Computer??

HI,

I am looking at getting a new computer to work with my digital photos on.
The computer I have are about 3 years old now. I though about upgrading
just the ram, but they are just kind of slow, even in generating the
previews of images just when looked at a folder of them in windows.

The question(s) I have are;

What processer shoud I be looking at? Anything special for graphics, or
just go with a decent processer?

1gb, 1.5 or 2gb ram? I know that most people say the more ram the better,
and I am leaning towards 2gb..

Then the question that I am really not sure about is video card, there are a
number of options, do you think it makes much any difference beyond getting
a card that supports your monitor at desired color depth and resloution?

Anything else special you can think of that would be of any importance for
the system? I'll run photoshop and some form of raw processing software.


Thanks

jd

jd wrote:
HI,

I am looking at getting a new computer to work with my digital photos on.
The computer I have are about 3 years old now. I though about upgrading
just the ram, but they are just kind of slow, even in generating the
previews of images just when looked at a folder of them in windows.

The question(s) I have are;

What processer shoud I be looking at? Anything special for graphics, or
just go with a decent processer?

1gb, 1.5 or 2gb ram? I know that most people say the more ram the better,
and I am leaning towards 2gb..

Then the question that I am really not sure about is video card, there are a
number of options, do you think it makes much any difference beyond getting
a card that supports your monitor at desired color depth and resloution?

Anything else special you can think of that would be of any importance for
the system? I'll run photoshop and some form of raw processing software.


Thanks

jd



Plenty of memory, a real Pentium or AMD processor, digital video output.
If the video card offers memory choice get plenty of that. I wouldn't
worry about which card unless you intend to use machine for video games.
Dave Cohen

"Dave Cohen" wrote in message
news:1TTWg.2908$WD1.861@trndny04...
jd wrote:
HI,

I am looking at getting a new computer to work with my digital photos on.
The computer I have are about 3 years old now. I though about upgrading
just the ram, but they are just kind of slow, even in generating the
previews of images just when looked at a folder of them in windows.

The question(s) I have are;

What processer shoud I be looking at? Anything special for graphics, or
just go with a decent processer?

1gb, 1.5 or 2gb ram? I know that most people say the more ram the better,
and I am leaning towards 2gb..

Then the question that I am really not sure about is video card, there
are a number of options, do you think it makes much any difference beyond
getting a card that supports your monitor at desired color depth and
resloution?

Anything else special you can think of that would be of any importance
for the system? I'll run photoshop and some form of raw processing
software.


Thanks

jd



Plenty of memory, a real Pentium or AMD processor, digital video output.
If the video card offers memory choice get plenty of that. I wouldn't
worry about which card unless you intend to use machine for video games.
Dave Cohen

I agree with Dave's comments and add a large hard drive and a CD/DVD
recorder.

On Tue, 10 Oct 2006 18:59:15 GMT, jd wrote:

I am looking at getting a new computer to work with my digital photos on.
The computer I have are about 3 years old now. I though about upgrading
just the ram, but they are just kind of slow, even in generating the
previews of images just when looked at a folder of them in windows.

The question(s) I have are;

What processer shoud I be looking at? Anything special for graphics, or
just go with a decent processer?

1gb, 1.5 or 2gb ram? I know that most people say the more ram the better,
and I am leaning towards 2gb..

I'd hold of on upgrading your computer until sometime in the first
half of next year. We're getting very close to the point where
significantly enhanced computers/motherboards and operating systems
will be offered to the general public. The next version of Windows
(Vista) will be more bloated and will require more memory. Many of
the computers you'd be looking at that come with 2GB of memory can
be upgraded to 4GB, but due to several factors, they wouldn't be
able to use more than 3GB. AMD announced about 3 months ago that
they were halting the production of their current 64-bit Athlon CPUs
in favor of a slightly improved version that will accept up to 8GB
of memory. The use of the 64bit version of Windows (which has been
in the hands of beta testers for quite some time) with the new
Athlons and the new Intel CPUs will remove the current 3GB memory
bottleneck. You may not need this much memory now or next year, but
when your next computer is 2 or 3 years old, the computer you next
buy will determine whether you can keep it performing reasonably
well by giving Vista (and probably a similarly bloated PS3) a quick
fix of another 4 to 6 GB of easily installed additional memory, or
whether you'll have to replace one of the 2GB computers you're
currently considering.


