computer hardware

[offspring]

Doing photoshop on my puny computer is making me :angry:

I am building a new system, any recommendations. Primarily used for photo editing and secondary is for surfing, thus need a higher end graphic card, loads of memory (1gig) and harddisk space (120gb). I need a writeable dvd,usb2, LAN, wireless, firewire(in case i get a camera that supports it)

No more gaming as too old so maybe a sound blaster live is sufficient?

I have lost touch with the latest on cpu, mainboards, graphic cards and all the whistles and bells.

Any recommendations? Trying to keep budget to 2k excluding monitor.

TIA

 

[nightwolf75]

Doing photoshop on my puny computer is making me :angry:

I am building a new system, any recommendations. Primarily used for photo editing and secondary is for surfing, thus need a higher end graphic card, loads of memory (1gig) and harddisk space (120gb). I need a writeable dvd,usb2, LAN, wireless, firewire(in case i get a camera that supports it)

No more gaming as too old so maybe a sound blaster live is sufficient?

I have lost touch with the latest on cpu, mainboards, graphic cards and all the whistles and bells.

Any recommendations? Trying to keep budget to 2k excluding monitor.

TIA

hi,

guess you'll be going to sim lim? check out fuwell.

CPU - you got a choice of using Intel P4 or AMD XP. suggest you go for Intel P4 with HT (hyper-threading). at least 2.8GHz. P4HT will allow you to do multiple processing without a loss in performace. great help if you are going to PS and surf and... all at the same time! AMD XP is slightly cheaper and a bit faster. but you need a good heat sink for it as AMD cpus give out a lot of heat. if going for AMD, suggest u try AMD 64-bit processor (their latest). suppose to give mainframe performace on your desktop.

Hdd - anything will do lah. but reviews online tend to favour western digital or seagate. maxtor, of late, seems to have some reliability issues. go for SATA (serial ATA) drives. the connecting cables are much smaller (hence, better air flow in the casing) and the transfer speed is much faster than traditional ATA drives.

motherboards - a lot of them on the markert. suggest u ask the sales people to recommend one that works well (very impt!!!) with watever CPU u buying. chances are the CPU and MB are sold as a bundle. just go for one with the most number of USBs and/or Firewire ports. make sure the MB have a LAN port for ur broadband. some boards, for some strange reason, dun have! also, since you not into gaming, as for a board with a built-in sound chip. saves u a few $$$ from buying a card!

graphics card - try Raedon 9xxx series. best value for money. go for at least 128MB. alternatively, can try nvidia FX series (5700 etc). however, some reviewers dun give them a good rating, compared to raedon cards. again, up to the buyer. since you dun play games, go for one thats friendliest to your wallet! a good card for photo editing shld cost ard $200-$300.

mouse and keyboard - suggest logitech MX series. go for the KB and mouse combi. you got a choice of wireless or wired mouse and keyboard. wireless means you need to buy rechargeable batts for both KB and mouse. but, less wires on ur table. mouse, try to get a optical mouse as you won't have a problem of dirty mouse ball.

speakers - anything will do, since u not a gamer.

does this helps? :sweatsm:

 

[offspring]

thanks alot nightwolf.

Any ideas on those small form factor boxes - those smaler desktops with usb, firewire etc etc all in built - anygood?

hi,

guess you'll be going to sim lim? check out fuwell.

CPU - you got a choice of using Intel P4 or AMD XP. suggest you go for Intel P4 with HT (hyper-threading). at least 2.8GHz. P4HT will allow you to do multiple processing without a loss in performace. great help if you are going to PS and surf and... all at the same time! AMD XP is slightly cheaper and a bit faster. but you need a good heat sink for it as AMD cpus give out a lot of heat. if going for AMD, suggest u try AMD 64-bit processor (their latest). suppose to give mainframe performace on your desktop.

