New PC - Which Operating System and Monitor??

Pentax DA 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 AF

04/04/2008 07:09:38 AM · #1

Hi All,

I'm finally going to get a new PC after having spening 3 hours editing 20 images yesterday and having about 2 hours of that waiting for the hour glass to dissapear!

I'm getting a Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 GO 2.40GHz Quad Core with 4Gb RAM

my dilema is, which operating system should I go for?? I have a full version of XP Home I can use, but would I be better paying for XP Pro, or any of the Vista versions?

Are there any advatages in going for the 64Bit version and are there issues with things not working on this? I worked in IT for 10 years but as a UNIX C++ programmer so I have no idea about windows versions and their advantages/dissadvantages so any help or advice would be very much appriciated.

I will be using it pretty much solely for image editting with Lightroom and CS3, I never play games on my PC and so don't need to worry about that.

My other area of confusion is with a monitor, I have a 19" Sumsung at the moment and I get very frustrated with the lack of detail that shows in the whites/greys. I've wasted so many prints where areas of the white background have some grey areas (usually as a result of cloning out light stands or stray hands/feet) that I need to go back and fix and re print.
So I'm looking for a monitor that is aimed at the image editing professional market and so has a much better display gamut. I've found some around the £500-750 mark for a 24"-26" screen but I can't seem to find a decent resource for screen comparisons that don't use the latest PC Games as a benchmark!

Sorry for the long post but I'm really struggling to get relevant information on these 2 areas and don't want to spend all that money on the wrong products!

Thanks for any help or advice you can chuck my way :0)

tase

Pentax *ist DL

04/04/2008 07:26:59 AM · #2

stick with xp home or better yet, get your hands on a w2k professional edition (out of print, i know, but it's much easier to lean it down than either xp or vista, you'll have to pirate it most likely, if that bothers you, forget i said anything) and patch it to SP4, remove all the superfluous crap that's enabled by default and you're set. if you say you have a unix background, you can try installing an unix instead and using gimp. the latest version has color management arguably on par with earlier photoshop versions (5-6), doesn't support 16-bit color channels, tho.

as for the monitor, i'd suggest nec's multisync 90 series //www.necdisplay.com/Products/Series/?series=171d9fbb-281e-44d8-be67-14d146e8ada0, buy one that ends in i as those have S-IPS panels which are what you need (say some) for photo editing.

04/04/2008 07:32:54 AM · #3

For monitor, also check Eizo's ColorEdge series.

To make use of more than (about) 3.5gb of your ram you'll need a 64 bit os. More ram usually results in less disk io, so your machine will be faster. And with ram being super cheap these days, get as much as you can.

Message edited by author 2008-04-04 07:38:00.

04/04/2008 07:50:15 AM · #4

Originally posted by tase:

Thanks for the reply, I would rather stick with either XP or Vista purely because the main two applications i'll be using are Lightroom and CS3 and I have bought Windows versions of these.

I was actually looking at the "NEC MultiSync® LCD2690WUXi 26" Widescreen Professional LCD Monitor" so i'm glad to see a recommendation!

Hanserik - thanks I'll look into the Eizo's and are there any downsides to going 64 bit on the OS. I noticed that my CS3 requirements showed that it was only certified up to 32 Bit?

04/04/2008 08:44:37 AM · #5

Downsides of 64bit os is lack of drivers. If you have old, exotic or supercheap (noname/nobrand) hardware it might not have 64bit drivers. It's just another thing you'll have to remember to check when shopping for hardware.

I've been running XP64 for a while, and CS3 runs fine on it. No problems at all. I've read that a 64bit version of photoshop will come, but adobe won't say when.

Message edited by author 2008-04-04 08:45:33.

Pentax DA 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 AF

04/04/2008 09:05:29 AM · #6

Originally posted by hanserik:

That's really helpful thank you, so is is there a 64Bit version of XP?? I thought it only Vista that had 64Bit version?

tase

Pentax *ist DL

04/04/2008 09:17:44 AM · #7

//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_XP_Professional_x64_Edition

wanjun

Canon EOS-400D Rebel XTi

Canon EF 17-40mm f/4L USM

04/04/2008 09:26:23 AM · #8

only vista's in 64-bit. Vista "Ultimate", that is. Personally I'd stick with 32 for now, photoshop isn't going 64 bit till CS4! Although Lightroom's in 64 bit now I think. But I doubt you'll see anything significant in Lightroom's performance in 64bit.

I recommend windows xp pro or vista ultimate. with that kind of processor, you might as well run vista though if you can afford the upgrade. XP pro has better networking functionalities if you need those.

Another note: You can't take advantage of those 4 gigs of ram unless you run 64 bit... because 32 bit just can't take that much. 3 gig's the max I think.

Spork99

Canon EOS M6 Mk II

Canon EF-M 22mm STM Lens

04/04/2008 10:06:11 AM · #9

Let me be the first in this thread to suggest that you can it all and buy a Mac.

Then you can run a great OS and if you really want to, you can run Windows too.

Canon EF 17-40mm f/4L USM

04/04/2008 10:13:11 AM · #10

No, there's an XP64 too. And yes, Mac is definately and option.

wanjun

Canon EOS-400D Rebel XTi

04/04/2008 10:19:59 AM · #11

sigh. I had a macbook... before its logic board died and kernel panicked all over the place... a month after my warranty expired. I was so in love with apple and OS X till then. So If you do go with a mac make sure to buy the extended warranty. Although desktops (iMac, Mac Pro) arent' mobile and are thus probably less likely to break. Plus my macbook was a first generatoin product.

