yet another Computer Build question

[bgelfand]

<p>@Wouter Willemse</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>Open<strong>G</strong>L doesn't matter at all</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Photoshop CS5 uses Open GL for several functions - Rotation, H-click to zoom out and select a new area, Scrubby Zoom, and Heads Up Color selection to name a few.</p>

[john_harper9]

<p>I formerly had a business of building PCs and servers for individuals and small business. When I started, I could undercut Dell's prices by 15 to 20%. Dell, HP, and Lenovo pre-built boxes are now at the same price as buying the parts for a computer, so my pricing is no longer competitive. I also included a 3-year warranty on everything and by buying enterprise-grade disks, using reliable memory suppliers (Crucial), Intel boards and CPUs, PC Power and Cooling supplies, etc. almost all of the computers I built lasted 5 years or longer without parts replacement. The same approach still works for a tower that uses standard components but the cost is higher than an off-the-shelf box. Use enterprise components (especially disks and RAID cards) and do the research on where to find current drivers for the OS you are installing and the latest BIOS and chipset firmware for your motherboard. Use a case that allows large quiet fans. Get a premium quality power supply.</p>

<p>Brand new DOA parts are a problem for system builders if you don't have spares to swap and determine which part failed. An issue I recently encountered is parts integration compatibility where an Intel 530 series SSD failed to operate with an Intel motherboard. This was fixed by Intel replacing the drive with a 525 series SSD which was of the same generation as the motherboard. This is the type of integration issue that can drive you nuts and since the drive and motherboard were from the same vendor, there was no finger pointing. Intel engineers cobbled up the same parts, reproduced the problem, and determined I needed an older generation drive.</p>

<p>But if you don't want to deal with integration troubleshooting, if the PC you want is small form factor, has a touch screen for Windows 8, or otherwise does not use readily-available standard components, buy a pre-built box with a warranty plan that offloads the pain problem diagnostics and finding a replacement part in a couple of years. </p>

<p> </p>

[Wouter Willemse]

<p>Brooks, you're right - my mistake. Though most programs are now moving to OpenCL (and/or CUDA, which is exclusive to NVIDIA).</p>

[bebu_lamar]

<blockquote>

<p>My idea is to figure out a way to continue using xp at least for the immediate future.<br />two to three years ago I decided that I doid not like win 7.<br>

I only upgraded from win 98 se when memory video and hard drive sizes became incompatible.,<br />I dropped windows 2000 when I could no longer find support for network ort sound cards.<br />I suppose thaqt eventually even proper drivers for<br />win 7 and newer hardware will become unavailable.<br>

I note that the VA is still runninfg<br />XP. I wonder what they will do.<br />again sorry about vision caused typos</p>

</blockquote>

<p>The internet is the computer killer. If you don't use the internet you can continue to use Windows XP for a long long time. Keep using the same apps doing the same things. You can stock up parts that likely to fail now. Many video cards, sound cards new now still have drivers for windows xp. <br>

But if you use the internet, a change in your favorite website or email service would require you to upgrade your OS. <br>

I am currently setting up a number of new PC's to replace dead ones to run an application that would only run under Windows 95. I have to use Virtual PC to do it. </p>

 

[JRCrowe]

<p>There are a few new Motherboards with Thunderbolt 2 and I would look for those. I have adobe Premier 4 and it can use around 14 gigs of ram while rendering, so if your planning on shooting video you may want to plan for up to 32 GB eventually. Try the on board video to start and you can add a card later. I built a system with the Corsair Graphite case and loved it, It is a huge case though. I think an external drive for backup might be better, either USB 3.0 or Thunderbolt. I live in Los Angeles and we had some recent earthquakes and it got me to thinking what I would take with me in an emergency. So I either need to put a handle on top of my computer or back up to an external hard drive. Get a SSD big enough to install Photoshop, Lightroom and any thing else you may consider in the future. I started out with a 90 GB drive with Windows 7 and quickly filled it up. From what I have read there are noisy fans and quiet fans so check out the reviews. Check out you tube for videos, that will help give you more confidence in your build. </p>

