Lost in GPU land, need GPU recommendation for CS5

Lately I've been sick and tired of how bad my current system is performing in Photoshop CS5 (and lightroom, but not as bad). Even the most basic things run terribly slow...
So I've decided to upgrade my system.

Currently I'm running a core2 duo (2.2GHz or so) with 2GB of ram and a 7900GS on windows 7-64 bit.

I'm planning to upgrade to the following (keeping it to the relative upgrades, of course including case/PSU/ssd etc):
Intel Core i5 2500k
Asrock P67 motherboard
8GB DDR3

However, I'm completely lost on what graphics card to get. Since CS5 relies heavily on OpenGL, I want a fast one, but with GPU's it's often overkill very soon. My current graphics card is cooled passively which I like because the system is in my living room...

Can anyone give me some GPU or even graphics card recommendations?
I'm leaning towards one of the GeForce GTX 460 cards but with prices starting around 150 euros, I wonder if it's too much. Anything between 100 and 150 euros (I think that would translate to ~$ 175) would fit the budget I suppose...
PS. For graphics cards, dual DVI is a must since I'm running Dell 2209WA's.

Any other system recommendations are very welcome too by the way.

Thanks for reading

Does Newegg do international deliveries?

Anywho, the GTX 460 will be more than enough for you and I would not go any higher. You could go for a HD5770 its cheaper and will perform a little less than the GTX 460.

But IMO I would go with the gtx 460, also in the future you can SLI(if you game) and get better performance than a single gtx 580. That is however if you keep your resolution as is, if you start getting into high pixel density resolutions the gtx 460 will be bottlenecked.

Good recommendation for the 5770 as an alternative. Now I have some more foundations to expand my google searches
I must admit, for the minor price diff, the GTX460 seems like a good option, but the graphics card market is so extremely saturated now, it's becoming increasingly hard to compare based on chipset alone.
As an added bonus, the GTX-460 cards seem to have dual DVI quite a bit more often. My current choice (for now) will be the Asus ENGTX460.

I've got the GTX 460 at home and it works great.

TweakMDS, I have also been on a hunt recently to find a graphics card that would provide adequate support for a new ASUS PA246Q monitor that I am buying. (I run Lightroom 3 with CS5) One thing I did find out (a lesson learned) is to make sure that your power supply will be sufficient for the graphics card. I was very interested in the ATI FirePro V4800 and V5800, but found the power supply of my Dell Inspiron 545 would not provide enough power to run these graphics card - yes, I know, next time I will make sure that this is part of the package - a decent power supply - most card makers suggest a minimum of a 450W power supply and for the high end cards, some of them require up to a 750W power supply. Hope this info is of value to you as I have also learned some things in my hunt through the saturated market, for a graphics card.

Cheers,

WesternGuy

@WesternGuy
Good tip, my PSU broke down about 6 months ago, so I replaced it with a cheap 400W unit, but it's kind of noisy so I didn't plan to migrate it. The new system will have an OCZ 600W that's hopefully more silent and a bit more efficient.

The SandyBridge processors come with a built in GPU. That doens't work good for Lightroom 3 and PS CS5?

As far as your current system goes, I don't think 2GB of RAM is enough to even run the Windows 7 OS efficiently.

TomBrooklyn wrote in post #12518772
The SandyBridge processors come with a built in GPU. That doens't work good for Lightroom 3 and PS CS5?

As far as your current system goes, I don't think 2GB of RAM is enough to even run the Windows 7 OS efficiently.

Yeah, both ram and gpu are really crippling my system. After boot though, windows uses about 600-800mb of ram, so about 1.2 GB left for CS5. It does get troubling when I use both lightroom and CS5 at the same time, then a simple export and edit takes minutes. I tried adding ram, but there was some timing issue with the new bars of ram I bought, because even booting windows took like 30 mins. Didn't want to invest in it more, so decided to leave it as is and just upgrade the entire system.
For comparison, my laptop is an i3 with 4GB of ram, running CS5 like a dream (on Win7 - x64), but the display sucks absolutely compared to my desktop monitors.

In my office I just got a quad core xeon monster workstation with 12gb of ram, by comparison, my good old PC is just falling behind now :/

As for GPU in the Sandy Bridge platform, I'm not sure how this translates into performance. I could give it a go without a new graphics card, but I think with a good graphics card, it might all just run smoother...

Has anyone found any benchmarks of CS5 performance with different GPU's?

TweakMDS wrote in post #12513918
@WesternGuy
Good tip, my PSU broke down about 6 months ago, so I replaced it with a cheap 400W unit, but it's kind of noisy so I didn't plan to migrate it. The new system will have an OCZ 600W that's hopefully more silent and a bit more efficient.

I would recommend you go with a quality PSU maker like Seasonic, Antec, XFX, etc. OCZ hasn't been known for great quality PSU's.

