Upgrade time! ...thoughts on this if you wouldn't mind.

[Lani]

So after humming and hahing, I have decided to stick with PC format and got this quote yesterday for a new system.
I want something that will run XP atm, but will handle Windows 7 or similar down the track.
I shoot raw all the time, and want to run LR and CS4, with room to spare. This is possibly a bit of overkill, but i would rather be over specced than under.

This is what the guys at the store suggested:

Cooler master elite 333 NO PSU HD AUD $85

Vantec ION+ 500w ultra quiet SLI $95

Gigabye GA-EP45-UD3LS775 P45 FSB1600 4DDR2 PCIE2.0 GbLAN UD3 TX SATA2 $220

Intel core 2 Quad Q8200 2.33ghz 1333FSB 4MB CACHE, 775 $315

CORSAIR TWIN2X4096-8500C5 4GB (2X240-PIN DIMMs NON ECC Unbuffered 5-5-5-15 $140

SAMSUNG 1TB SATA II 32MB 3G/Bs $185

GALAXY GEFORCE 9500GT PCI-E 512MB DDR2 128-BIT NVIDIA SLI-READY DUAL LINK DVI 2560X1600 RESOLUTION $110
Assembly Charge $40

Total: $1190 ( probably get 5 % off that.)

I have software, dvd burner, monitor etc.


I would appreciate your thoughts on this if you have a spare minute. I understand a little of the specs but much of it is just letters and numbers. :D

[oldfart]

I sell a lot of that board / cpu combination they work well together
I normally use a Gigabyte ATI Radeon HD 4670 video card which is around the same price


Not a fan of hard drive choice, but they are well priced.

[pgbphotographytas]

All looks good to me but I would look at maybe getting a second hard drive to have a backup of your files.

Paul

[Kym]

Try this...
http://www.ausphotography.net.au/forum/editpost.php?do=editpost&p=305491
Is there an MSY in Tassie?

[pgbphotographytas]

Try this...
http://www.ausphotography.net.au/forum/editpost.php?do=editpost&p=305491
Is there an MSY in Tassie?

No MSY in Tassie, we are very poor as far as PC shops go :(

[Lani]

Try this...
http://www.ausphotography.net.au/forum/editpost.php?do=editpost&p=305491
Is there an MSY in Tassie?

Yep, been reading that Kym, but I need to have a system built and would like to be able to get back up support.


I sell a lot of that board / cpu combination they work well together
I normally use a Gigabyte ATI Radeon HD 4670 video card which is around the same price


Not a fan of hard drive choice, but they are well priced.

What problem is there with this hard drive? I would rather spend a little more to get a reliable system if need be.


No MSY in Tassie, we are very poor as far as PC shops go :(

Already have a back up drive, Paul. Not a lot to choose from with lots of things.... IT, tech stuff, camera gear , here is there?

[Kym]

I don't think the Quad is of great value, better is a Dual - Quads don't deliver as much performance as you think. Most stuff does not use 2 cores, let alone 4. E8400 will deliver more for Adobe products.

[pgbphotographytas]

Already have a back up drive, Paul. Not a lot to choose from with lots of things.... IT, tech stuff, camera gear , here is there?

Glad to hear you have a backup drive, we are very poor as far as choices for that stuff goes :(

[davwhite]

I built a couple of PC's from the ground up before I saw the light and bought a Mac.
My query would be the motherboard, make sure it can be upgraded down the track. Gigabyte are a average type of MB and I would be looking at a better one, remember this is what runs your system.
I didn't check to see what RAM you are putting in but make sure the MB can handle more than you anticipate.
Sound card not that important.
Graphics card is, spend a bit more to get a real good one.
And of course the screen has to be as good as you expect it, in otherwords you pay for what you get.
A second drive is essential and even a third. With this you have the option of having your main drive mirrored onto the second drive. In case the first fails then the second is the same. The third drive is where you can store your processed pictures.
A computer person could build you a fantastic computer for about the same price as a store brand name.
Remember this, all pc's look the same, like a row of garages in the street, it is not 'till you open the garage door that you can see the difference.

[davwhite]

I just read that you are having 4GB, bit light on I reakon. And make sure that the MB you pick recommends your RAM brand. i.e "Gigabyte recommends Corsair RAM for this MB"

[Tannin]

Samsung make THE best, most reliable hard drives you can buy. No ifs, no buts, no maybes. We have been selling hard drives for 20-odd years now and at one time we were one of the 50 biggest Seagate dealers in Australia (back before I scaled back and got a life, not to mention a camera); I've been keeping detailed hard drive reliability records for most of that time .... and these days, I don't even bother counting failed drives anymore. I just buy Samsumg every single time and rest easy.

