TR Forums

My sister in law needs to build a new rig for here photography work and I am looking for some advice with CPU's. I am slightly out of touch with what is best but was under the impression that Sandybridge is currently it.

However my sister in law is constrained by budget (having 3 kids) and is looking at a AMD BULLDOZER EIGHT CORE FX-8150 (3.60GHz/8MB CACHE/AM3) with a ASUS® M5A78L-M/USB3 as part of a package, but is this going to be ok?

Basically all she is concerned about is handling massive (file size) images in photoshop and light room, probably simultaneously and it not take ages.

Thanks for any input.

I think that processor would probably be more than adequate for most photography work. Is she a professional that makes a living off photography?

I work with Lightroom and Photoshop and only use a Core i5 2500k (4 cores, 3.3ghz, overclocked to 4.3ghz) and it feels pretty snappy. If the hardware you suggested is in her budget, I think it'll be fine. However, I would recommend you get 64-bit Windows and atleast 8GB RAM (more than that probably won't be needed, but you shouldn't get less). If that puts a strain on the budget, then I would suggest you compromise on the processor/mobo a little to afford the RAM.

A dedicated graphics card, rather than using onboard video, would be nice too... however I believe that would only help with certain specific tasks in Photoshop, and probably not at all in Lightroom, so it may not be worth any extra expense.

She is starting to make a living out of it. She takes photos and then does something with huge amounts of layers (which means i dont really know) and then they get printed on some sort of material. She sells at craft fairs, etsy and a few other places and things are going well.

8gb of ram, windows 7 64bit and a 550ti are also part of the package but she was concerned if the processor was up to the task.

basilbrush303 wrote:

but she was concerned if the processor was up to the task.

It's up to the task, and then some. Save some cash and get the FX-8120 and just overclock it to the FX-8150 speeds tho. It will easilly do that on the included cooler...

If she wants to make a living out of anything, overclocking makes NO SENSE at all. Yes, go for the FX-8120, but have her spend the savings (if she can) on RAM. Go for 12-16GB since that is under $100 these days.

riviera74 wrote:

Have her spend the savings (if she can) on RAM.

I can agree with this. She might also appreciate having gobs of fast storage available.

If you're looking for an inexpensive option, you might find a deal on a scratched-and-dented system at the Dell outlet or you can hop over to the System Builders Anonymous forum to ask the Gerbils to help you select parts to build your own.

Exactly. You can never have enough storage or RAM when it comes to Photo or video editing.

I agree that overclocking is not something you want to do on a system that you use to make a living. I also agree with making sure you've got plenty of RAM. Make sure you install a 64-bit OS...

If money is really tight, another option would be to get a Phenom II CPU instead; this will likely give you better bang for the buck. If you get a motherboard that supports FX series, you even have the option of doing a drop-in upgrade to Bulldozer down the road if prices come down (or performance goes up with the release of a new stepping).

A 120GB SSD for the OS and Programs ought to make things nice and snappy when switching between programs. It will also work as a fast scratch disk if the file operation overflows the RAM. (obviously thats not the goal, but just in case)
I would suggest either a Samsung 830 (currently $170, not sure what they go for on sale) or a synchronous sandforce SSD like the Corsair Force GT or OCZ Vertex 3, both of which can be had for $150 after MIR.

Also, Ivy Bridge is due to launch in a month and will be priced the same as Sandy Bridge CPUs are now. You might want to look at an i5-3570 when that time comes. The integrated graphics is supposedly going to be near the performance of Llano's top 6550D integrated graphics. If she's only going to be using the computer for photoshop, etc., the Intel HD 4000 graphics should work perfectly well. You can use the money saved on a discrete GPU to purchase an SSD. The TDP's on Ivy Bridge are down ~12W and CPU performance is up ~10% (see article above). If you flip back to the content creation page of that article, you can see SB and IB compared to bulldozer in Photoshop as well.

DPete27 wrote:

A 120GB SSD for the OS and Programs ought to make things nice and snappy when switching between programs.