Then the question that I am really not sure about is video card, there
are a number of options, do you think it makes much any difference
beyond getting a card that supports your monitor at desired color depth
and resloution?

For still digital photography, there's little reason to consider a
video upgrade. That's a concern mainly of gamers, and the high
performance video cards put much greater demands on the power
supply, which would make your computer run hotter and lower its
reliability if you're not careful.


Anything else special you can think of that would be of any importance for
the system? I'll run photoshop and some form of raw processing software.

Try to avoid getting a CPU that's not at least dual core. You may
not need dual core, dual CPU motherboards, but that's the direction
computing is heading towards. And that brings up something that you
may find useful. Dual video boards. I'm pretty sure I've seen
messages here from photographers doing their video editing using one
monitor with the image on another. Not having any experience with
that sort of thing I'll leave it to others to explain why it might
be worth considering.

On Tue, 10 Oct 2006 17:17:37 -0400, Rita Ä Berkowitz wrote:

You would be wise to looking into a dual Intel Xeon system with about 2GB
. . .
Just stay away from AMD and SATA and you will do fine.

WARNING!!! Conflict of interest!!!

You're just trying to feed eBay's used Xeon market that your
silicon salvage empire is based upon.

SATA drives should work very well for most people. The much more
expensive SCSI solutions can sometimes be justified, but for the OP,
this doesn't appear to be one of those times. The OP should also be
aware that you've stated that cameras should use SCSI instead of
USB, which may make it easier to evaluate the usefulness and
soundness of your advice.

You would be wise to looking into a dual Intel Xeon system with about 2GB
of
ram. Depending on the your future needs I would recommend a decent U320
SCSI RAID system with Seagate Cheetah drives. Stay away from AMD
processors
SATA drives as they are slow and less reliable.

Are the dual core and the dual xeon 2 different things? Most of the systems
I can find don'l list there dual core processors as being xeon. I found one
place that does list them as xeon dual core, but gateway and dell both list
them as just dual core.

How much difference do you think there is between the high speed ATA drives
and the SCSI drives? I know years ago, that SCSI were far and away better,
and I was always a huge fan of scsi, but I know things have changed a lot
with the improvements in IDE based drive technology. So now I am not so
sure how much differance there really is...

Any suggestions on brand that I should look at?

I know some of the places that customer build system are nice, but I dont
trust there warrantys nearly as much as I do the ones from large places like
dell and gateway. I know the computer don't die that often these days, but
when they do it seems like it often sucks, like the motherboard had some
suttle damage and it is really hard to get some of these smaller customer
computer makers to deal with it. Where gateway / dell people seem to be
better about dealing with the warranty problems when they do arive.

thanks for the help

jd

I'd hold of on upgrading your computer until sometime in the first
half of next year. We're getting very close to the point where
significantly enhanced computers/motherboards and operating systems
will be offered to the general public. The next version of Windows
(Vista) will be more bloated and will require more memory. Many of
the computers you'd be looking at that come with 2GB of memory can
be upgraded to 4GB, but due to several factors, they wouldn't be
able to use more than 3GB. AMD announced about 3 months ago that
they were halting the production of their current 64-bit Athlon CPUs
in favor of a slightly improved version that will accept up to 8GB
of memory. The use of the 64bit version of Windows (which has been

Is vista going to be the first version of windows that can utlize a 64 bit
processor?

in the hands of beta testers for quite some time) with the new
Athlons and the new Intel CPUs will remove the current 3GB memory
bottleneck. You may not need this much memory now or next year, but
when your next computer is 2 or 3 years old, the computer you next
buy will determine whether you can keep it performing reasonably
well by giving Vista (and probably a similarly bloated PS3) a quick
fix of another 4 to 6 GB of easily installed additional memory, or
whether you'll have to replace one of the 2GB computers you're
currently considering.

It seems like most of the computers that I am seeing allows a minium of
4gb's of ram right now... So hard to imange that things are going to get so
carried away that we will need common systems to get up in the 6 to 8 gb
range...

