[gda13]

And ohh... are there any difference between the i7 3770, i7 3770s, i7 3770k?

Base clock speeds mostly and I think the "s" version might be lower wattage...but not 100% sure on that. NZXT cases are also good for routing ...I looked at a few when planning my most recent build. Take a look at the corsair hx750...I was originally opting for that one but went for the nzxt instead due to the color scheme I was going for...the corsair is also modular and certified gold for its efficiency. CORSAIR HX Series HX750 750W ATX12V 2.3 / EPS12V 2.91 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS GOLD Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply - Newegg.com ...again its a sweet setup and you will be good for a while wth that one.

[interested_observer]

Evening,

I think that you can do a lot better, in terms of both price and processing power. You really do not need much for just surfing the web. Where you need to purchase correctly is in the graphics card. The graphics card needs to use Nvidia graphics chips, since CS6 make use of the graphics card's CUDA capability. Adobe off loads rendering and other effects to the graphics processor in terms of hardware acceleration. The graphics card in this case is much more important than the CPU. You could probably easily go with an i3 as well as an i5. The i7 in this case is just overkill, since it is effectively going to be shoveling the processing over to the GPU. A 750 watt power supply is way too large. This is because the new 80+ efficiency testing means that the PSU will operate at optimal capacity and efficiency. Also, in order to make the most effective use of the RAM, you need two banks, or in this case 2 memory sticks - you chooses the size, 2, 4 or 8GB. A single stick will work, however two will effectively double your memory thruput (speed). In this way, you will not be starving your CPU for memory access.

My son just put a new box together for $920 for gaming. A similar box oriented towards photography would be less.

Here are some specific items to be concerned with....

• CS6 uses CUDA, therefore an Nvidia card would be a better choice than an AMD card. Specifically the 500 series because of the changes to the CUDA architecture. The 600 series took a hit to the compute ability, and that was offloaded to the Tesla lineup. The 500 series has the larger compute units that favor the CS suite – the 600 series cards have more units, but each CUDA core in a 500 series card is much more capable.
• LR4 is CPU-bound, but you won't need a 3770, much less a K variant. The K variant gives up a lot of other functionality for the ability to overclock and comes with a higher price. A normal 3770 or even 3570/3550 would be more than enough for LR4 and normal browsing. The S model is a mobile variant with lower power draw, but seeing how this is a desktop, I do not think you would need it.
• I also ask about sourcing parts from other countries for the purpose of monitors. Korea has been exporting some rather nice 2560x1440 and higher IPS panels to the states for around $300. Those would be a much better purchase than a Dell U series for around half to 2/3'ds the cost.

[gda13]

With regard to cs6 and cuda ... Ater Effects cs6 does use cuda but Photoshop cs6 does not, rather the Mercury Graphics Engine uses Open GL and Open CL frameworks and as such even Intel HD graphics 4000 can be utilized by Photoshop refer to... Photoshop CS6 GPU FAQ ...so although I agree a dedicated GPU such as a nvidia card makes for an overall better experience as stated in my original post and recommendations it is not necessary for Photoshop at least at this time. I also agree that it is overkill for what OPs initial stated needs were but it seems he has has changed his mind somewhat and may even be running sli sometime in the future...I myself have put sli rigs way behind me a couple of years ago seems better for me to just run one card.

[gda13]

Btw any information on the Korean monitors you mentioned...I might be interested in one for my wife's set up...I need to get her a new larger monitor.

[kaiserz]

Thanks guys! Man! I'm really getting into this. The last time I built a computer was when I was 15... that was ten years ago back in the Philippines... Anyway I know I'm going waaay over-board on this. Time for a reality check; I need to tell myself that I don't play games and would not play games anymore!

@gda13 the enthusiast bug is definitely coming in.. it's like LBA! I need to stop it! hehehe

@interested_observer Is it possible to get a decent build for $500 - $700? If it is can you list me some of the parts (: thanks!

[kaiserz]

Here's what I got so far
I think this one is a much more complete system overall.
http://fc08.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2013/055/6/8/ppbuildxhea_by_silentmood-d5w5hos.jpg


Can I still get it lower than this? Maybe I should go AMD like you suggested gda13?

