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davcohen

Member

Registered: 1st Nov 03
Location: North London
User status: Offline

5th Aug 12 at 08:36

Need to upgrade my computer which I use mostly to do office and photo-shopping work however I usually have alot of tabs open and also do some basic file conversions.

The budget is lets say roughly $500 give or take a little it doesn't really matter, so far I have put together this:

1: Cpu

http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0388577

2: Motherboard have a choice of getting any Z77 board to get the $50 combo off but thought one of these two would probably do the job

http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0387156
http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0387556

3: Ram wasnt to sure but something like this maybe or should I go for a three ram kit to get tri-channel working

http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0382101

4: Harddrive main for Operating system and programs so they run fast

http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0385188

5: Second harddrive for storage:

No idea which drive is best with around 1tb, although can be smaller

6: Now the part I dont understand what is raid and can these two drives be setup in a raid as I keep reading its a faster way of doing things but I have always just plugged in one hd and been good

7: Do I need an addition graphics card to help with photoshop or will the built in chip be sufficient, this will not be used for gaming at all

8. Aside from whats listed above and a DVD drive will something like this do for a power supply

http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0361421

Feel free to make changes or advice me what I can change, I am just sick of waiting on loading times

VrsTurbo

Premium Member

Registered: 8th Jun 10
User status: Offline

5th Aug 12 at 08:44

The hdd need to be the same size and speed really

Dom

Member

Registered: 13th Sep 03
User status: Offline

5th Aug 12 at 09:09

What exactly are you wanting to achieve with raid?
If you haven't read Wiki then i would go have a read as that'll give you a good idea what raid is and the different types of raid that are available.

It also depends how you plan to work but you might be better off using the SSD for the OS, essential software (PS etc) and Photoshops temp directory and use the storage drive for non-essential programs and misc storage.

I think stripping the storage drive wouldn't offer you that much performance in day-to-day usage. Mirroring perhaps could be beneficial for backups but ideally you want to offload backups externally (either external drive, NAS box or 'Cloud' like BackBlaze).
Stripping SSD's would give you the best performance but obviously at cost and ideally you'd want to use a hardware raid card rather than software raid that comes on motherboards.

And yes, Photoshop can offload some of the processing to the graphics card but i would have a read up on this as i'm not 100% clear on the ins and outs.

davcohen

Member

Registered: 1st Nov 03
Location: North London
User status: Offline

5th Aug 12 at 17:44

I am trying to get a system with low loading times for everyday use, from what your saying I am best of sticking with my plan of just using the ssd for os/ apps and then the larger drive for storage.

Just unsure of which motherboard to choose although usually stick with asus then it comes down to harddrive is samsung still one of the best?

Rob_Quads

Member

Registered: 29th Mar 01
Location: southampton
User status: Offline

5th Aug 12 at 21:11

If your just after fast loading then go for a SSD. It will do most of what you want. You can spend a lot more and RAID SSD but the difference will be barely noticeable.

davcohen

Member

Registered: 1st Nov 03
Location: North London
User status: Offline

5th Aug 12 at 22:12

Well I have never had a raid setup, infact dont really know what it is as I have always just had one HD but who makes the most reliable HD these days for 1tb

Bart

Member

Registered: 19th Aug 02
Location: Midsomer Norton, Bristol Avon
User status: Offline

6th Aug 12 at 06:39

quote:
Originally posted by Rob_Quads
If your just after fast loading then go for a SSD. It will do most of what you want. You can spend a lot more and RAID SSD but the difference will be barely noticeable.

Having gone from a non raid SSD to a raid SSD and I confirm its noticable, have you?

Dave,
With raid for the end user, you would normally have two choices of setup, two hard drives with one backing up the other (known as Raid 1 or mirroring) this is used for critical things and puts safety over performance or the two hard drives combined (known as raid 0 or striping), this is used for performance.

Personally its raid0 everytime for me.

Rob_Quads

Member

Registered: 29th Mar 01
Location: southampton
User status: Offline

6th Aug 12 at 08:13

I have done it myself - maybe I will re qualify - its slightly noticeably but the cost in doing so is ALOT more than the gain/£ you will get from switching to SSD from HHD.

If you are going to be using motherboard raid make sure you find out if its software or hardware. Most of the cheaper ones are software and if your motherboard fails you will probably need to get virtually the same board again to rescue your raid array as software raid is not standardized.

davcohen

Member

Registered: 1st Nov 03
Location: North London
User status: Offline

12th Aug 12 at 17:02

Bart

Member

Registered: 19th Aug 02
Location: Midsomer Norton, Bristol Avon
User status: Offline

12th Aug 12 at 19:34

well your drives will all be SATA not IDE cables, so need to worry about jumpers etc.

In BIOS you can set the boot priority.

Your motherboard has 2x 6gb/s SATA and 4x 3gb/s ports. make sure your hard drives are plugged into the 6gbs and the rom drive into the 3gb. It should be marked on the board itself.

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