12/23/2005
New PC, Almost
Okay, the dirty deed has been done. Don't know why buying hardware makes me nervous but it does. Here are the basic components:
Asus® A8N SLI - NVIDIA® nForce™ 4 SLI MCP, PCI Express Motherboard with DDR
AMD ATHLON 64 X2 3800 Processor with Dual Core Technology
On-Board ATA Raid
2 GB RAM
2 x 200 GB Western Digital Hard Drives Level 0 Stripe (7200) 8 MB cache
16x/48x DVD ROM
52X/32X/52X CD-RW
I could have bought two 10,000 rpm drives or upped the processor speed, but this was about as far as I could go without needing a good stiff drink. As it is buying hardware makes me gulp, whereas I could walk into a camera shop and spend $2500 on a lens without blinking an eye. Okay, maybe one eye blinks, but it doesn't cause me this angst. I think what makes me nervous is going through all the new jargon and trying to figure out what will actually makes a difference in my workflow. For example, I still don't know what the hell PCI Express is, but it sounds good.
No tax. No shipping charges. Total: $1915. Phew. Glad that's over with.
HAPPY HOLIDAYS EVERONE! AND THANKS FOR THE ADVICE.
* * *
I'm getting closer. First off, I've decided not to go with Dell for the next one. The main reason is that I want to use OEM parts so that upgrades are easier plus their idiotic support is irksome. I'm looking seriously at the Velocity Micro pcs - in particular the: W310
Other conclusions:
the high end graphics cards aren't necessary for Photoshop.
There's really only one area of working in Photoshop that has to be improved, and that's stuff like doing a merge visible on a 16-bit RGB file where there are lots of layers; or applying Sharpkit non-destructive layers. Right now, if I switch to 8-bit, things are acceptable, but I'm not willing to go that route.
The important stuff is to get as much RAM as I can, at least 2 GB; the fastest level 0 RAID drive(s) for scratch disk; and at least a semblance of dual-processing which in this case means the AMD Althon 64 X2 dual core. I'm really not interested in doing other things while the cpu is processing, I just would like it if the PC didn't go completely dead while I'm doing some CPU / RAM intenstive activity. In other words, right now it's all about throughput.
Level 0 RAID should give me a read / write increase (no redundancy though). I don't care about redudancy on what is going to be mostly scratch disk and OS. Data is all stored on various external drives right now and I just plan to hook them up to the new box.
I'm in the $2000 range right now. Whether I should do it now or wait for the new year - dunno.
Asus® A8N SLI - NVIDIA® nForce™ 4 SLI MCP, PCI Express Motherboard with DDR
AMD ATHLON 64 X2 3800 Processor with Dual Core Technology
On-Board ATA Raid
2 GB RAM
2 x 200 GB Western Digital Hard Drives Level 0 Stripe (7200) 8 MB cache
16x/48x DVD ROM
52X/32X/52X CD-RW
I could have bought two 10,000 rpm drives or upped the processor speed, but this was about as far as I could go without needing a good stiff drink. As it is buying hardware makes me gulp, whereas I could walk into a camera shop and spend $2500 on a lens without blinking an eye. Okay, maybe one eye blinks, but it doesn't cause me this angst. I think what makes me nervous is going through all the new jargon and trying to figure out what will actually makes a difference in my workflow. For example, I still don't know what the hell PCI Express is, but it sounds good.
No tax. No shipping charges. Total: $1915. Phew. Glad that's over with.
HAPPY HOLIDAYS EVERONE! AND THANKS FOR THE ADVICE.
* * *
I'm getting closer. First off, I've decided not to go with Dell for the next one. The main reason is that I want to use OEM parts so that upgrades are easier plus their idiotic support is irksome. I'm looking seriously at the Velocity Micro pcs - in particular the: W310
Other conclusions:
the high end graphics cards aren't necessary for Photoshop.
There's really only one area of working in Photoshop that has to be improved, and that's stuff like doing a merge visible on a 16-bit RGB file where there are lots of layers; or applying Sharpkit non-destructive layers. Right now, if I switch to 8-bit, things are acceptable, but I'm not willing to go that route.
The important stuff is to get as much RAM as I can, at least 2 GB; the fastest level 0 RAID drive(s) for scratch disk; and at least a semblance of dual-processing which in this case means the AMD Althon 64 X2 dual core. I'm really not interested in doing other things while the cpu is processing, I just would like it if the PC didn't go completely dead while I'm doing some CPU / RAM intenstive activity. In other words, right now it's all about throughput.
Level 0 RAID should give me a read / write increase (no redundancy though). I don't care about redudancy on what is going to be mostly scratch disk and OS. Data is all stored on various external drives right now and I just plan to hook them up to the new box.
I'm in the $2000 range right now. Whether I should do it now or wait for the new year - dunno.
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