[Tannin]

Sheesh ... "Gigabyte a very average kind of motherboard". Well, I suppose that's about the level of technical sophistication we can expect from a Mac user. I've always liked Gigabytes AMD platform boards better than their Intel stuff, but nevertheless, they are a major player, and remarkably consistent with their quality.

[davwhite]

Perhaps I should have said that the ASUS would be a better choice. It was an ASUS AMD dual core that I put in.
And Asus is a smaller word to remember for your limited PC brain :D

[Lani]

I
A computer person could build you a fantastic computer for about the same price as a store brand name.
Remember this, all pc's look the same, like a row of garages in the street, it is not 'till you open the garage door that you can see the difference.

Yeah thanks Dave, this is a quote for a custom build, but using your car analogy, while I enjoy a luxury car to drive, I sure aint no mechanic. :D


What about quad v dual core as mentioned by Kym... would going quad core future proof the system a little?

Also with having more than one drive, is that the same thing as partitioning, or do you actually install two?

[Calxoddity]

Disagree the the EP45DS4 is not a good motherboard - it would certainly be on my list if I was building now.

Recommend another hard disk, but not as a backup - instead, put data and swap space on one drive and OS/apps on the other. Speeds things up (long explanation, relates to drive heads being the bottleneck in any disk access). I learned this approach in my days as Unix system administrator.

Regards,
Calx

[Invictus]

The EP45 mboard is fine. I too have sold enough of those without issues. Gigabyte has improved dramatically in their quality over the last 5 years IMO.
I have to agree with CypherOz about Quad Vs Dual for general performance. An average computer user won't utilize the full potential of a quad. (Do you need a V8 engine to pull the boat/van around, or will a 4 cylinder be enough to carry all you need?)
On the other hand, it can be argued that software in the future will be able to use all cores better, but it kind of goes with the x64 OS argument.
Future proofing is fine, as long as it's not costing you an arm and a leg now, compared to costing you a tip of a finger in 6 or 12 months time when the newer product lines are more established.

Hard drives: IMO Western Digital, and Samsung are fine. Seagate/Maxtor (same thing) I've seen more returned than the others. I'm not saying I haven't had DOA (straight from suppliers) for WD or Samsung either, but the numbers / percentages make me lean towards WD or Samsung more often if I have a choice.

PSU: I would probably recommend something larger, that way you know you are covered if you add in more drives, upgrade the video card etc. I see too many PSU's fail when people upgrade without thinking of the number of watts required.


I just read that you are having 4GB, bit light on I reakon. And make sure that the MB you pick recommends your RAM brand. i.e "Gigabyte recommends Corsair RAM for this MB"
4GB pack of ram on a 32bit XP system is fine. (4GB is the theoretical limit for 32bit OS: 3.0-3.5GB is the reality.) Putting 8GB in now, to future proof it for Win7 64bit would be a waste, as the extra 4GB upgrade when Win7 comes out, will be cheaper then compared to now.



Recommend another hard disk, but not as a backup - instead, put data and swap space on one drive and OS/apps on the other. Speeds things up (long explanation, relates to drive heads being the bottleneck in any disk access). I learned this approach in my days as Unix system administrator.
+ 1 for that.
If it's beyond your ability, seek a reputable computer nerd/geek/guru, or even just ask your local store to do it for you when they build it.

Hope all this helps.

[Kym]

I just read that you are having 4GB, bit light on I reakon. And make sure that the MB you pick recommends your RAM brand. i.e "Gigabyte recommends Corsair RAM for this MB"

More than 4GB is only of value if you build a 64 bit system - which means Vista 64 bit - Lani has said she will stick with Win XP for now.

[Lani]

Thank you so much for you replies, peoples. :)
Will go in on Monday and ask a few more questions relating to the PSU and extra HD.

[wideangle]

Hi Lani

From the looks of your components the system looks really good. I would add another hard drive as space soon gets smaller and hard drives are so cheap these days. I just got myself a Samsung 1TB myself and runs cooler than any other hard drive I have bought.

[wideangle]

Also with having more than one drive, is that the same thing as partitioning, or do you actually install two?

You actually purchase 2 physical hard drives and they are installed into the computer in 2 drive bays. You can then partition these 2 physically separate drives into sections so then you would have virtual drives.

