What do I need....

Andy Gough

Andy Gough

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Andy
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Hi

First let me say sorry if I come accross a little bit (or a lot) thick when it comes to computer spec etc. All of my questions may have been asked before and if so, again i'm sorry.

My problem

My old computer running windows XP is starting to play up, the monitor has now given up and I think it's time to look for something new.

My question.

What do I need. At the moment I use Photoshop CS3 and i'm very happy with it and would continue to use it for the time being. But what spec would I need on a new computer to consider upgrading to a later version of Photoshop and maybe adding Lightroom in the future. I have been searching the web for answers and I can't make any sense of the tech talk.
Can someone please tell me in some sort of plain english what I need to edit my photo's.

Thank you

P.S I cant afford an I Mac :confused:
 
depends on how much you want to spend or if you can upgrade your existing computer. maybe its just the hard drive that is playing up in which case obvious answers is a new hard drive and add window 7 or 8. Then add more RAM and possible and possibly an SSD card for drive C to make it faster

before doing anything have you cleaned out the inside of your computer from dust, the vent may by blocked and causing over heating. have you run a registry cleaner through your computer or defraged it . you can type in misconfig in the box above start and also type in prefetch to clear out pre stored sites visited. i find a program called system mechanic very good as well but it is a bought product

if getting a new computer look for a large hard drive say 2 tbs -a good graphics card- at least 8 gig RAM intel I7 processor which is better if wanting to do videos later or else just an intel i5 processor - USB3 ports for faster transferring of pictures to the computer- and I prefer for a monitor A Dell ultrasharp IPS monitor but and IPS monitor is far better than and "ordinary"one. Just a few thing to think about.

If you have someone who can build a computer for you as a friend then you can pick and choose individual components and save buying one from a store and get more for your money as you won't be paying for the build.

I got a lot of mine from Scan computers ----http://www.scan.co.uk
 
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Intel i5-3xxx or i5-4xxx (avoid the ones that have a U as the last character - they are Ultra low power). 8G or 16G memory with a 64bit Operating System, ANY graphics card will do (despite the argument that will undoubtedly happen between me and realspeed in the coming posts). Disk - almost any size will do that you feel is big enough, but a lot of people now also use SSDs as boot disks to speed the computer up (120G should be fine if you have another disk in the machine). Dell Ultrasharp monitor U24xx or U27xx depending on budget. Some mechanism for backup!

CS3 will only use a limited amount of memory - you will need to upgrade to CS4 (from memory) to be able to use more than 2-3Gb memory.
 
Agree with Arad ;)
 
arad85 said:
Intel i5-3xxx or i5-4xxx (avoid the ones that have a U as the last character - they are Ultra low power). 8G or 16G memory with a 64bit Operating System, ANY graphics card will do (despite the argument that will undoubtedly happen between me and realspeed in the coming posts). Disk - almost any size will do that you feel is big enough, but a lot of people now also use SSDs as boot disks to speed the computer up (120G should be fine if you have another disk in the machine). Dell Ultrasharp monitor U24xx or U27xx depending on budget. Some mechanism for backup!

CS3 will only use a limited amount of memory - you will need to upgrade to CS4 (from memory) to be able to use more than 2-3Gb memory.
Click to expand...
What he said.

Cs3 will be limited for performance as andy said due to memory limitations of its 32bit design. Cs4 (and higher) are all 64bit and will use much much more memory.

I did a comparison of cs3 and cs4 on an i7 with 16gb ram a while back..

on this test -http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18342923

CS3 (32bit) took 3 mins 30 seconds
CS4 (64bit) took 23 seconds

Thats:

*CPU*
i7 2600K 4.4GHz

*RAM & PS ALLOCATION*
16GB DDR3 1600MHz
CS3 usage maxes out at 3255mb

*INSTALL DISK*
OCZ Vertex 60Gb SSD

*SCRATCH DISK*
As above
 
no argument from me Andy about graphic cards, I only said a good graphics card and left it at that as it depends on what money is available to spend on it.

