System configuration for PS CS2

[Ruben Silva]

Hello I'm about to build this new (dedicated) system and would like to have

your oppinions & Critics. The configuration will support 2 monitors for

extended desktop, and parallel processing with 2 cores and hyperthreading.

Paralelism on disks will be achieved by independent controllers and stripped

volumes, instead of RAID1. Thanks in advance for your suggestions. Ruben

Hardware

 

- Intel Pentium D 940 Dual-Core 3.2 Ghz, L2 Cache 2x2MB 800Mhz Front side bus

 

- 2 GB Memory

 

- Motherboard D945GNT

 

Support for the Intelﾮ Pentiumﾮ D processor,

1066 MHz system bus, Intelﾮ EM64T2

Intelﾮ Graphis GMA 950 - support for dual monitor desktop Dual-channel DDR2

667 / 533 / 400 memory support PCI Express* x16 graphics connector: graphics

bandwidth delivers up to 4 GB/s 4 Serial ATA ports (3.0 Gb/s): Integrated

Intelﾮ 10/100-Mbps Ethernet Intelﾮ High Definition Audio with 5.1 Surround

Sound Four PCI connectors 8 Hi-Speed USB 2.0 ports

 

- Four SATA Disks Western Digital 80Gb each

 

System: windows XP pro, configured for minimal memory utilization.

 

Partitions/logical Volumes:

 

Disk 0:

 

Volume C: Simple Dynamic (system) 8GB

 

Volume P: Stripped Dynamic Photo Archive 30GB

 

Disk 1:

 

Volume S: Simple Dynamic Phostoshop Swap1 8GB Volume

 

P: Stripped Dynamic Photo Archive 30GB

 

Disk 2:

 

Volume Q: Stripped Dynamic Phostoshop Swap2 4GB

 

Volume I: Stripped Dynamic RAW filesworkspace 20GB

 

Disk 3:

 

Volume Q: Stripped Dynamic Photoshop Swap2 4GB

 

Volume I: Stripped Dynamic RAW filesworkspace 20GB

[acedigital]

Check Adobes website for technical configuration recommendations on configuring CS2.

[david_elm]

Perhaps you have decided for the life of this motherboard 4GB of RAM

will be enough. Starting with 2GB you will not see problems with

memory loss but if you upgrade to 4GB there is the PCI memory hole to consider and the impact video card(s) have on that. Runing XPx64 or

server 2003 solves the memory hole problem if the processor is 64bit.

Firewire is nice to have if you have any peripherals that can use it.

Compare the D945GNT to Tyan K8WE.

 

Bottom line: 64bit, dual boot XPpro & XPx64, DIMMs for lots of RAM, dual PCIe x 16 as you may like flexibility in choosing video support.

[EricM]

ditto'ing David. I'd put all this effort into a 64 bit board with 4 gigs ram min. CS3 is supposed to be 64 bit. supposed to be...