What to recommend for Graphic Design???

Hi everyone, I need some advice here. A friend of mine is looking to buy a computer for graphic design and I intend to help her build one. I do know that MAC is always the way to go, but we all know the price of getting a MAC. I am also aware that the most important (and expensive) piece of hardware is the graphic card. I'm just wondering for the processor (because of budget) if AMD is suitable for this application. Should she go with the pentium, AMD, or MAC. Once again, please take note that budget is an issue here. If she can save money on the processor, she can put more on the graphic gard. This computer is intended for graphic design, NOT gaming. Any advice is very much appreciated.

Graphic design rarely needs graphics power depending on whats ebing done, in most cases the graphics card is just to show wahts ebing done and memory and cpu speed is needed to do the work, not the graphics card. If you cant afford Athlon 64, then the Bartons would be ideal for graphics work as they have double the L2 cache of a Thoroughbred whcih would help with graphic design. An ideal budget rig might be an Abit NF7-S, Athlon XP 2500+ Barton or maybe a faster Barton depending on your budget, 2 x 512MB PC3200.

Craig

Ye graphic design is not like video rendering or 3d rendering right?

When i think of graphic design i think of prpgram like photoshop/fireworks... So i think you wouls want to pay more for a good monitor. Get at least 19" one. Graphic card is not an issue here. You can get a mid-range one which can support high resolution and refresh rate.

For CPU, Barton is the way to go if the money is tight. THe best bang for buck is 2500+. With a bit of tesing you can mostly get to 3000+ level at least. Dont skim on memory either. Get a 3500 dual channel kit from good brands like Kingston HyperX or Coirsair.

MameXP,

The memory probably wont matter as I dont imagine Kenshiro will be overclocking this system, Kenshiro will be wanting stability for working on the system. I should imagine so non-generic mid-range memory should be fine but two sticks to make use of the Dual Channel memory Controller the nForce 2 Chipset has.

Craig

Thanks for the advice fellows. Personally, I am running an AMD 1800 JIHUB, overclocked of course. This computer is for a friend of mine, not me. She is definitely not using it to run games, and I think it is best not overclocking for her because she is computer illiterate.

What do you guys think of the Intels? If I go with the Barton, the price is not going to make much difference compare to the 2.4C.

I thought that the price to go with the Barton would be substantially cheaper than going with a Pentium 4. Undoubtedly, the Pentium 4 C stepping processors with 800MHz FSB are powerful if you can stretch to them. They also have thermal throttling so if your friends system gets too hot while she is working on it the processor will not be damaged as it will downclock itself to keep the temperatures lower.

Craig

I think the barton 2500 cost around $90, and the 2.4C is around $124. Plus the price difference between the mobo is around another $30, which will make the total difference in price to be between $60-75. I do have a AMD 2000+ palomino version sitting around doing nothing. Do you guys think it is more than sufficient for graphic designing??? I do plan to give her that chip for free.

The 2000+ will save her money as you very kindly plan to donate it to her however it will not have the extra L2 cache that the Barton Core has. This allows it to hold more data temporarily for the processor to work on. The cache is a storage area, it is memory built into the processors core and it runs at the speed of the processor.

Craig

Kenshiro said:

I do have a AMD 2000+ palomino version sitting around doing nothing. Do you guys think it is more than sufficient for graphic designing??? I do plan to give her that chip for free.

Click to expand...

It's a nice chip. Not for overclocking but for graphics design she can use RAM upgrades so make sure there is enough RAM there.

Cheapest guaranteed overclocking solution now is the $62 2100+ T-Bred B. 2.3 GHz with non-retail cooling and decent PSU. 2.2 GHz without pushing the voltage too far...

Perhaps eBay the Palomino then add a little to get the T-Bred B...

My friend will be using the computer for 3D model design. So, is the graphic card an issue here?

For graphic design/photoshop stuff, CPU isn't that huge of a deal. Get a good modern moderately priced chip and you'll be out of trouble. RAM is what graphic design needs. It needs LOTS of RAM. 512 should be consider the absolute bare minimum for graphic design IMHO and you'd want a gig or more ideally. I personally wouldn't concern myself heavily with super LL sticks or anything like that. I'd get affordable, reliable RAM and lots of it.

graphics design go a 2gb of ddr and a dual operton system! otherwise if you are just doing graphics design for fun anything that is about an 1700+ will due fine as long as you have globbs of ram. Only time CPU plays a big deal is when you apply filters, and that takes at most what 5 seconds?! not a big deal really.

