Computer buying help

[Medic1]

I need a little advice regarding a new desktop purchase. I have been hearing different stories about Vista...and that on it own concerns me, as most places I have looked at systems don't offer a "downgrade" on the OS and Vista comes standard. Also, I haven't really been keeping up with computer technology and whats new so I am looking at all this stuff and its making my head hurt...lol.

I think I have narrowed it down to 2...unless anyone wants to steer me away from either/both right off the jump...

Both are HP pavilion media center, with 3GB memory and 400GB hard drive, dual layer DVD burner with lightscribe, USB 2.0 and firewire ports, a built in card reader and 22" 1000:1 contrast ratio flat panel monitor w/HP brightview. One is $300 more than the other....

Here are the differences:

AMD Phenom Quad Core 9500 vs. AMD Athlon Dual Core 5000+
NVIDIA GeForce 8500 GT card vs. NVIDIA GeForce 6150 SE card

Is it worth the extra money to get the quad core and better graphics card? Also, from my understanding the brightview technology gives your a better look to what your seeing on your monitor...will that skew my view of what I am actually doing to my pictures (by this I mean when using PS will the pictures appear better than they actually are with respect to the vividity of colour etc. and when I print them or upload them to a website will they appear differently to everyone else)?

[safehaven]

personally, I'd go to your local computer store and have a system built. There are a couple of reason why.

1. So you can get XP. Vista is not good.
2. So you can load up on RAM.
3. So you can get a big hard drive.
4. So you can get a FULL version of the OS.

Concerning the system you mentioned: I am a big AMD fan and even I shied away from them on my last system. Intel is simply better right now. Both video cards are lacking. I'd say get a Nvidia 8600 series card minimum. For photos, I'd say 500 GB minimum.

Hope this helps.

[Medic1]

Guess that goes to show you who you can trust.....I thought the same thing but when I talked to the sales guy (at a local reputable computer store) he said AMD was preferable because it would run faster and cooler than an intel processor, thats why both PCs I chose were AMD.

Everywhere I have gone has been ++ money to have a system built with all the stuff I want....thats been my only barrier.

I need to buy a new camera body as well (which is gonna be the 5D), so cash is gonna be tight. But i'm running CS2 on a 4yr old laptop right now with only a 40GB hard drive so the computer is a must too.

Hmmm...back to the drawing board :(

[GDHugh]

I have a friend running the AMD quad system and it is very, very fast. He is very satisfied with it.

[CyberDyneSystems]

Medic1, that salesman was definitely full of BS I;m afraid.

I continue to be a long time AMD supporter, I used to build systems almost exclusively with AMD and yes for MANY years AMD had the superior processors.

As of approx September 2006 that was no longer true. At that time the first "core 2" proc s were hitting the shelves and AMD's long lasting domination of the performance specs ended.

That said I still run a Dual Opteron system and love it. You can go either way and do very well, but AMD can't price itself into bankruptcy either so on a "bang for your buck" level Intel is ahead.

On the other hand AMD is more affordable and processor speeds are such now that it's not a huge deal to many

[safehaven]

Like I said before, I have always been a huge AMD fan. But right now, Intel is just better. I really wish it wasn't so. But, if money is tight, I'm sure that both of the systems the OP is interested in will run Photoshop well. I'd ante up for the 8500 and the quad for sure though. Almost all prebuilts will have Vista installed with a rescue disk instead of a full OS. Just something that has to be lived with. Just one other thing to consider. The 22" monitor will undoubtedly be a TN panel.

[CyberDyneSystems]

re: graphics card, Are you gaming?

If not get an affordable card lower cost (no more than 100.00 ) with minimal RAM (by todays standards that's 128MB)

The beefier cards have zero effect on post processing other than to possibly reduce the amount of available system AM (ie a negative effect)
Other negatives are huge demand for power and silly amounts of extra heat being generated that could adversely effect a system, and teh additional noise generated by the need to keep it cool enough to not melt!

All that extra horsepoower ONLY gets used fro 3D acceleration, ie: games.
So avoid the high end cards unless you want to play games.

I suggest a low cost passively cooled one to keep noise down.


Looking th those HP's ,. I'd say save the $$ and get the dual core.

[Medic1]

Like I said before, I have always been a huge AMD fan. But right now, Intel is just better. I really wish it wasn't so. But, if money is tight, I'm sure that both of the systems the OP is interested in will run Photoshop well. I'd ante up for the 8500 and the quad for sure though. Almost all prebuilts will have Vista installed with a rescue disk instead of a full OS. Just something that has to be lived with. Just one other thing to consider. The 22" monitor will undoubtedly be a TN panel.

Yes, this is basically what my brother has told me (he's a computer tech/programmer, but wasn't so sure what I should be looking for with respect to a set-up for post-processing and running CS3/DPP etc. thats why I ended up posting here). He also said if he had a choice he would go with Intel, but that the AMD phenom processor is definetly a great processor as well....just not as good as the Intel one.

re: graphics card, Are you gaming?

If not get an affordable card lower cost (no more than 100.00 ) with minimal RAM (by todays standards that's 128MB)

The beefier cards have zero effect on post processing other than to possibly reduce the amount of available system AM (ie a negative effect)
Other negatives are huge demand for power and silly amounts of extra heat being generated that could adversely effect a system, and teh additional noise generated by the need to keep it cool enough to not melt!

All that extra horsepoower ONLY gets used fro 3D acceleration, ie: games.
So avoid the high end cards unless you want to play games.

I suggest a low cost passively cooled one to keep noise down.


Looking th those HP's ,. I'd say save the $$ and get the dual core.

So, the 6150 graphics card will suffice given the above? I really wish I could go to an intel. I will have to do some more looking into prebuilts, as I don't wanna fork out to get one custom....but all the packages I can find locally only have Intel Quad-Cores with 8500 graphics cards

[Medic1]

Found a desktop package with an Intel Quad core on sale for $299 off. Has everything I want....only it has a intel graphics accelerator 3100 instead of a nvidia graphics chip.

Is this gonna be a problem with CS3 and maybe illustrator in the near future?

[CyberDyneSystems]

No, that graphics will do everything you need for post processing.

... but it is an "onboard" graphics chip, (soldered to motherboard) as oppose to a card. It does make upgrading more tricky if you should chose to do so in the future.

[Medic1]

Thanks for the info CDS....I don't ever do gaming/DVD/tv on the computer so upgrading probably won't be a near future thing if this is good enough for post processing.

[rdsmith3]

No, that graphics will do everything you need for post processing.

... but it is an "onboard" graphics chip, (soldered to motherboard) as oppose to a card. It does make upgrading more tricky if you should chose to do so in the future.

If the graphics "card" goes, do you have to replace the whole mother board? (That is what happened with my laptop.)

How can you tell with a desktop if the graphics card is separate?