Computers getting old and I figured a complete overhaul is better at this point. The internal drives I have are getting old and Im starting to get nervous they're going to fail.

Ideally, I'd like to spend under $1,000.

Primarily I use this computer for the Adobe Suite. Photoshop & Illustrator for the most part. Sometimes After Effects and Cinema 4d. I don't play games that often anymore so I'm not entirely concerned with that. Starcraft 2 is probably the most modern game I have.




I don't need the following: Screen, speakers, keyboard, mouse, tablet.

Nice to haves: Smallish case. Quiet. Front mounted USB ports.

Possibly dumb: Are SSDs worth it yet? Small one for the windows install, SATA for everything else?

Yes and yes

Going to build your own?

I'm sure you can find something in the budget easily, Starcraft2 isnt even that graphically intensive.

SSDs are absolutely worth it, in fact they are probably the most notable upgrade you can do to a PC right now. It's hard to describe just how ridiculously faster they make your PC feel. I would get one large enough to store Windows 7, all of your adobe apps, and any major games you'd want to play. You can get by with a 64GB, but a 128GB would probably give you a lot more room to work with.

Yeah building my own. Threw starcraft 2 in there for reference I guess. Current computer can't run SC2 very well

I'm more concerned with how things like Photoshop and After Effects will perform.

Yeah definitely. Photoshop and it's scratch disks would really benefit from this. Is there a brand / type I should look for? I assume not just any SSD will do.

I'm interested too. But the 128GB SSDs I've briefly checked are $200+.

I would look for an SSD using a Sandforce Controller, and supporting Sata3 (since your new motherboard will probably support Sata3).



Yeah most of the good ones are.

Yes, be careful what you buy. I don't have time to look it up right now, but there is a huge, huge difference between a good SSD and a crap one. And oddly enough, the price isn't that different. It's just a matter of research.

I'm interested to know what a good SSD brand is as well.

There seems to be some minor bugs with alot of the latest SSD's - Intel's just released new firmware for the 320 series that fixes a bug that would cause the SSD to only read 8mb of storage space. And apparently the SF-2281 drives have rare issues with certain Z68 chipsets which cause BSOD. Anandtech has a large database which lets you compare two SSD's in a lot of benchmarks- http://www.anandtech.com/bench/SSD/65 I think the OCZ Vertex 3 and Corsair Force GT are pretty popular right now.

I did recently build a computer for a coworker using the Mushkin Enhanced Chronos 120gb at it was noticably faster than my older Intel X-25 G2 80gb. The Mushkin Enhanced Chronos is based on the SF-2281 controller, but I didn't experience any BSOD's during the time I had it. I'll have to ask him next time I see him.

Few Roundup reviews:
http://hothardware.com/Reviews/SATA-III-SSD-RoundUp-OCZ-Corsair-Patriot-Crucial/?page=1
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/storage/display/ssd-sata-600.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/samsung-470-sandforce-best-ssd,2783.html

This, it's quite amazing. Sometimes I swear my C2D Macbook Air feels faster than my quad-core/6GB desktop , and I'm sure that's entirely due to the SSD.

Okay well thats awesome then I'll definitely check into SSDs.

What kind of processor should I look for? i5 and i7 have come up but i have no idea the advantages to either.

8gb of ram? 16? A MILLION?

8GB if your mobo supports dual channel, 12GB if it does triple channel. RAM's not horrendously expensive right now.

A high end i5 actually isn't a terrible idea (quad core), although if you got the money I'm sure Photoshop would love some additional power. Most adobe programs don't do a great job at multithreading (especially Photoshop) so usually raw power is better.

Ram is so damn cheap these days that for that price, you might as well just throw in as much as you can.
Also MB, do me a favour and list your last specs, I'm always looking for cheap computer parts.

The main difference between the i5 and i7 is Hyperthreading. I don't think Photoshop takes advantage of Hyperthreading and going with an i5 will probably help you stick to your $1000 budget. 8gb is pretty standard now but ram is very cheap right now, if you think more might help go for 16gb.

Intel Core2 Duo E8400, 4gb Ram, NVidia GeForce8800GT




There are 64bit versions of a few Adobe programs. After effects probably would use it more than photoshop. PS is able to use your graphics card for some things now. TIME TO GOOGLE.

Actually, there are i5 models with Hyper-threading.



An e8400 is too slow? I'm still rocking my e8500 and have no complaints at all! (With significant overclock, that is)

Photoshop 64-bit is actually nice when you're working with multiple large images, so it avoids having to pass things off to the disk when it hits the memory cap. Photoshop does use the GPU for minor things like scaling, moving and such, but not for the filters where all the time is wasted.

Oh 8400 is definitely not too slow. There are certain limitations to what I can do, but its nothing major. Things start to slow down when I have photoshop and illustrator open and am doing things between the 2.

Like I said, I think it's time for a complete overhaul instead of reusing parts from the last build.

True, I wasnt being specific enough. I was referring to Sandy Bridge (Socket 1155) i5-2xxx vs i7-2xxx. I don't believe Intel has released any Sandy Bridge Desktop i5's which support HT, although it could happen.

MB, I wouldnt recommend buying an older 1366/1156 based system if your buying new. It's not that there is anything wrong with them, it's just the newer Sandy Bridge CPU/Chipsets are faster and cheaper.

Rockin' an 8800GT still, that's cool. If you want to sell that processor I'll give you some cash money for it.