TomBrooklyn wrote in post #12518772
The SandyBridge processors come with a built in GPU. That doens't work good for Lightroom 3 and PS CS5?

As far as your current system goes, I don't think 2GB of RAM is enough to even run the Windows 7 OS efficiently.

the only way you can use the built in GPU in Sandy Bridge is if you get a motherboard with a built in video out like DVI so you plug your monitor through that instead of a video card. Currently, I believe that only some H67 motherboards have this feature and it's pretty much useless to go with an H67 when P67 boards are readily available.

With a budget of 175

- 5770
- GTX 460
- GTX 560 (will perform better than the 460)

or

http://www.newegg.com …aspx?Item=N82E1​6814150506

with stretching the budget a little bit you get an awesome card

as for PSU can't go wrong with Corsair or Seasonic, and it will also help if you can give us a budget for the whole build.

LuLuTheMonk wrote in post #12523637
I would recommend you go with a quality PSU maker like Seasonic, Antec, XFX, etc. OCZ hasn't been known for great quality PSU's.

Funny you should say that, I dropped the OCZ from my list due to reading this, and changed it to an Enermax (Enermax Modu87+ EMG500AWT - 500W will probably be plenty, and if not, they also have bigger versions). The seasonic was my second choice, but I really like the modular version of the enermax, gives a much cleaner case, and the fact that it's an 80-plus gold helps too.

Dexinthecity wrote in post #12527105
the only way you can use the built in GPU in Sandy Bridge is if you get a motherboard with a built in video out like DVI so you plug your monitor through that instead of a video card. Currently, I believe that only some H67 motherboards have this feature and it's pretty much useless to go with an H67 when P67 boards are readily available.

With a budget of 175

- 5770
- GTX 460
- GTX 560 (will perform better than the 460)

or

http://www.newegg.com …aspx?Item=N82E1​6814150506

with stretching the budget a little bit you get an awesome card

as for PSU can't go wrong with Corsair or Seasonic, and it will also help if you can give us a budget for the whole build.

Well, I don't really have a set budget for the entire system... I'm just looking to see what is reasonable and what fits with my needs.
I will also have to buy from Dutch stores, so that might limit specific models a tad.

Currently I have this in mind:
CPU: Intel Core i5 2500K
Cooler: Scythe Mugen 2 rev b
Motherboard: Asrock P67 Pro3
RAM: GeiL Value Plus 8GB DDR3 1333 cl9
GPU: Asus GTX-460
Storage: OCZ Vertex 2 60GB SSD (just for the boot disk, putting a 1TB drive over from my old system and the rest is on my NAS)
Power Supply: Enermax 500W Modu87+.


The only thing I still need is a case. My old system is in an Antec case which I really like, so either re-using that, but I'd prefer to leave the old system alive as backup and just get another Antec or Cooler Master case.

This comes down to around 750 - 800 euros, which seems like a very reasonable price for what I'm getting.

Dexinthecity wrote in post #12527105
the only way you can use the built in GPU in Sandy Bridge is if you get a motherboard with a built in video out like DVI so you plug your monitor through that instead of a video card. Currently, I believe that only some H67 motherboards have this feature and it's pretty much useless to go with an H67 when P67 boards are readily available.

Hi. You are correct about using an H67 motherboard to utilize the internal GPU in the SandyBridge.

But why do you call the H67 useless and cite the P67 as why?

The P67s boards cost more and don't have a built in GPU.

On top of the higher board cost, you have to buy a video card.

What is the idea behind that when one of SandyBridges biggest attractions is a massively improved internal GPU that equals the performance of some component GPUs?

Well, for my case, AFAIK there are no H67 motherboards with Dual DVI. Since I don't plan to use the internal GPU on an H67 board, I guessed the P67 was a better option.
Maybe the whole sandbridge thing is overkill though. I'm tempted to step everything down a model or so, because I think most performance gain will come from using a newer CPU with 8GB of ram and a better GPU. Anything will basically beat what I use now.

I'm considering making it a mini ITX case and also saving some floor space with that. Basic specs will probably be the same though, but I'd just have to figure what sort of case and cooling etc to pick.

OK, I just made an alternative setup that's about 60% of the price, 1/2 the size and anywhere between 50% and 80% of the speed (in GPU and CPU power alone). It's also MUCH, MUCH more energy efficient and still quite a bit faster than what I have now...
The thing is, I might not need state of the art, and fast enough is simply... fast enough :P

My alternative plan is this:
Case: Silverstone SG05
Motherboard: Asus P8H67-I
CPU: Intel Core i3 2100T (the low power 35W TDP version)
Storage: OCS Vertex 2 60GB SSD
Ram: Geil 8GB DDR3
Graphics: XFX HD 5770 1gb ram (HD5770 is lower in power consumption than the GTX 460).

I think this will easily perform up to my humble needs, and the CPU is still upgradable to some degree. I like the energy efficiency of this too, since I often leave it on overnight.

Any thoughts on this new system?