AnotherDave Posted February 28, 2015 Share Posted February 28, 2015 Hello, folks. I'm looking to build a computer that will primarily be used for graphic design (Photoshop, Illustrator etc.) and also some gaming, although I'm not overly fussed about ridiculously good graphics. The last time I built a computer was over 10 years ago so I'm pretty out of touch with where we are currently with most components. An OS, monitor and peripherals aren't required and I already have 16GB of (4x4GB) of this Corsair RAM. I was also given an XFX HD 6970 graphics card, but I need everything else. I'm thinking a 256GB SSD for the OS and apps, at least a 1GB HDD for storage and possibly a small SSD as a dedicated scratch disk. I'm open to suggestions for the storage set-up. CPU, motherboard and PSU is where I need the most help and I'll also need a case. A few months back somebody recommended an i5-4570 as a good processor in terms of price to power, and specifically Photoshop performance. The 4670K seems slightly better for about £20 more. Would either of these be good? The budget is £500 or so, but that could be pushed a bit if necessary. I'd be open to a better graphics card, but I'd guess that would blow the budget. Recommendations for a future upgrade would be good though. Link to comment https://gtaforums.com/topic/769680-photoshop-gaming-pc-build/ Share on other sites More sharing options...
yoječ Posted February 28, 2015 Share Posted February 28, 2015 Are you going to overclock the CPU? Link to comment https://gtaforums.com/topic/769680-photoshop-gaming-pc-build/?do=findComment&comment=1067036856 Share on other sites More sharing options...
AnotherDave Posted February 28, 2015 Author Share Posted February 28, 2015 I hadn't even thought about that. Having the option would be good, but not a deal breaker. Link to comment https://gtaforums.com/topic/769680-photoshop-gaming-pc-build/?do=findComment&comment=1067036866 Share on other sites More sharing options...
yoječ Posted February 28, 2015 Share Posted February 28, 2015 (edited) Without OC: PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1230 V3 3.3GHz Quad-Core Processor (£202.94 @ Scan.co.uk) CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler (£25.50 @ Amazon UK) Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z97P-D3 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£56.76 @ Amazon UK) Storage: Crucial BX100 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£69.99 @ Amazon UK) Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£37.99 @ Aria PC) Case: Zalman Z3 Plus ATX Mid Tower Case (£26.99 @ Amazon UK) Power Supply: Antec TruePower Classic 550W 80+ Gold Certified ATX Power Supply (£53.11 @ Dabs) Optical Drive: LG GH24NSB0 DVD/CD Writer (£14.89 @ Amazon UK) Total: £488.17 Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-02-28 16:44 GMT+0000 Quad core CPU with Hyper Threading (performance equivalent to i7-4770), decent motherboard, fast 1TB HDD & 250GB SSD, case with good airflow, quality PSU with lots of power, optical disk drive. Also thrown in a CPU cooler. For overclocking: PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant CPU: Intel Core i5-4690K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor (£180.99 @ Amazon UK) CPU Cooler: Phanteks PH-TC12DX_BL 68.5 CFM CPU Cooler (£38.54 @ Scan.co.uk) Motherboard: MSI Z97-G55 SLI ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£88.99 @ Dabs) Storage: Crucial BX100 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£69.99 @ Amazon UK) Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£37.99 @ Aria PC) Case: Zalman Z3 Plus ATX Mid Tower Case (£26.99 @ Amazon UK) Power Supply: Antec TruePower Classic 550W 80+ Gold Certified ATX Power Supply (£53.11 @ Dabs) Optical Drive: LG GH24NSB0 DVD/CD Writer (£14.89 @ Amazon UK) Total: £511.49 Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-02-28 16:48 GMT+0000 Quad core CPU with unlocked multiplier, better mobo and cooler. Rest is the same as above. Edited February 28, 2015 by yojo2 AnotherDave 1 Link to comment https://gtaforums.com/topic/769680-photoshop-gaming-pc-build/?do=findComment&comment=1067037212 Share on other sites More sharing options...
