[NaClH2O]

After 7 years I'm in the market for a new desktop. Unfortunately I haven't kept up with the advances in computer hardware in the last 5 years, so I have no idea what to get. I will be able to pretty much custom configure my rig, but with what? I don't want to spend more than 1.5K tops and would prefer to be below 1.2K. I can't abide Apple so will be staying with a PC.
So far I know I want:
dual HD with my data drive being at least 1TB

At least 4 easily accessible USB ports (top front)

I'm not a gamer so I don't think I need a bleeding edge video card, but I want one that allows for decent color management

Windows 7

What I don't know:
How much RAM? 8GB? 4GB? ??GB
Should I get Windows 64? or is 32 enough?
Are AMD and Intel roughly equal at the same price point? (In ancient history it used to be that AMD gave better bang for the buck)
Do I need quad core? Or is dual core enough?

Any information would be gratefully appreciated.

NaCl(I used to build rigs back in the 90's but I'm way out date)H2O

[Adam]

-You'll want a 64-bit version of windows
-You'll want 6gb of ram, or maybe even 8 (I personally think 6 is fine, since x86 applications can only use 2/3's of that)
-AMD is generally cheaper, but I believe that Intel i7/Xeon chips are worth paying extra for.
-You'll want a quad-core processor- they make your computer a lot more stable

[twokatmew]

I built myself a new desktop about 8 months ago. I used an Intel i7-860 CPU, 8GB RAM and Windows 7 x64. I agree with Adam that you should get x64 over x86, especially since you keep your computers for a long time. I went with 8GB RAM, and it's more than I need, which is good. RAM is a fairly cheap upgrade and one that will buy you more mileage than other upgrades.

The computer's fast and stable, and it runs Photoshop CS5 very capably.

Newer computers will generally have more than 4 USB ports, and the newest mainboards are now supporting USB 3.0, which is backward compatible. I'm not missing USB 3.0, as I'm using a SATA II external drive bay for backups. My USB 2.0 drives are smaller and just fine for my limited use of them.

Hope this helps.

[tibbitts]

You don't say what software you will run so you might want to list that.

I would think 4+gb would be sufficient, especially considering none would be used for graphics memory. How useful additional cores/processors are may depend on the software you're using.

I've never figured out how to use esata. I have an esata drive but can't remove/replace it without reconfiguring the bios every time, which makes esata completely useless. Maybe someone has a working esata implementation. Meanwhile I have only usb2, so unless you can get esata working correctly I'd make sure you get usb3.

I'm not sure why you want two drives. I have two drives and they take more power than one. I'm not sure you'll see significant differences in speed with a separate data drive. It's not like the old days of paging/swapping. Once you have the software you want mostly loaded into ram, you're pretty much just accessing the data drive, and even then just briefly. Then you work on the data for a while, so you're really only doing a few disk accesses per hour to basically one drive at a time. You didn't say anything about a raid controller so I'm assuming you're not doing anything with that. Obviously this gets back to what you're using the computer for.

Of course you'll need multiple backup drives in any case, or enough bandwidth to do online backups, which most of us don't have.

Paul

[twokatmew]

You don't say what software you will run so you might want to list that.

I would think 4+gb would be sufficient, especially considering none would be used for graphics memory. How useful additional cores/processors are may depend on the software you're using.

I've never figured out how to use esata. I have an esata drive but can't remove/replace it without reconfiguring the bios every time, which makes esata completely useless. Maybe someone has a working esata implementation. Meanwhile I have only usb2, so unless you can get esata working correctly I'd make sure you get usb3.

I'm not sure why you want two drives. I have two drives and they take more power than one. I'm not sure you'll see significant differences in speed with a separate data drive. It's not like the old days of paging/swapping. Once you have the software you want mostly loaded into ram, you're pretty much just accessing the data drive, and even then just briefly. Then you work on the data for a while, so you're really only doing a few disk accesses per hour to basically one drive at a time. You didn't say anything about a raid controller so I'm assuming you're not doing anything with that. Obviously this gets back to what you're using the computer for.

Of course you'll need multiple backup drives in any case, or enough bandwidth to do online backups, which most of us don't have.

Paul

The OP has had his present computer for seven years. While 4GB RAM might be OK now, it sure won't be several years down the road. I tell my users to buy computers as they would shoes for their kids. If you buy what fits right now, you'll have outgrown it in six months. If you skimp on RAM now, and you keep your computer for years, chances are you either won't be able to find the specific RAM you need for your mainboard, or it will be more expensive. Standards change, and when they do, it becomes difficult (and/or expensive) to find the replacement/upgrade hardware.

I use multiple drives: RAID0 for OS/apps, imaged weekly to a NAS (RAID1). My data is on a separate SATAII drive, and the data gets backed up to the NAS, a fourth internal SATAII drive, as well as an external SATAII drive. (All separate rotations.) Performance aside, fault tolerance is a good reason to use separate drives for OS/apps & data.

I use various drives in my external SATAII bay, and the BIOS recognizes each of them without intervention on my part. There's something wrong if you have to mess with the BIOS regularly for eSATA. That said, most new computers worth buying will support USB3.0 by now.

