Finalizing build

[Jawo]

1. Going to use it primarily for Adobe CS4 Master Collection, watching videos
2. Budget: ~$500 for the box
3. In the US
4. No brand preferences
5. Just ordered WD10EADS ($80), CM Centurion 5 ($21), and Hyper 212 ($25) in weekend specials. Also have an old LG DVD-RW. Have monitor and all other peripherals.
6. Yes I have read most of the current threads on AT, and other forums
7. Probably no OC
8. Now

I have read that Intel is more for gamers as they are better for OC'ing and I can get a 4 core AMD chip for the price of a C2D.

Looking at the AMD Phenom II X4 940 bundled with the Gigabyte GA-MA790X-UD4P ($270)
Kingston HyperX T1 Series 4GB (2x2GB) 240-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR2 1066 ($45)
Looking for a video card ~$60-$80

Suggestions?

 

[M0RPH]

I'd say Radeon 4670 for the video card.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

I'd go for the 955, but that's just me.

 

[Jawo]

Originally posted by: BTRY B 529th FA BN
I'd go for the 955, but that's just me.

Is it worth the additional cash to move to the AM3 chipset? I have also been looking at the 810 as it is very similar in price to the 940, but has the latest chipset.

Any other ideas for video cards? The 4770 seems impossible to get, as its an awesome value.

 

[brblx]

yeah, it's awesomely the same price as the 4850 for a little less performance.

if you're using cs4, why would you not buy an nvidia card to utilize cuda?

 

[Jawo]

Originally posted by: brblx
yeah, it's awesomely the same price as the 4850 for a little less performance.

if you're using cs4, why would you not buy an nvidia card to utilize cuda?

I was just reading about CUDA....so that only works with nVidia cards? Which would be the best card? Say a 9600GT?

 

[dndavis57]

Originally posted by: brblx
yeah, it's awesomely the same price as the 4850 for a little less performance.

I see the price of the still-unobtainable 4770 has gone up $10. It's getting out of bargain territory.

if you're using cs4, why would you not buy an nvidia card to utilize cuda?

I've read in some older threads that ATI cards handle colors more faithfully than nVidia. I'd be interested in knowing if this is still true, since I'm building a new box for similar purposes.

 

[PurdueRy]

What about a monitor for your photo editing?

 

[deputc26]

I'm no nvidia fanboy but CS4 truly uses CUDA well, and ya a 9600gt is about perfect, I'd also go PhII 940 at that pricepoint assuming monitor is not included in the $500

 

[M0RPH]

Originally posted by: deputc26
I'm no nvidia fanboy but CS4 truly uses CUDA well, and ya a 9600gt is about perfect, I'd also go PhII 940 at that pricepoint assuming monitor is not included in the $500

This is wrong. CS4 DOES NOT use Cuda. It uses OpenGL and works equally well on an ATI card.

It was thought at first that CS4 was going to utilize Cuda but that has turned out not to be the case. So the folks that are still recommending Nvidia cards for CS4 are misinformed, sorry to say.

Text

 

[Jawo]

Originally posted by: M0RPH

Originally posted by: deputc26
I'm no nvidia fanboy but CS4 truly uses CUDA well, and ya a 9600gt is about perfect, I'd also go PhII 940 at that pricepoint assuming monitor is not included in the $500

This is wrong. CS4 DOES NOT use Cuda. It uses OpenGL and works equally well on an ATI card.

It was thought at first that CS4 was going to utilize Cuda but that has turned out not to be the case. So the folks that are still recommending Nvidia cards for CS4 are misinformed, sorry to say.

Text

Thanks for clearing this up. CUDA looks cool, but is confusing about what applications use it. I have a Dell 2005FPW that I will continue to use for my monitor.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

Originally posted by: Jawo

Originally posted by: BTRY B 529th FA BN
I'd go for the 955, but that's just me.

Is it worth the additional cash to move to the AM3 chipset? I have also been looking at the 810 as it is very similar in price to the 940, but has the latest chipset.

Any other ideas for video cards? The 4770 seems impossible to get, as its an awesome value.

I heard teh 955 is a great overclocker, that's all

 

[elconejito]

Originally posted by: M0RPH

Originally posted by: deputc26
I'm no nvidia fanboy but CS4 truly uses CUDA well, and ya a 9600gt is about perfect, I'd also go PhII 940 at that pricepoint assuming monitor is not included in the $500

This is wrong. CS4 DOES NOT use Cuda. It uses OpenGL and works equally well on an ATI card.

It was thought at first that CS4 was going to utilize Cuda but that has turned out not to be the case. So the folks that are still recommending Nvidia cards for CS4 are misinformed, sorry to say.

Text

Adobe's list of tested video cards has both nvidia and ati cards listed. No mention as to which one is "better", but I'd suspect there isn't much difference (if any) among comparable cards by different manufacturers.

FWIW, I've always preferred Nvidia colors to ATI, but YMMV...

Adobe's list of GPU accelerated features in CS4. This link tells you actually *what* is accelerated by the video card. Mostly display oriented stuff. I think there was talk at one point about individual filters (made by either Adobe or 3rd party) that would use CUDA for acceleration, but I don't know if anything ever came of it.

 

[Jawo]

Originally posted by: elconejito

Originally posted by: M0RPH

Originally posted by: deputc26
I'm no nvidia fanboy but CS4 truly uses CUDA well, and ya a 9600gt is about perfect, I'd also go PhII 940 at that pricepoint assuming monitor is not included in the $500

This is wrong. CS4 DOES NOT use Cuda. It uses OpenGL and works equally well on an ATI card.

It was thought at first that CS4 was going to utilize Cuda but that has turned out not to be the case. So the folks that are still recommending Nvidia cards for CS4 are misinformed, sorry to say.

Text

Adobe's list of tested video cards has both nvidia and ati cards listed. No mention as to which one is "better", but I'd suspect there isn't much difference (if any) among comparable cards by different manufacturers.

FWIW, I've always preferred Nvidia colors to ATI, but YMMV...

Adobe's list of GPU accelerated features in CS4. This link tells you actually *what* is accelerated by the video card. Mostly display oriented stuff. I think there was talk at one point about individual filters (made by either Adobe or 3rd party) that would use CUDA for acceleration, but I don't know if anything ever came of it.

Thanks for your assistance!

 

[betasub]

Originally posted by: elconejito
FWIW, I've always preferred Nvidia colors to ATI, but YMMV...

So for you, Nvidia's green beats ATI's red. How about AMD's green vs Intel's blue?

 

[PurdueRy]

Originally posted by: betasub

Originally posted by: elconejito
FWIW, I've always preferred Nvidia colors to ATI, but YMMV...

So for you, Nvidia's green beats ATI's red. How about AMD's green vs Intel's blue?

Wait so he was talking about their corporate colors? I assumed he was talking about the display colors and was going to respond with a big WTF are you talking about.

 

[zerogear]

I thought he was joking, if not then pretty LMFAO.

 

[elconejito]

Green rules!

HULK SMASH!!!!!!!



And now for something completely different............

 

[Jawo]

Thanks for all your help. I ended up getting the HD4850 that Newegg had on sale yesterday.