Bitting the Bullet . . .

[Sutton Warrior]

OK folks, all this chat about, crashing computers, RAW files etc. My tame computer Guru has proposed the following as a cost efective way to go, replacing my 'venerable, creeky' 6 year old computer. The emphasis being on picture quality with photography as number one usage. As a 'stands alone', its around £435 inc., however a considerable saving can be made by using an AMD equivelent chip, also means the Mother Board will be less? Looking to get a figure in of under £400??

 

I might look seriously at a new screen, not in my original thinking, but Hazel has sugested, "go the whole hog and be done with it"! screen, keyboard and mouse. Not being one to argue or wishing to upset the apple cart . . . any views on a decent 20" in screen, thought the PC World price on a Samsung 'Rose Black' T200 of £146.79 looked nice?

 

 

Descriptions:

 

1 off, INTEL CORE 2 QUAD Q6600 1066FSB SKT775 RET

 

1 off, ADATA 2GB DDR2 800 CL5.0 16 CHIP

 

1 off, ASUS DVD?RW 20x S-ATA DRW-20B1ST BLACK

 

1 off, MAXTOR HD SERIAL 320GB UDMA 300 7200RPM 8MB

 

1 off, ASUS SKT-775 P5KPL-AM S/V/L M-ATX 1333FSB

 

1 off, PEAK INT 3.5‘ ALL IN ONE CARD READER/WRITER BLACK RET

 

1 off, MS WINDOWS XP HOME SP3 1 PACK

 

1 off, PALIT 256MB/1GB RADEON HD 2400 PRO SONIC HDMI PCI-E 2.0 RET

 

1 off, OCTIGEN MIDI CASE PRO 337 400W BLK/SIL

 

1 off, Free technical support

 

1 off, 12 Months parts and labour warranty

 

Any thoughts on any of the above would be apreciated. SW getting excited now, did not fancy it origional, but I'm bitting the bullet . . .

 

SW

[poledark]

Sw, looks good, but go for the 22" screen...the picture quality will blow you away. Since getting mine, I have been having another look at lots of my old photos, and am still being amazed at the extraordinary "depth" to the scenic ones..............almost 3d in some shots.

 

I would also go for a more powerful video card.

 

Den

Edited January 8, 2009 by poledark

[Sutton Warrior]

Sw, looks good, but go for the 22" screen...the picture quality will blow you away. Since getting mine, I have been having another look at lots of my old photos, and am still being amazed at the extraordinary "depth" to the scenic ones..............almost 3d in some shots.

 

I would also go for a more powerful video card.

 

Den

 

 

Hi Poledark, More powerfull 'Vid card', why would you think that? I dont know, just looking to understand you reasoning for my edification

 

On the Samsung display, I thought the spec., was the same on the 20" screen only the extra couple of inches in it. Thinking 20", as I dont sit to far away from my screen, and, its £30 less . . . tight old git aint I

 

 

My Guru has just sent me another email revising his spec., and sugested an alternative CPU, 'INTEL CORE 2 DUO E7300 1066FSB SKT775'. Saying, its spec as near as 'dam it' is as good as the AMD quad chip, which are not that cheap anyway, keeps the machine in the 'Intell loop' and save me £60 in the process.

 

So as I say, save £30 + £60; ninty quid in my book is a lot of 'hard earned'. The new maching will be lightning fast (compared with the present old faithfull) I wont be doing any video work, no one or nothing to video . . . .

 

SW

[corydoras]

Hi Poledark, More powerfull 'Vid card', why would you think that? I dont know, just looking to understand you reasoning for my edification

 

On the Samsung display, I thought the spec., was the same on the 20" screen only the extra couple of inches in it. Thinking 20", as I dont sit to far away from my screen, and, its £30 less . . . tight old git aint I

 

 

My Guru has just sent me another email revising his spec., and sugested an alternative CPU, 'INTEL CORE 2 DUO E7300 1066FSB SKT775'. Saying, its spec as near as 'dam it' is as good as the AMD quad chip, which are not that cheap anyway, keeps the machine in the 'Intell loop' and save me £60 in the process.

 

So as I say, save £30 + £60; ninty quid in my book is a lot of 'hard earned'. The new maching will be lightning fast (compared with the present old faithfull) I wont be doing any video work, no one or nothing to video . . . .

 

SW

Get a video card with at least 512MB RAM, and XP will love ya to death if you give it a whole 4GB to romp around in. I'd go for one of the ATI video cards if I were you. I used to be a died in the wool Nvidia man, but I would go for ATI nowadays. I'd have the AMD processor, but that's just a personal preference.

[chesters1]

Get a video card with at least 512MB RAM, and XP will love ya to death if you give it a whole 4GB to romp around in. I'd go for one of the ATI video cards if I were you. I used to be a died in the wool Nvidia man, but I would go for ATI nowadays. I'd have the AMD processor, but that's just a personal preference.

 

xp will moan like fook with 4 gig and instantly try and hide 1 ,best under 3 gig.

i love amd now the floating point issues have cleared up and there are no other graphics cards other than nvidia

 

i bought a decent mobo and fitted a dual core and ,its capable of a quad core and sli but finances prevent more spending on it at the moment ,trouble is quad sli are about

Edited January 8, 2009 by chesters1

[Newt]

xp will moan like fook with 4 gig and instantly try and hide 1 ,best under 3 gig.

 

That's with XP-home chesters. XP-pro will happily use 4Gb.

 

SW - my advice for what you want is to skimp on CPU/Processor speed and go for the 22" monitor (the extra 2 inches makes a huge difference) with a good video card that has plenty of memory. It is also optimized for video processing so is much more efficient than the general duty memory in the PC.

 

Video memory means the card does much of the video processing without having to offload much of the job to the main CPU.

 

The super hot CPUs are outstanding if you do lots of online gaming or run very resource intensive applications. I don't and from the sounds of it, neither do you.

[Sutton Warrior]

This is realy good feed back chaps, looks like I'm geting there, you are right Newt, no hungry gaming! Simple still photos 'RAW' of course

 

Pleas clarify Newt, still a bit puzelled about the 20" T200 v the 22" T220, I looked at the spec on PC world site seemed the same??? is it me, or maybe PC world, see some real bloomers on there spec sheets.

 

SW

[corydoras]

That's with XP-home chesters. XP-pro will happily use 4Gb.

When I say XP I always mean XP Pro. I've never had or used a machine with XP Home. Not much use in our 'Home' because we have a f/s and a domain.

[Newt]

SW - as the ladies are wont to say when they are in a mood to speak true, "Size Counts".

 

Cory - I've never used the home version either.

[poledark]

SW, I haven't read the specs of the card you listed, but make sure it will support the full resolution of the screen.

 

Den