Kenshiro said:

My friend will be using the computer for 3D model design. So, is the graphic card an issue here?

Click to expand...

Can you tell us exactly what software she will be using? You may indeed want a workstation graphics card for intensive 3D modeling.

DayUSeX said:

graphics design go a 2gb of ddr and a dual operton system! otherwise if you are just doing graphics design for fun anything that is about an 1700+ will due fine as long as you have globbs of ram. Only time CPU plays a big deal is when you apply filters, and that takes at most what 5 seconds?! not a big deal really.

Click to expand...

With all due respect, dayUSex, I must beg to differ. Athlons make excellent graphics workstations. As a graphics professional working with major multinational corporations and also running a small corporation of my own for the past 15 years, I provide all of my collegues and employees with Athlon systems. We have no problems doing large format Photoshop work while simultaneously running Illustrator, several browser sessions, Dreamweaver MX, flash MX and SQL server. All on the same machine at the same time, with no significant decrease in performance. While I do agree that a minimum of 1 gig of QUALITY ram is imperative, I do not agree that the processor plays no real role. Try exporting a 36" x 36" Illustrator file to photoshop at 300dpi and you'll see my point.

One of the most important elements of a fast graphics system (other than memory) is a fast drive. I experienced significant performance gains by switching my OS and scratch file drives to 15000 rpm scsi and using RAID 5 configurations for storage.

In terms of Video cards, even 2-D performance is greatly improved by a quality card. I am running a Tyan 9600 pro right now and find it adequate to the task in a dual display environment.

As in all things, Kenshiro, try to get the best value you can at present. The 2600+ is at a sweet price spot right now ($83.00) and is definitely up to the task. Corsair XMS PC3200 memory has also dropped lately and is a good value.

In summation, if you wish to prioritize your spending for a graphics workstation, put the components in the following order (highest to lowest):

Monitor
Memory
Drives
Processor
Video Card

Hope this helps

Kenshiro said:

My friend will be using the computer for 3D model design. So, is the graphic card an issue here?

Click to expand...

Most people think that graphics design and CAD needs a good video card when in most cases the program itself uses the memory and processor to do all the work and all the video card does is display it on the monitor. Could you please tell us what software is intended to be used on this system? With this knowledge we will be able to give you a more accurate response as to what will be an ideal system.

An Athlon XP Barton Core Processor (2500+,333;2800+;333;3200+;400) which is the model number and Front SIde Bus (FSB) speed respecitvely should run most modern 3d design programs. Coupled with two sticks of DDDR RAM will give you dual-channle. Dual-Channel Double Data Rate Memory (DCDDR) makes use of the two separate memory controller the nForce 2 chipset has built in, this increases the memory bus to a 128bit bus (single channel is 64bit) so it increases the bandwidth. You must run the memory in sync with the Front Side Bus (FSB) so if you buy a 2500+ which runs at 333MHz you must run your memory at 166 which is in sync otherwise called 1:1 or By SPD. This gives you the best possible performance. The difference between buying goof quality or mid-range memory for this system will be the memory timings. The tighter the memory timings the more memory bandwidth you will have and cheaper RAM usually is not rated for tight memory timings. Memory makes like Corsair are designed to be run at tight timings. For you, 2-2-2-11 would be best. 11 is not the tightest timing but it gives the most bandwidth on the nForce 2 Chipset. As for a graphics card by opting for a mid-range card you have a system that wont be bottlenecked, one of the Radeon 9600 series would be ideal.

Craig

Thanks fellows, this advice is very much appreciated. I did send my friend an email about the software and she has not replied me yet. Must be because of the holidays.

The opteron are really nice, but it might still be out of her reach even for the opteron 140. That is why I do plan to give her my Palomino 2000 plus. It is really good to hear that the AMDs works great as a graphic workstation. Please correct me if I am wrong. If this is the case, then I do plan to help her build a computer with my current 2000 plus CPU, 2GB of ram, and a simple 9600 video card. She can save money on the CPU and put that into extra memory.

I do hope I can get an answer from her soon, so you guys can advice if it is necessary for her to get the FX Quadro 500 video card. Man, those are expensive.

The system you are proposing should be fine. The 9600 Pro series cards are OK for this ap. Spend the money you save on the FX for better monitors if you don't have them yet.