[reeftool]

This article just showed up a day or two ago. It's a good reference and starting point for building a new system without breaking the bank.
Ars Technica System Guide: Bargain Box, February 2013 | Ars Technica

[interested_observer]

@gda13, thank you for the CS6 GPU specifications. I was under the impression that it was still using CUDA for rendering. Adobe is not consistent in terms of how they are employing hardware acceleration. With LR4 being CPU bound, and their higher end products being split between CUDA (Nvidia) and OpenCL (AMD/ATI), there is not a consistent GPGPU configuration that works well to support Adobe's acceleration design choices, that supports their entire range of product offerings.

With the configuration now targeting OpenCL/OpenGL bound, that allows a switch over to a Radeon 7870XL/7950. The XL variant uses the same chip as the 7950/7970 cards, but at a lower price. AMD has much greater OpenCL/OpenGL performance than any of the Nvidia offerings – and this can be seen in the Bitcoin performance measures.

If you would like something in the $500 - $700, I would highly suggest looking at the Logical Increments Guide from Buid-a-PC as it contains a wide variety of very decent builds at a number of price points. A larger budget does increase your options if you want to have better performance in other areas.

• Logical Increments - PC Buying Guide

Here are a few variants using different components, feel free to critique as you see fit. Power calculations were done with Pahedrus's PSUCalc utility. It can be downloaded at PSUCalc - Home. Pahedrus has been doing power supply testing for Antec and Overclock.net reviews for a long time, and his calculator makes it easy.

• Intel-based, optimized for power:

• Intel Core i5-3570, Sapphire Radeon HD 7870 XT, Cooler Master Elite 430 - System Build - PCPartPicker

Phaedrus's PSUCalc puts this build at less than 400watts, and if you decide to crossfire the 7870XL down the line, the PSU will support it. Double 7950's (the card's bigger brother) clock in at 550watts flat in crossfire with the components in this build.

Changes: You could switch out the modular PSU for some extra money, and upgrading the case to an NZXT Source 210 would be a good decision. Finding room to upgrade to a 7950 would also be a very nice luxury, but it's pushing the limit thanks to the price of Windows.

• AMD-based, optimized for power:

• AMD FX-6300, Sapphire Radeon HD 7950, NZXT Source 210 (White) - System Build - PCPartPicker

Phaedrus's PSUCalc puts this build at less than 400watts, and if you decide to crossfire the 7950 down the line, the PSU will support it. Double 7950's 600watts flat in crossfire with the components in this build.

Changes: The case isn't the best, and the colors clash. If you can find a better case with free shipping, it would be an improvement. The NZXT Source 210 is good, but there is better out there.

As much as I like the AMD Bulldozer, the hyper-transport bus and everything that AMD has done, they made a bad optimization decision a while back for their CPUs. Intel optimized correctly for the software loading mix usually encountered, thus Intel is a better selection in many cases.

The 2, 4, 6 and 8 (physical) core offerings to be effective, you really need to consider your software loading. Most (99.99%) commercial software available is single threaded. Mult-threading (as in a very larger number of threads > ~4 to 8) a large commercial software package is a bridge too far at the moment and out to the foreseeable future (as in 5 years). You need large scale multi-threading to really make effective use of anything over 4 physical cores. The 6 and 8 core offerings are used primarily in the application of virtual machines residing on servers - using hypervisors or separation kernels. So the 2 and 4 core offerings are very effective for the desktop applications. Especially, with the use of hyper-threading on cores - effectively doubles them. So even an i3 with hyper-threading provides 4 virtual cores for use.

As for Korean monitors, they are Catleap, Shimian, PCBANK and Crossover. They are mostly on Ebay, but a few can be found at Microcenter and Monoprice. green-sum and red-cap seem to be the most reputable sellers. Here are some various threads from overclock that contain relevant information, reviews and people who actually ordered them:

• (Reviewed) $400 2560x1440 IPS no-AG 90hz+ Achieva Shimian QH270 and Catleap Q270
• CrossOver 27Q LED/LED-P, 27M LED, & 2720MDP GOLD LED Monitor Club
• Achieva Shimian Monitor Club
• Yamakasi Catleap Monitor Club

_______________________

Note - the cases used above support a USB 2.0 header while the motherboards support a version 3.0. A mis-match, but trying to optimize for price.

hope that helps...

[gda13]

Can I still get it lower than this? Maybe I should go AMD like you suggested gda13?

Not necessarily...the CPU/motherboard your looking at is not that far off price wise. Not sure if newegg is a must for everything but here is a deal ...FRYS.com ...

