# PC for Photo Editing



## ranmyaku (Dec 27, 2008)

Anyone have any recommendations for a PC that is geared mostly for photo editing? My current PC will not run LR2 and CS4 at the same time very efficiently..ie. it is slow and locks up/crashes sometimes. I have a budget of about 800 dollars.


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## mrodgers (Dec 27, 2008)

Anything available off the shelf?  I have an AMD 3500, 1 gig RAM, and an old ATI 1600 and the only thing I've found I can't do is fly Microsoft FS and work in Photoshop on 7 images at the same time.  I've been trying and have been crashing my flight sim, LOL.

My PC is now almost 4 years old and was middle of the ground off the shelf Compaq at the time (2005).  It works just fine.

I've had in the past LR, Photoshop, and about 30 tabs of The Photo Forum in Firefox open and the PC handled it just fine.


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## Garbz (Dec 28, 2008)

Any computer made after 2005. Throw in 2gb of RAM. Spend the rest on a decent monitor.


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## TwoRails (Dec 28, 2008)

Ever consider building your own???


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## JustAnEngineer (Dec 28, 2008)

$800 will buy you an excellent computer.

Start with a gaming PC like this, drop the useless $90 sound card, downgrade the graphics card to a Radeon HD4670 (unless you still want to play games), double the RAM from 4 to 8 GiB and replace the Core 2 Duo with a Core 2 Quad processor.  Install Windows Vista 64-bit Home Premium OEM as your operating system, and you're all set.


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## Garbz (Dec 28, 2008)

Jesus man we're editing photos not curing cancer here. A 250megapixel 16bit photo with 3 layers in photoshop didn't even scratch 3gb of ram here, what could you possibly need 8 for 

/EDIT: Nevermind vista will need the other 5 :lmao:


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## Joves (Dec 28, 2008)

Garbz said:


> Jesus man we're editing photos not curing cancer here. A 250megapixel 16bit photo with 3 layers in photoshop didn't even scratch 3gb of ram here, what could you possibly need 8 for
> 
> /EDIT: Nevermind vista will need the other 5 :lmao:


 Yeah which is why Im still on XP. If you build your own get XP over Vista/ME. Building isnt that hard at all, everything is basically plug and play.


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## table1349 (Dec 28, 2008)

Garbz said:


> Jesus man we're editing photos not curing cancer here. A 250megapixel 16bit photo with 3 layers in photoshop didn't even scratch 3gb of ram here, what could you possibly need 8 for
> 
> /EDIT: Nevermind vista will need the other 5 :lmao:



Oh Garbz,  Dude I got to play with a Mac pro with 32 gigs of ram and duel Quad core processors.  When I loaded Photoshop I never even saw the startup screen.  It screamed through a multi batch process of 120 photos in like 2.5 seconds.  I was drooling all over myself untill I saw the $28,000.00 price tag.  It was totally awsome. 

As for your assesment of Vista,  True oh so true.:thumbup::thumbup::thumbup::mrgreen:


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## doenoe (Dec 28, 2008)

if you're going to run the 32-bit windows, dont bother to put in more then 3gigs of RAM. Everything you put in more, wont be used......i found that out yesterday :er:


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## TwoRails (Dec 28, 2008)

doenoe said:


> if you're going to run the 32-bit windows, dont bother to put in more then 3gigs of RAM. Everything you put in more, wont be used......i found that out yesterday :er:


That's a yes / no thing.  Windows will only "report" about 3.25 GB RAM, however the rest is used for overhead.  If you remember the days of DOS, then you'll remember the HIMEM system where overhead items, and certain items you could choose, were put into the memory over 640KB.  4GB with a 32 bit Win OS will give more to programs to use than the standard 2GB setup.  It will also run more memory intensive programs, too, with less of a performance hit.


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## Garbz (Dec 28, 2008)

That is only true to a point. Yeas the history is right, and the fact that it is used for overhead is also right, but don't for a moment think that you get any physical benefit from the extra memory.

Without Physical address extention windows and the kernel will only ever map 3.25GB or RAM for useful purposes regardless of what the system is doing. The extra overhead by the way is mostly minuscule. Maybe just maybe if you have a 512MB videocard and you are just loading the textures in a game for the first time at the start of the level you can by chance for a very short time possibly come close to using half of your wasted 0.8GB but the reality is that unless you are running Windows 2003 Server with SP1, or a Linux distro compiled with PAE in mind, the extra RAM is truly completely wasted in a 32bit distro.

