New Computer - necessary specs?

grainbelt · 05-10-2009, 11:04 AM

I ditched my old laptop for a new HP netbook, which is terrific. Now I have an excuse to buy a desktop and a nice monitor for photo editing.

Will only run Office, Firefox, Thunderbird, Photoshop. I don't really do much else on a computer. Mac's are out, I don't have the patience to switch, and I've never really had trouble with PC's. Will be hardwired into my home network, and other than a negative scanner (Epson?)will not have much for hardware installed on it.

What minimum specs should I be looking for as far as RAM and processor speed to ensure quick, hassle free operation of Photoshop for editing RAW files from a K200D?
I don't have photoshop now, as I'm sure it would destroy my old 1.6ghz/512kb ram laptop. As a result I've been shooting JPEG and making minor adjustments in Picasa, but I need to do better with my post-processing and will start doing hi-res negative scans soon as well.

Appreciate any input. I'm fairly confident any new PC can handle it, so if there are other subtle hardware (graphics card?) specs I should investigate, let me know.

Thanks!

*Wheatfield* · 05-10-2009, 11:57 AM

Depending on which OS you will be running, the ideal machine will vary greatly.
If you intend to run WinXP Pro, you are limited to 4gb of ram by the OS, so you might want to consider some unusual hardware confguration.
Vista will support lots of RAM, so buy a motherboard that will support 8gb or more.

I am still running XP, so I went for multiple hard drives set up as RAID 0 (striped) for Windows swap and Photoshop swap. It isn't as fast as more ram, but it's faster than a single hard drive.
Look for a motherboard that supports 6 or more SATA drives and has onboard RAID control.
I have 6 drives in my computer, configured as two striped RAIDS and one mirrored RAID.
I had to put a RAID controler card in for one of the drives, as my MB only supports dual RAID.
Be aware when doing this that striped RAID cuts drive reliability in half, so there is a price to pay.
If you put your OS and programs onto a striped drive, it's a good idea to get a program like Norton Ghost and do a drive back up after installing your software. This makes it easier to restore the drive if one of the drives in the array fails.

Or, just go with Vista, load up 8 gigs of RAM, a couple of drives and your set.
Vista can be a pain to configure, and it is rather a mother hen, but you can turn a lot of the excess stuff off, or better yet, do a clean install of it and don't install all of the excess stuff that you don't need.
OTS computers tend to have a lot of garbage programs preinstalled which slow things down, so my preference is getting a machine custom built and then installing exactly what I want.
I've had good luch with NCIX computers in Burnaby as a high end builder, I don't know if you have good stores in Toontown or not.

I also just had real problems with an Asus graphics card. Don't buy an 8*** series ASUS card, they are very prone to failure.

*chiem* · 05-10-2009, 02:35 PM

The "4 gb limitation" usually results in only having 3.5 gb, or usually, 3 gb available to the OS. The BIOS assigns 512 mb to 1 gb for addressing devices on your system. This is a limitation of 32 bit operating systems, not specifically XP. You'll have the same limit on Vista 32. 64-bit versions of both XP and Vista will allow you to use more memory.

*larryinlc* · 05-10-2009, 03:47 PM

Originally Posted by chiem

The "4 gb limitation" usually results in only having 3.5 gb, or usually, 3 gb available to the OS. The BIOS assigns 512 mb to 1 gb for addressing devices on your system. This is a limitation of 32 bit operating systems, not specifically XP. You'll have the same limit on Vista 32. 64-bit versions of both XP and Vista will allow you to use more memory.

This is a question I've been wondering about. My Sony laptop came installed with 4gb of memory. It shows 4 installed, but due to the Vista 32 operating system, it only utilizes 3gb. Would I see any noticable difference by upgrading to Vista64? Can I actually do this anyway??

Larry

grainbelt · 05-10-2009, 03:49 PM

Appreciate the response, though I have no idea what half of it meant. Some of that may be overkill for me - I take well under 1000 photos per month, and my keeper rate is low enough that I don't do a ton of processing.

I'm hoping windows 7 comes out soon, as I haven't used Vista and would prefer not to. Anybody heard an ETA? I know the beta is out. 64 bit OS is a good heads up.

Dual drives seems like a good plan, regardless of setup.

*larryinlc* · 05-10-2009, 04:32 PM

This is what I use. A Sony Vaio laptop with 2.5ghz core dual processor with 4 gb of ram. A dedicated 256mb Invidia video card. I shoot photos in dng, fiddle in Capture One, convert to tiff and shoot them over to Ulead Photo Impact. The tiff files it creates are 48 mg in size and my laptop just cruises thru these files. Not even the hint of grunting. If a laptop with mobile junk inside can handle this, anything in the midrange you can buy should work perfectly.

Larry

figmental1978 · 05-10-2009, 06:07 PM

I own vista 32bit and just ordered a replacement 64bit disc for about $10 from Microsoft.

