Buying a new computer or upgrading-tips and suggestions

[AndyMulhearn]

Re: Buying a new computer or upgrading-tips and suggestions

Well, it looks like I'm going to be forced to look for an updated system very soon. My 7 year old Windows 8.1 (Q6600) is failing bit by bit, even trying to run PS is now causing blue screen errors. I can't believe just how expensive decent PC's are these days.

It's the "decent" bit that makes them expensive isn't it. You can get hold of less expensive kit but it doesn't last and you don't get the performance you need to use something like PS anything like comfortably.

[2Beers]

Re: Buying a new computer or upgrading-tips and suggestions

I always prefer to build my own as I can select the hardware that I want in it rather than what someone else thinks I need.

just finished repairing mine after the power supply blew up and took out my graphics card so I took the opportunity to upgrade at the same time

with a 760 GTX graphics card an 850w Psu and added a 3TB seagate barracuda hdd.

[DrJon]

Re: Buying a new computer or upgrading-tips and suggestions

I went for "quiet" last time I upgraded my home PC... it worked well except I find it hard to get used to the lack of background fan noise... kinda freaks me out...

[ColytonJohn]

Re: Buying a new computer or upgrading-tips and suggestions

I've only just discovered this thread so hadn't appreciated just how many techie people we have on this forum

My jump to Lightroom exposed the limitations of my PC's meagre 4gb RAM that 32bit Vista will access. I looked at upgrading it by changing to Windows 7/64bit and cramming more RAM into my six-year-old Medion but that would have meant reinstalling all my software and I thought that if I had to do that then I'd be better off reinstalling it into a new PC.

So, after looking at a variety of sources and even self build I've settled on... another Medion!

The one I've ordered should do the job as it uses an i7-4790, GTX760, 1tb hard drive, 128gb SSD, 16gb RAM and a funky hot-swap hard drive bay. OK, I would have preferred a larger SSD but for the price, £689 and around half the price of similar spec PCs I'd looked at, it's something I'll live with as that leaves enough in the budget to buy a better screen.

Something I may not be able to live with is the Windows 8.1 that comes OEM pre-installed. I could wipe it and install Windows 7 but fear that would affect a future upgrade to Windows 10 (if any better). I suppose an option would be to install Windows 7 on a separate partition but is this feasible and, if so, is there sufficient capacity on a 128gb SSD?

Or, is 8.1 really that terrible?

Cheers,
John

[Les McLean]

Re: Buying a new computer or upgrading-tips and suggestions

That's a pretty good spec, and should cope with most things you throw at it.

128GB is a bit tight if you want to dual boot from it, but you could install the other OS on your TB hard drive, bit slower than SSD but works.
I thought that win8 was (and is) a terrible OS, they have brought Win10 out as a technical preview, which you can download as a try out, I've tried it, and it is a far cleaner OS that Win8, lot easier to navigate.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/preview

[MartinR]

Re: Buying a new computer or upgrading-tips and suggestions

As usual, I'm late to the table on this thread!

If you want most of the advantages of a custom built machine, but would like someone who knows what they are doing to get it set up, try PC Specialist. I have had three machines from them in the last year or so and it was quick, easy and reasonably priced.

Martin

https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/

[LesC2009]

Re: Buying a new computer or upgrading-tips and suggestions

Any good reasons to pick either Nvidia or AMD graphics cards for Photoshop/LR work these days? I asked a smilar question on a computing forum & the opinions were definately more favourable towards AMD?

And how powerful a card do you need?

[Hereford_EOS]

Re: Buying a new computer or upgrading-tips and suggestions

I must be overdue a system upgrade based on my last post on page 1 of this thread (HERE)
I made that post in October 2012 and my system was about 2 years old then.
It still does the job

[DrJon]

Re: Buying a new computer or upgrading-tips and suggestions

Any good reasons to pick either Nvidia or AMD graphics cards for Photoshop/LR work these days? I asked a smilar question on a computing forum & the opinions were definately more favourable towards AMD?

And how powerful a card do you need?

One of the advantages of a decent graphic card is the applications can use it to do some of the number-crunching, so it's a two-for-one deal. I favour Nvidia as you get CUDA and Open-CL which are the two semi-competing standards for running non-graphics code on a graphics card. (Currently CUDA is better but only supported by Nvidia so Open-CL, which is different to Open-GL BTW, probably has more support). Also Nvidia are better at long-term driver support IMHO.