For still digital photography, there's little reason to consider a
video upgrade. That's a concern mainly of gamers, and the high
performance video cards put much greater demands on the power
supply, which would make your computer run hotter and lower its
reliability if you're not careful.

Are there any video cards that do anything meaningful for photoshop at all?


thanks

jd

Try to avoid getting a CPU that's not at least dual core. You may
not need dual core, dual CPU motherboards, but that's the direction
computing is heading towards. And that brings up something that you
may find useful. Dual video boards. I'm pretty sure I've seen
messages here from photographers doing their video editing using one
monitor with the image on another. Not having any experience with
that sort of thing I'll leave it to others to explain why it might
be worth considering.

On Tue, 10 Oct 2006 18:15:01 -0400, Rita Ä Berkowitz telexed this
note:

Oh, absolutely! SCSI CF cards is cutting edge technology! I'm also pushing
for a 10/100/1000 Ethernet port and web interface instead of the mind
numbingly slow USB2 bull****. Than again, you're right, who needs it when
people are willing to screw up their workflow by converting to DNG. Maybe
we should put serial ports on the old D2x?

That would make a lot of sense, especially if you could use it to
get a hard copy of the EXIF data by having the D2x tethered at 45
baud to an old 5 level baudot Kleinschmidt. For those with a need
for speed, a 110 baud ASCII ASR33 TTY could be substituted. Capital
idea, eh, what? What's that you say? Nah, if you can't find one, a
current loop to RS-232 converter would be easy to cobble together.

On Tue, 10 Oct 2006 22:45:57 GMT, jd wrote:

Is vista going to be the first version of windows that can utlize a 64 bit
processor?

No. WinXP can already be had in a 64-bit version. But it would
probably be best to skip it, since Vista should have much better
driver support. Win64 is really for those that like the feel of
arrows in their backs, aka, the pioneers.


It seems like most of the computers that I am seeing allows a minium of
4gb's of ram right now... So hard to imange that things are going to get so
carried away that we will need common systems to get up in the 6 to 8 gb
range...

Well no, most of the current computers allow a *maximum* of 4GB
right now (not a minimum), and for most users, at most, 2.5 to just
over 3GB would be usable even if they had 4GB of memory installed.
You can already get systems that allow up to 8GB of memory if you
shop for your own motherboard and DIY, but early next year they
should be available from the regular bunch (Dell, Compaq, HP,
e-Machines, etc.). Most will probably only be sold with 2GB of
memory, since more would raise the price considerably. And my point
was that for you, one of these 2GB machines would be all that you
might need, for next year at least, if Vista isn't too bloated.
Then the bloated 64-bit apps will follow, but you still might not
need more than 2 or 3 GB of RAM. But if you do, you'll know it very
quickly, and it'll probably be because very large edited PS2 files
would be getting into Windows' swap file. And if it does, you won't
need a newer computer. Just another memory module or two.


Are there any video cards that do anything meaningful for photoshop at all?

I think that the basic video included with new computers is
probably all you'd need for Photoshop, unless you'd find dual
monitors useful, and then, as I said, that's for others to answer.
Rita can probably fill in more than the "Any mid-range dual head
video card is OK" she's already said, and I'm sure that there are
several ng regulars using dual monitors, so they might eventually
mention why they find them useful. I can think of a couple of
reasons, but they'd only be guesses. Maximizing the size of edited
images and eliminating painfully slow screen redrawing (if you need
to multitask) would be two of the guesses, and there may be others.

ASAAR wrote:
On Tue, 10 Oct 2006 17:17:37 -0400, Rita Ä Berkowitz wrote:

You would be wise to looking into a dual Intel Xeon system with about 2GB
. . .
Just stay away from AMD and SATA and you will do fine.

WARNING!!! Conflict of interest!!!

You're just trying to feed eBay's used Xeon market that your
silicon salvage empire is based upon.

SATA drives should work very well for most people. The much more
expensive SCSI solutions can sometimes be justified, but for the OP,
this doesn't appear to be one of those times. The OP should also be
aware that you've stated that cameras should use SCSI instead of
USB, which may make it easier to evaluate the usefulness and
soundness of your advice.

Not to mention an obvious bias against AMD processors, which I have used
for many years with no problems at all, and they are usually quite a bit
cheaper than the equivalent Intel processor.