Photo editing PC recommendations

[G]

I have been asked by a friend to build a PC that will be used
primarily for editing still photos. These can be quite large photos,
from a 8 megapixel camera. Would an A64 or P4 be better? Would 2 GB
of ram be appropriate or would 1 GB suffice? Would a 6600 GT/128 be
good? or would an 6800 Ultra be better. He currently has a P4 2.4
Ghz and 1 Gb memory and finds it to be extremely slow.

Thanks for any input.

G

 

[Al Dykes]

I have been asked by a friend to build a PC that will be used
primarily for editing still photos. These can be quite large photos,
from a 8 megapixel camera. Would an A64 or P4 be better? Would 2 GB
of ram be appropriate or would 1 GB suffice? Would a 6600 GT/128 be
good? or would an 6800 Ultra be better. He currently has a P4 2.4
Ghz and 1 Gb memory and finds it to be extremely slow.

Thanks for any input.

G

IMO;

Go AMD64 for better IO speeds and other reasons,

1GB RAM is fine until perfmon says you need more (unlikely). It's easy to add.

There is no need for 3D video cards in photo editing. Get a Matrox 2D card.
A 3D card doesn't hurt if you want to play some games.

Photo edit software has a provision for "scratch disks". A two (or more) disk
system is the norm, and they should be fast. Start with two SATA disks.

Big files need fast disks. make them 10k.

 

[Matt]

I have been asked by a friend to build a PC that will be used
primarily for editing still photos. These can be quite large photos,
from a 8 megapixel camera. Would an A64 or P4 be better? Would 2 GB
of ram be appropriate or would 1 GB suffice? Would a 6600 GT/128 be
good? or would an 6800 Ultra be better. He currently has a P4 2.4
Ghz and 1 Gb memory and finds it to be extremely slow.

Thanks for any input.

G

Well I built my latest system for photo and video editing and I went with an
A64, 10K SATA drives (I used a 36 WD Raptor for the system drive and the 72
version for a media drive) and 2 GB of ram and am quite happy with the
system.

 

[Clyde]

I have been asked by a friend to build a PC that will be used
primarily for editing still photos. These can be quite large photos,
from a 8 megapixel camera. Would an A64 or P4 be better? Would 2 GB
of ram be appropriate or would 1 GB suffice? Would a 6600 GT/128 be
good? or would an 6800 Ultra be better. He currently has a P4 2.4
Ghz and 1 Gb memory and finds it to be extremely slow.

Thanks for any input.

G

I do a lot of Photoshop editing in my part time Wedding photography
business.

I have a P4 3.2 GHz with 1 GB of RAM in two chunks of 512 MB on Dual
Channel. I have one 120 GB HD that spins at 7200 and connected by SATA.

The key thing for Photoshop (I'll assume that is what he is or will
someday be using) is memory. 1 GB is the minimum that you would want.
Most of the time 1 GB is just fine and I'm not even close to using it
up. Even running the biggest filter hogs, I'm not pushing that memory
limit. So, if just editing 8 MP pictures is what he is doing, 1 GB will
be fine.

However, if he stitches panoramic pictures together or gets really wild
with a lot of layers, 2 GB would certainly be nice. In my pano stitching
and blending and editing those really large files, I do run out of
memory and would like to have 2 GB. I don't usually do tons of layers,
but on the rare occasion that I do, I would really like 2 GB.

Processor speed will always be appreciated. i.e. You can't have too
much. Most of the stuff anyone does in Photoshop doesn't take that much.
Some of those filters will demand all the processor speed you can get.
Through my stupidity, I went from a 3.0 to a 3.2. It didn't make that
much difference. I've heard that the 3.4 and the AMD 64 will go a bit
faster too. When you look at the numbers closely, it isn't that big of a
difference. You still won't have enough though. I think my 3.2 is at a
nice value point. Upgrading won't pay for itself - for me.

