What's Your Computer Build?

heldGaze wrote in post #18437219
I'm curious what tools you're using on the portrait screen on the right... looks like you have something that displays system info on the desktop, and are using some kind of performance monitor too that is different than the built-in one in Windows.

On the left.

Correct, on the left, edited.

heldGaze wrote in post #18437219
I'm curious what tools you're using on the portrait screen on the left... looks like you have something that displays system info on the desktop, and are using some kind of performance monitor too that is different than the built-in one in Windows.

On the left monitor the graph is MSI afterburner monitoring my video card usage and VRAM usage. The one on the right is HWINFO64 monitoring the CPU temp, core usage, vcore, VRM temp, motherboard temp, core clock, water pump RPM, GPU temp, GPU VRM 1 and 2 temps, GPU memory clock and GPU Utilization..

Looks a bit like the monitor app I had for my old SUPERMICRO H8DCE dual Opteron board.

larf wrote in post #18380595
I just put in an order for a Dell XPS 8920. I am not a computer expert but it was time to upgrade my '09 era PC. I'm hopeful it will do everything I need in Photoshop and Lightroom.

XPS 8920
7th Generation Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-7700 Processor (8M Cache, up to 4.2 GHz)
Windows 10 Home-HE (64bit) English
24GB, 2400MHz, DDR4 up to 64GB (Additional memory sold separately)
256GB M.2 PCIe SSD (Boot) + 1TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s (Storage)
AMD Radeon(TM) RX 480 with 8GB GDDR5 Graphics Memory

I'm looking at a very similar situation here.


My current PC is a Dell I bought in January 2009.
Core 2 Duo Quad core 2.33GHz processor
8GB RAM
Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit
ATI Radeon HD 3400 w/ 256MB memory


I'm looking at getting an XPS 8920 w/ i7-7700k processor (up to 4.5GHz), 16GB RAM and maybe a SSD (I have HDD's to move over)


I have reservations about the upgrade because I tried using LR on a laptop I have that's newer than the desktop and didn't see any improvements, HOWEVER, I realize that it's not a fair comparison.

The laptop is i5-3210M at 2.5Ghz, but is dual core and 6GB RAM.


I'm very interested to hear of your experiences from the upgrade. I don't want to drop some coin on this with expectations and be disappointed. I use LR5 and shoot RAW 99% of the time. I get tired of waiting for my PC to render the 1:1 previews to check focus. I've gotten to the point that I just process everything, then delete the blurry ones after exporting to JPG.

MizzouMan_2000 wrote in post #18438457
I'm looking at a very similar situation here.

My current PC is a Dell I bought in January 2009.
Core 2 Duo Quad core 2.33GHz processor
8GB RAM
Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit
ATI Radeon HD 3400 w/ 256MB memory

I'm looking at getting an XPS 8920 w/ i7-7700k processor (up to 4.5GHz), 16GB RAM and maybe a SSD (I have HDD's to move over)

I have reservations about the upgrade because I tried using LR on a laptop I have that's newer than the desktop and didn't see any improvements, HOWEVER, I realize that it's not a fair comparison.

The laptop is i5-3210M at 2.5Ghz, but is dual core and 6GB RAM.

I'm very interested to hear of your experiences from the upgrade. I don't want to drop some coin on this with expectations and be disappointed. I use LR5 and shoot RAW 99% of the time. I get tired of waiting for my PC to render the 1:1 previews to check focus. I've gotten to the point that I just process everything, then delete the blurry ones after exporting to JPG.

I have last years version of this, the 8900, with virtually identical specs. It runs way better than my old laptop, that had a broken screen and I was running with an external monitor. Performance wise it is great, but I did load it down by having the Dell UP2715K 5K monitor. The display is great I really love it. I have a GTX 980 GPU to drive it, and although it is on the list as supported, driving the 5K with the GPU support on in LR is quite unstable. With GPU acceleration off it is fine, even though it's supposed to be most effective with HiDPI displays. All of my old 300D and 20D images open at 1:1 or higher magnification. Until recently Lr limited the fit screen viewing option to 1:1 view, which was great, now it enlarges them to fit the screen, which is annoying at times, since there is no indication of the magnification on the screen.

Alan

BigAl007 wrote in post #18439402
I have last years version of this, the 8900, with virtually identical specs. It runs way better than my old laptop, that had a broken screen and I was running with an external monitor. Performance wise it is great, but I did load it down by having the Dell UP2715K 5K monitor. The display is great I really love it. I have a GTX 980 GPU to drive it, and although it is on the list as supported, driving the 5K with the GPU support on in LR is quite unstable. With GPU acceleration off it is fine, even though it's supposed to be most effective with HiDPI displays. All of my old 300D and 20D images open at 1:1 or higher magnification. Until recently Lr limited the fit screen viewing option to 1:1 view, which was great, now it enlarges them to fit the screen, which is annoying at times, since there is no indication of the magnification on the screen.

Alan

I pulled the trigger on one last night. I wish I'd realized it would take so long for the order to process because now the ETA is Labor Day (which won't happen). I would have preferred to get it before the long weekend and get it set up.

MizzouMan_2000 wrote in post #18439563
I pulled the trigger on one last night. I wish I'd realized it would take so long for the order to process because now the ETA is Labor Day (which won't happen). I would have preferred to get it before the long weekend and get it set up.

