System for growth?

[Illuminator]

I need to upgrade my computer system to continue learning how to develop photographic images and art. 

I currently have a Canon 5DmkII with five excellent lens and an S95. I have a Canon 9500 Mk2, but might get an Epson 3880 in the fall.  A Wacom tablet is in the near future.  My computer is an early MacBook Pro maxed out at 2BG of Ram and a 500GB HD.  I use a 1 TB external HD for my Photos in Lightroom.

I am drawn to a range of photography, but a common characteristic is a large value range.  I like to photograph landscapes, abstracts, cityscapes, people in their natural settings, small things, large things.

Lightroom is my main platform.  I will be using PS for HDR. 
 
I am thinking of getting a Dell 24" or 27"  Ultrasharp monitor now and the x Rite 1Display Pro for calibration.  Maybe an NEC 27" in the NEC 27" next year.

What computer system is good and reasonably priced? I'm not trying to max out the possibilities and pocketbook.  I have considered a Quad Core MacPro and adding RAM to 32GB and two 1TB drives, but think that this is overkill for what I want to do.  Switching to a PC is a definite option.  THought about the Dell M4600 with 8GB Ram and an external HD.  Maybe a desktop for expandability.  The computer will be dedicated to photography.

The flow of money over time is more of a consideration than total $.

Any considered advice would be helpful before I commit.
THanks

[NikoJorj]

It seems that LR tends to be really CPU-dependant these days ; an i5/2500 is often recommended, or you may aim higher depending on your budget.
That said, merging frames in PS will also benefit from a fair amount of RAM, 16GB doesn't seem overkill.

[jonathan.lipkin]

You may want to consider a Mac Pro, if only because you can put more RAM in it than the iMacs. I'm using a 2008 Mac Pro now with 14G of RAM. LR 3 is pretty quick, though I think that may be more dependant on drive speed.

PS is fine, though I've recently been working on some massive (>2G) files, and am hitting a performance slowdown. I'm waiting to see what happens with the new Mac Pros. The current ones are two years old. I'm hoping for at least thunderbolt connectivity, with perhaps a bit of processing speed. For large PS files, I've been recommended 24G of RAM. RAM for my mac is pretty pricey, so I'm going to hold off til I see what happens with the new macs.

You should also think about drive access speed. I have most of my data on eSATA or internal SATA drives.

[dreed]

Find a system that you can put 8GB of RAM in now and expand it later.

In terms of CPU, you want an i7-something.

I've got a Dell 24" monitor which is fine but I wouldn't use it for anything critical (nor recommend it for photographic purposes) as the monitor does not have a consistent brightness top to bottom, left to right. Research monitors and be prepared to pay more for one as it will likely outlast the computer attached to it. If a decent monitor is out of your budget then recognise that whatever you spend on a monitor is likely throw away money as it won't keep its value very well.

[mmurph]

I bouht an i7 920 about 3 years ago for around $500.

Get a mid-tier to upper tier i7 CPU.  I just bought 24GB of DDR3 RAM today from Newegg for $170.  That is a pretty good price point in 3 sticks, still have  3 slots to go to 48GB later. (I will actually have 27 GB with 3 x 1GB in the other 3 slots)

Use the basic C: disk for the OS and programs only. Makes it easier to upgrade the OS or restage.  I add 2 matched drives, probably 1.5 TB each, for RAW and WORKING files.  

A good graphics card will be helpful. Adobe Premiere can use some GPU's quite heavily, but the video cards run from $300 to $2,000 alone! If you aren't doing motion that is overkill.

I will probably buy a GTX 570 card in the fall for around $230 (refurb) or $330 (new - current prices.)  That is the lowest level card that is officially certified by Adobe for GPU acceleration for motion.

In the meantine I bought a GT 430 card for $20 after rebate at Newegg today (Normally $70, but sold out now.  Low profile version of the same Zotac card is available for $40 after rebate.)


