Originally posted by: Bushman5
What setup would be the perfect thing to do heavy graphics on illustrator cs2 and photoshop cs2.
I was just gonna do a regular gaming rig with more ram 4gb but i thought i would ask the experts.
also i need a monitor as well wide screen. its all about perfect colour
Depends on what you want to do. If you work on very, very high-resolution images (especially with multiple layers), or you like to keep lots of files open, you'll need a lot of RAM. Some image operations can also require substantial amounts of memory. Keep in mind that single applications can only use 2GB of memory (3GB if you do some tweaking) unless you run the 64-bit version of WinXP or Vista. So having more than 2-3GB will help if you have multiple apps open, but won't make a single memory-hungry program run better.
If you run lots of complex filters, are constantly resizing big images, etc., you will want a fast CPU. I'm not sure how much PS/Illustrator benefits from having multiple CPU cores (although they will help if you are doing other stuff in the background).
The video card is pretty much irrelevant for 2D work such as Photoshop or Illustrator.
For the best color reproduction, you generally want a high-end CRT. Barring that, there are some 'professional' LCDs that are designed for very accurate color work, but I don't know if there are widescreen versions of them available. Be prepared to lay out serious cash if you want the best.