A Photogenic build

[CanadianBoy]

Hey day to all and to all a sunny day

So my brother has my old comp and that has finally given up the day it is willing to run. As he is a starving student that is going to school in Davenport, Iowa. He loves photography and playing with CS5. I have tried getting the cost down to what is affordable for a comp that has to run CS5. I personally dont use CS5, but my buddy uses it as well and that I have built a comp for. Since I know the computer has to be powerful to run CS5, I am having trouble building my brother a computer that can run CS5 without a hitch, and keeping the price down that is also affordable. I have come up with 3 different builds. The cheapest I can come up with is $1484.96. He would like to see it cheaper, but I dont know if that it is possible. Here is what I came up with at that price point:

Intel i7-4790K
Evga GTX970 SSC
Asus Sabertooth Z97 Mark S (white mobo)
Corsair Dominator Platinum 16GB DDR3 1866Mhz Dual Channel

I dont really wanna go 8 gig of ram cause all that use CS5 know how demanding it is. More ram the better for CS5.

So what am I really asking help for? I am asking for all that know CS5 or know of it to help me design a computer for my brother at a decent price. The other two builds I did was priced at $1498.43 and $1879.96.

For you all wondering what his old computer was, here it is:

Asus Striker ii Formula
Mushkin 8 Gig DDR2. Speed, I forget.
Asus 6600 GPU
Intel 775 processor. Model, I forget.

Thanks all for the help.

Cheers,
Brad

[Bartacus]

That's a nice rig, but it's all pimp parts. You can do cheaper than that and not sacrifice any CS5 performance. For example, why the GTX970? That's a gaming card that cost $400. You could easily drop that down to something in the $200 range, unless gaming is a factor too. You could also save a lot of money on the RAM. Dom plats aren't cheap. You can get 1866 CL9 DDR3 ram from other companies for a lot cheaper, and it performs the same. The motherboard is also over the top expensive, just because it's white. TONS of more cost effective options for that.

Don't get me wrong, you listed some GREAT hardware, but in a "bang for the buck starving student" build, that hardware doesn't fit. My advice: find a Z97 board for under $200CDN, swap the RAM for cheaper GSkill / Mushkin of the same speed, and drop the GPU down to an AMD 280/280x. You can still game at 1080P on a 280x quite well, and it will save you about $150 on the GPU. If gaming is a non-factor, go with an even cheaper AMD card. Just my $0.02, but hopefully some Photoshop guys will chime in (not sure how much GPU you need for PS).

[snef]

^^^^^^ Bart is right

motherboard is moire than $350cad

use this one Z97-E for $127cad save more than $200 and you will not see any difference

same thing on ram a Avexir kit (2 x 16) cost around $150, save around another $150

a Intel I5 4690k is more than enough, maybe add a little OC but save another $130
photoshop don't need a lot of CPU power


we look only at 3 component and save around $500 for zero performance difference in Photoshop

add GPU and other component and im sure we save a lot more

[CanadianBoy]

Thanks for the $0.02 Bart, Ill add it to the collection. I went with Dominator ram cause I know it works flawlessly, not to sure on G-skill. As for GPU, I dont know if I need it for the 4 Gigs or not for the editing or if it more for the video editors. I will look at the AMD GPUs though.

Cheers,
Brad

[CanadianBoy]

Snef,
Thanks a lot that would be awsome. Ill look at it later tonight. Whats the Avexir ram like compared to Corsair?

Cheers,
Brad

[snef]

IMO Corsair is OVERpriced, they are great but to expensive

Gskill and avexir are good do the job hands down for less

[DazMode]

Chips are made by same group of companies : Samsung, Hynix, Micron... Who put them on PCb makes little difference.

[Bartacus]

Chips are made by same group of companies : Samsung, Hynix, Micron... Who put them on PCb makes little difference.

Exactly. With the Dominator Platinums, you're paying for looks, and the ability to buy little light bar kits to make the ram even prettier. Not knocking them since I have 4x4GB sticks in my main rig with modded light bars, but they really aren't worth the coin. I just had the extra coin to blow and they looked pretty.

[CanadianBoy]

What is your ppl opinion on EVGA FTW board? Is is just as good as the asus board that Snef suggested. It 30 Dollars more then the Asus board

http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/MX55075

[CanadianBoy]

Here is a pic of the new build thanks to you help so far

2- 16 Gig of Gskill TridentX PC3 19200 DDR3
R9 270X
EVGA FTW mobo
intel i5 4690K

[Grinder]

I'm a big fan of G.Skill, nothing wrong with their kits. If you want to save a bit more, you could consider a used Ivy over Haswell, there is only a small difference at stock which is often made up for if you OC with decent cooling, and this might let you have 8 threads on an i7 vs 4 on an i5 (if it helps with CS5).

Also, research whether CS5 supports CUDA or OpenCL for GPU acceleration. While I prefer AMD and OpenCL, if the app only takes advantage of CUDA then you will want to stick with Nvidia.

[bungwirez]

Also, research whether CS5 supports CUDA or OpenCL for GPU acceleration. While I prefer AMD and OpenCL, if the app only takes advantage of CUDA then you will want to stick with Nvidia.

Good tip.

[CanadianBoy]

Thanks all for the help, I got to reduce the build by 300 bucks.
Here is the build that was purchased:

EVGA FTW,
Intel i5 4960K,
Asus R9 270x Direct CU II Top 4 GB,
G.Skill Trident X Series 16Gb DDR3 2400Mhz,
Eisberg 240 CPU from Daz.

Dose anyone know if that CPU cooler from Daz comes pre-filled or do you have to purchase coolant?

I looked into what CS5 uses and it was Open GL. I figured it was an AMD thing cause there was no mention of CUDA.

Now I get to wait for all the present to arrive and wait until June to install everything. I will post the build pics for all to see if interested when finished.

Cheers,
Brad

[Hooded]

Looks like a nice build. Your friend should be most happy with that.
Post up the pics
We all love a good show.

Also just a little side note. OpenGL and CUDA are NVidia technologies, OpenCL is AMD/ATI.
However Adobe apps support both cards tech well and also Intels on board gpu's are well supported to.

[Grinder]

OpenGL and CUDA are NVidia technologies, OpenCL is AMD/ATI.

Actually, OpenGL isn't NVidia (although they are probably on the board that guides it along with AMD and other big industry players). It's an open graphics library, a competitor to Microsoft's DirectX, that dates back to GL on Silicon Graphics machines. I used to use it in the 90's to develop software to clean and visualize SONAR and LIDAR data.

CUDA is NVidia's proprietary language for computing on GPU's (among other devices) and OpenCL is used largely by AMD, although it will run on other hardware as well.

My understanding is that Adobe support for OpenCL is more limited than for CUDA, depending on the app, but I'm no Adobe expert.

I'm currently writing software for working with spatial data, and will implement an OpenCL version of it in time. OpenCL WILL run on NVidia hardware, but CUDA is probably better to use if you have NVidia.

Looking forward to seeing pics of this build