I have been building systems for a few years now, primarily for gaming. My girlfriend just graduated with a degree in graphic design but doesn't have a proper system to work on. I have no real idea about what She would need in a system and I would like to surprise her for Christmas. I am not perfectly familiar with exactly what software she is using but I know for sure its at least Photoshop/Illustrator and Maya.
Any tips on video card / monitor selection or tips in general would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance!
Well photo editing isn't as resorse hungry as lets say, video editing. Pretty much a decent machine around 500$ could do the trick, the only thing is that if you want to photo shop stuff, you are going to need a BIG monitor. Preferably above 27 inches. At school when using 27 inch to a 20 inch at a different computer, I was pulling my own hair out of my head.
For a graphics card, nothing special, a 100$ card really, my apu can handle photo shop fine. I just hate my monitor X(
WAIT you want to use maya? Okay then you'll need a beefy graphics card (IMO if she's getting really advanced at it) spend around 800$ (at least) with an Nvidia GPU because I heard some where that Nvidia works better with Adobe products, even though maya isn't adobe, it will still help with a few things with Photo shop.
Well, since you are familiar with system building, I'll just go over the broad strokes in relation to a graphics workstation. For Photoshop/Illustrator, ram is your friend. How much she needs really depends on the kind of work she will be doing, but I wouldn't go with less than 8 gigs. If she's going to be working with large raster files (digital paintings etc) then 16 or 32 would be preferable. Also, as far as Photoshop and Illustrator are concerned, ram speeds aren't nearly as important, so just go with whatever speed fits your budget.
As the poster above said, if she's going to be going full bore in maya then a decent GPU will expedite things drastically. Obviously a workstation card like a quadro is the most efficient with 3d programs, but honestly, a good Radeon or Geforce will work nearly as well for a fraction of the cost. So just pick one that fits your budget and it will work fine.
Also, you'll want a decently large hard drive. For reference, my photoshop and illustrator work alone takes up somewhere in the neighborhood of 500 gigs of my storage space, and that doesn't include backups. Which reminds me, make sure she has someplace to backup her work. An external drive would work fine. Believe me, you don't want her working on a design for a client for 2 weeks only to have a hard drive failure. Not good for the client, and not good for her reputation. Also, a decent SSD for the OS/Select programs/Scratch Disk wouldn't hurt either.
Now, the monitor. The poster above mentioned size. Don't get me wrong, it matters. But not as much as image quality and color representation (especially if she is going to be doing any print work). I'd suggest a good IPS screen. Base the size on what your budget will allow. Dell, Asus and BenQ all sell fairly good IPS screens for decent prices. If you can afford it, multiple screens are a godsend for productivity when doing graphics work. The additional screen(s) don't have to be IPS. Cheaper TN panels work fine since she will likely be doing all her color related work on the main screen.
Now, for the processor, just go with any decent i5 that fits your budget and an applicable motherboard. I doubt she'll need any advanced features, so you can save a bit of money there. As long as it's relatively quick, it'll work fine.
One last thing you might want to look in to is a graphics tablet. Depending on the work she will be doing, they can be indispensable. I'd stick with Wacom. You can decide if you want to start her off with a bamboo or jump up to the intuos right away (I'll ignore the cintique due to the fact that they cost 2 or 3 times the amount that you are probably going to spend on the computer it's self). Both work well, the intuos is just more robust and accurate generally speaking. This is assuming she doesn't already have one.
I think that covers the basics. Since you have experience with system builds I doubt you'll have much trouble finding the specific components. Have fun!
Thanks for the help guys. It sounds like a pretty standard system that I would build with the monitor being an exception.