pwhittle

having spent 6 hours batch processing 500 photos, I've decided to splash out and replace by 3Ghz Dell.

I can't really pay more than about £550 for a full system
I've looked at a CCL barebone package, with Quad core, but no HD, monitor etc (I could do with a big monitor).

System wise I've seen some fast Dual-cores for about the right money.
For what I want - Photoshop basically, is there a huge difference between a high end Dual and a Quad?

Any system recommendation?

ChefDude

things i find useful for photoshop are
8gb ram
fast hard drive (RAID 0)
an nvidia graphics card with good CUDA support - i have a 9800GTS

everything else is gravy really

ChefDude

in reality, you'd probably be okay with 4gb - i do video editing in premiere, so the 8gb is just a bonus in photo processing.

make sure the box has enough room for more hard drives - i notice some of the DELLs only have room for 2.

if you do get 4gb ram, don't get 4x1gb because it'll all be wasted when you want to upgrade to 8gb

Iain Young

I've got 4gb in mine and both photoshop and premiere (cs3) work absolutely fine. Quad core speeds things up noticeably in premiere, but I haven't noticed any major increase in photoshop.

HankScorpio

I think CUDA support is only CS4 but may be relying on out of date knowledge there.

pwhittle

maybe I should have posted in Photography!
I'm inclined to go Dual Core, with better spec graphics and more RAM
My current Dell has onboard graphics, 2GB, 3GHz Pentium 4, and scope whatsoever for upgrading, so I reckon a fast Dual Core will be notably faster

pwhittle

this is one I was looking at - cheap enough to upgrade the RAM and get a nice screen

http://www.cclonline.com/product-info.asp?id=20554

HankScorpio

On that budget, I'd do this:
MESH Computers - Award Winning Review PCs Since 1987 - Nero 9850HD (CS May 09)

Or if you can eek a little more out of the piggy bank:
MESH Computers - Award Winning Review PCs Since 1987 - MESH NERO Premier