DPChallenge: A Digital Photography Contest You are not logged in. (log in or register
 

DPChallenge Forums >> Hardware and Software >> Buying a new tower - requesting suggestions
Pages:  
Showing posts 1 - 9 of 9, (reverse)
AuthorThread
06/28/2011 12:01:20 AM · #1
My HP crapped out about six months ago and I've just received a check from the insurance co for a replacement. I want to spend around 1k for a new tower. I'm looking at this ASUS at Best Buy: ASUS. Is this a good product? Can I do better for the $? All suggestions are appreciated. Thanks
06/28/2011 12:04:38 AM · #2
Can't speak for that particular model, though the specs look nice. I like the top mounted I/O ports. Very convenient. Asus makes some of the best motherboards for a long time and they've recently starting selling full systems, laptops and other components under their own name. All of my recent systems have been built with Asus boards.
06/28/2011 04:00:42 PM · #3
Of these three video cards, which is the best choice for PS4 and/or Lightroom 3? Thanks

3GB DDR3 NVIDIA GeForce GT 440 [DVI, HDMI, VGA]

1GB DDR5 Radeon HD 6850 [2 DVI, 2 mini-DP, HDMI. VGA adapter]

1GB DDR5 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 550 Ti
06/28/2011 04:14:46 PM · #4
Originally posted by cogerox:

Of these three video cards...


Any relatively recent card that is compatible with Ps GPU acceleration (most are but you should check) will be way more than what you need from a processing standpoint. On the flip side, these "3-D acceleration" gaming-centric cards pay no attention to the finer points of image quality. Not to say they are bad, they just aren't great.
The alternative to a mainstream card is a "workstation" type card. These cards are built for exactly what we're doing, and are found in graphics workstations doing jobs like photo editing, graphic design, CAD, rendering, etc. nVidia makes a line of cards (QuadroFX) that is targeted at this market. I have an older QuadroFX card (570) that does great work for me; drives my main monitor at 2560x1440, and a second monitor at 1050x1680, both over DVI. It consumes a whopping 38 watts, less than 20% of even a mid-level gaming card.
The *one* down-side to the QuadroFX cards is that they don't play nice when it comes to sleep mode. Video does not come back upon wake. The problem affects many (all?) of the models and has persisted for some time, with no solution in sight.
06/28/2011 04:26:22 PM · #5
Really no idea on the video cards, They all look pretty decent, though the GTX550 appears to have the fastest clock speed. The actual act of pushing pixels around for photo editing is not too demanding. There is some software that can take advantage of special features in certain types of cards, but I'm not sure if Adobe products are among those. Not sure if the 1 or 3 Gb RAM will make a real difference for the intended usage or not. I have a relatively low end 1Gb ATI/AMD Radeon card. Now if you are a gamer, or want to do video editing, then your choice will make a big difference for certain. I'm afraid you'll have to do some research on this.
06/28/2011 04:28:45 PM · #6
Would be interesting to know what chipset it uses. I wonder is it the new Z68 chipset, or an older flavor? Not that big a deal in any case...
The one thing I don't like is that it seems to use a single 1TB drive. A 1TB drive is fine for data, but it should have a separate drive for OS/apps. Normally, a 160GB to 240GB drive is sufficient for this.
06/28/2011 04:31:37 PM · #7
Nothing to add I'm afraid, but I had to say I misread your title of this thread as "Buying a new town - requesting suggestions"
I think it's time I slept :P
06/28/2011 04:37:32 PM · #8
Originally posted by kirbic:

The one thing I don't like is that it seems to use a single 1TB drive. A 1TB drive is fine for data, but it should have a separate drive for OS/apps. Normally, a 160GB to 240GB drive is sufficient for this.

+1 on that. The advantage is if your OS drive fails, your data is untouched and if your data drive fails, you can still boot the computer to try to recover it (but you will have a backup anyway, right?) Adding that second hard drive may be less expensive once he has the PC in hand. I just bought a 2Tb drive for $70 US from Newegg.
06/28/2011 04:46:43 PM · #9
Originally posted by Yo_Spiff:

Really no idea on the video cards, They all look pretty decent, though the GTX550 appears to have the fastest clock speed. The actual act of pushing pixels around for photo editing is not too demanding. There is some software that can take advantage of special features in certain types of cards, but I'm not sure if Adobe products are among those. Not sure if the 1 or 3 Gb RAM will make a real difference for the intended usage or not. I have a relatively low end 1Gb ATI/AMD Radeon card. Now if you are a gamer, or want to do video editing, then your choice will make a big difference for certain. I'm afraid you'll have to do some research on this.


No, I am not a gamer. I'm only interested in getting the best out of PS that my $ can buy. Nor am I a techie of any type. I want to get the most computer bang for my buck, just not sure how to achieve that. Research is confusing when you don't understand the language. Thanks for your input.
Pages:  
Current Server Time: 03/28/2024 12:34:27 PM

Please log in or register to post to the forums.


Home - Challenges - Community - League - Photos - Cameras - Lenses - Learn - Prints! - Help - Terms of Use - Privacy - Top ^
DPChallenge, and website content and design, Copyright © 2001-2024 Challenging Technologies, LLC.
All digital photo copyrights belong to the photographers and may not be used without permission.
Current Server Time: 03/28/2024 12:34:27 PM EDT.