Not being American I have no idea on when those dates are. Here in England we just had our Summer long weekend. IIRC I got the computer delivered in about three days, but there was a bit of an issue with the monitor. It came from Dell direct, as I get military veterans discount. the tower and monitor had to be ordered separately to get the maximum discount. My mother got it for me as a birthday present, but transferred the money to my daughter, as my mother doesn't do the internet. The multiple large transactions triggered the bank security alerts, so it ended up taking a few days longer to get the monitor.

Fortunately it came with a VGA - DVI adapter to I could at least plug my old monitor in to get it all set up and the programs installed. As well as transferring my LR catalogue, then moving all the images off multiple external hard drives onto the large internal HDD. By the time that was sorted the monitor arrived and I was good to go.

Alan

BigAl007 wrote in post #18439802
Not being American I have no idea on when those dates are.

In the US, we celebrate Labor Day in the Fall to avoid the possible confusion that we are celebrating Communism that celebrating the workers on May 1st like the rest of the world supposedly implies. It's the first Monday in September & unofficial end of Summer. We do Memorial Day in May, the last Monday in May, as the unofficial start of Summer. You know, while everyone else just celebrated the worker we celebrate our fight against other people's workers.

heldGaze wrote in post #18440179
In the US, we celebrate Labor Day in the Fall to avoid the possible confusion that we are celebrating Communism that celebrating the workers on May 1st like the rest of the world supposedly implies. It's the first Monday in September & unofficial end of Summer. We do Memorial Day in May, the last Monday in May, as the unofficial start of Summer. You know, while everyone else just celebrated the worker we celebrate our fight against other people's workers.

OK, we hold our Remembrance services/parades on the closest Sunday to 11/11 and the minute silence is at 11:00 the exact time that the armistice that ended World War One. We also have a minutes silence at 11:00 on 11/11. We don't have a public holiday though. I did quite a few parades while I was a member of the Royal Air Force, and I now parade with the Veterans.

Alan

BigAl007 wrote in post #18440260
OK, we hold our Remembrance services/parades on the closest Sunday to 11/11 and the minute silence is at 11:00 the exact time that the armistice that ended World War One. We also have a minutes silence at 11:00 on 11/11. We don't have a public holiday though. I did quite a few parades while I was a member of the Royal Air Force, and I now parade with the Veterans.

Alan

11/11 here is called Veteran's Day, and is celebrated on the exact date. It used to be called Armistice Day but was changed long before I was born. We have two major holidays celebrating the military. There is also Armed Forces Day in May, a lesser known & celebrated day to honor currently serving members of the military. So Memorial Day for those that died, Armed Forces Day for those actively serving, and Veteran's Day for those that previously served. We only get off work for Memorial Day & Labor Day generally, but government workers get Veteran's Day too.

I'm reminded of the Simpsons when Bart ran a news piece saying that forgotten military service members needed a holiday to honor them & Lisa is like they already have 2.

/off-topic

MizzouMan_2000 wrote in post #18439563
I pulled the trigger on one last night. I wish I'd realized it would take so long for the order to process because now the ETA is Labor Day (which won't happen). I would have preferred to get it before the long weekend and get it set up.

Finally got official shipping details from Dell & looks like it'll be here Thursday! I think I might be sick on Friday. lol

heldGaze wrote in post #18440268
11/11 here is called Veteran's Day, and is celebrated on the exact date. It used to be called Armistice Day but was changed long before I was born. ..

I find this sad every year. IMHO Armistice day had an urgent importance for us all to remember.
Not that Veterans shoudln't be remembered as well, (they deserve their own day! ) but in essence we took a day that was supposed to remind us NOT TO EVER allow the world to go back to war,. and now it's original meaning is lost.

I recall how my grandparents still stopped what they were doing at 11:00am and yes, as a child, the local church still rang it's bells.

CyberDyneSystems wrote in post #18440451
I find this sad every year. IMHO Armistice day had an urgent importance for us all to remember.
Not that Veterans shoudln't be remembered as well, (they deserve their own day! ) but in essence we took a day that was supposed to remind us NOT TO EVER allow the world to go back to war,. and now it's original meaning is lost.

.

I'm afraid the original meaning was lost when Germany invaded Poland in 1939.

I think perhaps it would have been better to have changed Armistice Day to Memorial Day to honor those who continue to fall in what we always hope are efforts at eventual peace.

Since the one I built in 2010 just had an operating system crash (i7-930 oc @ 4 ghz, 12 gb ram, 4 1tb data drives in raid 10) I had to go through getting that one up and running again.

I also built a new one, and so far I'm really loving it.

i7-7700k & 4.2Ghz
32GB of DDR4 ram
2 M.2 2280 500Gb SSD's running mirrored for the operating system, software (just Lr and Ps), with Lr catalog, previews, etc. on the drive as well.
1 120GB Sata SSD doing nothing but ACR cache and Ps scratch disk
4 2TB WD Gold Series running in raid 10 for image storage
Nvidia GTX1060 video card
NEC PA272 wide gamut monitor

For my purposes this system is blazingly fast. I'm getting 3400MB/sec sequential reads, and about 2500MB/sec random reads from the operating system drive.

The other system I'm re-purposing for running office, and other assorted software, as well as an additonal back-up location on top of external drives, NAS, and cloud.