BleepingComputer.com: Purchase Template: Photoshop Friendly PC

My budget for the new computer is:
Up to $1500 for the computer, monitor, and printer

What are the primary uses for this computer:
Computer graphic design (for personal use), storing/listening to music, watching videos/tv shows online (Hulu, YouTube), checking email, watching DVDs, reading stuff on the internet.

What software do you intend on using on the computer?
Adobe Creative Suite 2 (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, GoLive, ImageReady). I want to work with large, high resolution images. I like to listen to music while photoshopping, so I usually like to have internet radio or Itunes running in the background.

Do you play games? If so, what type of games?
No

Do you tend to have a lot of programs running at the same time, or do you close every program when you are done using it?
I like to have a bunch of programs open at once

Do you store a lot of pictures or music on the computer?
Yes. I currently have 136 GB of music/pictures/movies on an external harddrive, and I expect that number to go up since I'm going to be graduating from college and having an abundance of free time on my hands after work.

Right now I have a Toshiba Satellite laptop w/ a 40 GB harddrive, Intel Pentium M processor (1.50 GHz), and 752 MB of RAM. Photoshop is pretty sluggish, and sometimes will freeze if I work with large, high res images. My computer can't handle having more than one Adobe program open at a time, and I'd like to work in Illustrator, Photoshop, and GoLive simultaneously.

I'd like to get a desktop this time and I want a PC (my Adobe programs are all for a PC and I don't want to rebuy the software for a Mac). I'm not sure how much RAM I need or what sort of processor I should be looking at. Also, I'm curious what you guys think about operating systems. Will Vista or Windows 7 mesh with my pretty simple computing needs? I really love XP and am afraid to change. Finally, are there any recommendations for monitors? I want a huge one since I'll be watching movies and making graphics, and I want the image quality to be nice (I don't need HD, but something better than my laptop screen).

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Here's a build I made there for your budget.

8GB of RAM for you photoshop and a Blu Ray rom for HD playback on your moniter. Also has a card reader too, incase you take pictures off a camera etc.

You can see there's 2 forms of storage in that build. The first is a massive 1TB WD Green, which you can use for all your pictures/movies etc. The other is the really expensive Intel X25M-G2 SSD, which I have myself. This is what you will use to install Windows 7 on and your other programs like photoshop etc. The loading times will be so fast you won't believe your eyes, trust me on that from experience ;)


Left click and click view at full size.


And FYI, it's ok to go windows 7, pretty much everything works with it. Don't be afraid, just do it! ;)

here's a ready-made system for you: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16883227179
All-in-one printer: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...2-316-_-Product
Monitor: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16824236049

Ah blah forgot about a printer, do you need keyboard/mouse aswell!?

IrishGrimReaper and RainbowSix, thanks so much for the suggestions! This definitely gives me a starting point to do some more research. Things have really changed since I last looked for a computer...Can't believe how much RAM you can get nowadays (8 GB!!)

As for keyboard and mouse, I don't need anything fancy there, so whatever is cheap and on sale is what I'll end up buying.

Thanks again! I really appreciate it!

Ah man, I'm wrecked tired, time for bed! Changed a few things but it's still the same really, goodbye to the SSD though ;(


Left click and click view at full size.

RainbowSix, on Nov 14 2009, 01:30 PM, said:

You can add an additional 4GB of RAM to this build and still be under your budget limit. I believe the total here is about $1450
The processor in that build is the fastest AMD processor on the market. The 5 series ATI card will let you take advantage of DirectX 11.

Tbh. I knew I could get an i7 in that budget! Here you go, go with this build instead of the others I posted! I feel refreshed after that sleep :D Technically it is a few dollars over budget but if you get that 25$ mail in rebate it's under 1500 Just so you know. The 3 CPU's you'd consider in that budget are the intel i7 and i5 and then the AMD PII x4. And in terms of performance, it goes-
Intel i7>Intel i5>AMD PIIx4. The i7 been the best, but they are all great CPU's so you can't go wrong with any of them, but the fact the i7 also has hyper threading is awesome


Left click and lick view at full size.