PC Spec

Eirebear

Bit of a techy question guys, sorry.

After humming and hawing over the idea of a shiny new Mac this year, ive decided that the money could be better spent elsewhere. (5D Mk II later in the year!)

However im still going to need a dedicated PC for photography work. (By dedicated i mean not overflowing with crap ive downloaded from the internet and running slower than a sloth on crutches).

What kind of Spec should i be looking for?

I'd be running lightroom and photoshop as my main tools.

melekalikimaka

4gb ram, minimum. 7200 rpm hd minimum, maybe a smaller one as swap. duel core minimum, not vista - win 7. some sort of dedicated gfx, avoid onbaord. for ps you dont need anything mad, just lots of ram

soccerc

melekalikimaka wrote: »

4gb ram, minimum. 7200 rpm hd minimum, maybe a smaller one as swap. duel core minimum, not vista - win 7. some sort of dedicated gfx, avoid onbaord. for ps you dont need anything mad, just lots of ram

I know I've said it before but I can safely and speedily run both LR and PS on a 1gig ram netbook for basic PP. Have a replacement 2g ram module to install.

However on laptop, 4gb ram, XP, 250gb 7200rpm hdd and 512mb dedicated graphics card while on desktop it's same as lappy but with 1gb ram on the graphics card.

melekalikimaka

cs4 and lightroom on 1 gb with a atom processor... speedily?

soccerc

melekalikimaka wrote: »

cs4 and lightroom on 1 gb with a atom processor... speedily?

CS3 and Lightroom...and yes speedily.

Import, process, caption and transmit by either ftp or email without any problem.

pixbyjohn

Studio XPS 8100 DT StudioXPS 8100 - Intel Core i5 Processor 750 (2.66GHz, 8MB)

StudioXPS 8100 - Intel Core i5 Processor 750 (2.66GHz, 8MB) 1
Genuine Windows® 7 Ultimate 64bit- English 1

6144MB 1066 MHz Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM [2x2048 + 2x1024] 1
2TB Dual Hard Drive Non RAID (2x1TB - 7200rpm) 1
1GB NVIDIA® GeForce™ GT220 graphics card 1
16X DVD+/- RW Optical Drive (DVD & CD read and write) (Win 7 Only) 1
Dell™ USB Entry Keyboard - UK/Irish (QWERTY) 1
Dell 2 Button USB Optical Mouse 1
Integrated HDA 7.1 Dolby Digital Audio 1

Chorcai

pixbyjohn wrote: »

Studio XPS 8100 DT StudioXPS 8100 - Intel Core i5 Processor 750 (2.66GHz, 8MB)

StudioXPS 8100 - Intel Core i5 Processor 750 (2.66GHz, 8MB) 1
Genuine Windows® 7 Ultimate 64bit- English 1

6144MB 1066 MHz Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM [2x2048 + 2x1024] 1
2TB Dual Hard Drive Non RAID (2x1TB - 7200rpm) 1
1GB NVIDIA® GeForce™ GT220 graphics card 1
16X DVD+/- RW Optical Drive (DVD & CD read and write) (Win 7 Only) 1
Dell™ USB Entry Keyboard - UK/Irish (QWERTY) 1
Dell 2 Button USB Optical Mouse 1
Integrated HDA 7.1 Dolby Digital Audio 1

holy crap ! Any gamer would be green in the face !!! (like me !) 6gig of DDR3, nice very nice, I got 8gig of DDR2 in mine :P

Mycroft H

big hard drive 500gb plus. 7200rpm is a nice bonus but not really needed if you have enough ram

dual core

more then 2gb of ram

any sort of dedicated ghraphics

if you look hard you should be able to pick one up for under 450 euro


I've ran lightroom on a netbook with a 1.6ghz atom and 2gb of ram. It was pretty smooth

Ghost Train

I see www.boffer.co.uk have a high spec hp pc today, still seems a bit pricey, but its a while since I checked prices

Valentia

Maybe one of the new i5's or i7's. Quadcore would be fine. But definitely go for Windows 7 64 bit with 8 gig. 32 bit only handles just over 3 gig. No matter how fast people think their netbooks are they really haven't experienced how fast it REALLY can be ;-) Lightroom does 64 bit now. PS soon. Give yourself at least a few years benefit from what you buy now.

Ghost Train

the boffer forum suggests it would be eligible for free win7 upgrade... the price on laptop direct, amazon, komplett all over £700 so maybe not so bad

Eirebear

Cheers everyone!

Given me a wee bit to mull over....even if i know nothing of what it means!

Valentia

I'd still go for the 27" iMac. Feck it. You only live once

Eirebear

Valentia wrote: »

I'd still go for the 27" iMac. Feck it. You only live once

Believe me...if i could i bloody well would!

I worked with a G4 Powermac (2 19inch screens) untill a couple of years ago when i moved back to Glasgow, and have coveted something similar since.

Sadly college fees have scuppered me this year, and my trusty old 30D is really starting to show signs of wear and tear, so the camera has to come first (and a lens or two as part of the overall upgrade).

So i need something cheap, and powerful enough to keep me ticking over for a couple of years untill i get through college and start figuring out what i want to be when i grow up!

Kbeg3

Valentia wrote: »

I'd still go for the 27" iMac. Feck it. You only live once

I'm waiting on delivery for mine. Any day now!:)

DotOrg

Kbeg3 wrote: »

I'm waiting on delivery for mine. Any day now!:)

i'd advise on the 27 imac as well, i've had one for about a month now, amazingly good and huge screen and so fast for dealing with the big 5DII raw files in their thousands

Valentia

Are the i7s shipping I wonder? They weren't before Christmas.

Chorcai

Valentia wrote: »

Maybe one of the new i5's or i7's. Quadcore would be fine. But definitely go for Windows 7 64 bit with 8 gig. 32 bit only handles just over 3 gig. No matter how fast people think their netbooks are they really haven't experienced how fast it REALLY can be ;-) Lightroom does 64 bit now. PS soon. Give yourself at least a few years benefit from what you buy now.

PS CS4 extended runs 64bit.

Kbeg3

Valentia wrote: »

Are the i7s shipping I wonder? They weren't before Christmas.

They are now but they take two weeks to ship.

DotOrg

Valentia wrote: »

Are the i7s shipping I wonder? They weren't before Christmas.

they were, my i7 arrived around the 9th December, ordered it about 4 weeks prior to that.

it's all that i could need for photo and HD video editing

Rb

Ghost Train wrote: »

the boffer forum suggests it would be eligible for free win7 upgrade... the price on laptop direct, amazon, komplett all over £700 so maybe not so bad

Laptops Direct are appalling and I would suggest that anyone thinking of buying from them pays a little extra to get their goods from a reputable source.