Hello Everyone...hope you all had a nice Thanksgiving Holiday!
I'm looking for advice on what video card I should recommend/buy for an up-coming build for a family member. It'll be a professional-class imaging workstation for digital photography. He's looking to run Adobe Master Collection CS4 suite, Adobe Lightroom, a bunch of plug-ins, etc. He already has over a Terrabyte of photos, video and such spread among several HDs. His current machine is a Dell with a P4 3.0, Windows XP Pro and 2 Gigs of DDR2-400! Yeah, time to upgrade... :disgust:
So far, we've come-up with a rig consisting of:
- Intel Quad-Core Q9450
- GIGABYTE GA-EP45-UD3R LGA 775 Intel P45 ATX Motherboard
- 8 Gigs DDR2-1066 RAM
- 1 Seagate 500GB HDs for Primary OS and system programs, (4) Seagate 1TB HDs for Logic/Storage in RAID 1 array
- SansDigital MobileSTOR MS4T JBOD Firewire External Enclosure w/(4) Seagate TB HDs for external back-up and hot-swappable drive capability
- LG Blu-Ray Burner/HD-DVD drive
- PC Power & Cooling Silencer 750w PSU
- Eizo ColorEdge CG241W LCD Monitor
- Windows Vista Ultimate x64 OS
Now, that's a build! The only things he's not buying are a Lian-Li PC-65 case I'm giving him and his Klipsch Promedia 2.1 speakers.
My only concern is the video section. What are the pros and cons of running a workstation-card vs. a standard "desktop" card for such a build? IOW, where should I be looking for stability, efficiency, color fidelity and raw imaging resolution? Of course, the power to drive that Eizo LCD is also a must.
I would imagine that, should a desktop card be a good enough solution, going with a 260/280 GTX or 4870 1GB would be the bare minumum as far as providing the resolutions, image quality and connectivity this machine would demand.
But I have no idea what to look for in a workstation card. I've been looking a bit on Newegg, but I'm not sure how much card is enough when you're looking at these cards. And, while it may sound funny considering how expensive this build is already, if I don't need a $300 - $500 desktop card, could a cheaper, but more applicable, workstation solution suffice?
This is a new area for me, build-wise. I've built my fair share of "mom & pop" PC's, gaming rigs and media/home servers. But I've never built a rig that is dedicated to such a specific, optimized purpose. Frankly, I can't wait to get started and see how it comes out!
Thanks for any info or suggestions!
Twitch
I'm looking for advice on what video card I should recommend/buy for an up-coming build for a family member. It'll be a professional-class imaging workstation for digital photography. He's looking to run Adobe Master Collection CS4 suite, Adobe Lightroom, a bunch of plug-ins, etc. He already has over a Terrabyte of photos, video and such spread among several HDs. His current machine is a Dell with a P4 3.0, Windows XP Pro and 2 Gigs of DDR2-400! Yeah, time to upgrade... :disgust:
So far, we've come-up with a rig consisting of:
- Intel Quad-Core Q9450
- GIGABYTE GA-EP45-UD3R LGA 775 Intel P45 ATX Motherboard
- 8 Gigs DDR2-1066 RAM
- 1 Seagate 500GB HDs for Primary OS and system programs, (4) Seagate 1TB HDs for Logic/Storage in RAID 1 array
- SansDigital MobileSTOR MS4T JBOD Firewire External Enclosure w/(4) Seagate TB HDs for external back-up and hot-swappable drive capability
- LG Blu-Ray Burner/HD-DVD drive
- PC Power & Cooling Silencer 750w PSU
- Eizo ColorEdge CG241W LCD Monitor
- Windows Vista Ultimate x64 OS
Now, that's a build! The only things he's not buying are a Lian-Li PC-65 case I'm giving him and his Klipsch Promedia 2.1 speakers.
My only concern is the video section. What are the pros and cons of running a workstation-card vs. a standard "desktop" card for such a build? IOW, where should I be looking for stability, efficiency, color fidelity and raw imaging resolution? Of course, the power to drive that Eizo LCD is also a must.
I would imagine that, should a desktop card be a good enough solution, going with a 260/280 GTX or 4870 1GB would be the bare minumum as far as providing the resolutions, image quality and connectivity this machine would demand.
But I have no idea what to look for in a workstation card. I've been looking a bit on Newegg, but I'm not sure how much card is enough when you're looking at these cards. And, while it may sound funny considering how expensive this build is already, if I don't need a $300 - $500 desktop card, could a cheaper, but more applicable, workstation solution suffice?
This is a new area for me, build-wise. I've built my fair share of "mom & pop" PC's, gaming rigs and media/home servers. But I've never built a rig that is dedicated to such a specific, optimized purpose. Frankly, I can't wait to get started and see how it comes out!
Thanks for any info or suggestions!
Twitch