One thing though, photoshop isn't going 64 bit in OSX until CS5. I kid you not.

04/04/2008 10:28:01 AM · #12

Ok, now I considered a Mac but I have only just bought CS3 for Windows and so ruled out a change of platform on that account.

Would a Mac running windows be better then a PC Quad Core running Windows?

As I only really use CS3 and Lightroom would I not be better off with a PC if i'm going to be installing windows anyway?

Plus, would I be forced into the Apple monitor with the Mac and is that a good screen?

Thanks for the continued help!

Spork99

Canon EOS M6 Mk II

Canon EF-M 22mm STM Lens

04/04/2008 10:33:39 AM · #13

Originally posted by kevip6:

Adobe will let you swap platforms for free.

The Apple monitors are quite nice, but you can use any DVI monitor. (FWIW, I have a Dell LCD hooked to my Mac)

awpollard

Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS

04/04/2008 10:58:20 AM · #14

Quick note: Ligthroom 2.0 Beta (thread here somewhere) supports 64Bit as will CS4 and CS5 //blogs.adobe.com/jnack/2008/04/photoshop_lr_64.html

64bit OSes have come a long way, is it totally there yet? No, there are some third party vendors that don't quite have it together yet. The major vendor (stuff you would use) is all there. I run 64bit Vista in production but would I suggest 64bit to a user...probably not.

Vista, XP, Win2k (still ROFL on that one) which to choose?

You got to make a call on that one, but if OS (Vista Home Premium) comes with it try... The stuff you read on the internet and stuff you hear from the weekend warriors here is viral marketing or the ol' I heard it from a friend who heard it from a friend type giberish.

Vista is stable and with SP1, which is available now, performance increases have been noticed. Chances are if you can break Vista you can break XP or MAC. There are those users with a knack for breaking shiznit.

There are a lot of productivity enhancements in Vista that one would not realize until they use and find em. I dislike XP (now) for the lack of those uts and tools. The GUI and the cool stuff they advertise is nice but a whatever for me. Would I go back to XP not a chance...

Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8L USM

04/04/2008 11:16:18 AM · #15

Originally posted by awpollard:

There are a lot of productivity enhancements in Vista that one would not realize until they use and find em.

I'd be interested in knowing which productivity enhancements that is? I haven't used vista and probably wouldn't unless I'm convinced there are things there that I just can't be without. You obviously found yours, so spill the beans! :)

Patrick_R

Canon EOS-60D

04/04/2008 11:27:00 AM · #16

Okay so here are my specs... AMD 3.2 dual core, ASUS wireless mobo, 4 gigs of ram, 8800 gts 512mb graphics card and a terabite of hdd. I run vista as well and honestly I love it. I was so worried about it (i built it myself) but vista is actually great in my opinion.

wanjun

Canon EOS-400D Rebel XTi

Canon EF 17-40mm f/4L USM

04/04/2008 12:29:05 PM · #17

well if you still havent decided between a mac and a pc, I have the perspective of someone who actually recently switched from the mac to the pc (unlike most people).

XP: Every program works, more plugins for photoshop. the standard, etc.

OSX: prettier in terms of hardware and software, although that could be a personal taste issue. no need to install antiviruses and whatnot. Not everything has a mac version, but all the major stuff are there (like... Office). There are also a slew of awesome mac only apps. But, like I said, no 64 bit until CS5. via daring fireball. It is reported that you'll see around 9-15 percent speed increase in 64 bit when working on very large files.

But with leopard's bootcamp, you could easily run windows as well. (gotta pay for an extra XP/Vista license though). Although I don't know if you could use one license of photoshop for both OSes.

kirbic

Canon EOS R5

Canon RF 24-70 f2.8 L IS

04/04/2008 01:25:54 PM · #18

I won't address the Mac-vs-PC debate. For PC operating systems, right now stick with XP, but *do* go with XP Pro, 32-bit. If you are buying a machine, you can get an OEM version. The 64-bit version of XP exists, but is not worth trying. It's basically an orphaned product at this point, because drivers for 64-bit XP are more sparse than for 64-bit Vista, and they probably will not be updated, nor created if they don't currently exist.

fischerfotographik

Nikon D40

Nikon AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor 55-200mm f/4.0-5.6G ED

04/04/2008 01:30:42 PM · #19

Just to add to the Mac consideration...
You don't need to dual-boot Windows and Mac. I use VirtualBox to run Windows when I absolutely have to (which is rarely...honestly, I only start it up when my Windows using family needs tech support or I'm modding my motorola cell phone)
VirtualBox, VMWare, Parallels - all good options. VirtualBox is free (a long time ago, Parallels was based on the same code VBox uses).
Versiontracker.com is a good place to search for Mac apps. Quite a number beat the snot out of any Windows equivalent :)

Citadel

Nikon D7500

Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 24-70mm f/2.8G ED

04/04/2008 01:34:27 PM · #20

One small tidbit about 64bit. Lightroom 2 (currently in beta) has support (or will have support?) for 64bit processing.

04/04/2008 02:08:15 PM · #21

Well thats added a spanner in the works!!

Looking at the Mac Pro though it seems very expensive when the specs are compared like for like to Quad Core 2.8Ghz PC's

The iMac's seem more reasonable but I really think a screen designed more for Photo editing / publishing would be of great use.

I'm currently leaning towards a Quad Core PC with 4Gb RAM running XP Pro and the NEC Multisync 26" display. This would be a similar price to a 24" iMac with a 2.4Ghz Dual Core with 2Gb RAM

I'm still very interested in the pro's and con's though as I'm not convinced yet