A year ago my wife and I moved across the country and bought a house, so with the new house payments I can't build a dream machine. I gave my old desktop to my sister, so I've actually been using a Sony Vaio Core duo laptop with 2GB of RAM for the past year, supplemented by an external hard drive for storage. This laptop actually runs Photoshop CS2 and Nikon Capture NX reasonably well... better than my old aging desktop did. I figure for $500 (not including display) I should be able to build a new desktop that is even better.
Of course there are photo enthusiasts out there who insist on spending thousands on their desktop computers, but many of these are professionals who spend hours every day processing images. If they can spend more money to get a machine that shaves a few minutes off large batch processing jobs, or 30 seconds off running a complex set of actions on a multi-layer Photoshop file, it's worth it to them. I'm an amateur. I do this for fun, so I don't have to squeeze every last bit of performance out. Of course faster is better though
This machine will be in a small office with hard wood floors, so I'd like it to be very quiet... not necessarily silent, but at least very quiet. Based on similar machines I've seen here and offered by companies like EndPCNoise, I figure the following configuration is a good place to start:
The big question I had on my mind at first was whether to go with onboard video or a dedicated card. Onboard seems like the coolest and quietest way to go, and it seems that dedicated video cards don't offer dramatic advantages for Photoshop and Capture NX. I haven't bought a computer game in years, but if I ever do decide to give a new title a whirl I can easily add a dedicated video card if I need to.
Antec Solo Case with Nexus NX-8040 PSU
ASUS M2A-VM HDMI AM2
Athlon 64 X2 4800
4GB RAM (running XP Pro 32-bit, so could be just 3GB)
Scythe Mine B CPU Cooler
Running single 120mm fan in the back (as long as that keeps things cool at low speeds)
I already have a DVD burner and a spare 400GB SATA drive. I will probably purchase an additional hard drive to help spread out the swap file, Photoshop scratch disk, storage, etc. I'm not going to get all obsessive though and run three or four drives like Adobe recommends for max performance though. Again... I don't need blazing photoshop performance... just very good photoshop performance. Most of the time I'm just processing Nikon RAW NEF files from a 10MP DSLR (Nikon D200). Sometimes I'll work with a Photoshop file with a lot of layers that add up to 50MB or larger... but usually no more than a few layers.
I don't need HDMI either, but this board seems to be well-regarded and stable. It is also kind of old, so maybe a more up to date board like the Gigabyte 780G GA-MA78GM-S2H? I've read this newer chipset consumes more power, runs hotter, and still needs a bios update or two before it will be completely stable. I could also go with a motherboard and video card option... but that might generate more heat and end up costing more. I'm okay with a single IDE interface (the HDDs will all be SATA).
Any suggestions or recommendations that won't cost me more than $400-$500 for the parts I need to purchase? Suggested RAM combinations that won't break the bank for a given motherboard are also helpful. Mushkin and Corsair seem to be running some good prices at the moment. It seems like most "budget" configurations I've seen reviewed and discussed add up to more like $800 or so for these parts. Even if I could talk my wife into letting me spend more right now, I like the challenge of building a good solid $500 digital photography box.
I've been doing a lot of research, but I don't keep up with hardware the way I used to. Building computers used to be practically a hobby for me, and now it's something I do when I need one. I probably won't overclock (or underclock) this system. I'm mainly looking for good performance, solid stability, and quiet unobtrusiveness. If it's not quiet enough for me as configured, I'll add some additional dampening, replace the rear fan, etc.
Thank you,
Sean