Photoshop gets hampered by slower hard drives and lesser RAM whereas 3DS Max is an altogether entity.. It relies on almost all the major components for smooth and fast working.. So build a machine to run 3DS Max smooth and you wont need to worry about photoshop.. You'd definately need a quad core CPU ( LGA 1366 INTEL i7 preferably ) and 6 GB of RAM.. The next components are subjective.. Getting a SSD would surely decrease your load times by a huge margin but they are very expensive currently.. Also, choosing the GPU depends on the kind of work you do.. If you are a heavy texture and segments user, getting a fast quadro would really help you working smoothly in the viewport section.. Otherwise you could do with a consumer level card (...