Questions about hi-speed RAM, intel HD 4600 graphics and a 2560x1440 monitor

Off-topic Chatter
1

Hey guys,

I know there are some computer guys that lurk about here, so I’ll try my luck.

Thanks for helping.

I’m about to order a computer build. The budget for the computer is $800. The computer will be used for light browsing and Adobe Photoshop. No gaming.

I intend to rely on the Intel HD 4600 graphics that come with the CPU.

After all options picked, the budget wasn’t maxed out.

I would like to use high speed RAM, or any RAM that will benefit the already low-latency operation here.

Will this G.Skill 2133Mhz ram work? Can you suggest similar? Can I just set the XMP profile and I’m done (and it works?)

Is this motherboard acceptable? I understand that Z87 gives the ability to OC the CPU, and that that 4570 doesn’t OC. I would like to be able to optimize the RAM.

Are crappy PSU’s ok, such as the one listed here?

Is there anything you would do different?

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/3za9q

Intel Core i5-4570 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor
Gigabyte GA-Z87X-HD3 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard
G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-2133 Memory $76.98
Samsung 840 Pro Series 256GB 2.5” Solid State Disk
Corsair 200R ATX Mid Tower Case $49.99
Corsair Builder 430W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM) (64-bit)
Asus PB278Q 27.0” Monitor
Asus PCE-N15 802.11b/g/n PCI-Express x1 Wi-Fi Adapter
Cooler Master SickleFlow 69.7 CFM 120mm Fan
Cooler Master SickleFlow 69.7 CFM 120mm Fan

2

The PSU will do just fine, and I’d get an extra 2-3 TB HDD if I had spare funds.

You could also get the K version of the CPU if you want more headroom and a separate CPU cooler if you want the system to be nice a quiet.

You wouldn’t notice much difference with faster RAM, I’d rather go with 16GB of 1600MHz RAM.

3

There are 3 or 4 primary things that make Photoshop faster:

  1. Never swapping to HDD (lots of RAM)
  2. Fast CPU
  3. Basic, compatible GPU for GPU acceleration. - see “Tested video cards for Photoshop CC”
  4. Fast RAM

According to Adobe, GPU acceleration is a thing you have or don’t have - it isn’t better or worse with low/high end cards. Having lots of RAM and your Photoshop setup correctly will prevent much swapping - this is straightforward. Having a fast CPU is straightforward. You will not overclock a non-K series, there is nothing significant you can do without an unlocked multi. With high-performance RAM any speed above 1600Mhz does not have guaranteed compatibility, sticking to tested RAM may be wise. For example, the XMP profile for my 2400Mhz Mushkin RAM causes instability on my Gigabyte motherboard. I’m not sure you understand what latency means in the context of RAM (timings, such as 11-11-11-30) , but pay less attention to that and more attention to sheer speed in Mhz. See here for more information about how that shakes out in Photoshop specifically.

The 2560x1440 situation makes things more complicated. You need to be absolutely sure of how your chosen monitor can accept a 1440p signal and if your chosen video hardware can output a 1440p signal over the same interface. You’ll likely find that not all available ports will do what you need. For two examples: the Dell U2713HM cannot take 1440p over HDMI, and low end video cards (purchased for GPU acceleration) are a gotcha - they’ll have single-link DVI ports which cannot do what you need (Dual Link DVI, HDMI 1.4, or Displayport are required). The U2713HM is a good example - despite having the required HDMI 1.4, it cannot accept 1440p over HDMI. Do Your Research.

Do not purchase a low-end PSU. Corsair is not a low end PSU brand, but Corsair does not make their own PSUs. It can be difficult to confirm that each model is a good model. Seasonic, Silverstone, Enermax, FSP (Fortron Source Power / Sparkle) all make their own PSUs and are regarded as good brands. Corsair is generally fine, but I like to see a review of the particular model I’ve chosen on JonnyGuru or somewhere similar - or at least confirmation that it’s the same base unit via reputable forum folks on BadCaps / JonnyGuru. Easier just to buy something I know like Seasonic or FSP. Or Antec - they don’t make their own either, but I’ve never gone really wrong with an Antec PSU.

Drop the 840 Pro in favor of an 840 EVO in order to save some dough for your other changes (K-series, video card, possible PSU change). You’re still in the red if you make all those changes, but it’ll help and I don’t think you need the Pro, see the EVO reviews such as the one on Anandtech. Your SSD choice is small, you need a HDD for storage - I do not see that in your parts list. If you are doing real Photoshop work, you probably also need a backup strategy. You could also consider giving up on overclocking in order to save money. You’ll want an aftermarket HSF assembly in order to do it well anyway, and that’s another $50-100.

I’m not going to look at your individual motherboard, fan, or RAM choices. Depend on reviews for the motherboard, SPCR forums for the fans, and motherboard compatibility lists for the RAM.

You really need to spell out what kind of “Photoshop” work you plan on doing to get any more specific or detailed advice.

