What to buy for best PC performance?

Question

I am running the Creative Suite on a PC Windows XP Pro platform and it has been very, very slow. The specifications I purchased far exceed that Adobe says are the needed specs.
Can anyone give me guidance on what to run so as to not spend my time twiddling my thumbs while I create PDFs, package files and save them?
Thank you.

Answer 1

Danette,
I am squarely with ID. awe on additional physical HDDs. CS, and on, can take advatange of all the Scratch Disk space that you can offer it. With HDD costs being as low as they are, I'd fill your case (and your SATA controller) with all that it can handle.
Let's say that you go with a setup like my workstation. Your setup would then be your OS and programs ONLY on you C:\. D:\ would be your assets (your basic image files), E:\ would be Scratch Disk, F:\ would be Scratch Disk, G:\ would be Scratch Disk.
Now, this is in a perfect world. I've got 4.5TB internal, all as fast as I could get, with 30TB of FW-800 externals for archives and more assets.
You might wish to experiment with the Windows' Virtual Memory. I found that my fastes setting was to split this between the C:\ (where it really, really wanted to be) and D:\. I played with several settings, and found that manually allocating the Paged Memory (Virtual) to 2.5x the physical RAM (I'm running 4GB w/ the 3GB switch, on XP-Pro SP-2), gave me the most speed.
That system screams with PS, AI, InD, Premiere and Encore. I often have all of these open at the same time, and my processor is just a single Duo-Core 3.2GHz. It was not that long ago, that I handled triple-truck images at 300 dpi on my old workstation with dual Xenon 1GHz CPUs and 1.5GB RAM. However, I had 4 SCSI 160 72GB discs (gosh, they seemed so big back then... ) through an Adaptec controller. It still sees some use and is not slow, even with W2K SP-4 on it.
If you do go the new box route, think about your ultimate I/O system first, lots of RAM next, then a good, solid single (or dual) Core 2 Quad. First, you can never have enough RAM for really big images, so you WILL use your Scratch Discs. The RAM will help, in any case, so get all that your MoBo & OS can accommodate. Your CPU will come into play more for Filters, and some of the processes like Rotation, etc., plus will aid with the OS end of things. Your choice of video card will be predicated on two things: do you use 3-D? Will you likely move up to CS4, especially the Extended version?
Since I do a lot of video on the system, plus some 3-D, I went for overkill on the video card. One day, I hope to really put it through its paces.
Last, get a case with great cooling, and enough room to allow for expansion, then, add more fans. Liquid cooling has come a long way, and you might want to consider it. Get the biggest and best power supply available, with big honking fans in it/them. Since I do a lot of video rendering, the cooling is super critical to me. With PS, it's a bit less so, but still something that you want to "over-engineer" on.
Remember, you can never have too much HDD space, too much RAM, too cool a case, or too much wine in your cellar!
Still, your system should work far better, than you indicate that it does. Going back three workstations, speed was never a concern for me. Yeah, faster would be better, but I started PS back when a 1GB HDD was US$1000 and you could only run one! I had to Save to tape, because I did not have the space to Save to disc. Run Gaussian Blur, Save to tape, make a pot of coffee, drink the entire pot, then make sure PS was still up and running.
For some speed increase, you might want to look into running processes on your system. For video work, which is horribly system stressing, I use a freeware program, EndItAll2, to eliminate any unnecessary processes, before I crank up Premiere. If it's just at PS session, I don't usually bother. You might want to look into similar, to see if you can gain some of the speed back. Also, defrag every night.
Hunt