Spec me // Low Power Photoshop

[wakingDan]

Hi guys, long story short -
I am moving into my Dad's house; my packard bell ipower 512mb ram lappy is very undesirable. My Dad isn't keen at all on having more and more PCs running in the house so I'd like to spec a low powered pc.

I would really appreciate it if you guys could spec me a PC which could handle two programs such as Adobe Photoshop and say Dreamweaver?

Spec Rules and Regs

£200 - £350 Budget
Runs Photoshop well
Prefferably small form factor
No O/S required
Include: Case / PSU / MoBo / RAM / HDD / CPU
Graphics Card?
HDMI port?

I thinks thats all, I really appreciate it.
BTW I really love THISSSS (http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/prods/Components/Cases/Cases/Antec/ISK300-150.html) case:
The 300-65 comes with a 60/65 watt PSU I belive - kudos for fitting it in that case :)

Underclocking / Overclocking welcome - I'd give it a go

Photoshop CS5 min requirements: 8888 (http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/photoshop/systemreqs/)

[Mr Grapes]

Hmmm that case is nice :) does limit you to mini-itx boards tho which aren't cheap... and will blow your budget. basically this board http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/prods/Components/Motherboards/IntelMiniITXMotherboards/Gigabyte/GA-H55N-USB3.html will let you put any i3/i5/i7(up to 8xx series) CPU in either using the integrated graphics or with an add in GFX card as it has PCI-E. however RAM and CPU will be a bit more of a struggle.

mobo: £90
CPU: http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/prods/Components/Processors/IntelCorei3Andi5/Intel/BX80616I3530.html £96

RAM - Photoshop is very mem intensive so 4Gb is kind of a minimum: http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/prods/Components/Memory-PCAndLaptop/DDR3-PC3-10666/1333MHz/Novatech/RAM-313334.html £85 if you can live with 2 Gb, that will shave £40ish off.
HDD: http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/prods/Components/HardDrives-Internal/SATA500GBto1TB/Seagate/ST3500418AS.html £33 about the best price point atm. not the cheapest, but smaller capacities are only a few pounds less...
optical: http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/prods/Components/OpticalDrives/SATADVDWriters/Liteon/IHAS124-19.html £14

going for the 775 mobos won't save you much as the boards are cheaper, but the CPU's are more expensive unless you get a second hand C2Q like a Q6600 for about £70 or so. and you probably wouldn't want to run a C2Q on that PSU anyway...
This at £44: http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/prods/Components/Motherboards/IntelMiniITXMotherboards/Zotac/NF610I-K-E.html will run a quad, but has no ability to upgrade the graphics.

I'm not going to suggest an atom based board, as for photoshop, you'll want a proper CPU.

[wakingDan]

thanks for that mr.grapes; i was thinking about going down the socket 775 route with a core2 and a graphics card.

i would never of have thought of an i3 machine.

the items you specced - would that run on the standard psu? also i take it that the graphics on the mobo / processor can cope with photoshop just fine?

thanks a bunch for your help


Also would it be worth nabbing these sticks (http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/prods/Components/Memory-PCAndLaptop/DDR3-PC3-10666/1333MHz/Corsair/TW3X4G1333C9A.html) of Corsair ddr3 ram, same spec, same brice but better quality?

EDIT: or these (http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/prods/Components/Memory-PCAndLaptop/DDR3-PC3-10666/1333MHz/OCZ/OCZ3G1333LV4GK.html) lower voltage OCZ sticks, does the change in latentcy matter? - they are lower in voltage which is good too i suppose lol

[wakingDan]

my dads partner works for intel and is pushing me to get an i5 :( :)

however im confused at which is better:

£189.99 (http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/prods/Components/Processors/IntelCorei3Andi5/Intel/BX80616I5655K.html)
£169.00 (http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/prods/Components/Processors/IntelCorei3Andi5/Intel/BX80616I5661.html)

The cheaper of the two has a higher clockspeed and consumes less power - is there something the novatech listing isnt telling me?

EDIT::::: someone has just shown me a quad core i5 (http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/prods/Components/Processors/IntelCorei3Andi5/Intel/BX80605I5760.html) which seems to be even cheaper at £165.94 plus would perform better




Also I just realised that the hard drive and optical drive wouldn't fit into thh c ase.
I have chosen a slim optical drive but I am stuck for which hard drive, this (http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/prods/Components/HardDrives-Internal/2.5inchHardDrive/Seagate/ST9500420AS.html) looks like the best.