@ryansoh3 - you may or may not be surprised that fast RAM is a factor in Photoshop performance. Once you knock out the other big factors, RAM speed is the cheapest way to get faster. See here. That said, I agree with you - buying more RAM is more important that buying faster RAM. On the other hand, going from 8GB to 16GB will basically double his RAM cost even if he drops from 2133Mhz to 1600Mhz.

4

Hey thanks Wight for coming out.

TL/DR: I mean she’s currently doing it on a Dell 720p budget first gen i3 laptop.

The photoshopping isn’t hardcore; it’s my mother, who works full time and likes to take photos of the grandkids and them work them over for large prints or facebook. She won’t be having many layers or multiple files open. I would say it’s light photoshopping; she hasn’t had classes or anything. This computer will be as much of a websurfer as it would a photoshopper. Candycrush and facebook are likely the highest screentime performers.

The SSD is small, but we have a home server and various USB drives that she backs up to; the SSD will likely be only needing to contain “vacation 2014” or “cousin’s wedding” before they are submitted for storage.

I did read that exact thread about someone who couldn’t 1440p his Dell because HDMI. I have read that Intel HD 4600 can do 1440p via HDMI. Asus says, “The PB278Q features a host of connectivity options that include HDMI, DisplayPort, and dual-link DVI for native WQHD” and the gigabyte MOBO has both DisplayPort and HDMI so I’m hoping between the few of them that it happens.
Thanks for bringing that up, tho, as it is a large tripping point that’s not easily discovered (i managed to stumble across it on my own last night)

So, the $800 is the budget. This excludes the K series and the video card.
(the 4670k was only $15 more.)
Should I shoot for 16GB of 1600 RAM with a lowest possible CAS? I could consider the shift form the 840 pro to EVO if to pick up on the ram.

Also, what about a shift in processor to achieve GT3 Iris 5200 integrated graphics? your opinion? must be soldered to the MOBO (R chip) for this to apply

Thanks.

5

My advice? Pare down what you are getting. You can spend less money here and still meet your goals - set aside this saved money for a new PC:
Pro -> EVO = $50+
2133 -> 1600 = $10
upper-mid -> lower-mid motherboard = $40-75
fans -> no fans = $15+

She doesn't need the Samsung 840 Pro, see the benchmarks. She doesn't need the fast RAM. She doesn't need a motherboard like that for any reason I can see. I don't really see why you'd need the extra fans - you'll have both a PSU exhaust and the 120 that Corsair provides - spending money on a pair of extra fans isn't really going to do much interesting. I don't think you'll be able to make that setup cooler, quieter, or "better" by simply purchasing two additional fans.

Take that $100 to $150 and set that aside. Subtract that amount from the cost of the *next* computer, she can upgrade faster.

6

thanks for helping Wight.

Well, this was disconcerting news.

What if $150 saved goes into the k series and the graphics card? I guess we’d be back at the $130 motherboard? I don’t know much at all about motherboards unfortunately. I really only spin the choices by “best rated” on PCPP and choose by $$ (sad I know)

Can you put together a snappy $800 computer that will allow some photo editing but primarily provide a nice websurfing, 1440p driving experience?

7

I think you are misunderstanding what I’m saying here. There are a couple of important points to consider:

  1. A PC should be fast right now. Your parts list achieves that, but some of the stuff you picked out or mentioned is unnecessary for achieving that goal. I weeded that stuff out.
  2. No matter what you build ($600, $800, $2000), you’ll be looking at a decent gain by replacing it in a year or three. The more quickly you can afford to replace a PC, the better. If a cheaper PC meets all your performance goals I don’t see why you’d build a more expensive one that only marginally outperforms it.

Photoshop performance on individual photos should be very high with what we are talking about. She’s not doing big stitches, HDR, 50MP images, etc. When I’m doing the stuff she does I don’t need more horsepower than what you picked out. She won’t either. Working with very large stuff (HDR panoramas, medium format photos, etc) would be a good reason to get more RAM, faster RAM, a video card, a faster CPU, etc.

Although I should note - I honestly don’t know how Photoshop performs without GPU acceleration. It may not be so great these days, I haven’t been without GPU acceleration in years.

Is she actually using Photoshop? Understand that Photoshop, Photoshop Lightroom, and Photoshop Elements are all different products.

8

HDR does occur.

Yes I believe she is using the large item that is photoshop; CS5 or whatever.

these were very valid points and i’m glad you made them.

How about 1600mhz 7 CAS ram? Care to opine here?

How about this for a go? http://pcpartpicker.com/p/3zwwo

9

Paying for low latency is throwing money away as far as I know. Times are different from DDR1. There are benchmarks around to confirm this (in Photoshop and most other applications). Pay bottom dollar for a good lifetime warranty brand, ignore latency.

There should be a performance difference between using a matched pair of RAM sticks and a single stick. I’d be looking at pairs unless you are afraid that you may end up upgrading to 16GB in the near future. If you are afraid of that, pony up now and put 16GB in - keep it a matched pair.

I’d investigate MSI’s H81M-E33. It seems to be the HDMI variant of the H81M-P33 (which doesn’t have a video interface you can use). Obviously you’ll need to confirm that the E model can output 1440p over the HDMI connection. Maybe check the manual.