The good thing about having 2 drives is the obvious of having a cloned duplicate of your photos on your OS hard drive as if things go wrong you can access the drive that hasn't been effected. The other benefit of having 2 drives is that later down the track when its full you may want to take that hard drive out of the computer and put it in an external case to access externally. OR you may want to have one 1TB drive in your computer and buy another 1TB hard drive and a case for it (only about $50) and you have yourself an external HDD that you can duplicate your photos onto and store somewhere else away from your computer. When I just upgraded my HDD from a 250B to a 1TB, I took the 250GB out of my computer and put it in an external case. I bought a Vantec case which also comes with an ESATA connection and card to install into your computer which basically means when you connect the external hard drive you are not bottlenecked in terms of transfer speed as you are with USB, Works as fast as your internal drives do....although it also comes with USB connection as well.

[boggo]

have you thought about getting a faster hard disk for OS and current image processing and then having a 2nd for older photos. That way lightroom etc will run quicker as a lot of time is wasted in slow disk IO

[Lani]

Well after a couple of days of loading stuff on and setting up a decent file system, I am happy to say my new system is up and running,.....CS4 etc runs soooo much better now. :th3: Ended up with a 250 HD for the OS and a 1 gig HD for data, , 4 gig of ram and with 2 external HD's for backup
Thanks to everyone for your advice. :)


Now just gotta decide on a new monitor. :D

[ricktas]

Can I just add something Lani. How about asking if he can install a firewire card reader (CF format) into the PC as well. Faster file transfer than USB and now you are doing weddings that can only be a good thing.

EDIT - oops you have it already! - The PC that is - enjoy Lani

[Lani]

Can I just add something Lani. How about asking if he can install a firewire card reader (CF format) into the PC as well. Faster file transfer than USB and now you are doing weddings that can only be a good thing.

EDIT - oops you have it already! - The PC that is - enjoy Lani

Now you mention it Rick!!!! :D
I actually do have a firewire card reader, and when Michael was setting it all up informed me there is nowhere to stick it, so to speak. I just assumed there would be as my current system has a firewire port.( Shouldn't have assumed anything:rolleyes: .)
Do you know if it can be added to the motherboard or is it too late?

[phild]

Lani, the motherboard (http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/Motherboard/Products_Accessories.aspx?ProductID=2843) already has firewire on board I suspect, all you need is the header and bracket S/N:12CF1-1IE008-01R listed for this model board. If you are looking to make the jump and have CS4 (CS$ supports 64bit) it would be worth going to Vista ultimate 64 bit and an extra 4Gb Ram, it will fly, 64 bit Vista will also get over the 4Gb RAM limit of XP.

[milspec]

I don't think the Quad is of great value, better is a Dual - Quads don't deliver as much performance as you think. Most stuff does not use 2 cores, let alone 4. E8400 will deliver more for Adobe products.

I agree, there aren't many applications that can use quad core technology and it's only good if you do a lot of multi-tasking. If you are going to spend around $300 for a CPU, go the E8500 or if you can, the E8600 (around $370). This should make Adobe products fly ........ :D

Don't forget, you can claim it as a school item if you have kids :th3:

[Lani]

Lani, the motherboard (http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/Motherboard/Products_Accessories.aspx?ProductID=2843) already has firewire on board I suspect, all you need is the header and bracket S/N:12CF1-1IE008-01R listed for this model board. If you are looking to make the jump and have CS4 (CS$ supports 64bit) it would be worth going to Vista ultimate 64 bit and an extra 4Gb Ram, it will fly, 64 bit Vista will also get over the 4Gb RAM limit of XP.

Thanks Phil, I will give the pc place a ring and see if I can get hold of one. :th3:

Thanks for your thoughts milspec, but I already have the system. :) Wonder if furkids are eligible for the tax rebate?...guess they'd have to be enrolled in a school first. :rolleyes: :D

[Kevin M]

Hi Lani,
this is 1st hand & my thoughts only.....
I have a very similiar spec'd "engine" in my pC "Intel core 2 Quad Q8200 2.33ghz 1333FSB 4MB CACHE, 775 $315:" and do agree with comments that the Quad core processor doesn't really improve performance to a noticeable extent (to me at least) particularly when doing pShop stuff in isolation.

I am not sure how much RAm you are getting but if you can get say 4 gig or more (also suggest more cache space too)...I find that after any more than 18 layers in Photoshop the PC slows do considerably though I do allocate a decent amount of RAM for Photoshop too. I have 3 gig RAM only....I have been trying to do a bit of futuristic landscapes lately from old pano shots of brissy from a few years ago that I took. Twice now once the individual file size reach over 1 gig I have experienced very slow response times.

From what I can read in various responses I too am inclined to agree with a few other points noted ...but the underlying issue is MONEY & how much do you have to spend or willing to spend bearing in mind how quickly technology becomes obsolete.
???
Anyway good luck.