*larryinlc* · 05-10-2009, 06:26 PM

Originally Posted by figmental1978

I own vista 32bit and just ordered a replacement 64bit disc for about $10 from Microsoft.

Something tells me that it's more work than it's worth. I am not a computer dink so this scares me.

32-bit and 64-bit Windows: frequently asked questions - Windows Vista Help

Larry

*chiem* · 05-11-2009, 08:03 PM

Originally Posted by larryinlc

This is a question I've been wondering about. My Sony laptop came installed with 4gb of memory. It shows 4 installed, but due to the Vista 32 operating system, it only utilizes 3gb. Would I see any noticable difference by upgrading to Vista64? Can I actually do this anyway??

Larry

There's no upgrade path from Vista 32 to Vista 64, you'd have to re-install. How much of an improvement depends on the application(s) you're using. In my opinion, it's not really worth re-installing Vista 64 to get use of the last gb--only do so if you intend to use much more memory, like 6 or 8 gb.

There are some issues associated with Vista 64. For one, there isn't a 64-bit version of the Adobe DNG codec that allows you to see thumbnail previews in explorer.

*chiem* · 05-11-2009, 08:16 PM

Originally Posted by grainbelt

I'm hoping windows 7 comes out soon, as I haven't used Vista and would prefer not to. Anybody heard an ETA? I know the beta is out. 64 bit OS is a good heads up.

Win7 RC1 is out, so it's sooner than you think. A release could be out within 6 months, so it might be worthwhile for you to wait for it.

I don't think Vista is bad. It has some annoyances that you do get used to. Personally though, I don't upgrade to a MS OS until SP1 is out for it.

*FHPhotographer* · 05-12-2009, 12:35 AM

Unless you're doing 3D gaming, don't buy into the computer hype about super fast video cards, massive hard drives, 64-bit operating systems or ultra high speed processors etc. All that stuff doubles your price and, while useful for 3D gaming, is generally superfluous for anything you'd do with photography. In fact, for Photoshop CS4 (and other 2D intensive graphic programs) 2 MB of RAM works just fine and any current integrated onboard chip can easily handle anything this side of a CAD program. In fact, a lot of the higher powered systems don't perform much better than mid-level system for your purposes, plus they cost more, generate lots of heat (and the incessant fan noise to keep it all from melting) and consume inordinate amounts of power.

I'd look for an Intel Duel Core 2 processor that's running at between 2 and 2.4MHz with the newest generation integrated graphics (the dual core really matters to speed things, but make sure it's the Dual Core2 and not just the older, slower Dual Core). RAM matters, but the speed is as important as the amount, so 2 GB of RAM with 1066 front side bus (that's the data pipeline and it's more important here than the processor speed) is fine. It's worth it to add another 2MB of RAM (remember that Vista 32-bit can only access 3 MB no matter how much you add, and frankly you won't see a performance difference). It's also worth it to spend a bit more and get a smaller higher speed hard drive running @7200rpm even if it has lower total capcity (the access speed is more important than the total capacity, so anything above 160 GB is just fine).

You can get the iMac 20" with those specs around $1200, or a Windows 32-bit Vista system for around $800 (or less) ; either will give you more photography-processing power and speed than you can use with any current software and still mutli-task without missing a beat.

Brian

Edvinas · 05-12-2009, 06:35 AM

Originally Posted by grainbelt

I'm hoping windows 7 comes out soon, as I haven't used Vista and would prefer not to. Anybody heard an ETA? I know the beta is out. 64 bit OS is a good heads up.

I am using exclusively Windows 7 already for two monts. Even though it's beta, I have no issues with it whatsoever. Definitely faster and not so resource hungry as Vista, also there are some nice usability improvements.

BTW, Vista isn't that bad as many its bashers are writing in their blogs and internet forums. I bet that people have difficulties accepting changes. Vista interface is completely different compared to XP and therefore bashing of it has started.

asdf · 05-12-2009, 06:46 AM

Originally Posted by chiem

This is a limitation of 32 bit operating systems, not specifically XP.

Not always.

Physical Address Extension - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

*Wildnsyko* · 05-12-2009, 07:01 AM

Originally Posted by Edvinas

I am using exclusively Windows 7 already for two monts. Even though it's beta, I have no issues with it whatsoever. Definitely faster and not so resource hungry as Vista, also there are some nice usability improvements.

BTW, Vista isn't that bad as many its bashers are writing in their blogs and internet forums. I bet that people have difficulties accepting changes. Vista interface is completely different compared to XP and therefore bashing of it has started.

Agree, I was one of those who didn't want Vista, but the new computer we got had it on them. I went in tweaked out what I didn't want, upgraded the video card and powersupply... I also game... and was ready to go. It came with 2gb Ram and I have since upgraded that to 6gb. Have no problems at all.