I have said some time ago about my son and I picking and choosing parts for a self build computer and trying to get it as close to a dedicated photographic use computer as much as finances allowed. What I did find is by doing a self built you can get a far better computer for the money against a shop bought one. The other advantage is you know exactly what components are in it and the quality of each, no short cuts with shall we say poorer quality parts to cut costs, often done to shop bought computers to be competitive with other makes.
Sorry can't be more precise on my build as everything is in storage while moving house.
 
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Many thanks for your answers to my question. The main reason I wouls stick with CS3 is the cost per month with Adobe to get the latest versions of their products :mad:.

Thanks to you I at least now know what to look for in a new machine.

Andy
 
The downside Realspeed with self build is you cannot guarantee 100% compatibility between parts. Some chipsets don't like each other. My i7-920 just won't work on a wireless network and I cannot work out why. Tried different wireless network cards and 2 installs of windows. Always result in restart after a minute or so of connecting wirelessly.

A shop bought guarantees compatibility/makes it their problem to solve.

These days I prefer the simplicity of a rebuilt machine unless it is for gaming.
 
didn't know that Dale I have not come across that problem with the build we did.

My sense of humour just kicked it thinking about different chipsets having a punch up inside a computer. Now in the red corner we have ***** and in the blue corner we have ******** so lets have a clean fight and the best chipset win.
 
Dale_tem said:
The downside Realspeed with self build is you cannot guarantee 100% compatibility between parts. Some chipsets don't like each other. My i7-920 just won't work on a wireless network and I cannot work out why. Tried different wireless network cards and 2 installs of windows. Always result in restart after a minute or so of connecting wirelessly.
Click to expand...

That's definitely the exception rather than the norm though, have you checked BIOS settings and drivers?

With a bit of research it is easy to find parts that are known to work well together. I prefer to build my own because I like the flexibility. A good compromise is a pre built custom system, best of both worlds then!
 
miker said:
That's definitely the exception rather than the norm though, have you checked BIOS settings and drivers?

With a bit of research it is easy to find parts that are known to work well together. I prefer to build my own because I like the flexibility. A good compromise is a pre built custom system, best of both worlds then!
Click to expand...

If you are prepared to research, then go for it, but don't assume because the square peg goes in the square hole it will work
 
Yes, it's quite unusual that mainstream components conflict. However it's nice to be sure. I found a website that let me configure components from lists of compatible parts. (cant find the link)
 
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arad85 said:
Intel i5-3xxx or i5-4xxx (avoid the ones that have a U as the last character - they are Ultra low power). 8G or 16G memory with a 64bit Operating System, ANY graphics card will do (despite the argument that will undoubtedly happen between me and realspeed in the coming posts). Disk - almost any size will do that you feel is big enough, but a lot of people now also use SSDs as boot disks to speed the computer up (120G should be fine if you have another disk in the machine). Dell Ultrasharp monitor U24xx or U27xx depending on budget. Some mechanism for backup!

CS3 will only use a limited amount of memory - you will need to upgrade to CS4 (from memory) to be able to use more than 2-3Gb memory.
Click to expand...

I would say that 16GB is better and gives quite a bit of leeway but you may not even need a graphics card if you're only using it for editing - usually the onboard graphics are good enough for that - on my i7 I can also easily play Blu-Ray films so a lot of power there.
 
Hey guys, why don't we take a moment and remind ourselves what the OP said:
Andy Gough said:
First let me say sorry if I come accross a little bit (or a lot) thick when it comes to computer spec etc.
...
I have been searching the web for answers and I can't make any sense of the tech talk.
Click to expand...
Personally, I don't think he's the kind of person who is going to want to go down the self-build route. Researching which components work well together might be easy for some people here, but not everyone.

But getting a system built for you to your chosen specs can certainly work. I recently had a new system custom built for me by PC Specialist. I asked questions on here about what spec I needed (thread here) then went onto the PC Specialist web site and used their configuration thingy. The whole process was really surprisingly easy.
 
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