"Reserved for overhead" is political sugarcoating for "of no use to the system"


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## TwoRails (Dec 28, 2008)

Comparing a 2GB system to a 4GB system, I have to disagree.  You will see a notable difference while multitasking, especially with memory intensive programs.  The difference between a 3GB to a 4GB I can only guess at as I've never built a 3GB system since DDRx runs best in dual channel.  Intel's new processor, however breaks this mold and runs best in tri-channel.  

Naturally, if all one's doing is emailing or running only one program, then no, you won't notice any difference.  Windows 32 bit maxes out at 2GB "per process," basically meaning per program in a practical sense.  So with even with only 3.25 (Windows does use more, it's just not "reported") you get another 1.25 GB for program use.  This saves a lot of time (read: performance) as now the systems doesn't need to constantly swap memory out to the swap file on your hard drive, which is very costly, time wise.

For example, assuming the system has enough HP to do so, you'll have terrible performance if you, say render a movie *and* play a game at the same time on a 2 GB system, but most likely won't notice a difference on a 4GB system.

And yes, overhead memory use in the 3.25 to 4GB range does free up memory in the lower part.


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## JustAnEngineer (Dec 29, 2008)

Garbz said:


> Jesus man we're editing photos not curing cancer here. A 250megapixel 16bit photo with 3 layers in photoshop didn't even scratch 3gb of ram here, what could you possibly need 8 for


 I find that editing RAW photos is one of the few things that I do that pushes my memory usage to 6+ GiB.  Windows Vista will use extra available memory to pre-fetch stuff for you, which helps with disk access.  DDR2 memory is so amazingly cheap right now that there's no good reason *not* to get 4 x 2 GiB = 8 GiB of DDR2-800 memory with a Core2Duo or Core2Quad system.

You want Windows Vista 64-bit as your operating system.  It's 7 years better than XP, and it shows.


Incidentally, if you install folding @home, you can edit photos and cure cancer at the same time. :thumbsup:


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## epp_b (Dec 29, 2008)

First of all, give us some specs on your PC.  For all we know, you may just need a RAM upgrade.


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## Garbz (Dec 29, 2008)

JustAnEngineer said:


> Incidentally, if you install folding @home, you can edit photos and cure cancer at the same time. :thumbsup:



Funny side note. I upgraded to a Quad core and since then I was suffering random lockups on my computer. Probably something incompatible since I never like upgrading just a single chip, but I noticed that the computer only locked when it was idle. F@H keeps my computer stable believe it or not. Haven't had a lockup since I started using it.


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## JustAnEngineer (Dec 29, 2008)

Gigabyte GA-EG45M-DS2H motherboard w/ integrated graphics
Intel Core2Quad Q8200 2.33 GHz quad-core processor
8GiB = 2ea 2x2 GiB PC2-6400 DDR2-800 memory
640 GB Caviar SE16 WD6400AAKS
Samsung SH-S223Q DVD burner
6X Blu-ray reader/DVD burner
Antec Sonata III 500 case w/ earthwatts EA500
Microsoft Windows Vista 64-bit Home Premium OEM
+$10 shipping and handling
-$20 mail-in rebate
=====
$768.53

If you're not interested in Blu-ray movies, you can use that $105 to add a 1 TB hard-drive, instead.


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## MikeBcos (Dec 29, 2008)

Joves said:


> Yeah which is why Im still on XP. If you build your own get XP over Vista/ME. Building isnt that hard at all, everything is basically plug and play.



I just bought a new computer, nothing fancy, dual core processor, 3Gb RAM, 320 Gb hard drive, cost was a little under $500. I had been a die-hard XP hold-out but with this one I switched to Vista. MS have managed to pretty much fix it. Once I switched off the User Account Control I got used to it very fast and I like it, Vista has some very nice features.

Photoshop CS3 opens in 4 seconds on this system and I have yet to slow it down much, it's great for image editing.


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## Joves (Dec 29, 2008)

I had Vista on this machine but after a few weeks dropped it because, it sucked to me. Now I will probably go to Win7 after reading the reports on it. It is much less of a rescource hog than Vista/MohaveBS.


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## RONDAL (Dec 30, 2008)

i love having dual monitors.  makes my life sooooooo much better


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## monkeykoder (Dec 30, 2008)

JustAnEngineer said:


> I find that editing RAW photos is one of the few things that I do that pushes my memory usage to 6+ GiB.  Windows Vista will use extra available memory to pre-fetch stuff for you, which helps with disk access.  DDR2 memory is so amazingly cheap right now that there's no good reason *not* to get 4 x 2 GiB = 8 GiB of DDR2-800 memory with a Core2Duo or Core2Quad system.
> 
> You want Windows Vista 64-bit as your operating system.  It's 7 years better than XP, and it shows.
> 
> ...