[ivoire]

I don't know your budget, but you should check out:

Dell Outlet Business & Education - Refurbished Desktop - Refurbished Desktops - Refurbished OptiPlex | Dell

I just took delivery of a refurbished Dell desktop for $640 delivered to the door

* Studio XPS 7100 Desktop
* Processor: AMD Phenom II X6 1035T (2.6GHz)
* Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium
* 1 TB SATA II Hard Drive (7200RPM)
* 6 GB DDR3 ECC SDRAM 1333MHz (4 DIMMs)
* 16X DVD +/- RW w/dbl layer write capability
* 1 GB ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5450
* SD, CF, MMC, etc slots
* 6 usb ports
* wifi
* 1 yr warranty
* keyboard and mouse

CS5 flies, graphics programs load so fast, just an overall great performer

[tibbitts]

The OP has had his present computer for seven years. While 4GB RAM might be OK now, it sure won't be several years down the road. I tell my users to buy computers as they would shoes for their kids. If you buy what fits right now, you'll have outgrown it in six months. If you skimp on RAM now, and you keep your computer for years, chances are you either won't be able to find the specific RAM you need for your mainboard, or it will be more expensive. Standards change, and when they do, it becomes difficult (and/or expensive) to find the replacement/upgrade hardware.

I use multiple drives: RAID0 for OS/apps, imaged weekly to a NAS (RAID1). My data is on a separate SATAII drive, and the data gets backed up to the NAS, a fourth internal SATAII drive, as well as an external SATAII drive. (All separate rotations.) Performance aside, fault tolerance is a good reason to use separate drives for OS/apps & data.

I use various drives in my external SATAII bay, and the BIOS recognizes each of them without intervention on my part. There's something wrong if you have to mess with the BIOS regularly for eSATA. That said, most new computers worth buying will support USB3.0 by now.

It would be safer to have more ram. It's always a tradeoff between spending more now to increase the probability of a longer life of good performance, vs. spending less but not considering it a big deal to upgrade again in a few years. Some people build computers out of components and can replace or upgrade individual ones, while for other people it's almost all-or-nothing, so if something breaks after two years, they'll just buy a new computer.

Having two drives doesn't change or improve the backup situation; it does double the odds you'll have to use your backups. You can partition a single drive if that makes it easier to adopt different backup strategies for data vs. os, for example.

I'm not an expert, but you have an esata bay - I assume some kind of hot-swap bay - which may be different than a plain external esata drive like mine. I can envision a bay appearing to the os to always "be there", even without a drive installed. But I have experience with only one esata device on one controller, so I'm certainly not sure if that's my (only) problem.

Paul

[twokatmew]

Having two drives doesn't change or improve the backup situation; it does double the odds you'll have to use your backups. You can partition a single drive if that makes it easier to adopt different backup strategies for data vs. os, for example.

Separating data from OS and apps means if there's a failure, you'll have to restore OS/apps or data, but not both. It's less likely for two drives to fail at once. Using different partitions protects against data corruption or accidental deletion, but not drive failure. If the drive goes, you lose everything.

It's not my intention to argue, we all have differing opinions. There are times when I separate OS/apps from data with partitions, and other times I use separate drives. For myself, I usually use separate drives, in part because I have a need for greater storage. Separating data from the OS & apps makes backups (and restores) simpler. Drives fail, data gets lost or corrupted, so I try to minimize loss and make the inevitable restores simpler. It's a rare person who goes through life without having to use his backups.

[tibbitts]

Separating data from OS and apps means if there's a failure, you'll have to restore OS/apps or data, but not both. It's less likely for two drives to fail at once. Using different partitions protects against data corruption or accidental deletion, but not drive failure. If the drive goes, you lose everything.

It's not my intention to argue, we all have differing opinions. There are times when I separate OS/apps from data with partitions, and other times I use separate drives. For myself, I usually use separate drives, in part because I have a need for greater storage. Separating data from the OS & apps makes backups (and restores) simpler. Drives fail, data gets lost or corrupted, so I try to minimize loss and make the inevitavle restores simpler. It's a rare person who goes through life without having to use his backups.

I have one drive with os+home-directory (in separate partitions) and another drive with just my pictures, but that's partly because with pata technology the capacities are limited, and my pictures take up a good chunk of the largest drive I have. If I had a large enough single drive I'd probably use it alone, since I run the computer most of the time and one drive would use less power. Newer computers and green sata drives have more sophisticated power management that might mitigate the power and heat concerns. My 2-drive computer consumes 60 watts. It's not powerful enough for processing pictures - it's mostly just for storage.

Either partitioning a single drive, or separate drives, is fine as long as the noise and power consumption (and heat) of two drives isn't objectionable.

Paul

[NaClH2O]

Separating data from OS and apps means if there's a failure, you'll have to restore OS/apps or data, but not both. It's less likely for two drives to fail at once. Using different partitions protects against data corruption or accidental deletion, but not drive failure. If the drive goes, you lose everything.

