New PC Build for CAD/Photoshop - Review & Critique of Choices Desired

This is the build I was thinking about doing for a PC build I will soon be doing. Aside from Photoshop I use SoftPlan Architectural Desing Software c/w 3D rendering. This is based on what I've learned here, from friends and stuff I have learned over the last couple of days surfing various computer sites.

Nothing is written in stone and if anyone can see any changes that would better I would be glad to hear, I know that there are lots of knowledgable computer whizzes here. The video card I chose because of the monitor selection. Sound card and speakers are just a good guess.

This system will come in at $3,600 CDN or $3,100 US. This has already exceded my original budget by 20% so I don't want to go higher.

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Monitor - Dell UltraSharp 2405FPW
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Case - Antec Sonata II Black ATX 16IN Mid Tower Quiet Case 3X5.25 2X3.5 4X3.5IN 450W Air Duct 120MM Fan
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Processor - AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+ Dual Core Processor S939 Toledo 2.4GHz 1MBX2 90NM Retail Box
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Motherboard - ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe Motherboard NFORCE4-SLI S939 DDR 2XPCI-E16 2PCI-E 3PCI SATA RAID LAN Sound 1394
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Memory - OCZ Performance PC3200 2GB 2X1GB DDR400 CL3-3-3-8 184PIN DIMM Dual Channel Memory Kit W/ Ramsink
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IDE Hard Drives - Maxtor DiamondMax 10 250GB SATA 7200RPM 16MB 9.0MS RoHS Hard Drive 3 Year MFR Warranty
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Video Card - XFX GeForce 6600GT 500MHZ 128MB 128BIT 1GHZ DDR3 AGP Dual DVI-I TV-OUT Video Card
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Sound Card - Creative Sound Blaster X-FI Xtrememusic 24BIT Sound Card
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DVD Writer - Samsung SH-W162 16X DVD+-RW 5X Dual Layer DVD Writer Black /W SW OEM
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Keyboard - Logitech Cordless Desktop MX 3100 Rechargeable Laser Mouse And Keyboard
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Speaker - Logitech X-230 2.1 Speaker System Black 32RMS 64W FDD2
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Operating System - MICROSOFT WINDOWS XP PROFESSIONAL
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Thanks for looking.

Couple of thoughts:
- The video card isn't important unless you play games, so don't spent too much. I think I have that same card except without dual DVI, it works well for everything but i'm not a gamer.
- I don't think you gain much by paying double for your RAM, get Kingston or Kingmax rather than some fancy one that costs twice as much and gives you at most 5% increase in performance.
- I like Seagate Barracuda drives, I have two in my machine. Two drives is good for photoshop.

Everything else looks good

If you don't play games i'd recommend a video card that is suited towards cad/3d graphics.
also, like tim said, the ram doesn't need to be super expnsive unless you plan on overclocking your system, which I wouldn't do if you need this machine to be really stable.
onboard sound on most boards is very good, so you could save some money and skip the sound card.
I would also skip the Maxtor drive and go with Seagate or Western Digital.
for teh DVD-RW i'd go with a Lite-On unit.
everything else looks good.

Tim, thanks for looking.

I do not play much for grahically hungry games. I had gathered somewhere that an upgraded video card is needed for this monitor, but if I could save a few bucks there..........

The Kingston memory ($218 CDN)would only shave 20% ($46 CDN) over the OCZ ($264 CDN)

Zepher, is there a video card you might recommend that would be better for my application that would drive the monitor?

I don't think I will need to overclock with this system.

Maybe I should try the onboard sound for now, the most I need it for is moderate level music.

Is the Liteon SOHW-1213S DVD+RW 12X4X12 DVD-RW 8X4X12 Black IDE Burner one you would recommend? It would add $32 CDN to my budget, but if I save $141 CDN on the video card..........

can you shop from newegg.com? I think they do canada now.
here is a drive we got last week,
http://www.newegg.com ….asp?Item=N82E1​6827106014

here is a decent priced 3D rendering card .
http://www.newegg.com ….asp?Item=N82E1​6814102516

I just looked at teh faq on that program you would be using and it doesn't have any mention of video card requirements. I'd give them a call to see if a 3D card would benefit you, if not then basically any DVI based video card should be good enough to drive your monitor.

Zepher, right now I don't use a 3D card for rendering, mind you things are slow, especially if I have a couple of 3D views going at the same time. From what I understand the improved prossesor and memory will help that.

I was planning to purchase the components from NCIX.com, a Canadian company kinda like newegg.com, prices are close and it would save any cross border or warranty problems. They will also assemble and test for free if I want.

I like your system... it looks great. I think dual core Athlon is the way to go. I've used a lot of RAM over years of building PCs and I would not recomend anything higher than Corsair.. (though the last time I bought it there was a lot fewer funky varieties of Corsair ram availble )

3D rendering on a good gaming Card that supports an hionest OpenGL driver is not soo bad... especially given the horsepower availble today. When I think of what I used to run 3D Studio Max and Maya on.. compaired to todays cards....

And most Cad programs seemed more concerend with system RAM

All the Corsair RAM seems to range from a bit cheaper than the OCZ I chose to almost twice as much. My biggest problem is delving through the myriad of options for all components. Processors seem to be the easiest thing to determine which to choose. Things like RAM and sound or video cards seem to be more confusing as to what does what.

I don't think your going wrong with OCZ,.. sorry If I implied that.. it too seems to have a huge following.

As for sound,. most boards these days have GOOD onboard sound too.. not like it used to be... I'd think any Asus board with Nforce and sound would be just fine.. and in fact better than the soundblaster PCI cards we were all craving just 2 years ago.

So if you wanted to save a litte,. but judging from your choce of X-Fi,. your into the sound card in a big way!

The 85mm 1.2L of sound cards

Two things on the video card: I understand the next version of Window will be offloading more of the video subsystem onto the video card, so getting a better card with at least 256 mb ram is recommended if you intend to switch from XP to Vista. Also CS2 seems to need more video ram than prior versions.

CDS, you know, I think I may be into my sound card too much, I am going to go with the onboard for now and can upgrade later if desired.

Bodog, good point about Vista upgrades, a wee search showed that though MS has not listed minimum requirements yet, they do recommend 512 Mb of ram an the video card to take full advantage of its 3D graphics.

Jeez... that's just insane! 512MB just for the damn OS?.. what on earth are they coding?
How bloated can an interface get? All I need my OS to do is allow me to run my apps...

Heck give me a command line and I can type;
"cd d:\progra~1\adobe\phot​oshop.exe" !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And guess how many current apps won't run on this hog... ?

We're nuts with this stuff.. I can see "vista" is the OS I am going to resist more than ever before.. (I was a Win98 hold out for a while ;... which will run just as well on a 4MB PCI grahics card as it will on a 256MB PCI-Express...) )


... or is all this 3D junk in the OS going to be disabled on 99.9% of the systems out there just like "Web integration" should be in XP

In my researching I found it suggested that more than half the computers out there will need video card upgrades to go to Vista to make it work, let alone get the ultimate performance. All the video card manufacturers are rubbing their hands together in anticipation.

I am going to get the card I had planned which will run with XP great and when, and if, I decide to upgrade to Vista I will check out the options then.