Building a computer for photo processing

[rben23112]

Computers and photography used to be my 2 main hobbies. However, I no longer have the time or money for both, so I let computers go 7 or 8 years ago to concentrate on photography. I did search for a similar thread, but nothing came up.

With the help of the wonderful members here, I successfully built my last machine about 5 years ago, and am still using it. It has been rock steady, but is not fast enough to handle the larger files of my Canon 40D, (10 megs each), if I'm doing panoramas or focus stacking, or a number of other things that require working with up to 10 files simultaneously. And I may be getting an 18 meg camera with hd video next year...

I'd like to build it in the next month or so, and I'm in the US and would prefer to buy everything at the same time and from the same source - probably newegg. My budget is roughly $1000

I have a great NEC monitor, a keyboard and mouse, and a graphics tablet. So what I need is a case and the components. I'm also not sure if I should go with Vista 64 bit or Win7, (XP pro now). I installed a 1.5 tb Samsung hd recently to hold my photo files that I will move to the new case. Should I also get a blu-ray dvd recorder since my next camera will have hd video? And to show my ignorance, should I do a raid 1 or 0, or just keep the 1.5 tb for photos.

If I have left out any info needed, please let me know. I'll wait to respond in case there is more than one question I need to answer.

Thanx in advance for any help.

Here is a link to some of my photos if anyone wants to see what I do.

Ron

 

[rivan]

Originally posted by: rben23112
Computers and photography used to be my 2 main hobbies. However, I no longer have the time or money for both, so I let computers go 7 or 8 years ago to concentrate on photography. I did search for a similar thread, but nothing came up.

With the help of the wonderful members here, I successfully built my last machine about 5 years ago, and am still using it. It has been rock steady, but is not fast enough to handle the larger files of my Canon 40D, (10 megs each), if I'm doing panoramas or focus stacking, or a number of other things that require working with up to 10 files simultaneously. And I may be getting an 18 meg camera with hd video next year...

I'd like to build it in the next month or so, and I'm in the US and would prefer to buy everything at the same time and from the same source - probably newegg. My budget is roughly $1000

I have a great NEC monitor, a keyboard and mouse, and a graphics tablet. So what I need is a case and the components. I'm also not sure if I should go with Vista 64 bit or Win7, (XP pro now). I installed a 1.5 tb Samsung hd recently to hold my photo files that I will move to the new case. Should I also get a blu-ray dvd recorder since my next camera will have hd video? And to show my ignorance, should I do a raid 1 or 0, or just keep the 1.5 tb for photos.

If I have left out any info needed, please let me know. I'll wait to respond in case there is more than one question I need to answer.

Thanx in advance for any help.

Here is a link to some of my photos if anyone wants to see what I do.

Ron

Almost any combination of parts you'd want from the system builder's thread will work for editing those images. Images that size are no longer any level of challenge for a modern processors or hard disks.

If you really want to mess with raid, do raid 1 (mirroring) for redundancy. I wouldn't recommend that for you. Rather, I'd suggest getting another drive - external perhaps - to regularly back up your files including your photography.

Dual core vs quad: you might see a performance improvement with a quad core, but that noticeable improvement will more or less be limited to times when you're actually doing major processing: during the stacking or while processing the panorama. Depending on what you're using to do those operations, there may be no performance improvement at all (and it may actually be better for you to get a faster dual core given the same processor budget).

RAM: 4G will carry you for a good, long time I think.

Edit: XP Pro is getting a little long in the tooth, but is still perfectly fine. On vista vs Win7, I'd go with Win7 based purely on reviews and the fact that it'll be supported longer.

 

[stevf]

do you have a monitor? that should be a high priority too - ooops - see you have a monitor - which one

 

[rben23112]

Thanx rivan. I now have a good starting point ~ Ron

 

[rben23112]

Originally posted by: stevf
do you have a monitor? that should be a high priority too - ooops - see you have a monitor - which one

Thanx Steve -
It's a 24" NEC Multisync LCD 2490wuxi.

Ron

 

[mmntech]

A cheap quad core, 4gb of memory, and a decent mid-range GPU. I know Photoshop CS4 is OpenGL accelerated. You can pick up an AMD Athlon II X4 620 for $100.

 

[elconejito]

Couple of questions...

How long are you sticking with CS3? CS3 is very Ghz dependent. CS4 (and beyond) responds better to more cores/threads. The Intel i5 750 is a great choice for the former, and a good choice for the latter. If you are moving soon to CS4 then I'd suggest the i7 860.

Load it up with 8GB of RAM.

What is your workflow like?
If you open all your images and then work on them for while within photoshop, then I think just a 2 disk, non-RAID setup will be just fine. One disk for OS/apps, the second disk for storage. As long as all the file fit in RAM (have you checked your scratch sizes?) then this will work perfectly.

If, you tend to batch a lot of things, then the bottleneck is going to be your hard drive. In that case, you might have to look at adding a third drive (capture to disk 1 > open is PS > save to disk 2) to decrease concurrent writes on the same drive. Or you could try to boost the speed by RAID-ing some drives but that will add to the cost and complexity of the system.

Are you going to overclock?

Make sure you have a good backup solution. Minimum an external USB drive...

 

[rben23112]

Originally posted by: elconejito
Couple of questions...

How long are you sticking with CS3? CS3 is very Ghz dependent. CS4 (and beyond) responds better to more cores/threads. The Intel i5 750 is a great choice for the former, and a good choice for the latter. If you are moving soon to CS4 then I'd suggest the i7 860.

Load it up with 8GB of RAM.

What is your workflow like?
If you open all your images and then work on them for while within photoshop, then I think just a 2 disk, non-RAID setup will be just fine. One disk for OS/apps, the second disk for storage. As long as all the file fit in RAM (have you checked your scratch sizes?) then this will work perfectly.

If, you tend to batch a lot of things, then the bottleneck is going to be your hard drive. In that case, you might have to look at adding a third drive (capture to disk 1 > open is PS > save to disk 2) to decrease concurrent writes on the same drive. Or you could try to boost the speed by RAID-ing some drives but that will add to the cost and complexity of the system.

Are you going to overclock?

Make sure you have a good backup solution. Minimum an external USB drive...

Thanx elconejito.
I will be using CS3 until sometime next year. A new computer now and an upgrade in my camera body next year will have me tapped out on discretionary income probably until late next year.
The only time I work on multiple images is either doing panoramas or focus stacking - I could have up to 10 files open at once. The files are currently 10 megs each, but will go to 18 megs each next year.
I would prefer to not oc the system - that takes more knowledge than I have, and I would also prefer to stay away from any type of Raid.
And I already have a 150 gig external hd for backup, but am considering going to an online backup solution.
Ron

 

[elconejito]

OK, in that case I think your best bet right now is the i5 750. For CS3 I think the higher turbo mode will be more useful than the extra threads of the i7 860. By mid next year they will probably have announced CS5 and you might as well wait for that

The 10mb/18mb size is the filesize, but when it's open in Photoshop it takes up a lot more space. Open up a normal set of files that you work on and then check the scratch size in photoshop [if you don't know how, it's the triangle flyout in the lower left corner of a document window net to the zoom level. Choose "Scratch sizes" from the flyout menu]. This will tell you how much RAM you need. I'm thinking you're going to want 8GB anyway, but you might be able to get away with 4GB.

No sweat on the OC (or lack thereof). And I was only recommending RAID if you needed the disk speed, but it doesn't sound like you do.

 

[rben23112]

Thanx elconejito. I actually understand what you wrote...
Ron