I'm not convinced that HD speed matters all that much. Photoshop does
always use its own swap file and it uses it no matter how much memory
you have. However, it does it all in background. So, it isn't intrusive
in normal work. Saving and loading files can take some time, but any
reasonably fast HD will handle that just fine. Besides you don't do it
that often. The format conversion is most time consuming part of the
saving anyway and that is processor. My Seagate 120 GB is fine for me. I
wouldn't want to pay for or be bothered with the noise of a 10K or 15K
HD to get that extra speed.

There is one place in Photoshop that I think extra HD speed would help.
After running a batch action on a bunch of files, File Browser wants to
build preview images of every file. My HD grinds like crazy during that
and it really does slow the activity of Photoshop down. However, I'm not
sure how much of this is limited by HD speed or processor speed.

That's my experience,
Clyde

 

[CapeGuy]

I have been asked by a friend to build a PC that will be used
primarily for editing still photos. These can be quite large photos,
from a 8 megapixel camera. Would an A64 or P4 be better? Would 2 GB
of ram be appropriate or would 1 GB suffice? Would a 6600 GT/128 be
good? or would an 6800 Ultra be better. He currently has a P4 2.4
Ghz and 1 Gb memory and finds it to be extremely slow.

My time-proven rule of thumb is that you won't *notice* any
really major differences in performance without a hardware
speed improvement of 2-3x.

Today, you can't improve even close to 2x on his current P2.4.
I'd suggest he keep his current system, add one more 1GB of RAM,
a 10K Raptor HDD for system and programs, and do a really good
registry cleanup. Wait at least another year on a totally new system.

 

[Al Dykes]

My time-proven rule of thumb is that you won't *notice* any
really major differences in performance without a hardware
speed improvement of 2-3x.

Today, you can't improve even close to 2x on his current P2.4.
I'd suggest he keep his current system, add one more 1GB of RAM,
a 10K Raptor HDD for system and programs, and do a really good
registry cleanup. Wait at least another year on a totally new system.

I agree. As someone that's new to PS and has a 6MP(raw) dRebel I'm
doing fine with a 1Gb 2400Athlon system and a couple fast disks. I
don't think that 8MP would change that.

If/when I get heavy into layers then more memory may be called for,
but taskman and perfmon will tell me that, and it's easy to add
memory.

a 37GB 10k sata disk is as little as $140. Spend a few bucks more on
a SATA controller for your current system. The system you buy a year
from now will certainly be sata and the disk will be useful.

OTOH, big (~200GB) EIDE disk are nearly being given away at the big
box stores. They'll do fine too.

 

[JAD]

My time-proven rule of thumb is that you won't *notice* any
really major differences in performance without a hardware
speed improvement of 2-3x.

Today, you can't improve even close to 2x on his current P2.4.
I'd suggest he keep his current system, add one more 1GB of RAM,
a 10K Raptor HDD for system and programs, and do a really good
registry cleanup. Wait at least another year on a totally new system.

agreed

been working with a P4 1.6 with 512M ram, my upgrade was to put another
512. Works like a charm and I also do major Macro flash with 75 -100 layers
and premier production.

 

[Bob Davis]

I have been asked by a friend to build a PC that will be used
primarily for editing still photos. These can be quite large photos,
from a 8 megapixel camera. Would an A64 or P4 be better? Would 2 GB
of ram be appropriate or would 1 GB suffice? Would a 6600 GT/128 be
good? or would an 6800 Ultra be better. He currently has a P4 2.4
Ghz and 1 Gb memory and finds it to be extremely slow.

I have no experience with AMD CPU's, but based on what I've worked with here
are some suggestions:

P4 hyperthreading (Northwood preferred, or Prescott), as high speed as you
can afford

Intel 875 chipset mobo (Gigabyte, Asus, etc.) or higher.

1 or 2 gb PC3200 or higher-speed dual-channel RAM (matched pairs)

74gb WD Raptor drive as C:, for OS, programs, and working folders

7200-rpm PATA or SATA drive for archival storage, your choice of size

Matrox G450, G550, or G650 (32mb, dual-head if using two monitors). These
are excellent 2D cards for photo editing, but likely won't give stellar
performance in 3D for games.

