On Sat, 10 Jan 2009 21:01:18 GMT, SteveG wrote:

Longfellow wrote:
I'm planning on building a PC dedicated to Photoshop CS4 and the latest
Lightroom. I'm told that for a workflow that does not depend on
continuous coffee breaks to allow the machine to crunch image data, a

[snip]


Thanks for reading. All useful responses will be duly appreciated.

Longfellow


Windows PC requirements for Photoshop CS4 - from Adobe's web site:

Just be aware that in general, vendor recommendations are for
barely-running systems that do little more than boot up and look cute.
Others have correctly pointed out the reasons for the big range in
systems that appear to satisfy their owners.

Without knowing your workflow and subject types, and image sizes, it's
not possible to be too definitive. However, I think at a minimum, you
should build a 64-bit system, even if you don't plan to run Vista 64
today. Windows XP 64 is/was a non-starter due to poor driver support.

Even if it costs a bit more, I would get a motherboard based on one of
the most recent Intel products, e.g. the i7. Such CPUs will only get
cheaper and/or faster over time. By buying into a relatively new CPU
and chipset, you allow yourself a mid-life CPU upgrade possibility.

It's fascinating how people have focused on just one or two aspects of
system performance. But don't forget that for _decent_ performance
you will want a second hard drive for swap/scratch. For really big
bucks you can go SAS (Serial Attached SCSI) with very high bandwidth
and drives that spin at 15K. (they will also "spin" your wallet
accordingly.) Also, considering the time-value of images, don't
forget about backup.

Father Kodak