Desktop for photoshop/lightroom

hoganpoly

Looking to get an upgrade from my old single core desktop, looking at the Imacs and yes they are the dogs but anyone have an equivalent set up for under a grand, not into gaming so its just photo editing lots of raw files ,have had a look at elara.ie and komplett.ie ,all look good but just want a bit of advice before making a mistake,is I5 processor the way to go ,any help appreciated thx

Heebie

I think I'd go for an i7 rather than an i5 if you can get it. Quad-core plus hyper-threading really isn't that important if you're doing linear processing, though, and most photography-related algorithms are going to be linear not parallel.
Check the Photoshop documentation and make sure you get a graphics card that is supported by Photoshop's GPU offload features, it'll speed things up immensely. I'm not sure if the iMac's graphics card is covered.
Also, because you're likely to be doing mainly linear processing, a faster CPU will give you more oomph than more cores. (Mhz vs. core count) Something that's linear can't run in parallel, so the extra cores will sit idle.

Ballyman

I got this one a while back and its perfect for editing both photo and video - http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=76293670

sineadw

Lightroom hogs ram afaik. I'd be going for an 8 gig machine. Picked up one (for my son, so don't know how it runs PS or LR but nice specs) for 600 or so from Dell a month or so ago. Small harddrive, but room for a second so that's no problem.

hoganpoly

Checked out dell website and xps 8300 with 8gb ram,1tb Hard drive,i7 processor and 24in monitor coming in @ €1150...looks good any better deals out there

nilhg

I'm hoping to go back to using a desktop for processing sometime soon, I'm planning on going to a dual monitor setup, it should save a lot of switching back and forth between modules in LR.

Kenny Logins

hoganpoly wrote: »

Checked out dell website and xps 8300 with 8gb ram,1tb Hard drive,i7 processor and 24in monitor coming in @ €1150...looks good any better deals out there

I'm sure you could build a better PC for a good bit less, ask in here for a recommended spec. -

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=842

Hardwareversand.de will assemble it for you, for a small fee.

Kenny Logins

Here you go, here's one -

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=76511654

add a 24" 16:10 IPS monitor @ €249 -

http://komplett.ie/Komplett/product/ZKB_04RAND/16_MONITOR/01_MONITOR/productdetails/80003372/Dell_24_U2412M_LED_8ms_DP_VGA_DVI/U2412M/default.aspx

and you've a much better PC than the Dell option.

hoganpoly

Thanks Kenny ,had a look at that thread and looks the dogs,wheres best for those parts mentioned thx

Kenny Logins

If you click on any component in the pricing table it brings you to the page on the German site that supplies it, and also builds PCs.

http://www.hardwareversand.de/

I find Komplett prices are very competitive, and they offer free delivery.

Ballyman

hoganpoly wrote: »

Checked out dell website and xps 8300 with 8gb ram,1tb Hard drive,i7 processor and 24in monitor coming in @ €1150...looks good any better deals out there

Yea, the price now is gone back to normal pricing - I got 16GB RAM, 1.5TB HDD and an i7 processor for €675 which was very cheap at the time. It's a great PC though so if you could spec one for something similar or even a little less for a similar price then you'll be on the pigs back.

Paulw

I built my own PC from scratch -

Intel Core i7-3930K 3.20GHz S2011 12MB
MSI X79A-GD65 (8D), Intel X79, LGA2011, ATX, DDR3
Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1600 MHz CL9 16GB-Kit
Corsair Carbide Series 500R, Black, ATX
Corsair Hydro Series H100
Corsair Enthusiast Series Modular TX750M, 750Watt
OCZ SSD Vertex 2 240GB 8,9cm (3,5")
Seagate 500GB MomentusXT Hybrid SATA3
ASUS ENGTX480/2DI/1536MD5
LiteOn iHBS112-37
MS Windows 7 Pro 64bit SB-Version English

I added 2x 1.5TB disks too, in a mirrored config for photo storage.

Works brilliantly, and is super fast for processing.

hoganpoly

Thanks Paul ,thats some system ,the guts of 2k worth,without the storage and monitor:)

hoganpoly

Ballyman wrote: »

Yea, the price now is gone back to normal pricing - I got 16GB RAM, 1.5TB HDD and an i7 processor for €675 which was very cheap at the time. It's a great PC though so if you could spec one for something similar or even a little less for a similar price then you'll be on the pigs back.

Trust a kerryman to get a bargain like that:)

Paulw

hoganpoly wrote: »

Thanks Paul ,thats some system ,the guts of 2k worth,without the storage and monitor:)

I already had monitors and had spare hard disks.

Yeah, total cost was about €1,800.

In time, I'll probably upgrade the video card, but this will do me for at least a year.