Pretty much true for the ram just got myself a free system (first one of relatively current generation in years) upgraded the video card ($75) and the ram (2GB for $20) basically an all around nice system now.  However unless you're running a 64 bit OS (or linux compiled in certain ways) you can't touch anything over 4GB.  Never be afraid to build your own but usually it ends up costing more than buying one pre-built and upgrading the parts you need upgraded (for gaming this amounts to ram and video card for editing pretty much just the ram).


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## pez (Dec 30, 2008)

Joves said:


> I had Vista on this machine but after a few weeks dropped it because, it sucked to me. Now I will probably go to Win7 after reading the reports on it. It is much less of a resource hog than Vista/MohaveBS.


 Vista got a bad rap from the get go and it is Microsoft's own fault. But I have been using it on my gamers and in present SP1 form, Vista Home Premium or Ultimate _is actually faster than XP Pro_- albeit not quite as stable.
On another note, I'd consider a vid card over onboard graphics for any kind of graphics work...


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## TwoRails (Dec 30, 2008)

monkeykoder said:


> ...   Never be afraid to build your own but usually it ends up costing more than buying one pre-built and upgrading the parts you need upgraded (for gaming this amounts to ram and video card for editing pretty much just the ram).


 Ya, that's usually true that building your own can cost more than a store bought system, but you get some things that are very important to many: a higher quality system, and intimate knowledge of the inner working so you can upgrade and or repair you own system instead of paying for repairs.  

Also, it you do build a high end system, for example, then you can still build for less than an equivalent pre-build system.

You can do  a "budget build" for about the same with decent parts that many would rather have than a store bought system due to the upgrade / repair path.


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## RONDAL (Dec 30, 2008)

i love having dual monitors. makes my life sooooooo much better


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## monkeykoder (Dec 30, 2008)

TwoRails said:


> Ya, that's usually true that building your own can cost more than a store bought system, but you get some things that are very important to many: a higher quality system, and intimate knowledge of the inner working so you can upgrade and or repair you own system instead of paying for repairs.
> 
> Also, it you do build a high end system, for example, then you can still build for less than an equivalent pre-build system.
> 
> You can do  a "budget build" for about the same with decent parts that many would rather have than a store bought system due to the upgrade / repair path.



The easiest way is to just pay attention to the specs of the computers out there and when you see one with the expansion ports needed buy it upgrade video card and ram and you're good.  I always price out doing it myself first and always end up buying and upgrading.  Of course the best deal is get one someone ELSE bought and upgrade that if possible make server out of it if not...


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## Garbz (Dec 30, 2008)

pez said:


> Ultimate _is actually faster than XP Pro_- albeit not quite as stable.



I'll believe that when I see the figures. Actually no I won't given how it counters every other source on the net showing that there is zero difference between Vista versions, and all Vista versions benchmark worse than XP on most tests.



RONDAL said:


> i love having dual monitors. makes my life sooooooo much better



I used to think that. But calibrating a cheap monitor is hard, calibrating 2 cheap monitors even from the same brand and make is even harder, and I since bought one large 26" IPS screen with wide gamut and internal calibration LUTs I haven't looked back. Pity no normal person can afford two of those 

As an aside if you get dual monitors or a single screen with 1920x1200 resolution or higher I would recommend a beastly video card, even if you don't play games. Got a nice speed boost in 2D performance in Lightroom when I stuck a new card in.


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## pez (Dec 30, 2008)

Garbz said:


> I'll believe that when I see the figures. Actually no I won't given how it counters every other source on the net showing that there is zero difference between Vista versions, and all Vista versions benchmark worse than XP on most tests.


 It actually _feels_ faster, and is generally at parity in current form from tests I've seen lately, although the tests vary a lot and some results show xpsp3 faster- but the drivers have largely caught up with the OS, I think.
Here's one, note Crysis score, the mother of all gaming tests.


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## Garbz (Dec 31, 2008)

Oh yeah for games it may well be, but for every productivity benchmark it was otherwise. It feels snappy to you? Do you use the aeroglass interface, because it only ever feels remotely snappy once that is turned off.

Btw be ware of crysis benchmarks. The game which claims to require dx10, but can be used in highest graphics settings without it, but then gives wildly different performance numbers both up and down with it is not a very reliable indicator. That said decent frame rate in crysis on any system means it's a beast of a system


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## LarissaPhotography (Dec 31, 2008)

Also keep in mind that getting a new system is not always your best bet.  We had a computer that was running really slow, and we were considering spending the money to get the perfect Photoshop computer.  We decided to start with a fresh install of Windows.  The difference was night and day.  It runs so fast now that we're no longer considering the new computer.


