what speed is needed?
Again, its one of those the more you throw at it, the more PS will use.

Your hard drive does not say "SATA2." Western Digital labels their hard drives as "Serial ATA" and sometimes puts the transfer speed as well. Here's a sample WD hard drive label:
http://www.3dvelocity.com/reviews/wd2500jd/pics/label.jpg

This is what my WD drives look like as well. None of them say "SATA2" on them. Their web site and marketing do not use the term "SATA2" either.

More info about "SATA2":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_ATA#SATA_II_Misnomer


BTW, a 32-bit OS does not "use" any RAM above 3-3.5 GB (give or take). If you physically have 4GB of RAM, a 32-bit OS can use whatever is left after it's done taking away memory addresses for video RAM, virtual memory, memory mapped I/O, etc.

I still don't see the OP using more than 4GB of RAM anytime soon, but it can't hurt. If funds must be prioritized, there are better ways to spend money than an extra 2-4GB of RAM.

[jonnythan]

After doing some reading on this forum and others here's what I got so far:


To start I like the SeaSonic M12 SS-500HM (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151029) or the CORSAIR CMPSU-520HX (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139001&Tpk=corsair%2b520) PSU. Both of these (by user recommendations) are solid and reliable PSU. Plus they are both modular!

For the processor, I am fond of the Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 or the Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 as Moppie suggested. The Q6600 is only 6 bucks more.

I hear the Abit IP35 is a great inexpensive but stable mobo! Also the ASUS P5K-E and GIGABYTE GA-P35C are just as good if not better.


Now one thing I totally over looked is the HSF. Do I use the stock one or get and after market?


Driver stability is my major concern with moving to Vista 64 bit. Right now I'm using Vista Ultimate and have not encountered any problems. Maybe it's best I stick with what's working and skip any future headaches by loading Vista 64 bit. I've used Win XP Pro for 7 and it served me well. Actually 8 years if you count the year we beta tested it at HP. If the older folks remember, the same issue were happening when XP was first released. Give it some time and Vista will be fine. That and MS will begin phasing out support for XP..

I dual boot with Vista 64 and don't have any driver trouble.

Those PSUs will be fine.
The Q6600 is the way to go IMO.
Stock HSF will work fine, but kinda loud. Definitely go with an aftermarket one if you want something relatively quiet. (Those 3 HDs will be loud, though).
Any of the 3 MBs you listed will be fine.

[Moppie]

Now one thing I totally over looked is the HSF. Do I use the stock one or get and after market?



Mine stock one, on the Q6600 makes very, very little noise. So little I have never heard it.
The PC sits on my desk top, about 1m from my head. With a high quality case, fitted with 2 low speed, ball bearing fans, I can hardly hear it.
It also does an excellent job of cooling the CPU.

[sonny_c]

I neglected to mention most of the parts listed above are coming out of another PC. Right now I'm only shopping for proc, mobo, psu, hsf, and a case.

The Cooler Master Centurion 5 is a good "budget" case.

[jonnythan]

+1 on the Centurion 5. My roommate has one. Quality stuff.