New PC advice needed please

minimeeze

minimeeze

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Calling all you computer boffins.... I need some :help:

I ditched my old desktop pc last year just before I emigrated to Canada, and have made do with a cheapy laptop since then. However, the time has come for me to buy another desktop PC, but I haven't got a clue where to start :shake: I don't want to end up buying something that won't meet my needs, but I don't want to go into overkill either and pay for stuff I won't use.

Basically, I'll use the pc for work related stuff (mainly internet, documents, etc), photo editing & storage, music storage. I won't be playing games on it so no need for mega fancy graphics cards etc. I'm just sooo confused with whats out there - do I need dual core / quad core / AMD / Pentium?? :help: Not too fussed about super dooper sized monitors either.

Oh, and I'm in Canada, in case you missed that the first time around ;) (before some bright spark puts up links to PC world :p)

Thanks :)
 
dual core will do fine, get plenty of storage space (Hard Disk space), ram well i'd say you need atleast 2gb of ram minimum if your going to use windows vista or any new windows OS. Graphics card anything with 512mb or above, (Nvidia or ATI). I'd go Intel way too for a CPU (If you think im intel biased I have a AMD 64 laptop only coz it was a good deal!).

But thats just my 2 pence. Good luck let us know whatever you decide.
 
Right i've had a butchers and pretty much agree with six6six, bar the Intel part. I own an amd desktop with 4gb of ram and it is plenty fast enough for image editing, etc. Im not sure that intel would be worth it considering the jump in price.

I've browsed over some of the stores in canada and there is not a great choice, but here is one i picked out.

http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4531720&CatId=2629

It is a bit of an odd system, but is the best priced considering it includes the OS, on the plus side for image editing and stuff it should last a long time until it needs any upgrading.

The only bad thing is that it includes no monitor, but they are easy enough to choose.

I own one like this...

http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4468160&Sku=A179-2102 CA

And can't fault it.

I hope that helps a little.
 
If you're running CS3 or similar, I'd go for as much as RAM as your OS will support. You can never have too much RAM :lol: I'd go for an AMD processor...but I am AMD biassed, the only Intel computer I've ever had went bandit.
 
If you can afford to stump up the extra now, an i7 system will not only be better for photo editing now, but as its the start of the new generation in 3-4 years down the line you will be able to upgrade it to run CS6 (or whatever it is by then!)

Also, when memory is more important for future applications you will be able to put up to 12gb RAM no problems (12gb can be put in now - but it costs)
 
I don't want this to start a fanboy war, but have you considered getting an iMac?
 
imacs sounds like something that was made in mcdonalds.. no offence to the mac world.

if you can afford one go for it.
 
I too get really confused with all the various processors - dual core / quad core / AMD / Pentium - i7 and all the different formats for hard drives etc etc, you would think as time advances that everything would be more compatible, but sadly it does not appear to be...................... and what I thought would be an easy task of replacing my wife's desktop seem to be a bit of a nightmare -

Would be nice if somewhere there was a website that you could put various PC specs into and see what performance increase it would give you?
 
Paul said:
If you can afford to stump up the extra now, an i7 system will not only be better for photo editing now, but as its the start of the new generation in 3-4 years down the line you will be able to upgrade it to run CS6 (or whatever it is by then!)

Also, when memory is more important for future applications you will be able to put up to 12gb RAM no problems (12gb can be put in now - but it costs)
Click to expand...

I cant see much point in getting i7 now or any time within the next year or so. The cost of the setup is a joke, the core 2 duo's and some of the new phenom ii's are kicking its arse.

I see where your coming from but would only recommend i7 if you have won the lottery and money is no object.
 
I'm running a Quad 6600 with 2GB ram, works well for me. But as people have said, the more ram you can squeeze in the better!! :thumbs:
 
There's a few CPU benchmarking websites, most are mainly gamer orientated but this includes a photoshop benchmark:
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/default.aspx?b=25
gives you an idea of the relative power of the current CPUs

32 bit windows is only capable of using 4GB of ram (slightly less is available by the time the system has had its share) so if you want more than that you'll need a 64 bit version of the operating system
 
I think a few people are suggesting way over the top for what he really needs. It really depends on your budget (how much?) but something like this from dell.ca would do you fine for the next few years for what you specified in your OP. It will run CS perfectly fine and you can even play HD videos on it if you so please. However for gaming (which you don't want) it wouldn't be very good.

You would want to upgrade the version of windows to Home premium, and possibly upgrade the size of the HDD (or buy another external one), but other than that it would be fine. :)
 
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