Computers and Software > Computers and Software - General
New desktop computer....any advice?
GraphicDisorder:
--- Quote from: blue moon on February 10, 2012, 04:01:25 PM ---
--- Quote from: GraphicDisorder on February 10, 2012, 03:00:56 PM ---
--- Quote from: blue moon on February 10, 2012, 02:24:28 PM ---
--- Quote from: GraphicDisorder on February 10, 2012, 02:17:04 PM ---Just build yourself one. Very easy to do. just built a BAD ASS RIG.
i7 2600k (3.4ghz)
32gb (yes 32 GIGS) of DDR3
240gb SSD Sata III
1.5TB Western Digital Black Sata III
GTX 560
Corsair Power Supply
DVD Drive
Cooler Master Case.
Sucker is a rocket.
If you are into designing and are serious about it you need 3 things.... LOTS of ram. FAST hard drives. Good graphics card.
--- End quote ---
If you do build yourself, look into workstation motherboards. Intel used to make good stuff. As mentioned, they run faster, are more reliable and use ECC (error correction and checking) memory.
pierre
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Ive built my own computers for years, had some workstation stuff, used to be a much larger gap in performance, not so much anymore. Just my opinion.
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quite possible! I've closed the computer business few years back and have not kept up with the specs of the hadware. It would not surprise me if desktops caught up with some things. If the newer chipsets are running wider buses, they could be just as fast and possibly even faster. Workstations also have to compute the error checking which would slow them down. But even if they are slower, workstation boards are tested longer and built to higher standards. Same goes with the certified video drivers. They use similar components as the gaming cards, but the amount of testing, higher quality control and optimized drives drive the cost up significantly.
In the end, I think the Thinkstation will cost you less and give you more. Don't think you'll get anything close to it for $500 if you build it yourself . . .
pierre
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To each their own I guess, but I haven't been impressed with most workstation stuff in several years.
There is NO substitute for read/write and amount of ram and raw processor power.
Here is a benchmark score for the processor I just bought vs the one in the one you linked (guessed a little at which c2d it was).
http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i7-2600K+%40+3.40GHz
http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core2+Extreme+X9100+%40+3.06GHz
How would you even use that computer anyway, it only had 160gb? Id have to upgrade that quick like. LOL.
ravenmark:
Haven't bought a comp in years being I build my own. I have found I prefer AMD over Intel for processors, AMD has a new quad core processor out now, built in graphics capabilities that will link to one of their video cards to give you a ton of graphics capability (think running dual video cards). They also have more traditional 8 core processors too, & great front side bus speeds. Other than that preference, lots of ram, a decent video card as well as faster rpm sata 6gb hard drives are the ticket (Solid state drive are too new for my tastes).
ScreenFoo:
You guys have posted some great info here. When building a computer, I always found it was worth the money to just replace something if the drivers didn't play nice with everything else. Sometimes it's the weirdest things that trip you up.
My pops had a notebook that he though was just dead--turned out the HP software (which could have been corrupted or hacked) would literally slow down any explorer request to many seconds--if not a minute. Took that crap out-bam. Like a new computer. You never know what weird crap is going on in the war between system calls.
I'd be interested in Gilligans take--from what I've seen SSD's are friggin awesome--if you have the coin. Incredibly fast and no moving parts. I'm saving my pennies for one right now.
I always have to wonder though--I usually monitor my ram usage, my sweet newish notebook right now has six gigs of memory, and even with stupid massive files in photoshop, I can't get usage over half.
What are you guys running that takes ten or twenty or thirty gigs of memory? Photoshop, Illy, Draw, Excel, Premiere, Modern Warfare, and Skyrim at the same time? ;)
GraphicDisorder:
--- Quote from: ScreenFoo on February 12, 2012, 02:23:43 PM ---I always have to wonder though--I usually monitor my ram usage, my sweet newish notebook right now has six gigs of memory, and even with stupid massive files in photoshop, I can't get usage over half.
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A lot of that will have to do with the software and the setting you have in it. For example if its Photoshop CS3 you could have 10000 gigs of ram and it will never be able to use more than around 3.2-3.5gb of it. Its a 32 bit program. If you have CS5 you will be able to use more of the ram since it can then address more ram. Stock install though, you'd want to check your preferences, it may be scaling you back because 6gb isn't that much.
--- Quote from: ScreenFoo on February 12, 2012, 02:23:43 PM ---What are you guys running that takes ten or twenty or thirty gigs of memory? Photoshop, Illy, Draw, Excel, Premiere, Modern Warfare, and Skyrim at the same time? ;)
--- End quote ---
I have CS5, today I had a 1.5gb file open, Illustrator, Itunes, Outlook, AIM, Windows Calendar and so on. My computer doesn't even struggle to do this and I am on my old machine still, just a i7 with 12gb of ram and a 120gb SSD, with a few TB of other drives in it.
ScreenFoo:
Out of curiosity, what is your ram usage with all that stuff open?
I don't know, I don't even flush caches anymore since I got this thing. I am pretty old school and dealt with raster images when 4 megs of ram ran you two hundred bucks though, it might just be cautious use of resources, long ago rendered obsolete.
Oh, and I am running a quad core AMD--with the 64 bit version of Photoshop CS5. I do not deal with 32 bit pixel depth images, and rarely work with images larger than 12x18--I'm sure that's part of it. At this size, 300DPI, and a 24 bit depth, a single raster image is going to be around 55 megs, and even getting fancy pants with eight 16 bit spots I'm still under 300 megs in actual image data.
Heh, the i7 is still the fastest architecture available, from what I know (not much). I know mine is somewhere around 1/5th of the speed of their fancy i7-3960X, but just the processor costs more than my whole computer. ;)
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