So for parts:

24GB RAM - $170

Graphics - $40 for now

HDD - 2 x $100 = $200 for 1.5 TB or 2 TB each

Plus the basic unit with a power supply (mine is 475 watts) and an i7 CPU. With whatever base HDD they have for the OS, 500GB is plenty. And lowest RAM, because you will likely throw it away if you go to 3 x 8GB chips (the sweet spot right now.)  It rarely pays to buy extra RAM or HDD from the manufacturer. 

My box is a Dell XPS 435 MT.  It is a larger box with a fair amount of expansion space. It has 2 Optical drives (DVD/Bluray), room for 2 additional external facing drives, and room for 3 HDD's internal (I prefer 4 total - 1 OS & Programs, 2 - RAW, 3- WORKING, 4- Documents & Scratch)


I have never paid more than $500 for a desktop without the mobitor, or for a laptop, Just no raeson to!  (I bought a 15.4" i5 laptop with 4GB and a 640 HDD last fall for around $425. Great laptop, runs Photoshop fine, etc.) 

Sorry, quick post. Not much time.

Have fun!

Michael

[BruceGordon]

I looked at macs when looking for a new workstation a couple of years ago and I too came to the conclusion that a Mac pro was necessary for upgradability but I just could not afford the base cost.  I bought a off the shelf Acer desktop that had the features I wanted.

Athlon ii processor
4gb ram
500gb hdd
FireWire for my epson scanner and 1ds ii
Lots of usb2 ports for tablet, eye one, keyboard, ups, USB keys, epson printer ...
ATI 2400 graphics.

$500 open box at a canadian retailer I refer to as my instant gratification shop

It came with vista 64 which lasted all of 3 days before it was competitively downgraded to xp pro.

It was adequate for cs4.  Sometimes a bit sluggish with 180mb tiff files with 10 or 12 layers when doing restorations with lots of history saved.

It was not what I wanted but what I could afford.  My previous workstation died a horrible death and I needed to get back up and running.  I used to build pcs for friends to save them money but had started a few years ago recommending that they buy a tier one system (dell, hp, Lenovo) and get one up from the base model.  So I decided to eat my own advice as it were but beside the equivalent hp was an Acer and it had a faster CPU and larger hard disk as well as the FireWire for less money and the open box as well.

I slapped couple of 7200rpm hitachi 1tb disks on a adapter pseudo raid controller configured as raid 1.  That didn'T really increase the speed but grace me peace of mind door local file storage.

Recently my home server. (Linux) died.  So instead of replacing it i bought a new workstation and turned my old workstation into the Linux server.

This time I bough a super micro server motherboard and case from new egg.  I discovered that the super micro barebones server bundles from new egg are actually more expensive than buying the components separately.  I got a socket 1155 mobo, a mid tower case with a 300w power supply, 2 4gb un buffered registered memory sticks, and a i3 3.3ghz processor.  The mobo had the intel pch raid controller built in so 2 additional 7200rpm 1tb disks and I had a 2 tb raid 10 array.  Incredibly wasteful on disk but you get the performance of raid0 (striping) with the peace of mind of raid 1 (mirroring).  The on board graphics on the mobo were replaced with an AMD fire 2270 dual head passively cooled graphics card.

I could have put a i5 processor in it but the $129 processor works just fine and I would rather spend my money on a second nec p221w.  All in cost under $1000.

I'm not a pro and most of my photography is for my own use or pro bono so I can't justify the latest, greatest and fastest the blending edge tends to have a hefty price.

I can not recommend the NEC p221w spectra view bundle highly enough.  Yes it is only 22" but it will work and at under $800 for a 98% aRGB gamut monitor with the software and an i1 it is a deal.

I have the epson r2880 and have buyers remorse ~ I will probably sell it and buy a 3880 and save any money I lose in ink savings.  Stunning b&w.  The only thing I will miss is the ability to print on roll stock.

I would rather put up with a slower machine to save some money that I can spend on more good glass.

Regards,

Bruce