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Opinions on this set up.

threeputt

threeputt

New Member
Ok, about to have a new machine built with these specs. Is there something I'm missing, over-killing, or a better route? We run a single digital printer off this particular workstation. We are a general commercial sign shop wrapping only about one vehicle a month. (but those files are often large).

Software: Omega 2.61, PhotoShop, CorelDraw, Versaworks.
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Core i7 2.99GHZ processor

16 gig DDR3 Ram

1 TB hard drive

1536 GDDR5 GeForce GTX 480 graphics card

Windows 7 64 bit
 
choucove

choucove

New Member
Unless you are planning to host several extreme gaming nights on your production computer here, that GeForce GTX 480 is far more than overkill. On a production machine doing 2D design, computational work is mostly done at the CPU. Working in Photoshop CS4 or newer does have the benefit of utilizing CUDA on newer nVidia graphics cards, but even then it is far more than you should be spending on a design workstation for this kind of work. We just recently built a test system for design and RIP work and used a GeForce 250 graphics card for about $100 and even that may be more than they will ever need.

I would suggest if you are running newer versions of Adobe to purchase one of the 250 or 260 graphics cards as they will have plenty of performance for CUDA capabilities but will not be outright overkill. Save that money and put it towards a very good power supply, such as Corsair or Thermaltake. The PSU you choose can seriously make or break your entire computer.
 
Letterbox Mike

Letterbox Mike

New Member
absolutely without question add a second fast hard drive for a scratch disk for Photoshop. It doesn't have to be large at all, so you could go with a fairly small SSD and be good, or a smaller WD Raptor drive.
 
choucove

choucove

New Member
insignia said:
absolutely without question add a second fast hard drive for a scratch disk for Photoshop. It doesn't have to be large at all, so you could go with a fairly small SSD and be good, or a smaller WD Raptor drive.
Click to expand...

With 16 GB of memory you could set up a 4 GB RAMDisk as well for use in Photoshop. The test system we just configured did this and within Flexi and Photoshop CS4 pointing the temp files or scratch disk files to the RAMDisk rendering is almost instantaneous. If 4 GB of scratch ends up not being enough for you, you can always upgrade to a small SSD. It won't be as fast, but still faster than any standard hard drive.

We did a test comparison using this RAMDisk on our new design workstation. When working with a very large and complex vector design in FlexiPro on the new computer without a RAMDisk temp folder (just a mechanical 7,200rpm hard drive) it takes just short of 90 seconds to select one large piece and duplicate it elsewhere. We then switched on the RAMDisk and pointed the Flexi temp files to that location and the same selection and duplication operation was literally less than a couple seconds. Amazing difference!
 
Letterbox Mike

Letterbox Mike

New Member
choucove said:
We did a test comparison using this RAMDisk on our new design workstation. When working with a very large and complex vector design in FlexiPro on the new computer without a RAMDisk temp folder (just a mechanical 7,200rpm hard drive) it takes just short of 90 seconds to select one large piece and duplicate it elsewhere. We then switched on the RAMDisk and pointed the Flexi temp files to that location and the same selection and duplication operation was literally less than a couple seconds. Amazing difference!
Click to expand...

That's pretty awesome! How was the traditional drive connected, eSATA?
 
choucove

choucove

New Member
The scratch disk was a Seagate 7,200rpm SATA 500 GB hard drive which had been reformatted and completely clean. It was separate from the Western Digital 7,200rpm SATA hard drive that has all the programs and operating system on it. Average throughput of this SATA hard drive on HDTune was about 65 MB/s. When we ran HDTune on the RAMDisk it was more than the utility could even cope with and registered a minimum of 3,500 MB/s. However, this is actually still not right, as the real transfer speed of the DDR3 1333 in our system (via Memtest 86+ and Everest Ultimate) was more than 12,000 MB/s!
 
choucove

choucove

New Member
Quoting number of vehicle wraps per month isn't a standard of measurement really for how big or busy a business is. Our office does very few vehicle wraps on a normal basis because they just aren't popular out here. However, we are still the largest sign business within three hundred miles radius and are kept busy with a multitude of other jobs.

It's improper to assume the needs of one's business or their size of business just off of one type of commercial graphic output job rate.
 
threeputt

threeputt

New Member
choucove said:
Quoting number of vehicle wraps per month isn't a standard of measurement really for how big or busy a business is. Our office does very few vehicle wraps on a normal basis because they just aren't popular out here. However, we are still the largest sign business within three hundred miles radius and are kept busy with a multitude of other jobs.

It's improper to assume the needs of one's business or their size of business just off of one type of commercial graphic output job rate.
Click to expand...

Thanks for pointing that out. This same machine is in use running several programs simultaneously. I hate having everything slow down when it's processing files. I like to be busy with several "balls in the air".
 
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