10

thanks for not letting me trip over the 1440p! In the most recent change I had forgotten to check for this most crucial item.

2 4gb sticks is better than 1 8 gig?

indeed the MOBO you suggested does have HDMI, and is just capable of 1440p (2560x1600 @ 24fps)

11

Honestly, you’d be hard pressed to get poor performance from Photoshop with any modern build. Your main bottleneck will usually be I/O so I would redistribute some of your funds and get a nice, perky SSD. They used to be notoriously unreliable but they’ve come a long way in the last couple years. The RAM latency wouldn’t be the bottleneck for what you’re doing.

For Photoshop I mainly use my year-old AMD A8 quad core laptop with 8 GB of RAM and all my photos go over a 1GB ethernet connection to my file server in the basement. If my files were local I’d just go with an SSD, and the few times I work locally, my laptop’s built in 500 GB mobile hard drive is plenty sufficient. I paid $499 for the laptop and $20 for the extra stick of RAM to upgrade it to 8GB.

12

yeah i’m glad he talked me down outta some high end components I had but didn’t need. She does the photoshopping on a bottom line lappy as it is.

13

If you set this amazing set of graphics kit to its highest resolution, then try to get your fonts sized so you can see them w/o magnification, Windows and Windows software (and most Web pages) will poop the bed before you can get to read the text that’s on your screen. Microsoft still seems to think 800*600 is perfectly fine for you, even if you have a 45” HD LED monitor.

Ask me how I fixed this, when a customer upgraded from CGA (remember that?) to EGA.

Better yet, ask Microsoft how come in the 21st Century they DON’T. (Scaling fonts to a percentage of whatever screen resolution you want isn’t actually hard, except for MS code-monkeys.)

Sorry, I know that doesn’t help you evaluate your hardware bundle, but I hope it will prepare you for the frustration to come, when you use it to its fullest extent.

14

“poor” performance is relative, and while all the modern hardware is leaps and bounds ahead of the old stuff… some setups are way faster than others. Here is A8 vs i5 and i3 vs i5 The i5 gets things done in about half the time of an A8 or about 6/10 of the time an i3.

I tend to agree that when doing the most traditional photo work this difference will be invisible to all of us. Adjusting levels or hue will be instant. Large actions should show the big differences from those benchmarks, but I don’t normally use actions. Where I see things get bogged down is any kind of aligning for stitches or HDR, transforms/warps, and tone mapping HDR files. Anything that doesn’t apply the exact same operation to each pixel is still a potential performance problem, so fancy blurs and things are also on the list. As pixel count in our images rises with new cameras those things just get worse.

You will be I/O limited (no matter what you have) when doing traditionally I/O bound operations (opening, saving, or swapping because you don’t have enough RAM). So your batch processes will end up being faster on the SSD – importing into Lightroom, applying something to a bunch of photos in Lightroom or via a batch in Photoshop. Anything else should be unaffected. I still think the 840 Pro and the 840 EVO are top choices for SSDs anyway…

Dimbo, it really depends on your vision. I use a 27in 1440p panel and don’t have a problem with it. I operate my Chrome at it’s default level of magnification. I couldn’t handle things getting much smaller than this, but this is fine. I agree that MS needs to get on the ball and simply adopt Apple’s strategy for supporting high resolution displays. Apple’s technique is sweet, and I certainly don’t have any better ideas - I’m guessing Microsoft doesn’t either.

Yes, that’s what I’m saying.

15

thanks!

i managed to find a second revision of that h81m-e33 … v2!

doesn’t seem to list on PCPP. but it does 4k via HDMI and has twice the USB 3.0 ports. and something i didn’t understand. only a Dutch translated site had the info.

Wight I have a few more dumb questions.

If the manual (thanks for the idea of checking it) says,

is it a safe assumption it’ll do the 2560x1440 via HDMI? I’m beginning to think it’ll only do those three resolutions. or are they the highest resolutions at those specific Hz and bpp?

and the other question: is there a better way to Wifi? I have this $27 asus pci-e wifi adapter. I went for PCI intentionally, but can you think of a better way? i ask because my wife’s macbook pro does strikingly better at home on the house wifi then any other device, and i’d like to determine why and add that option here

16

I wouldn’t get too worked up about the second revision unless that’s the only one that has high res via HDMI.

The manual is indicating that those are the maximums. They boil down to bandwidth caps for HDMI 1.4: 4k resolution at a low framerate and standard color depth, 2560 by 1xxx at 60hz and standard color depth (about half the pixels at around double the framerate), or 1080p at 60hz and deep color (again, somewhat lower resolution but with somewhat more color information). I think it’s safe to say that what you need is 2560x1440 @ 60hz (& 24bpp) , which is within those maximums.

I cannot give you any informed guidance on WiFi stuff. To the best of my knowledge WiFi performance/compatibility is based on arbitrary relationships between different chipsets. You just have to know what works best and what doesn’t - and I don’t know. There are places on the internet where the people who do know hang out and trade information, but I’m not interested. I use gigabit ethernet for my stuff.