Building a Photoshop System...

[Ashley]

Hi everyone,

I'm preparing to put together a system geared towards editing large
files in PS as well other graphic-based functions. I was hoping for
some input on the potential build which includes:

Processors:
Dual AMD Opteron Model 146, 1MB L2 Cache 64-bit Processors

Motherboard:
TYAN "Thunder K8W

Memory:
6 GIGS of Crucial 400DDR.
Allocated as follows - 2 for Photoshop, 3 for RAMDISK for PS scratch
disk, and 1 FOR OS.

Hard Drives:
2 Western Digital Raptor 74GB 10,000RPM SATA in RAID 0 and a
Western Digital 200GB 7200rpm SATA for deep storage

DVD/CD ROM:
NEC 8X Dual Layer DVD+/-RW Drive & Lite-On Black 52X32X52X16 Combo
Drive

Video Card:
ATI RADEON 9600XT

Power Supply:
Antec 480W

Questions:
1. Any recommended alterations to the above?
2. Is the 3 GIGS to RAMDISK for the PS scratch disk valuable move
since editing large files?
3. What other motherboard, without PCI-X, could be substituted for the
Thunder K8W? (Keeping in mind the amount of SATA drives (4), and the
amount of ram (6 sticks).)
4. Would it be beneficial to use socket 939 chips instead of 940.
5. What advantages, if any, would there be if an ATI 9800
(XT/PRO/ETC) is substituted for the 9600XT in a PS environment?

Many thanks in advance for any thoughts,

Scott

 

[JC]

This is a group for windows XP Embedded. Your questions seem to be geared
toward hardware, and Adobe specific applications... I would suggest one of
the Google Hardware groups.

JC

 

[Guest]

As unbelievable as it might sound, there is some interest in running XPE as a
general purpose OS.
The embedded market triggered a vertical reaction from many vendors, but
there might be an age where even with Homeland security, only embedded
machines will work !!! Let's face it : if a user has enough with IE, Word ,
Excel and Photoshop, why not embed the whole thing so as to make it stable
and effficent.

OTOH, I would not vouch for an Opteron 146 in a dual config, in relation to
a 246...

Chris

 

[Maarten Sundman]

I've written articles about embedded for enthusiast general purpose machines
since embedded runs faster than traditional XP Client

 

[Slobodan Brcin \(eMVP\)]

Hi Maarten,

I've written articles about embedded for enthusiast general purpose machines
since embedded runs faster than traditional XP Client

If they are available online could you provide us with links? I'm interested in your arguments that XPe run faster than XPP.

Best regards,
Slobodan

 

[Quentin]

A problem that you may run into is users trying to install 3rd party plugins
for Photoshop. You have to be careful to include all required components,
but how can you know for sure what components all of the 3rd party plugins
will require?

Doesn't seem like XPe is the right way to go. Modified XPP would probably
be better.

Quentin.

 

[Maarten Sundman]

The reason why is simple, it just doesn't include the same lvl of bloat that
XPP has since it only has the services, drivers and os components you
include in it. It's possible for it to be as bloated if not more bloated
than XPP but in general use it runs faster in my experience since you don't
include more than is necessary

 

[Slobodan Brcin \(eMVP\)]

Ok. I thought that you had some time charts.
Nevertheless you are right. Boot time is usually faster that XPP but working speed is usually approximately the same. I don't think
that runtime can have more than few percents of speed improvements.

Best regards,
Slobodan