Antec Truepower PSU, 480w or higher

Case that provides ample ventilation, like Antec or Chieftec

21" CRT monitor, with optional second monitor.

My system fits above description except I have 2x36gb WD Raptors in a RAID0
array for C:, with 2gb RAM, G450DH, 160gb Maxtor PATA D:, two PATA FW drives
for archival storage. It has been an excellent photo-editing system for
almost two years.

 

[Jess Fertudei]

I'm no expert, but...

I have to wonder if the guy's system isn't sick or something. I don't use
Photoshop, I do use Paint Shop Pro... but with all Photoshop plugins. I use
some *very* large sources and often have three or 4 open at once as I cut
objects from one and layer them into others. I also use a lot of non-visible
layers as I try effects on duplicate layers in different settings or apps
and compare... so I sometimes have a dozen layers open. I am noticing that
some plug-ins have started to slow me down *a little* but when you see what
I'm running you'll understand why.

My system at the moment is:

ASRock K7S8XE+
Duron 1.3G
Single stick of 512M PC2700 DDR.
7200 RPM Maxtor.

I am finally convinced that I need to speed it up a little for those odd
moments like when Dreamsuite opens it's own windows and Command History is
two hours old with hundreds of commands banked... and will likely go to a 2G
Sempron or Athlon and pass this Duron on to my son. But I'm really not all
that concerned... and I am *plug-in intensive*.' I think the reason is that
I keep my machine fairly lean with few apps running and most all of my
resources free. Maybe Photoshop uses more when it stands alone than Paint
Shop... but I really can't see how until the filters and such start running.
I belong to a few online graphic groups and when I see what a lot of them
are using, I'd have to say that I am about average or just above,
actually... many have been doing this for a long time and certainly don't
spend money to buy the latest and greatest every year.

Maybe he needs to first go through all the usual steps of checking for
background apps and such and losing any hogs like recent Nortons and such
first. www.bootdisk.com has some great steps and suggestions. I mean... what
do I know, of course, but it seems to me that if he's not doing video and
just working with stills and filters 2.4 G with a G of memory should be
beefy enough.

 

[Andy Jeffries]

I'm no expert, but...

I have to wonder if the guy's system isn't sick or something.

Or has a different idea of *HOW FAST* he finds acceptable.

Cheers,


Andy

 

[Andy Jeffries]

I have been asked by a friend to build a PC that will be used
primarily for editing still photos. These can be quite large photos,
from a 8 megapixel camera. Would an A64 or P4 be better?

For photoshop (the main photo editing app in the market) P4 seems to win
in the benchmarks against A64 (I have a friend with a P4 3.2GHz and it
beats my AMD64 3500+).

Would 2 GB of ram be appropriate or would 1 GB suffice?

For Photoshop 2GB of RAM would definitely be useful. Considering that
each image will be 22MB (ish) of uncompressed data and you have to keep
undo buffers and filter layers, memory will be eaten quite quickly...

Would a 6600 GT/128 be good? or would an 6800 Ultra be better.

a 6600 GT would be as good as a 6800 Ultra for 2D work.

I have a 6800 GT, but that's mainly for games rather than Photoshop...

Cheers,


Andy

 

[ian lincoln]

For photoshop (the main photo editing app in the market) P4 seems to win
in the benchmarks against A64 (I have a friend with a P4 3.2GHz and it
beats my AMD64 3500+).


For Photoshop 2GB of RAM would definitely be useful. Considering that
each image will be 22MB (ish) of uncompressed data and you have to keep
undo buffers and filter layers, memory will be eaten quite quickly...


a 6600 GT would be as good as a 6800 Ultra for 2D work.

I have a 6800 GT, but that's mainly for games rather than Photoshop...

The most important thing requried to increase adobe photoshop performance is
a 2nd physical hard disk to the os carrying one. The second one is
allocated as the "scratch disk" from within photoshop itself. This is most
important when you have several layers and a full history enabled where you
have every iteration edit and layer stored seperately. Its a sort of disk
cache. Having a dedicated drive for this speeds things up tremendously.