I am going to build myself a new computer to use for Lightroom and Adobe Creative Suite (I'll be getting CS3), plus general use.
What sould I be looking for in a CPU, RAM, Video, Scrach Disk, Hard Drive, Motherboard? Any other thought?
I have ideas of what I want to go with but wanted to see what other people would do. My plan was double monitors but after playing with LR I think a widescreen would be best, 26" or larger. Is that right?
I have about 2K to spend without monitor.
Any ideas? I'll wait untill the July 22 prive drop from Intel, but would like to start getting the other parts soon.
Thanks
Todd
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Todd: You've probably noticed that current CPU's tend to have more cores as opposed to higher clock-speeds. I'm runming LR and CS2 on a (fairly) new Dual Core Intel 955 Chipset mainboard. Although the clockspeed is significantly less than my main P4-3Ghz (prescott) - it runs LR more efficiently. I believe this is mainly due to 2 factors:
The 955 Chipset support the faster DDR2-667 Memory (1033 Front Side Bus Speed). The P4 supports DDR-400.
Lightroom definately takes advantage of the additional cores.
Finally, the power equirements of the newer Dual Core Procs are significantly less, resulting in a cooler running, quieter machine. Once you work without the steady drone of noisy cooling fans you'll never look back . . .
Don't worry too much about the video subsystem - ATI seems to be a bit ahead of NVidea for Vista driver support - 256MB seems to be a nice cost/value point -personally I favor nVidea
I'm running a 27" Dell - thanks to some input on this forum, It's no longer too bright - in fact, I love it!
Don't forget to budget $200-300 for some form of display color management. Note that Vista's UAC (user account control) will nail any loaded display profile, forcing you to reload it. There *are* alternatives to disabling UAC.
I'd recommend a 64-bit O/S XP or Vista *only* if you are *sure* your peripherals have WHCL (hardware compatibility lab) or "signed" driver support - in fact if you choose Vista, it's required. I personally have *never* accepted anything less than signed drivers for years now, and as a result have never had a "blue screen".
You'll probably be budgeting an office application as well - I'd strongly recommend MS-Office 2007 basic; it's E-Mail client no longer relies on the system bowser to render HTML - reducing probably the single most exploited inroad to system security; email and it's ever-present spam / malicious attachments / bogus website links.
Finally - security / bug fixes for *all* operating systems is a continuing process, not an end achievement - keep it patched and updated!
2K is a nice budget! Have fun!
-John