Advice on new PC & Screen

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Darren1978

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Afernoon everyone :)

I'm in need of a bit of advice if you please....

I currently have a laptop (3yrs old, Win XP) which I use for everything; web browsing, music, word processing, spreadsheets and my photography. I'm thinking that it might be time to purchase a a desktop PC so that the laptop can justbe used for the web and music, leaving the desktop for the photography and day-to-day bits and bobs.

So I guess my requirements would be something along these lines (mainly thinking about the photography side of things because if the desktop is up to that, it will do everything else I need it to):

  1. Decent sized HDD
  2. Decent amount of RAM
  3. Quick processor (duo-core?)
  4. Wireless enabled (I guess that is standard these days?)
  5. Respectable sized screen (20" plus?)
  6. Decent screen resolution

I'm not too hot on knowing what to look for when it comes to screens and stuff i.e what size to go for and what to specifically look for in a screen.

Also, as I'm assuming it will come with Vista, I need to know if Photoshop CS3 and Lightroom 2 are compatable?

I haven't got a budget figure in mind at the moment, basically because I really don't know what to look out for and whats good and whats not so good, so this is where you guys and gals come in......fire away with your help/advice/suggestions/recommendations.....

Thanks in advance :thumbs:
 
Hard to recommend without a budget, are you prepared to build it yourself or do you want a ready built PC.

CS3 and lightroom are compatable with Vista and windows 7 if you buy a pc with an upgrade option (7 runs so much better than Vista I've seen a good improvement since I moved to it).

You may find you need to buy a usb plugin for wireless on a desktop while standard laptops all come with wireless a lot of desktops do not.

For processor I would recommend an intel core 2 duo, the E5200 is a nice chip and powerful enough to use for most photographic options if you have the money invest in a quadcore but it might be overkill.

HDD size I would go for a minimum of 500gb to 1tb disks are pretty reasonably priced these days (might be worth considering a portable drive for backups as well)

I would go for 4gb of memory if you can failing that 2gb will do.

For monitors the newer IPS panels have superior colour reproduction and a wider colour gamut; so in essence it can more accurately display a set colour, and has a wider range of colours it can reproduce accurately.
Standard TN panels use dithering which is a way of approximating colours it is incapable of 'actually' displaying
 
I'm currently looking for a new monitor as a first step to updating my whoile system. So far I've narrowed it down to two models

Eizo S2242W
HP LP2475W

and possibly an equivalent Dell model.

I'm thinking that a £400-ish monitor like one of the above would match a system costing another £4-500.

The Eizo is a 22" monitor but has the resolution of a 24". I think this means that it has the content of a 24", but you have to sit a bit closer to see it!

The Hp is a straightforward 24".

Both have been well reviewed. They're not your bog-standard monitor!

However, according to some reviews, both may be more suited to images than text. The latter can be cause headaches etc, apparently, for reasons which I don't quite understand, having not seen either in action. So more research is required.

Hope this helps.
 
If you're in a position to, I'd look at using a wired connection to your router as wireless can be a bit slow.

From adverts I've seen, I think PC World are doing 500gb external hard drives (ideal for backup) for £40 or so.

HTH
 
Marcus_Aurelius said:
For processor I would recommend an intel core 2 duo, the E5200 is a nice chip and powerful enough to use for most photographic options if you have the money invest in a quadcore but it might be overkill.

I would go for 4gb of memory if you can failing that 2gb will do.
Click to expand...

Definitely go quad if you can afford it - they absolutely tear through editing work, brilliant investment.

4GB of DDR2 RAM as used by Intel Core 2 chips costs £35, so there should really be no excuse for getting anything less than that sort of amount. If a prebuilt came with 2GB, i'd be question why they felt the need to cut the £15 off the costs and where else in the machine they'd been cutting corners to maximise profits.

As said though - provide a budget and whether you want prebuilt or not and then people can help more.
 
I have a Quad and 2GB memory and its handles CS4 fine, no problems. However you can never have too much memory, so if you can budget for 4gb, go for it!
 
Adobe have moved to GPU Acceleration instead of multi-core processing so to this basic spec you could add a PCI-Express graphics card and a monitor to suit your budget:

tp_spec.jpg


Something like this would be reasonable, although you could spend less.

I'm not up on monitors at the moment so I can't help you there sorry.
 
GTX260 is a touch overkill just for image processing work, a 9600GT will provide plenty enough power for the GPU acceleration present in Photoshop.
 
Right then guys, thanks all for your help so far, really appreciated :thumbs:

In terms of budget, then I guess I'm looking at a max of £500 all-in. So then, what can I get for my money?
 
tp_spec2.jpg


If you could stretch to 4GB of ram though it would make a difference.

You could get a cheapy prebuilt system like a Packard Bell or Advent of a similar spec for a similar price, but I'd avoid those. From a local reputable firm expect to pay nearer £650 for that lot, but with more ram.
 
4GB of RAM would only tip that build to £515 at most, so definitely worth doing.
 
Hi don't know if this helps but I went into my local pc shop they sell mostly to the trade but I've had a few bits off them in the past, told them what i wanted I've got dual core E5300 chip 4GB ram dual port graphics card case vista, 19" monitor all for just under £400, phoned around few other places and nobody could come near them.
Just shop around you'll be suprised.
Paul
 
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