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06/08/2009 05:56:01 PM · #1 |
| Hi,hope some one out there can give me some pointers.I'm about to buy a new computer and monitor and would like to know what spec to look for and monitor resolution to get.I would look into having one built to spec but dont know which components are the best to get.Any advice would be welcome.I will be running ps7 maybe upgrading to cs4 in the near future and will be keeping windows xp as o/s as ps7 doesn't run on vista.All help much appreciated. |
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06/08/2009 06:28:21 PM · #2 |
Key Components:
Video Card with High RAM (RAM actually has a speed too..higher the speed the better)(if you choose one thing to upgrade in a system, it's the video card)
Monitor-- 21" monitors are now reasonably priced.. generally you get what you pay for.. I wouldn't go smaller than a 21" but that's just me.
Hard Drive(s) this is totally up to you. A good hard drive will increase the computers performance. Bigger is not always better... but you want to be big enough that you don't run out of space.
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06/08/2009 06:59:03 PM · #3 |
Here is a discussion thread from earlier in the year, where some specs and issues of a new PC were discussed.
Are you planning on buying one ready made, or building it yourself?
I'm sort of in disagreement with Intelli on the video card thing. If you are going to be doing video editing or gaming it is very important, but almost any modern video card has plenty of horsepower to run Vista's bloated, eye-candy laden interface for photo editing. I bought a Radeon 4650 For $79 when I built my new PC a few months ago. Driving two monitors from it and it's as snappy as it can be. I do think some adobe products are getting to where they can run some processes on the video card, so having the excess could be of benefit if it is already there.
I have a 20" monitor running at 1680x1050 and a second 17" that is 1280x1024. When I use my lone 17" at work, I feel cramped for space. Flat panels have gotten dirt cheap. One thing I would suggest when you look at them in stores, is to bring a flash drive with some of your own photos on it. You know what those look like and it will make it easier to gauge the quality of the display.
A fast processor and lots of fast ram will speed up your photo editing, but most editing apps cannot take advantage of multiple cores. Discussed more fully in the earlier thread I linked to.
Message edited by author 2009-06-08 19:04:05. |
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06/08/2009 07:11:54 PM · #4 |
Brands to stay away from..
HP
Sony
Panasonic
Compaq
These are all trash.. don't even bother.. if you buy one of these you might as well put their warrenty department and help desk on speed dial.
I personally like Dell to build my computers.. they do a good job and I get exactly what I need and want for a good price. |
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06/08/2009 09:37:16 PM · #5 |
For every report I see of someone having problems installing/running 7.0 under Vista, there is another that says "no problem." There may be some hardware interaction.
Another (free for now) alternative is Windows 7. I'm running the 64-bit version of Win7, and although I liked Vista (really, I did, even the much-maligned interface) I feel that Win7 has a *lot* of improvements. I would never consider loading a new machine with XP, but I will say that I do have VirtualPC/VirtualXP installed and I run one old app that way (VueScan) because it is the only way it can access my scanner.
If you plan on upgrading to CS4, you will at that point want a 64-bit OS, and a video card that CS4 can utilize. If you don't do gaming, consider a "workstation" card like nVidia's Quadro FX series. I use the 570, it can drive two dual link monitors at resolutions of up to 2560x1600 each (yeh, like I have room for two 30" monitors ;-)
Be careful in your choice of processors. If you plan on running Win7 and making use of the virtualization features (VirtualPC) then you need to make sure that your processor supports it. NOT all of Intel's newest processors do. The lower end of both the core2 duo and core2 quad do not (for instance you need at least the E8500 for virtualization with the core2 Duo chips). I don't know if they have done the same thing with i7, but I'd guess they have. The i7 chips are supposed to be very, very fast, but are still fetching a significant premium. |
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