[w_t1]

<p>I build my own pcs "because I can." The blanket statements like "no reason to build your own" are laughable.</p>

<p>When I build a new desktop, done it 3 times now over last 15 years, I go to places like newegg or tom's hardware site and look at gamer's system components for current components. I'm not a gamer, well I play with <em>real</em> bullets, but anything they use to run their games will run anything photo-related. I generally buy components that are mid-range. Ie not the top processor and certainly not the bottom.</p>

<p>My current desktop is xp and I plan on using it until broken. Runs my nikon film scanners, flatbeds etc. Like the other poster said if you're not on the net you can go a long way. It's also my way of giving the big ole "blank you" salute to my neighbor microsoft....</p>

[rick_mann1]

<p>To jump back for a moment on the topic of "best build for Lightroom", remember that additional cores are not used to an advantage here, it's single core speed with LR5. The i5-4670K makes a wonderful foundation as with water cooling, you can overclock for additional performance while still maintaining a completely stable machine. Testing showed a fast SSD with the LR catalog on the same drive as the OS was relatively the same speed as it being on it's own drive. So save money here. The graphics card in 2014 reality, is a moot point with LR5 now. Forget debating Quadro vs. GeForce, how many shaders / how much GDDR5 Ram, as LR5 is going to run the same under two beastly gaming SLI cards or just a "normal" current year mainstream card. You're much better off looking at video card driver stability and maturity vs. the actual hardware specs for this. For better or worse, Lightroom today takes little advantage of all the new cpu cores, instructions, and gpu streams advertised to increase speed. While those certainly help in many other applications, if you're building this machine as a stable and consistent "Lightroom workflow solution", I'd suggest the following:<br>

Fastest core speed cpu (i5K recommended)<br>

Low latency ram<br>

Choose the SSD on performance, not necessarily size. You'll want the OS and LR catalog on it so given the choice between "fast" and the next size up, I'd choose fast. When you grow to need more overhead, the SSD chips will be even faster and cloning SSD's for replacement are quick and easy. <br>

Choose a well known motherboard (Asus recommended) and a strong reliable "85+" rated power supply. <br>

Good luck!</p>

[justthings]

<p>Again, thanks everyone for the perspectives. I found the site partpicker.com as a useful tool to aid in configuring a system. I am learning that the i5-4670k is probably a 'sweet' spot of performance and unless applications use the hyperthreading capability of the i7-4770k there is very little performance benefit for the price. The build I am currently contemplating is here: http://pcpartpicker.com/b/Plq- there is some debate about the value of a GPU, but i have tweens and expect some gaming to take place on this machine aside from photo processing, and some of the other applications I work with sometimes require a little more graphics heavy lifting - i don't need huge performance from this device but think some is worthwhile. The system spec'd here doesn't show storage beyond the 120gb SSD that will be the OS/applications drive - i have drives already that can slide into this, albeit smaller capacity than I want long term but enough to get by with for the near term until i can add additional. One of the other 'benefits' that I didn't raise at the start and no one has chirpped about is that building a system like this allows me to avoid the 'bloatware' that comes with preconfigured systems. </p>

[AlanKlein]

<p>I always over buy to specs that exceed my current requirements. It seems that as time marches on, I always need more than I anticipated. Sure LR may not need SSD now. But what if I upgrade to regular PS or some other unknown program in 3 years? My last machine where I was running LR3 would not accept LR5. I had to wait until I replace the PC that I could finally use it.</p>

[JRCrowe]

