Video Card

You don’t need a high powered video card for Photoshop, just good stable drivers. Just about any Matrox or Nvidia Geforce will do, update to the latest drivers from the Matrox or Nvidia web site and don’t use what came with the card. I have used both of these in various forms from cheap to expensive and have never had a problem with Photoshop. Some swear by ATI but I don’t have any experience with them – mainly because their drivers used to have a bad reputation, but I’ve heard that they are a lot better now. If you don’t have any need for professional 3D software then a Quadro or Wildcat will be a big waste of money

A few bits of advice from direct experience. I recently got a similar system.

I wouldn’t go with a mere 512 megs of RAM if you want Photoshop to run well. 1 gig minimum I would say for comfort. CS in particular is very demanding.

Make sure the memory is compatible with the motherboard by checking the Asus website. They list the brands which have been tested with their boards. Why are you not going for PC3200 memory by the way? The board is made for it.

Make sure the heatsink is adequate. I had major problems with my machine because the initial heatsink was not good enough and it damaged the first processor (3000+). I now have the 2800 and there is virtually no difference in speed in PS by the way.

I don’t know a lot but I wonder if the power supply you are talking about is a bit on the low end for such a high-end system.

Barry,

Last spring, I built a very similar system to the one you’ve got, same make and model of MB, Corsair memory (but a full gig as two 512s… I think I used the 2700s as well, _definitely_ didn’t use the 3200, first checking for MB compatibility as there are two grades of Corsair 2700, if I recall. You can double-check on the NewEgg site), roughly same processor…I forget whether I used a 2400 or 2800, yeah, it was a "Thoroughbred", so that’s probably the 2400… a higher end Antec case, Coolermaster processor fan and some other brand of super-quiet case fans, the stock onboard power supply has been quite adequate and with the careful choice of fans, runs very quiet. (My son visited and asked, "Jeez Dad, is that thing even ON?!") Of course part of why he went "wow" on the noise is I went the extra step of building a special box around the whole Antec case which still allows the air to move through very efficiently. Its got a hinged front which flips open to allow drive, etc. access as well as a hinged back-end which can close to the point where only the wires come through. Also deliberately chose a couple rock-solid, super quiet Seagate 80-gig drives, fast RPM, but reknowned for uncrashability and near silence when running. (Learned that lesson the hard way after supposedly "upgrading" to a 40-gig Toshiba drive in my Toshiba laptop, only to find it sounds like a galloping horse retrieving data, especially when XP sits there doing background "indexing" for long periods of time.)

(I will say it was a bit tricky getting the CoolerMaster correctly seated on the processor, but the noise difference is way better than the stock fan which comes with the processor.)

But anyway: cards. After a fair amount of reading I opted for two ATI Radeon 7500 series dual monitor cards, one AGP and one PCI which, in white-box packaging, ordered over the web from a major vendor only cost $70-75 each. They come with the Hydravision software which has allowed me to work on four side-by-side monitors beautifully under XP Pro. I only bring this up because I’ve found working with multiple monitors has produced such a revolutionary change in the sense of ease and enjoyability of working with DTP programs such as ID and PS. Since you’re throwing out substantial bucks custom building, anyway, you might want to consider the option. I couldn’t even dream of going back to a single monitor. That’s how big the difference in ease-of-use.

I can’t speak for what a color-calibration purist would say about the output, but it sure looks gorgeous to me when pushing these NEC 1024×1280 narrow-bezel LCDs.

Anyway, have fun.

Dharmamitra

Ok this is a question that needs to have some thought behind..

1. What other software "design" dp u run?

2. Do you do any Gaming?

3. Are upi looking fo a quick fix or a permanent fixture "something you can use for the years to come"

If you say yes to all of the above get this…..

PNY 5600 Ultra 128 DDR "lightning fast and packed full of features".Thisis the new Geforce FX line of chipsets.

You should be able to pick it up locally at your "best buy" for around $160.00

And make sure you get the ULTRA not the regular 5600 big difference in speed and stability. Youll also notice that the 256mb card is cheaper dont be fooled get the one I listed for you and youll be very very happy for atleast a few years.

For primarily 2D, non-gaming work I go with Matrox every time.

"…a mere 512MB…"
LOL… imagine saying that just last year or the year before… funny how things change. FWIW I’ve used Photoshop 7 and back on many machines with 512MB with no problems, never CS though (which runs just fine on this box w/ 784MB).

Brian

Thanks everyone. My case is the Antec SLK3700-BQE and it came with a 350 Smart power supply. The +5v and +3.3v combined max output = 230 watts and I was advised that was sufficient power???
I chose the DDR2700 memory because of the cost. It is Corsair DDR 2700- 512MB Twin x512 2700LLPT. This is what was recommended but I will check with Asus to make sure that it is compatible. I can also go up to 1 Gig as I thought I would have to pay a lot more than what you are recommending for a video card.
Thanks for the caution about cpu cooling I was just going to go with what came with the retail box. I purchased the Western Digital Special Edition 120 Gig H/D because it was on sale at Circut City for $59.00 ($129.00-$70.00 in rebates.)It’s 7200RPM with a 8MB Cache but perhaps I acted too quickly on this item as I understand that the IBM-Hitachi Deskstar may be better doing video capture.
I am going to check out the video card suggestions and see what I can learn. Thank you all,
Barry