[gda13]

@interested observer...no worries with regard to adobe they do have a history of inconsistencies. I am still on cs5 myself as lr4 does 96% of what I need to in terms of editing. BTW you sir certainly write like an engineer :-) and thanks for the links pertaining to the Korean monitors. I do frequent overclock.net when necessary but have not seen these. Also I don't get into flame wars regarding processors or anything else for that matter many tend to take branding quite personally so to each his own. I just tend to have an affinity for AMD CPUs since a while back now they definitely dropped the ball with bulldozer which is why I waited for the latest pyledriver variant which supposedly remedied some of bulldozers short comings though at this stage in the game it doesn't make much difference. I don't get into benchmarking either just like to use my computer and with my setup I am extremely pleased at being able to multitask like a fiend and not have any hiccups and pretty much any encoding, converting etc I do breezes through using all cores. So much better than my old school K6 days :-) heck even thinking back to seeing my cousin running a flight simulator on an i386 build he did that cost him more than 2 grand makes me smile.

[northofpolaris]

I suggested some good builds for PP for you that were under $300 man hahah. You could add another $40-50 for a motherboard capable of SLI or crossfire if you really wanted to.

[interested_observer]

Morning GDA - I was headed off to bed, but you caught me reading through this. The last custom overclock I did was well over 15 years ago. My son is the custom builder now. I do very large embedded system architectures - system/hardware/software - in particular information assurance as in logical separation for security - a lot of virtualization. For me, I would just go buy a less than $500 no name box at Costco (my last 3 systems). My son put this system together for himself that is optimized very well (probably too well) - across both gaming and to some degree photography (if I need over 16GB of memory and OpenCL with a lot of stream processors). I use to do a lot in image acquisition and exploitation - with very large images - lots of orthor and georectification.

I actually broke down and picked up LR4. I absolutely hate it - in particular the user interface. The UI makes little sense - in particular the cataloging. The image operations are a bit better - but there are other packages I like better, but LR has essentially everything I need, so I am kind of tolerating it.

Anyway - its way past my bedtime - I have conference calls tomorrow in that its Monday......

[Louicio]

I havven't read all of the posts from this thread so sorry if I cover ground other people have covered but I've built a few PC's in my time as a young boy so I thought I'd give you my 2c.

Probs start by making sure you have heaps of RAM. Min 8 atleast. probably get more, it never really goes astray.
An AMD CPU that was suggested earlier should be sufficient for everything you need.
Get plenty of HDD's. Raid them for redundancy.
Get a semi-decent graphics card.
and if youre serious about image editing grab a monitor that will provide accurate colour rendition and wide viewing angles (which laptop lcd's generally don't)
Buy a good mouse/keyboard lol it makes a difference
Use the CD from your old computer, if at all. unless you really need it.
Pick a fairly decent motherboard.
And build it yourself. and have fun.

[reeftool]

I havven't read all of the posts from this thread so sorry if I cover ground other people have covered but I've built a few PC's in my time as a young boy so I thought I'd give you my 2c.

Probs start by making sure you have heaps of RAM. Min 8 atleast. probably get more, it never really goes astray.
An AMD CPU that was suggested earlier should be sufficient for everything you need.
Get plenty of HDD's. Raid them for redundancy.
Get a semi-decent graphics card.
and if youre serious about image editing grab a monitor that will provide accurate colour rendition and wide viewing angles (which laptop lcd's generally don't)
Buy a good mouse/keyboard lol it makes a difference
Use the CD from your old computer, if at all. unless you really need it.
Pick a fairly decent motherboard.
And build it yourself. and have fun.

Salvaging parts from old computers can save you but if it's been a few years, maybe not. Hard drive and optical drives on a lot of old systems are IDE and not SATA and there aren't a lot of mother boards anymore that include both. Not much savings there as new DVD drives are often under $20 on sale and under $30 when they aren't. The 2 most important items for a photographer are a good monitor and lot of hard drive space. On my last build, everything was new except for the case. Sign up for Neweggs daily shellshocker deals. You can save a lot. Remember to figure in the cost of WIndows to your project unless you are going with Linux.

[Kozlok]

And ohh... are there any difference between the i7 3770, i7 3770s, i7 3770k?

the k is unlocked for overclocking. No sense getting a good Mobo unless you will overclock.

Make sure and get a nice aftermarket CPU cooler. Your temps will be lower, and the system will be quieter. $24 well spent.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?cm_mmc=BAC-TomshardwareSBM-_-Syst...m_mc=ExtBanner

Never mind, didn't notice there was a second page to this when I posted.