I want to build me a new computer (warning noob alert)

[Goku]

Originally Posted by DjEclipse

Be great if the go Intel posters would stay out of AMD build threads.

It is like a guy doing a Camaro car build, and someone replying dude you
should really go with a Mustang. Not helpful. Let people enjoy their build.

He said he was a n00b, so have to give him proper guidance. If he came in here saying he wanted an AMD build regardless I would help him as much as I can. Still looking forward to the upcoming PD eight core being something worthwhile.

[Mutant]

Originally Posted by DjEclipse

We all been a n00b. To me it's not proper guidance to change their build.

Especially when their build isn't a bad build. All it needs is someone experienced in that build to help it a long.

I get that Intel cornered the market. Glock cornered the market too, doesn't mean the Kimber I carry is shit.

Intel offer better performance per $ for most user cases right now, this is info that the less well informed people asking about builds should be given.

However the performance per $ gap is not that big, Intel lead by quite some way in pure performance.
And Intel total blow AMD away in performance per Core/thread.

This results in Intel being the clear winner in older code which uses 1-4 threads.

It is my expectation that the FX-8150 will perform quite well for PS2 as the devs have said that PS2 will use every thread it can find.

[Goku]

Last post on this from me anyway. A lot of people are mislead by the core count on AMD CPU. They see octo core think this the greatest and will do the build without looking into the actual performance. We even have people getting the quad core FX 4100, which is just a bad cpu altogether (when that person would be better off with a Phenom II X4 or a Core i3 2100). People often just do not do any research despite dumping nearly a thousand into the computer they will have for years to come.

[Rbstr]

Originally Posted by DjEclipse

Safe to say the OP heard of Intel. There's no, hey should I go with Intel?
question. Choice is made. S/he is simply asking for help on an AMD build.

Or they picked AMD because it has a higher clock speed and a cheaper price, because people who are n00bs may think clock speed is the important stat?

I don't give any fucks whether a CPU is AMD or Intel or Bob's Friendly Semiconductor Fab. The only thing of importance is performance at the desired application. Intel has AMD soundly beat. If you're looking for advice on a computer build that's what I'm going to tell you to go for. If this was several years ago, I'd be telling people to forget about that stupid prescott Pentium D and go for the Athlon 64 X2 or whatever it was.

[polywomple]

So personally I think I need the SSD because I'm very photoshop heavy (illustration)

I don't nearly play as many games as I used too, but I'm definitely planning for PS2... But at the same time I need to consider my art in the picture in terms of build. Which I should have posted earlier.

That's why I thought the SSD was a good idea because I was planning on making it the boot drive, installing PS CS5 on it and maybe one or two games (definitely PS2).

I'm just wondering, how much space does windows 7 require? Getting a 64g SSD seems small however if I can fit the OS and a few programs I'm content with the package.

OK so I have a few more questions...

The reason I was considering the 16g memory was because I'm so Photoshop heavy (up to 400mb sized PSD's with dozens of layers), but am I over-killing it? 8 gigs seems like a good benchmark but if there's a noticeable difference with 16g, especially with Photoshop, I will definitely get it.

[Rbstr]

With Photoshop I don't know if you'll see a ton of SSD benefit unless you have the files you're working with on the SSD as well. But I am not sure.
I would bet more RAM is a much more useful addition than an SSD for photoshop (and cheaper)

EDIT: here's Adobe's advice

Originally Posted by Adobe's Site

Solid-state disks

Installing Photoshop on a solid-state disk (SSD) allows Photoshop to launch fast, probably in less than a second. But that speedier startup is the only time savings you experience. That’s the only time when much data is read from the SSD.

To gain the greatest benefit from an SSD, use it as the scratch disk. Using it as a scratch disk gives you significant performance improvements if you have images that don’t fit entirely in RAM. For example, swapping tiles between RAM and an SSD is much faster than swapping between RAM and a hard disk.

If your SSD doesn’t have much free space (if the scratch file grows bigger than can fit on the SSD), you can add a secondary or tertiary hard disk (after the SSD). Make sure that these disks are selected as scratch disks in the Performance pane of Preferences.

Also, SSDs vary widely in performance, much more so than hard disks. Using an earlier, slower drive results in little improvement over a hard disk.

Note: Adding RAM to improve performance is more cost effective than purchasing an SSD. If money is no object, you're maxed out on installed RAM for your computer, you run Photoshop CS5 as a 64-bit application, and you still want to improve performance, consider using a solid-state disk as your scratch disk.

As noted above, an SSD doesn't improve performance if the efficiency indicator is already high. The lower the efficiency indicator, the greater the improvement an SSD offers.

That's about what I figured.
(The rest of their advice here: helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/kb/optimize-performance-photoshop-cs4-cs5.html)

Windows takes a bit under 20gb. PS2 will likely take 10 considering modern games. You're halfway full with nothing else. 64gb would be a PITA for me on my gaming computer and I would have to jump though "is it ssd worthy?" hoops. It would work OK for my work laptop which only needs office and some work software besides document/picture storage (it actually has a 100gb SSD, I've seen both sides of the picture)...It may work for you but I think there are better things to spend your money on. I wouldn't make it a priority compared to other components.

Being a big user of Photoshop also brings GPU computation into the picture. I have no idea which current cards are best, my GPU computation experience is limited to video decoding. nVidia was the innovator/leader but AMD seems to have made strides there. You should probably google around a bit.

[Mutant]

I think SSDs are well worth it, I will never go back to not having an SSD.

But im not sure it will make much different to Photoshop apart from speeding loading the img into ram, If your a working on one image at a time once it loads into ram you wont be using an SSD.





If you have an older version of Photoshop and want GPGPU support you will need Nvidia.

CS4 & 5 Use CUDA.

Only CS6 + Uses OpenCL for use with AMD cards. Adobes Mercury Graphics Engine (MGE) only supports OpenCL and drops CUDA.

CUDA = Nvidia only (proprietary Nvidia)
OpenCL = AMD + Nvidia + Intel (open standard by Khronos group)


Right now for raw performance the HD7970 is the best GPGPU card you can buy, followed by GTX680 then GTX580, but if your code is DP then the 580 is better than the 680.



GFLOPS(SP) GFLOPS(DP) SP-DPx

GeForce GTX 580 1581 198 8
GeForce GTX 670 2460 103 24
GeForce GTX 680 3090 129 24

Radeon HD 7970 3789 947 4
Radeon HD 7970 GHz 4300 1010 4

[polywomple]

Thanks for the help so far guys

sooo I was thinking about getting an intel i5-3550 instead of an i7-2600 and using the spare money for a liquidcooling system for overclocking the CPU. good idea y/n?

[Vancha]

You can't overclock a 3550, you'll need the 3570k.

Otherwise it's a good idea, assuming you won't utilize the multi-threading of the i7 and you want to overclock the i5 to the point of needing a liquid cooling system...

[Deadeye]

How about for the video card waiting for the 660ti? It's not as good as the 670 but leaked stats say it's better than the 7950 and it's probably going to be about $300 which, if the leaks are accurate, will make it a very good bang for the buck.

[Rbstr]

I wouldn't get the i7 anyway. I'd go with the i5 stock and use the money on a better graphics card or just pocket it. Maybe buy a nice quiet heat sink.