Hdd - anything will do lah. but reviews online tend to favour western digital or seagate. maxtor, of late, seems to have some reliability issues. go for SATA (serial ATA) drives. the connecting cables are much smaller (hence, better air flow in the casing) and the transfer speed is much faster than traditional ATA drives.

motherboards - a lot of them on the markert. suggest u ask the sales people to recommend one that works well (very impt!!!) with watever CPU u buying. chances are the CPU and MB are sold as a bundle. just go for one with the most number of USBs and/or Firewire ports. make sure the MB have a LAN port for ur broadband. some boards, for some strange reason, dun have! also, since you not into gaming, as for a board with a built-in sound chip. saves u a few $$$ from buying a card!

graphics card - try Raedon 9xxx series. best value for money. go for at least 128MB. alternatively, can try nvidia FX series (5700 etc). however, some reviewers dun give them a good rating, compared to raedon cards. again, up to the buyer. since you dun play games, go for one thats friendliest to your wallet! a good card for photo editing shld cost ard $200-$300.

mouse and keyboard - suggest logitech MX series. go for the KB and mouse combi. you got a choice of wireless or wired mouse and keyboard. wireless means you need to buy rechargeable batts for both KB and mouse. but, less wires on ur table. mouse, try to get a optical mouse as you won't have a problem of dirty mouse ball.

speakers - anything will do, since u not a gamer.

does this helps? :sweatsm:

 

[Bluestrike]

thanks alot nightwolf.

Any ideas on those small form factor boxes - those smaler desktops with usb, firewire etc etc all in built - anygood?

Those are the strip down version. The only thing I dun like, you can only put in 1xHDD, 1xCD-rom or 2.

For mi, using a RAID for the pagefiles and for PS scratchdisk, I need more room so the SFF is out.

Alternatly, you can get those mATX mobo. Run a P4HT with at least 2x256MB, a decent gfx card shld be enough. and I dun think you need a SBlive too... the built in AC97 sound is actually quite good.

 

[ST1100]

hi,
graphics card - ...go for one thats friendliest to your wallet! a good card for photo editing shld cost ard $200-$300.

does this helps? :sweatsm:

Er... if not playing games means not requiring 3D acceleration... a top end 2D acc card should be below $100 right? i'm not really up to date on hardware either, but i think the top end cards of yesteryear (say 5 years back) are more than sufficient.

Get a good power supply. Seems to have overtaken the HDD as the first to break down. There are those that slow down the fan speed based on heat - they are quieter.

 

[offspring]

Those are the strip down version. The only thing I dun like, you can only put in 1xHDD, 1xCD-rom or 2.

For mi, using a RAID for the pagefiles and for PS scratchdisk, I need more room so the SFF is out.

Alternatly, you can get those mATX mobo. Run a P4HT with at least 2x256MB, a decent gfx card shld be enough. and I dun think you need a SBlive too... the built in AC97 sound is actually quite good.

thanks but what is a mATX mobo? Is there such thing as a firewire harddisk? cos the creative SLIX casing has 3 firewires.... may get that casing

 

[imaginary_number]

thanks but what is a mATX mobo? Is there such thing as a firewire harddisk? cos the creative SLIX casing has 3 firewires.... may get that casing

I think mATX mean Micro ATX motherboard.

Firewire is just a port, HDDs connect using Parallel ATA, Serial ATA or SCSI - an external hdd could be connected via firewire ports so if that's what you're asking, yes.

 

[Wai]

Er... if not playing games means not requiring 3D acceleration... a top end 2D acc card should be below $100 right? i'm not really up to date on hardware either, but i think the top end cards of yesteryear (say 5 years back) are more than sufficient.

