What size/Speed type computer are you using?

Dual 2.66 Xeons with 4 gigs of ram, Work is done on twin 15K Raptors, and archived to a RAID 5 arrary on my server.

15k hey are you sure they are raptors? Sounds like a scsi setup
My xeons are stock 2.66 clocked upto 3.2 on an asus PC-DL i875 chipset. Limited to 4gb but seeing as xp only uses 3gb max per application (32bit addressable location, 32^2 3200 -1024 ) I considered it a waste to pickup a xeon chipset for a workstation (server territory - 16gb). All changes with 64bit tho.

There are a couple of pin mods I will try out when I pick up a new base system, should get the 533 xeons running on an 800mhz bus. xeons will clock like crazy and remain very stable. I don't have the benefit of ECC but again thats wasted on anything but a critical server in my humblest of opinions.

i just built my new computer and even after days of reading, i still can't understand 90% of what you guys are saying

So long as it works who cares?

true. it works and it is fast so i am happy

I still use an old 'Sawtooth' Mac. The machine started off as a G4/450MHz back around 2000. I put in a processor upgrade, so it's a 1GHz G4 now. 1,5 Gb memory, 80Gb HDD and 320 Gb FW drive. Dual monitors.
Does everything I need it to do, allthough the G5 I occasionally work with, does it rather more quickly.
Normally the 'speed' isn't an issue (hey, I like to drink coffee), unless the psd files run around 500Mb or so...

also depends on what camera you use. i have a 300D (6MP) with Pen4 3.0GHz/1GB RAM and kinda runs Photochop CS2 okay...I really would like at least 2GB of RAM. then agian, I NEED a new monitor.

blonde wrote in post #2617810
true. it works and it is fast so i am happy

Oh _ but it could be even faster ...

SunTsu wrote in post #2617231
One piece of advice I would give is not to use RAID 0 for storing your pictures. RAID 0 is better for performance, but actually increases the chance of losing your saved data because if one drive fails, the entire array goes down.

I do have an external HD to auto back up files, not programs but all files. Dell didn't offer RAID 5 or I might had gone that way.

JCR wrote in post #2617775
15k hey are you sure they are raptors? Sounds like a scsi setup
My xeons are stock 2.66 clocked upto 3.2 on an asus PC-DL i875 chipset. Limited to 4gb but seeing as xp only uses 3gb max per application (32bit addressable location, 32^2 3200 -1024 ) I considered it a waste to pickup a xeon chipset for a workstation (server territory - 16gb). All changes with 64bit tho.

There are a couple of pin mods I will try out when I pick up a new base system, should get the 533 xeons running on an 800mhz bus. xeons will clock like crazy and remain very stable. I don't have the benefit of ECC but again thats wasted on anything but a critical server in my humblest of opinions.

Thanks the same motherboard that I have. I picked up the CPU/MB/Ram combo off ebay for 550 shipped.... I couldn't pass it up. Added it twin raptors in Raid 0 and all was good.

You're more than welcome to review the specs of my kit in my Gear List, to save retyping it here.

WOW!! thank you ALLL so much for all the info!!! It is time for my husband to read all of this, because like Blonde said, I have NO clue what half this stuff is!!!! I knew this thread would take me way above my head!!!!

My take: Fast, bigger, duo/duel something or other, more!!!

I do have Adobe Photoshop 5.0, and I have a Canon Rebel and a Canon 30D.

I also have an external Maxtor Hard drive on which I store my pics, cuz, obviously, this little old 256 cant hold it all!!!! specially if I try and edit ANYTHING for posting!!! Oh, does it crash hard!!!!!!

So, again, thank you for everything everyone has posted so far!!! We will start to build one very soon, and I am sure he knows what to put in now!!!!!

Jostel wrote in post #2614908
Hi,

I have been having problems with running Photoshop latley, as well as making out storage space.

I went to a secondary slave hard drive to store but, It just seems that there is just not enough memory.

The laptop that I currently use only has 256mb, and this seems to be among one of the main problems.

Even using RAM cleaner or "accelerator" type programs as well as increasing the virtual memory is to no avail.

I am going to get a new set up, and most likley a desktop.

What is everyone currently using (speed/size/etc) or anything else I should know. The new system will be just for "photography" and really nothing else.

Also, is there any benefit to waiting for the Vista O/S or, should I think about Mac instead?

Thanks in advance

My PC is about 3 years old now and could do with an upgrade. It is 2.4GHz P4 with 1.5Gb RAM and a 200Gb (sys disk) and 300Gb internal drives.

I use two external HD of 250Gb and 500Gb for parrallel backup. These are stored on site but in a different part of the house.


Having plenty of RAM and a second internal drive for PS scratch files helps as does storing the photo files on the disk other than the systems disk.

DUAL CORE! DUAL CORE! DUAL CORE!

Jostel wrote in post #2614908
The laptop that I currently use only has 256mb, and this seems to be among one of the main problems.

It's silly that PC's even ship with this amount of ram these days, 256MB of RAM is hardly enough to even run WinXP. And yet, they still ship them that way.

Memory is your friend,

Essentially when configuring a Photo editing PC you should pay attention to three things

1. RAM Get 2GB if your running PSCS on WinXP
2. Hard drive space. Get a few, consider RAID1 for your data drive, and keep your Data off the OS Partition.
(Raptor 74GB for OS install and all apps and some cavernous 400 or 500GB hard drives for data in RAID1? )
3. Get a Dual Core CPU. Thus far every photo editing relating APp I use regularly is taking full advantage of multiple CPUs.
In addition the added stability of a dual core system is amazing.


As for graphics card, all that horsepower is for gaming and will not effect your photo editing. Get a card that suits your needs for monitor, resolution and output type. This does not need to be pricey, for instance I'm running a low end Nvidia that cost only about $80.00 and it drives a pair of huge monitors at the highest possible resolutions and refresh rates with no problems at all.