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## Mike_E (Dec 31, 2008)

And don't forget Spybot- Search and Destroy   The home of Spybot-S&D!

Spy-ware/mal-ware can ruin your performance too.


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## TUX424 (Dec 31, 2008)

JustAnEngineer said:


> Gigabyte GA-EG45M-DS2H motherboard w/ integrated graphics
> Intel Core2Quad Q8200 2.33 GHz quad-core processor
> 8GiB = 2ea 2x2 GiB PC2-6400 DDR2-800 memory
> 640 GB Caviar SE16 WD6400AAKS
> ...



The Cart that you have put togeather looks good but you forgot to add a video card i wouldn't say that it is good to go with on board graphics so try this one. EVGA 8600GTS


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## frXnz kafka (Dec 31, 2008)

JustAnEngineer said:


> Gigabyte GA-EG45M-DS2H motherboard w/ integrated graphics
> Intel Core2Quad Q8200 2.33 GHz quad-core processor
> 8GiB = 2ea 2x2 GiB PC2-6400 DDR2-800 memory
> 640 GB Caviar SE16 WD6400AAKS
> ...


Quad-core processor is overkill
8 gigs of memory is overkill
You'd be better off with a couple smaller drives (2x250gb maybe)
Blu-ray drive is unnecessary and overpriced right now

Not to mention that motherboard has pretty bad reviews. And video card trumps integrated graphics any day.


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## JustAnEngineer (Dec 31, 2008)

If you guys think that you need a graphics card to edit photos, then stick a Radeon HD4670 on a P5Q Pro motherboard, and go to town.

If gaming is your goal, go back to the original build linked at TR.


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## tenlientl (Jan 4, 2009)

I'm on the same situation. My laptop broke. Anyways, I don't mean to hijack the thread but it might help you out as well.

I'll be getting this probably from NCIX NCIX.com - Canada's Premier Computer Store - Great Technology, Service and Selection. but I'll be downgrading it. I don't need the 8GB atm.

I have a question though. Do I need a good GFX card? I don't have two monitors so I can't really do the whole 'Dual Monitor' thing, so would an onboard video card suffice? even when I do dual monitor, I can just get a cheap video card that lets me do this, right? I don't plan to play games.


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## JustAnEngineer (Jan 4, 2009)

You definitely want DVI, HDMI or DisplayPort digital output.  The cheapest motherboards with integrated graphics may have only analog output.

An inexpensive Radeon HD4670 or HD4650 graphics card can handle light gaming and does well with video decoding, etc.
Can a sub-$100 graphics card get the job done? - The Tech Report - Page 1


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## tenlientl (Jan 4, 2009)

I was thinking of getting Intel Q6600 with Asus P5Q Pro, 4GB Ram, and EVGA E-Geforce 9800GT, 500GB HD for around $800.

I was hoping to spend only $600. Is there any other similar setup? A "bang for the buck" kinda thing.


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## JustAnEngineer (Jan 4, 2009)

You could take something like the econobox and bump it up to 2x2 GiB of RAM.


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## Guindalf (Jan 7, 2009)

Just before Christmas, I took delivery of a new PC. The specs are...

Intel i7 920 Processor 2.66GHz
6GB DDR3 RAM
750Gb HDD
ATI Radeon 4850 512Mb graphics
24" Monitor
Built-in Bluetooth/15-in-1 card reader
DVD/CD Burner (Not Blu-ray as it would be a waste).
Windows Vista Premium (64-bit)

My new Canon XSi arrives tomorrow. Can't wait


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## skiboarder72 (Nov 24, 2010)

I know this is an old thread but just incase anyone else out there is thinking of building a photo editing pc, I built this computer a few weeks ago and it is absolutely awesome for photo editing! 

J. Jones Photography Blog: New Photo Editing PC Build

Also got a new photo editing monitor, the dell U3011


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## Garbz (Nov 25, 2010)

Sorry but he's lost me at _factory calibrated for both AdobeRGB and sRGB colour_ I think you'll find that every screen in existence is factory calibrated.


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## pez (Nov 28, 2010)

skiboarder72 said:


> I know this is an old thread but just incase anyone else out there is thinking of building a photo editing pc, I built this computer a few weeks ago and it is absolutely awesome for photo editing!
> 
> J. Jones Photography Blog: New Photo Editing PC Build
> 
> Also got a new photo editing monitor, the dell U3011


 
Did it take that much wine to do the build?


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