Get a good power supply. Seems to have overtaken the HDD as the first to break down. There are those that slow down the fan speed based on heat - they are quieter.

if not for games, get Matrox G450/500, the colour and sharpeness is the best

or u can consider Creative Picture Perfect, <$100 and it is optimised for picture/video editing work, claim to make PS to work faster, powered by 128-bit 3Dlabs® P9 Visual Processing Unit


http://us.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=6&subcategory=38&product=164

 

[nightwolf75]

small form factor (SFF) shld not be considered, unless u very sure u'll never want to upgrade ur stuff! :bsmilie:

they look good, but i dun like it becos the size of the casing limits your upgrade options. but, it's a personal choice. i helped a fren to build one computer using a SFF.

as for graphics card, yeah, guess u dun really need all the 3D acceleration. but, IMO, a good card gives better graphics output = better accuracy in PSing. however, if you wish to save a bit of $$$, a GeForce Ti4 card will do. dats what i'm using anyway!

firewire ports are good if u intend to use an external hdd, burner or doing video editing. else, it's of little use. most computer peripherals (keyboards, mouse, printers, cameras etc) use the USB ports more often.

hdd, the latest on the market are SATA hdd. u still can find the cheaper but slower ATA hdd. IMO, RAID is not particularly useful unless u have multiple hdd and do back ups very often. having RAID function on ur motherboards adds to the cost.

as for power supply unit (PSU), the bigger the better! :bsmilie: unfortunately, i not very familar with PSUs as i usually take wat is installed in the casing. but, there are specialised PSUs out there with built-in current regulators etc, suppose to prevent power flux and damage ur parts. perhaps some CS pros out there can advise?

 

[hewmf]

Hmmm,

2k can get you something like this:

P4 2.8GHz Prescott with a realible motherboard, built in sound which is more than decent, usb2 support, firewire
1 GB of ram
120 GB serial ATA hard disk
Video card
8X DVD writer
Logitech wireless keyb mouse combo (using this and love them)
Good PSU and aluminium casing
This is plenty fast. Like nightwolf said, you can save on the exotic video card if you don't play the latest games in real high resolutions.

However, get a second hard disk to speed things up and for backup. Usually the 1st disk for windows and the apps and the 2nd for data. Use RAID for even faster disk read write speeds.

Since it's a long weekend, I can offer to help build you one for lunch maybe?? It's always fun to spend people's money heh heh

 

[karwing]

thanks but what is a mATX mobo? Is there such thing as a firewire harddisk? cos the creative SLIX casing has 3 firewires.... may get that casing

here's a SFF on promotion...

http://sg.hardwarezone.com/priceguide/newsview.php?id=553

but have not seen any reviews on hardwarezone yet.

 

[offspring]

Hmmm,

2k can get you something like this:

P4 2.8GHz Prescott with a realible motherboard, built in sound which is more than decent, usb2 support, firewire
1 GB of ram
120 GB serial ATA hard disk
Video card
8X DVD writer
Logitech wireless keyb mouse combo (using this and love them)
Good PSU and aluminium casing
This is plenty fast. Like nightwolf said, you can save on the exotic video card if you don't play the latest games in real high resolutions.

However, get a second hard disk to speed things up and for backup. Usually the 1st disk for windows and the apps and the 2nd for data. Use RAID for even faster disk read write speeds.

Since it's a long weekend, I can offer to help build you one for lunch maybe?? It's always fun to spend people's money heh heh

Thanks. But I will build maybe next month - can I offer a meal for your product selection expertise?

 

[hewmf]

Yah... give me a PM next month... I still want to spend money for you :bsmilie:

 

[etgoh]

you can try AMD 64 + Windows XP 64 bit edition...this should give you 64 bit power..best for picture and video editing...

if $$$ is not a issue...get a scsi card and harddisk, this will give you faster disk access which editing

 

[desmondwong]

i'm actually managing my photos from a celeron 1.7ghz with 1gb of ddr ram on a mATX MSI motherboard. my graphics card is an ATI 9600SE 128mb and i'm using a Maxtor 80GB 8mb cache harddisk. all these stuck into a mATX casing which produces close to zero noise, something which i've always yearned to have!

i wouldn't say this is the best performer out there but it's good enough for the budget conscious.

 

[linse]

Don't waste your money on SATA drives. They are not faster than ATA drives. They interface may be faster but not the drive itself.

 

[offspring]

yo. any hardware experts wanna recommend me build a machine that can run Photoshop CS very fast.