But if she's doing mainly photo editing, she's going to be spending most of her time in the same apps so app switching time is pretty much a non-issue. IMO buttloads of RAM and a large data drive are *much* more important than an SSD, especially given that she's budget constrained.

thoughts

#1 Ram, lots and lots of ram. 16 gigs minimum. if she shoots raw or is using adobe to edit movies or ad's or commercials , 32-128 gigs would be even better.
#2 if she deals in *raw* files, and takes lots of pictures a ssd will not be ideal. 20-30 photos can chew up 40+ gigs in a hurry. go with a nice fat standard 7200 2tb hard drive.
#3 on that thought in #2, if this is a job and not a hobby. buy 2 of them, set her up in a mirrored raid so she does not loose work in case of a crash or drive loss. if she can afford it, 0+1 would be better
#4 dont overclock, blue screening and causing the aforementioned crash in #3 would not be good
#5 set her up with a nice shinny nvidia card, something with in the 560 range so she can use the cuda enabled adobe suite, this will save more time than a overclocked cpu


minor correction, until amd pulls their head out of thier butt and fixes the scheduler... its a 4 core cpu with hyperthreading not a 8 core cpu

maxxcool wrote:

minor correction, until amd pulls their head out of thier butt and fixes the scheduler... its a 4 core cpu with hyperthreading not a 8 core cpu

I thought the scheduler patch was already out? (And that's really the OS vendor's responsibility, not AMDs...)

just brew it! wrote:

maxxcool wrote:

minor correction, until amd pulls their head out of thier butt and fixes the scheduler... its a 4 core cpu with hyperthreading not a 8 core cpu

I thought the scheduler patch was already out? (And that's really the OS vendor's responsibility, not AMDs...)

It is, but it yielded only 2-3% gains in very specific apps. I had high hopes, but they did not bear fruit.

Linkage! http://www.anandtech.com/show/5448/the- ... tch-tested

maxxcool wrote:

just brew it! wrote:

maxxcool wrote:

minor correction, until amd pulls their head out of thier butt and fixes the scheduler... its a 4 core cpu with hyperthreading not a 8 core cpu

I thought the scheduler patch was already out? (And that's really the OS vendor's responsibility, not AMDs...)

It is, but it yielded only 2-3% gains in very specific apps. I had high hopes, but they did not bear fruit.

Linkage! http://www.anandtech.com/show/5448/the- ... tch-tested

Yeah, but my point is that AMD can't "fix the scheduler" because A) it's already been "fixed"; and B) they're not an OS vendor!

Without an overall budget we cannot really recommend anything. Like that SSD/560 recommendation is irrelevant if we are talking sub-$500 builds.

Here is the Cuda acceleration that maxxcool is talking about. I would recommend making sure she's actually going to use these functions, otherwise you've spent money on something that you won't use. Photoshop is largely CPU and RAM bound and to my understanding does not make much use of GPU acceleration in tasks besides those linked above. (Correct me if I'm wrong)

@ maxxcool: My SSD suggestion is not meant to store pictures/files on. That would obviously be done on a large mechanical hdd. As I said, the SSD is much better for launching programs (and overall system responsiveness) as well as making for a fast scratch disk should the need arise. I personally like to include SSD's in any build which the user is doing anything besides basic internet and MS office use. Even the cheapest SSD is really a major upgrade from a hdd.

DPete27 wrote:

As I said, the SSD is much better for launching programs (and overall system responsiveness) as well as making for a fast scratch disk should the need arise. I personally like to include SSD's in any build which the user is doing anything besides basic internet and MS office use. Even the cheapest SSD is really a major upgrade from a hdd.

OP wrote:

However my sister in law is constrained by budget (having 3 kids)
...
Basically all she is concerned about is handling massive (file size) images in photoshop and light room, probably simultaneously and it not take ages

IMO given the budget constraint and use case, a SSD is an ill-advised luxury. Saving a few of minutes in the morning when she boots up the system and loads Photoshop and Lightroom isn't worth it. Just get enough RAM that the working set stays in physical memory once it is loaded, and call it a day.

just brew it! wrote:

IMO given the budget constraint and use case, a SSD is an ill-advised luxury. Saving a few of minutes in the morning when she boots up the system and loads Photoshop and Lightroom isn't worth it. Just get enough RAM that the working set stays in physical memory once it is loaded, and call it a day

Agreed, RAM is definetly the most important. Sometimes I conciously overlook "budget constraint" (cringe) because it makes me feel like a dog with one of those invisible fences. The neighbors lawn is so beautiful.... I also don't know how much more GPU (CUDA) acceleration performance you get from a $170 GeForce compared to say an $80 one. If anyone has links, please share, I'd be interested.

Back to the RAM topic, I recently helped a friend purchase a new laptop for photoshop/illustrator. My advice to the OP would be to have the sister do some tasks that are memory intensive to get an idea as to how much RAM she will be using on a worst case scenario. I had my friend do this and to my suprise, he could only manage to push a little over 4GB total system usage. No point in blowing your entire budget on 16-32GB or more RAM that will never be put to full use. 8GB for example costs $40 and is probably a good starting point for average users. The good thing with owning a desktop, you can add another 2 dimms down the road if you need more.