That is exactly my reason for two hard drives. Even with good data backup, if one drive fails it is a lot easier to get your system back if all you have to do is replace your aps or your data but not both. I speak from experience. I was even tempted to go with a mirror raid, but that means getting two 1+ TB drives and I don't want to spend the extra money. A 320gb drive is plenty for all the apps I have or mostl likely will have in the future and a 1 or 1.5 TB drive is plenty for data, especially when I'll be planning on a USB drive or two for backup and overflow storage.

NaCl(besides data storage is cheap and keeps getting cheaper...anyone remember 5.25" floppies?)H2O

[Wheatfield]

FWIW, this is the system I just built for myself.

A good quality Gigabyte MB. Not top of the line, but fairly high on the midrange scale. An AMD Phenom quad core processor.
Again, not the fastest they make, but a couple of steps down.
8gb of the second from fastest RAM the MB would support.
A rather expensive video card, far more card than I needed, with 1gb of onboard ram. My reasoning was because Photoshop will leverage ram off the card.
I bought a 60 gb solid state hard drive for the OS and programs. It is extremely fast under normal use because of the lack of latency. I suspect under extended read/writes that a SATA 2 drive would be somewhat faster.

Because I use Photoshop and tend to work with multilayered files that can turn even 8gigs of ram into mush, I put a total of 4 conventional drives into the box. Two of them are a mirrored RAID, which gives me my first layer of data redundancy.
The other two are a striped RAID which I handed over to Photoshop to use as a swap drive.
Add in an 850 watt power supply in a good quality case and I ended up with a very fast computer.
I am running Win7 64, and so far it has been very reliable indeed.

I chose AMD because at one time they had slightly better graphics support. Whether this is still true or not, I could not say, but their chips have never done me any wrong, so I stayed with them on this build.

I suspect that it wouldn't make much real world difference if you went with AMD or Intel.

[rparmar]

-You'll want a 64-bit version of windows
-You'll want 6gb of ram, or maybe even 8 (I personally think 6 is fine, since x86 applications can only use 2/3's of that)
-AMD is generally cheaper, but I believe that Intel i7/Xeon chips are worth paying extra for.
-You'll want a quad-core processor- they make your computer a lot more stable

What Adam said.

I ended up building my own system early this year. I documented the process in a series of blog articles. I had some special requirements but still got a killer machine for a good value.

[mikemike]

After 7 years I'm in the market for a new desktop. Unfortunately I haven't kept up with the advances in computer hardware in the last 5 years, so I have no idea what to get. I will be able to pretty much custom configure my rig, but with what? I don't want to spend more than 1.5K tops and would prefer to be below 1.2K. I can't abide Apple so will be staying with a PC.
So far I know I want:
dual HD with my data drive being at least 1TB

At least 4 easily accessible USB ports (top front)

I'm not a gamer so I don't think I need a bleeding edge video card, but I want one that allows for decent color management

Windows 7

What I don't know:
How much RAM? 8GB? 4GB? ??GB
Should I get Windows 64? or is 32 enough?
Are AMD and Intel roughly equal at the same price point? (In ancient history it used to be that AMD gave better bang for the buck)
Do I need quad core? Or is dual core enough?

Any information would be gratefully appreciated.

NaCl(I used to build rigs back in the 90's but I'm way out date)H2O

I recently helped a friend build a computer for and it came out to a little more than $1200.

Windows 7 64 bit home
Intel i5 661 (dual core but does hyperthreading so you can run 4 threads simultaneously and the cores run faster than similarly priced quad cores).
Gigabyte uATX mobo H57 chipset with USB 3 (if you are going to be using the computer for years make sure you get USB 3)
8 GB of RAM on 2 sticks
128 GB Crucial C300 SSD for the operating system
2 x 2 GB WD HDD in RAID 1 for storage
Antec 300 case w/PSU

Don't know what to recommend with the video card, this system was just using on board video.

[rparmar]

Don't know what to recommend with the video card, this system was just using on board video.

It seems a shame to get a high-powered system and then use weak on-board graphics. I went for the Sapphire Radeon HD 4670 Ultimate, with 512MB of memory on board. I made this choice based on the fact it is/was the fastest passively-cooled DirectX 10 card based around an ATI chip. (There are two identically named versions -- mine has no fan.)

Gamers will now tell me how this card sucks, but it plays Stalker so that's good enough for me.

[daacon]

Pulled the plug today after a few weeks of debate - spent more than you wanted ($1.7k all in) but I am in Canada eh you could do better. Bought a Dell - I got some things you may not want (Blu-Ray burner, 12gb Ram, Win Ulitmate) would save a few bucks ... no Monitor either ...as I have several. You could get a similar one for around $1.2k eaisly ...

This will be a work PC and I know I am going to have some issues getting some of the old 32bit software to work - but what the heck onward !

Dell Studio XPS 9100 (some of the specs )

Intel SX 9100, BLM, i7-920(2.66GHz)
12GB DDR3 SDRAM at 1333MHz
Blu-ray 6X Combo and 16X DVD+/-RW
ATI Radeon HD 5870 1GB GDDR5
1.5TB SERIAL ATA 2, 7200 RPM
WIN 7 ULTIMATE,64,ENG,CDT