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Author Topic: PC for photo editing, opinion needed.  (Read 3173 times)

Bill Koenig

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PC for photo editing, opinion needed.
« on: February 16, 2006, 12:28:38 pm »

I work for the University of Wisconsin, and I was told that they offer a very good deal to students as well staff on Dell PC's. After looking into what they had to offer, it seems to be a very good deal indeed.
Here are the major specs's of what I put together.

Dell Optiplex GX620 MiniTower

Intel? Pentium? 4 Processor 650 with HT (3.4GHz, 2M, 800MHz FSB)

Windows? XP Professional, SP2, with Media

2.0GB DDR2 Non-ECC SDRAM,533MHz, (2DIMM) upgradeable to 4 GB (4 slots)

PCIe 128MB ATI Radeon X600SE (1 DVI/1 TV-out), full height

160GB SATA, 7200 RPM Hard Drive with 8MB Data Burst Cache?

16X DVD+/-RW and 16X DVD w/Sonic? and Cyberlink Power DVD?

3 Year Limited Warranty plus 3 Year NBD On-Site Service

No Monitor. I already have one

I plan on adding a WD Raptor 10000 RPM SATA 36 GB as a scrach disk. I also plan on adding a external HD for storage and back up when I have the cash.

Because this was a Special Promotion, I'm somewhat limited as to what components are available for customization. One disappointment was that the Pentium D was not on the customization list. The above is what I selected, and comes to about $1100.00 Let me know what you all think. Also, if anyone has used this PC for photo editing, how well did work for you?
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Bill Koenig,

rlh1138

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PC for photo editing, opinion needed.
« Reply #1 on: February 16, 2006, 02:29:08 pm »

I'm currently researching prices, motherboards, chipsets, etc. - getting ready to build (assemble really) a new machine.  I can tell you that's a very nice price. 2 GB of RAM is nice - I hear people with really big files (400 meg+) like even more, but I can't imagine 2 GB wouldn't be OK.  You will love that Raptor  - very fast.  I find the biggest noticable time lag can be getting the data up off the hard drive. Not sure if you have the option, but you might consider dropping the 160 HD for two 80s (or even 40s) in a RAID striped configuration.  Very fast reading/writing. Of course with a striped array back up is very important - you'll want to set up (and use) something solid.  Also, just in case you ever want to play a game or two, a video card with 256 meg instead of 126 will make a noticable difference. I'm sure you'll get some good advice here - maybe somebody could comment on when/whether 2 GB of RAM will not be sufficient.  Good luck

Ray
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Vihta

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PC for photo editing, opinion needed.
« Reply #2 on: February 18, 2006, 05:00:25 am »

I wouldn't recommend RAID 0. The speed difference is very small or not noticeable at all. Check here for an article about RAID 0 and speed increase.

Also, the amount of memory on the video card makes very little difference. The raw speed of the GPU is much more important factor. I wouldn't pay any attention to the amount of graphics card memory and for photo editing video card speed is irrelevant.
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Peter McLennan

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PC for photo editing, opinion needed.
« Reply #3 on: February 18, 2006, 12:32:19 pm »

Is that graphics card dual-monitor capable?  I'd hate a single-monitor PS system.  Well worth upgrading if it's not.

Peter
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Mark D Segal

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PC for photo editing, opinion needed.
« Reply #4 on: March 03, 2006, 10:29:30 pm »

May be this is too late for you, but several things to be mindful of when buying a new PC just now:

- hyperthreading has been overtaken by dual processors or dual core machines. Much faster, more efficient, especially with applications as data intensive as Photoshop;

- a two-monito capable video card as Peter says is really useful because two monitors are really useful; I wouldn't do without this set-up now that I have it;

- with Windows XP Pro and PSCS2, PSC2 can access more than 2GB RAM, so consider buing 4GB RAM. Photoshop can use it either directly or indirectly.

- general problems with Dell computers: (1) underpowered, (2) very limited up-gradeability, (3) no O/S support. Find out whether the power supply is at least in the 365W~400W range, and how many spare PCI slots you'll be able to use. The O/S support problem is a catch-22. You get an OEM version of Windows which Dell won't support because they only support their hardware. They tell you Windows support is a Microsoft responsibility. When you call Microsoft, they tell you your version of Windows is OEM, so it is a Dell responsibility. In other words, no support (unless you pay Microoft per incident, in which case support quality is usually excellent). But beware.
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Mark D Segal (formerly MarkDS)
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