Corel Painter 2020/photoshop AMD build.

[designinme]

I'm new here. Been looking at building my second pc (First attempt was years ago but it was fun and I'd like to do it again.) I'm a little removed from the tech side of things but I spend most of my time in Photoshop and soon will be spending time in Corel Painter 2020. The new version of painter has some Brushes that benefit from GPU performance so I'm guessing a decent quality GPU would be needed. I've done some searches and really haven't found what components of a PC will benefit in reducing stroke lag the most when using a Wacom cintiq. Does is matter if I go Nvidia or AMD for my GPU? How many cores do I really need?

I'm thinking an AMD 3600, 32 gigs of Ram, need a video card that can drive two monitors ( 4k Dell and a 1080p cintiq) and then I'll probably opt for a 512 M.2 NVME. Other than that I'm kinda lost. I don't want to spend more Than needed. I don't play games but hey if this machine is capable of doing so I might dabble. Would like to keep it between 750 and 1k USD if possible because that cintiq is going to cost quite a bit more. Any suggestions would be awesome. Thanks 

[Streetguru]

11 minutes ago, designinme said:

 

Are you going to be doing any gaming? Because you likely don't need anything more than a Ryzen APU to get the job done.

[leo1798]

Yeah, photo-editing is a walk in the park for modern hardware, although from a quick google search I would go with an Nvidia Card because the only complaints I saw about GPU acceleration with Corel were from AMD users (I would normally reccomend AMD, but stability is priority and your software is unique). If you wanted to go through with that parts list for other purposes, I'd recommend something like this:

PCPartPicker Part List

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD Ryzen 5 3600 3.6 GHz 6-Core Processor	$194.79 @ OutletPC
CPU Cooler	Cooler Master Hyper 212 Black Edition 42 CFM CPU Cooler	$38.89 @ OutletPC
Motherboard	Asus PRIME X570-P ATX AM4 Motherboard	$166.89 @ OutletPC
Memory	G.Skill Aegis 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3000 Memory	$124.99 @ Newegg
Storage	Intel 660p Series 1.02 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive	$94.89 @ OutletPC
Video Card	Zotac GeForce GTX 1660 6 GB GAMING Video Card	$219.99 @ Amazon
Case	Phanteks Eclipse P400A ATX Mid Tower Case	$72.98 @ Newegg
Power Supply	SeaSonic EVO Edition 620 W 80+ Bronze Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply	$68.88 @ OutletPC
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total (before mail-in rebates)	$1027.30
	Mail-in rebates	-$45.00
	Total	$982.30
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-09-21 02:05 EDT-0400

 

[designinme]

7 hours ago, Streetguru said:

Are you going to be doing any gaming? Because you likely don't need anything more than a Ryzen APU to get the job done.

I haven't done any gaming in probably 15 years. LOL. But, with that being said, I've seen quite a few games recently that look fun. So the short and easy answer is I don't need this PC to do any gaming, but if it's capable I might get into trying out some new games and see if I like it. It's not my first or even second priority. I really want fast brush speeds when using a cintiq and painter 2020. Trying to find out what the best options out there for increased rendering of brushes in painter is hard to find. For example, does having 6, 8 or even 12 cores help? Does a threadripper help? What's the best value dollar for dollar. I don't need to spend an extra 1k for a 5% performance bump, but I would consider if it meant a 20% bump in stroke speed. Nothing is more frustrating than drawing and feeling like "paint" is moving across the screen like molasses pouring from a jar. I just read an article from zdnet that states GPU does play a major role in speeding up brush strokes. So I guess I need to figure out what type of GPU. When you boot painter it rates your system based on these metrics. ( see picture )

 

and this is a quote from Zdnet "The existing CPU-accelerated brushes (using AVX2) get some improvements, which also speed up manipulating the canvas. But the major improvement is GPU acceleration for half of the most-used brushes in the app -- something Painter hasn't previously taken advantage of."

[Streetguru]

5 hours ago, designinme said:

 

I can't actually find any benchmarks for the software lol.

 

But AMD's main thing is open CL, and every modern CPU supports AVX2

Can't imagine it needing 32GBs of RAM, nor more than 6 cores.
 

WX 5100 workstation GPU, could buy both to see any differences and just eat any potential return costs. It has the same performance as an RX 470/570, but potentially better optimized drivers. No idea if a workstation GPU is going to help. both on ebay have "free returns' anyways.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Radeon-Pro-WX-5100-100-505940-8GB-256-bit-GDDR5-Workstation-Video-Card/302158699359?epid=2297692809&hash=item465a0fdb5f:g:IBEAAOSwfz9c5OQ5

RX 580 8GB on ebay, offers "free returns", maybe 5-10% faster than a 570
https://www.ebay.com/itm/8GB-XFX-RX-580P8DFD6-Radeon-RX-580-GTS-Xxx-Edition-HDMI-DVI-3x-DP-OC-RX580/153642050972?epid=245236870&hash=item23c5c7a59c%3Ag%3AFMwAAOSwYThdZZy2&LH_BIN=1

 

PCPartPicker Part List: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/w9xNn7CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 3.6 GHz 6-Core Processor  ($194.79 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: Asus PRIME X570-P ATX AM4 Motherboard  ($161.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws V 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3600 Memory  ($84.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Intel 660p 512 GB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive  ($59.99 @ Adorama)
Video Card: ASRock Radeon RX 570 8 GB Phantom Gaming D Video Card  ($139.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Cooler Master MasterBox MB511 ATX Mid Tower Case  ($59.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: Cooler Master MWE Gold 750 W 80+ Gold Certified ATX Power Supply  ($74.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $776.73
 

[designinme]

Hey StreetGuru thanks for the build. This looks great!