Don't buy the fastest cards as you'll be able to get twice as much for half the money in nine months time, but don't go too low-end either. Circa a hundred quid (GTX750Ti perhaps, with its Maxwell GPU) is a good starting point if you're serious. Also make sure it will fit in your case, as many are double-height! I personally like quiet cards too. On a budget at least get one that starts GTX not GT.

[LesC2009]

Re: Buying a new computer or upgrading-tips and suggestions

Thanks for that - give a good pointer as to what to look for.

As I have a pair of Dell U2414H monitors that are notoriously troublesome with DP connections (I have them currently connected to my ancient card via DVI-HDMI cables), I was keen to get a card with two or each DVI & DP connections to hedge my bets.

As this is for a new PC, I'll be picking a case that the cards fits so size won't be a consideration. The one i rather like the look of is the 'Gigabyte GTX 960 G1 GAMING 2GB WindForce NVIDIA Maxwell' It's around £185 and is a bit big (Triple fans) but reviews suggest it is quiet - fans don't rotate above certain temperatures - and 'over-engineered' which I'm quite happy with. Or the 'Gigabyte WindForce GTX 960 2GB Overclocked Maxwell Graphics Card' may be a more sensible choice ;)

The spec for my new PC will be something like the following so I'd like the card to be in keeping with the rest of the kit:

Motherboard: X99-A ASUS
Processor: Intel Core i7 5820K Unlocked, S 2011-3, Haswell-E, 6 Core, 3.3GHz, 3.6GHz Turbo, 28 PCI-E Lanes, 15MB Cache
Cooler: be quiet! Pure Rock BK009 CPU 4x Heat Pipe Cooler with 120mm Silent PWM Fan
RAM: 32GB (4x8GB) Corsair DDR4 Vengeance LPX Blue PC4-21300 (2666), Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 16-18-18-35, XMP 2.0, 1.2V
Graphics card: ??
Power Supply: RM1000W Modular Gold Silent PSU
Drives: 256GB Samsung 850 PRO SSD, 2 x 2TB WD Red storage drives
OS: Microsoft Windows 7 Pro SP1 64-bit

[DrJon]

Re: Buying a new computer or upgrading-tips and suggestions

These guys are my favorite PSU reviewers: http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/
But they're very technical, sorry.
I'd say stick with Intel or Samsung for SSDs as they do way more testing before releasing stuff than other people.
If the memory has really big heatsinks (sorry, no time to go looking) make sure it doesn't bump into anything, like the CPU fan or Graphics card.
(Aside - pity no-one seems to use/want 3770 CPUs any more, I've still got one knocking around I've never used... really should sell it one day.)
Are you raiding the Reds?
Don't forget a backup solution for all that data! (Says the guy who bought 28TB of Reds not that long ago. Only had to send 3 of them back with issues. One 4TB as it was dud and two 6TB ones that they just threw them in the bottom of a cardboard box and shipped to me, just in anti-static bags, I didn't even bother to plug them in just got a refund and went elsewhere to get another pair. Oh and I did put them in bubble-wrap before returning them.)
Oh and I REALLY would recommend SATA leads with locking connectors, as the amount of friction is so low with them. Just remember they have locks before removing them!

[LesC2009]

Re: Buying a new computer or upgrading-tips and suggestions

Thanks again Jon :) I'll take a look at that site; looks interesting.

Although I'm picking the parts I'm going to get it built by Scan so it'll be up to then to make sure everything fits...

I hadn't intended to raid the WD reds, just keep them as separate drives. I do back up to 2 separate external HDDs at present & to a cloud based storage at present ;)

[DrJon]

Re: Buying a new computer or upgrading-tips and suggestions

For entertainment value here's how my two 6TB WD Red drives (£213 each plus I paid for next day delivery) were packed...

Amazon_6TB_Reds.jpg

Note even if they did work they have shock sensors inside the drives and WD wouldn't have honored the warranty if they had been subjected to too many Gs, which was quite likely. They were sold by a 3rd party and fulfilled by Amazon. The 4TB Reds I bought that were sold by Amazon came nicely packed, although curiously the replacement for the dud one came packed completely differently - still okay but not by quite the same margin, it was in a smaller box which presumably helps with packing. I assume the Amazon packers just throw whatever they get in a box and ship it, so how well drives are packed is down to how well they are protected before they go on Amazon's shelf. The replacement 6TB drives from eBuyer were packed just fine.

[hhcanon]

Re: Buying a new computer or upgrading-tips and suggestions

yawn....

[DrJon]

Re: Buying a new computer or upgrading-tips and suggestions

?????