Photostation 2008.1
“hey…can give me some advice on building a new system for my photoediting?” Recently, there were a few people that asked me on my recommendations for building a new workstation as their main photoshop station. I gave some ideas here and there. Now, I’m going to list the components that I think it more or less meets the requirements for Windows Vista x64 and Photoshop CS4 with the occasional stress relieving gaming sessions.
Robotech’s Photostation Version 2008.1
CPU – Intel Core i7 920 2.66Ghz
Intel Core i7 920 Processor. The latest and greatest from Intel. i7 920 is 40-50% faster then most of the Core2 processors. Choosing the lowest spec for the i7 9xx series ensures high overclocking headroom and value for money in this economy climate.
Motherboard – Asus P6T Deluxe OC/Palm
ASUS P6T Deluxe OC/Palm is probably one of the most fully loaded socket 1366 motherboards to arrive on the market for the Core i7 processors, based on Intel X58 chipset with ICH10R. Features not found on most competing motherboards include a small 2.5” LCD display for overclocking options, thats where the name “OC Palm” came from. Three x16 PCI Express slot with support for SLI and Crossfire, a PCI Express 4x slot for RAID Controllers or other hardware. Support for SAS hard disk drives on certain ports, an impressive 16-phase voltage regulator circuit and several other features common to high-end boards from ASUS, like Express Gate (which allows you to immediately load an internet browser and Skype even without a hard disk drive installed), passive heatsinks with heat-pipes for the chipset and voltage regulator circuit and solid aluminum Japanese capacitors. Lastly, most reviewers are able to clock the Core i7 920 from 2.66Ghz to 3.6Ghz easily on stock voltage.
Memory – Corsair XMS3 TR3X6G1600C9 2GB x 6
Intel’s new Core i7 has a completely new, onboard memory controller with three memory channels, rather than the two channels supported by most other platforms. This increases memory bandwidth –as long as three matched memory modules are installed.With the memory controller on the CPU core, we have to watch out on the voltage and use only Core i7 certified memory that at max 1.65v. No high performance RAMs here.
Currently, there are only this Corsair XMS3 TR3X6G1600C9 available in Sim Lim Square. 6 Pieces in 2 packs of 3 each will give us 12GB of RAM.
Graphics Card – HIS 4850 IceQ4 TurboX
As this is not a gaming station, An overclocked HIS 4850 IceQ4 TurboX would suffice. Note that Photoshop CS4 only supports single GPU, so don’t expect and performance increase from SLI or Crossfire.
AMD HD 4850 Series has been one the market for a while now. The first cards all had to follow AMD’s reference design specifications. But now that this limitation is lifted, most add-in-board manufacturers are coming up with their own designs to reduce cost, add performance or improve cooling. With their IceQ4 cooler, HIS is able to factory overclock the card to 685 GPU and 1100 memory.
Storage – Adaptec RAID 5805
For data protection of all our precious photos. Definitely we need something decent. The Series 5 family of high-performance Adaptec Unified Serial™ (SATA/SAS) RAID controllers offers both high I/O transaction and high bandwidth processing for use with cost-effective, high-capacity SATA drives or high-performance SAS drives.
The Adaptec RAID 5805 utilizes industry-leading dual core RAID on Chip (ROC), 512MB of DDR2 write cache, and connectivity with the latest x8 PCI-Express to deliver over 250,000 I/Os 1.2GBs. Using SAS expanders, it can connect up to 256 SATA/SAS devices. It’s able to support RAID6 which is dual parity to protect against 2 HDD failures in the Array, Online Capacity Expansion and Online RAID Level Migration. Don’t ever scrimp on data protection!
Storage – Hard Disk
6 x WD Caviar® Black™ 1 TB, 3 Gb/s, 32 MB Cache, 7200 RPM in RAID6
6 pieces of this Western Digital 1TB drives running on RAID6 would give you an effective 4TB of storage for your precious. Connect the drives the the Adapec 5805 for RAID6 Config
3 x WD VelociRaptor™ 300 GB, 3 Gb/s, 16 MB Cache, 10,000 RPM
3 of the fastest SATA drives in the market will take care of the Operating System, Programs and Swap Files. Configure RAID1 for 2 of the drives on the Adaptec 5805 while the remaining drive can be connected to the motherboard’s onboard SATA port for swap files and temp folders.
2 x Icydock MB455 Hotswap Hard Disk Enclosure
To put all our HDD into the Casing, we would need to use the Icydock MB455 Hotswap bays. This will allow easy replacement of HDD in the event of HDD failure or upgrades. The key thing is there will not be any need to shutdown to replace HDDs. No downtime at all.
Power Supply – Corsair HX1000
The heart of the whole system, the power supply is the most important part of any computer. A stable system overclocked or stock requires a rock solid power source.
The Corsair HX1000W features twelve SATA power connectors to power all our HDD and six PCI-Express connectors, both 6-pin and 8-pin compatible, to power multiple high-end graphics cards and two EPS12V connectors for dual CPU configurations. The truly independent dual transformer, dual rail design allow for optimum load balancing resulting in greater performance and stability. Industrial-grade 105°C primary, secondary and solid state capacitors provide up to four times the lifespan of traditional components.
The HX1000W not only delivers one thousand watts of clean power for the highest performance enthusiast systems, it does so at greater than 80% efficiency thanks to the double-forward switching design and multiple rail DC-to-DC converter. Due to its best-in-class efficiency the HX1000W is able to run cool and quiet with only a single 140mm thermally controlled fan.
Optical Drive – Plextor PX-B910SA Bluray Writer
The latest drive from Plextor gives us Bluray recording capabilities up to 50GB on Dual layer disks.
Chassis – Silverstone TJ-07B
Not a new chassis, but with so many 5.25” bays to fill, we would need something like the Silverstone TJ-07B to hold them all. The TJ07 should be capable of cooling just about any combination of components. It is designed to provide fresh air to as many components as possible, and has many, many possible configurations. Its screw-based construction and its huge size make it a breeze to setup.
Monitor – Dell Ultrasharp 2408WFP-HC x 2
We are talking value for money here again, one of the best LCDs in the market, losing only to the Eizos, Dell Ultrasharp 2408WFP gives 1920 x 1200 resolution each, 3000:1 Contrast Ratio and 110% colour gamut. To add to that, it comes with built in card readers! Since our HIS 4850 IceQ4 TurboX has got 2 DVI outputs, we should not waste it! Just imagine the amount of screen estate from 2 of these superb monitors.
DAMAGE
Thats all for the Photographer Station. I did not put in things like keyboard, mouse, speakers, soundcards and tablets as these are more of a personal taste items. Lets see the table below for our total damage for whats listed on top. Prices are as of this writing.
Not too bad…..costs less then a AF-S VR 400mm f/2.8. Oh yah.. Don’t forget to add in that Windows Vista x64.
Thats all for now. Do let me know if you need some better configuration.
This site is brought to you jointly by Robotech and PiG. Here, you would find travelogs of our phototrips, technology reviews and some photography related articles.