<p>I will typically have Lightroom, Photoshop, plus a word processor, browser, and bridge all open at the same time. I also run two monitors. My computer has an i7 processor with Windows on an SSD, Lightroom and Photoshop on a second SSD and images are stored on a regular 1TB drive. I have a video card with 2GB of it own memory. 16 GB of RAM for the system. It never slows down or falters and has over the last two years come to be the best computer I have ever had. It even does a pretty fair job with Adobe Premiere and far outpaces my sons Mac Mini for video. I have the two SSD's because the 90 GB rapidly filled up with Windows related files and other things that could not be moved. I bought a larger SSD and reinstalled Windows on it. So it doesn't hurt to overbuild and I figured I saved at least six hundred dollars over a same spec Dell. A Mac would have been over three thousand dollars. I have a total five hard drives in this machine.</p>

[q.g._de_bakker]

It might (probably does) sound like a sensible thing to do to get the fastest, most powerful, and memory laden system, but if you'd ask me, much of the configurations suggested above are 'overkill'. It <i>does</i> hurt to overbuild, in your wallet.<br>Simpler, and cheaper, configurations will do perfectly fine, with a possible gain in speed that could have had being both disproportionally expensive and more than likely to be lost in the work flow, because computers nowadays spend more time waiting for us to do something than the other way around.<br>My advice would be to leave the configurations that come with go-faster-stripes to the gamers, and spend your money sensibly.

[AlanKlein]

<blockquote>

<p>...It <em>does</em> hurt to overbuild, in your wallet...Simpler, and cheaper, configurations will do perfectly fine.... </p>

</blockquote>

<p> <br>

How big or small? Based on who's say so? The problem for the buyer is who do you believe and how does that equate to what you buy? Everyone suggests something different. I try to get a "average" of what people say then buy more of what I can afford to cover myself. After all, you never know what you might need. If you start to do more video, memory runs out pretty quickly and slows down the rendering process. What if you decide to upgrade from LR to the full PS? It's not a simple decision complicated by the extra cost of a calibratable monitor you might want to get. <br /></p>

[bebu_lamar]

<p>But you don't want to spend too much money on a computer as you will need a new one before the old one dies. </p>

[AlanKlein]

<p>At my age, the computer might outlast me. :)</p>

[greg_campbell1]

What's your budget?

I see people talking about blowing $1200, which seems vastly too much for a competent PP box. <br><br>

 

There is nothing remotely 'unreliable' about AMD's chips. For the money they still represent a reasonable option, particularly when running heavily threaded applications. That said, much of PS and LR are not particularly well written; single-thread code still abounds, and AMD's single-thread performance is moderately slower than Intel's. An 8 core FX will go great running one of the fully threaded PS filters or many stand-alone programs (Neatimage, etc. enjot nearly linear gains as you add cores.), but then bog when a critical single-thread operation comes along. Overall, 8 core AMD will do PP very, very well, and will save you ~100 in the meantime. Even a dirt-cheap 6 core will go well. Throw in a mild overclock of the the 'turbo' mode (where only a few cores are active), and the single-thread deficit will become less noticeable. <br><br>

 

IMO, one fast SSD should suffice. Stick the OS, Apps, swap files, and WIP images on it. Adding another small SSD, dedicated exclusively for the temporary/swap files might eek out a hair more performance. <br><br>

 

Agree that the video card doesn't much matter - yet. OpenCL utilization is still very sporadic. I'd buy a $50 place holder (or get a mobo with onboard) and wait until one of your apps 'needs' strong OpenCL power, then buy whichever card is best suited. <br><br>

 

Building your own allows you to avoid the lowest-bidder OEM hardware. IMO, buying a mid-level (or even a budget) components from known, decent brands gets you the best quality/reliability/price combination. It's also kinda 'fun' (some here may need to look that one up!) to see your creation beep to life! And if you are into the whole 'buying experience' thing, you get to open and obsess over not one but half a dozen items! :)

[steven_clark]

I wouldn't bother separating Lightroom from other

applications if they're on a good SSD. Good SSDs handle

contention with effectively zero penalty unlike spinning

disks.