Help review my PC workstation build list, please and thanks.

[Hammerskjold]

How big of a scratch disk would you use? I know it can scale almost infinitely up depending on the demand's of the user.

edited:
If I absolutely needed it soon like within the weeks or months, which thankfully I don't yet. Most likely it'd be a Samsung 120 SSD. (On further reading, I may not go to Samsung first if I'm buying another SSD as a standalone purchase. The one I have right now is covered by the store warranty since I bought their assembly option. But I've been reading some spotty Samsung Canada warranty stories. May or may not be true, but for me not worth the hassle. Seems that Intel has the lowest customer return#. And their price reflects that. But there are other brands that also has good reps, so I'm not married to Samsung.)

Basically it comes down to what can I get for 100 bucks or so, that is reliable and large enough and good value for the dollar.

edited section above.

This was going to be my first upgrade actually, since right now I put the scratch disk on my storage drive HDD, though that's not necessarily the best way. But since I haven't migrated most of my work there yet (and I'd back up the data anyway), I'm taking a small but still calculated risk. However I will eventually buy another SSD of some sort to use solely as a scratch disk\temp non critical stuff.

Unfortunately my 100 dollar for the SSD scratch disk was eaten because I need to replace a monitor for my now re-assigned older\back-up computer. I'm still using it for other work, and it's an old, off lease CRT whose VGA cable has seen better days.

So basically, time to save up. Ideally I'd want a 512gig to drop in price so I can buy that, make that the C: drive, switch out the 250 to serve as the scratch disk, and badabing badaboom. But I'll see what I can save up vs when I absolutely need to buy a drive for a dedicated scratch disk.

Well, you could show me a screenshot of your resource monitor and click on the memory tab. Look ma, we have standby space!

I can't do a screenshot at the moment, I can only do a text description.

I did another informal test today.

I had a bunch of reference pics up, via windows picture viewer, a regular DVD playing in the background, a bunch of reference pics opened in PS, as well as a couple of higher res files, with 12 layers on a few of them. Playing around with some brushes and cloning stamp.

The CPU meter only moved to 20% at highest, usually during some of brush stroke at larger brush sizes, but no noticeable hiccup. Whatever lag there is in the brush speed, I can say is not due to hardware, but software. PS is simply put, mostly built for photo work. It does a lot of other things well, but it's main focus is in the title, photo, shop.

I also run Autodesk Sketchbook Pro, the express/free version that came with my tablet, and even though it's not meant to compete vs photoshop. It runs circles around Adobe PS when it comes to pen input lag.

The scratch disk meter in PS from my previous test iirc climbed to around 1.6 gig or so. Today's test on the RAM resource monitor was around 6 gigs, though today I had less higher res files\pics, but more of them open.

But here's one kicker. I tried out the Smear\Finger Paint tool, and the CPU jumped to 40-41%, and it did the 'busy' spinning blue circle cursor for 30-40 seconds. Granted, I increased the brush size to a large diameter, and I zoomed out to 100% view. But it was basically watching jello walk up a flight of stair. RAM basically hovered\stayed at 6 gig or so.

I thought I had something mis-configured somewhere, I even checked on my older machine. I don't use Smear much, and though I've used PS since Windows 3.11 days, I don't remember if it was this slow back then.

Went online to check, and nope. Jello speed was apparently improved from snail on concussion speed.

http://forums.adobe.com/message/5019201

Check out the OP's drool worthy work rig specs, if even that super saiyan beast grade machine has troubles, IMO it's not for lack of muscle.

It looks to my non-techie, non programmer opinion only. PS is horridly inefficient at some places. It's great to good at a lot of things. But at some things, ya really wonder. It's optimized to be leaner and faster ever since CS5, but IMO certain Feature Creep robs some of that gain.

EG: I checked out some of it's new brush tips. IMO, gimmicky. Specifically the erodible brush tips. You can set the softness\hardness, and you have button that says 'Sharpen Tip' when it becomes to broad to simulate a dull point. So...you can simulate the analog equivalent of needing to sharpen a pencil in the digital workflow? Yeah...no thanks. Thankfully, it's easily turned off.

There's things that are absolutely worth emulating from the analog workflow to the digital. The speed of a real pen\pencil on paper sketching is worth emulating. Emulating the need to 'sharpen' a virtual pencil? It's idiotic. Thank gods it's easily turned off, because IMO that's it's best 'feature'.

Because seriously, what the hell is next, a monthly subscription to Adobe Cloud so you can 'refill' your virtual 'paint' can? Replacing virtual brushes because their virtual bristles only lasts a month?

In any case, I use Autodesk Sketchbook Pro if I absolutely need to use a Smear tool. Sketchbook Pro is not meant to compete vs PS, but it does what it does extremely well. Pen input speed is 99% as fast as the real thing, and it's Smear tool compared to PS version can run almost in real time. (I've ran the comparison on my older comp as well, and it's the same result.)

PS is awesomely great to good at many things. It's an industry standard tool, for a good reason. But IMO it really needs some competition at this point, because some of the things it's bringing\doing, to me reeks of complacency.

(edited addition: Found out the problem. Smear tool starts to slow at double res 1080p, so 3840 x 2160 res. At 1080 it's near real time, as long as brush size is not overly large. I remembered it being faster because I wasn't working at that res level some versions back. So it's not PS's fault. General pen input lag can still be improved though. )

Steelseries used to sell a ultrasmooth glass/clear mousepad, but it seems they aren't in production anymore sadly.

I was reading up on those. And a few people say they're just out of stock, though that's not definitive of course.

Though if I were to get a substitute, I'd probably just get a sheet of plexiglass at home depot\lowes or something.

Another alternative, granite tiles or plastic mixed granite cutting boards.
http://www.amazon.com/Dexas-17-Inch-Past...B000063SRL

The 7970's run and run hot, but are chugging away mining bitcoins. I so wish I bought at 50$. They're over 150$ right now. Go go bubble #2 of this year.

How's the other crypto-currencies, ie Litecoins. Are they growing at the same rate as Bitcoins at this point?