AnotherDave Posted February 28, 2015 Author Share Posted February 28, 2015 Thank you for your suggestions, yojo. I've taken some time to do a bit of research and I'm leaning towards the overclockable build. One snag is that the motherboard you've picked isn't in stock at Dabs (or anywhere else that I can see) and they have no date on any more. Is there another you could recommend? Link to comment https://gtaforums.com/topic/769680-photoshop-gaming-pc-build/?do=findComment&comment=1067038481 Share on other sites More sharing options...
yoječ Posted February 28, 2015 Share Posted February 28, 2015 http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/part/gigabyte-motherboard-gaz97xgaming3 AnotherDave 1 Link to comment https://gtaforums.com/topic/769680-photoshop-gaming-pc-build/?do=findComment&comment=1067038668 Share on other sites More sharing options...
K^2 Posted March 2, 2015 Share Posted March 2, 2015 4690K with a Z97 board is a good choice for this, given budget constraints. The only way to dramatically improve performance for graphics editing is to go to a board with quad-channel DDR3, which means LGA2011. Buying a board and CPU for LGA2011 with sufficient specs to outperform a 4690K build would break your budget by more than a factor of 2. The only other piece of advice I can give is to make sure you read reviews on power supply carefully. I've once almost bought a PSU with pretty decent reviews overall, when I realized that while failures were few, the primary mode of failure of that PSU was literally catching fire. P.S. A lot of graphics editing software is starting to utilize CUDA to shift expensive computations to the GPU. It probably won't matter right now, but I would consider switching over to nVidia card in the future for this reason. AnotherDave 1 Link to comment https://gtaforums.com/topic/769680-photoshop-gaming-pc-build/?do=findComment&comment=1067045768 Share on other sites More sharing options...
AnotherDave Posted March 2, 2015 Author Share Posted March 2, 2015 Thanks for the info, K^2, it's all very helpful. I've been looking into all the parts, reading reviews and so on, so hopefully I won't get caught out by combusting components or any other nastiness when I put it all together. I'm confident that the graphics editing with this build will be considerably faster than what I'm used to at the moment using a 2012 MacBook Pro. I'm going for a dedicated scratch disk and as I have some extra money assigned just for storage/backup/archiving I'll probably switch up my plan a little and RAID 0 a couple of hard drives for data, with a couple more in RAID 1 for daily backups. Plus there will be 4 times more RAM than I have now and room for future improvement with a better GPU. I think I'm closing in on my final list now. Just need to nail down the PSU and the case and I'll have a pretty decent setup for the time being. Link to comment https://gtaforums.com/topic/769680-photoshop-gaming-pc-build/?do=findComment&comment=1067046198 Share on other sites More sharing options...
K^2 Posted March 2, 2015 Share Posted March 2, 2015 Consider using hybrid drive for scratch. It's basically SSD read/write speeds for frequently accessed files with HDD space for everything else. Link to comment https://gtaforums.com/topic/769680-photoshop-gaming-pc-build/?do=findComment&comment=1067046237 Share on other sites More sharing options...
yoječ Posted March 2, 2015 Share Posted March 2, 2015 AFAIK Z87/Z97 mobos can make any HDD work like a hybrid (provided you have an SSD) (Intel Smart Response Technology) Link to comment https://gtaforums.com/topic/769680-photoshop-gaming-pc-build/?do=findComment&comment=1067046329 Share on other sites More sharing options...
K^2 Posted March 3, 2015 Share Posted March 3, 2015 AFAIK Z87/Z97 mobos can make any HDD work like a hybrid (provided you have an SSD) (Intel Smart Response Technology) Neat! Any idea if that's compatible with RAID, though? Link to comment https://gtaforums.com/topic/769680-photoshop-gaming-pc-build/?do=findComment&comment=1067050109 Share on other sites More sharing options...
yoječ Posted March 3, 2015 Share Posted March 3, 2015 Not sure, I've never tested it. Link to comment https://gtaforums.com/topic/769680-photoshop-gaming-pc-build/?do=findComment&comment=1067050183 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts