good pc for photoshop use?

[vorropohaiah]

im thinking of buying a new pc specifically for use with photoshop - ive been using a compaq laptop for all my needs for the past few years and even though ive upgraded RAM as far as it goes (8gb) im still having problems, most likely due to the relatively non-existent graphics card.

i have no idea how to build a pc but i have some friends who can do that for me, but they know nothing about PS (PS6 in my case) so they dont know whats important and what not, so i thought id check here.

i generally use ps for the maps i post here, and many of those are pretty large 14400px x 21600 with lots of layers (especially once i get going on my labels). i wouldnt mind some 3d options (as it is just cant do anthing 3d with PS), particularly with spheres and skins to make globes. gaming isnt really an issue. if it fits in the budget an ssd would be nice, even if at least to run windows

can anyone offer any suggestions for a build bugeted around €500 - 600 (incl keyboard and mouse)?

thanks!

[Korash]

I would try to get the graphics card with as much onboard memory as you can. The next would be a CPU with as many cores as you can afford. The third thing would be as much memory as your motherboard can handle. Now all that might be a bit out of your range, but I do not know the euro market for stuff like that, but that is when you start looking at trade-offs. I THINK the graphics card is the most important thing.

A suggestion would be to look at the recommended requirements for the programs you want to use and bring those to your teckies. They might not know about graphics, but they most likely are up on the technical side of things and can recommend specifics based on those requirements.

Just as an example, a year and a half ago I built my own (actually had a teckie friend build it for me based on what I wanted - basically for the same reasons as you) and I ended up with a 2gb graphics card, a 12 core i7-990 with 24gb ram and 2tb hard drive for $2500 (remember this was a while ago so prices for what is available will be lower in general). I was kinda hoping that it would help reboot my creative juices after a major heart attack gutted it, but so far I haven't had the urge to stretch it to its limits. I have tried some things that my old machine would stumble over and it was like night and day, but the spark just ain't there atm.

I wish you luck and happiness with your new toy to be.

[Chashio]

I built one a few months ago... Intel core i7 Ivy Bridge CPU, GeForce GTX 670 2GB video card, 16GB RAM, 650w power supply, 1TB HDD, and motherboard with an Intel z77 chipset and space for 32GB of RAM. I'll be maxing out the RAM when I can, but an IPS monitor comes first.

With this build, PS CS4 (64 bit) on Windows 7 runs smoothly with decent-sized files (the largest I've worked on so far is 17 x 21 inches at 300ppi, including about 50+ layers, save time ~ 5-20secs). But the 3D stuff in PS and Sculptris, while better than my laptop, is still very slow, clunky and apt to fritz out on-screen and software-crash unexpectedly. Play-dough is less frustrating for 3D reference, but most of my work is 2D and smaller dimensions, and I have a large container of homemade play-dough, so it doesn't matter so much.

Also, if I leave my computer on longer than a day or two (kept on sleep/awake instead of rebooting) the display develops an odd quirk (sometimes a distorted block of pink/green pixels or blackout of the image in PS, sometimes black diagonal flashes in my web browser)... and if I ignore it the computer will eventually blue screen and dump its memory. I'm not tech savvy enough to know why it does those things (if it's a faulty part or just the way it is), but I now shut it down every night and have had no further issues. If anyone can enlighten me, I'd be grateful.

Point being, you may need a stronger build for 3D work than what I've got.

[vorropohaiah]

i doubt there will be much 3d use, mostly rapping images around spheres and manipulating them, nothing too extreme.

im guessing most important is RAM (is was thinking at least 16gb, probably more?) and various HDs, for scratch disks and such. would the investment in an ssd be worth it? and if so, would an ssd be best for installing PS on, or windows, both or scratch disk?

thanks or the feedback

[- Max -]

Most important is a good graphic card, a good processor and high RAM to handle our kind of work at large sizes. But yea 500-600€ budget sounds a bit low in my opinion and you'd probably have to choose priorities.