The wife needs a new PC

kitacanon wrote in post #11500807
Maybe I'm missing something and it's just the sales person in me...

...but HOW THE H*** CAN ANYONE GIVE ANY ADVICE without first asking what OP is going to do with the machine??????

Well I guess it's easy to give ANY advice, but not relevant advice...sorry but it just "frosts my soul" (as my cousin in Chicago likes to say), that people don't ask/just tell...

If the machine is limited to single photo processing of RAW still images the whole machine is over the top...a simple out of the box/over the counter $600 i7-860 PC will comfortably handle such tasks...

If batch processing and video editing is in use then I can understand the need for such high end gear...
just sayin'

Easy Kit. Thank you for your concern. Yes my wife will be using it mainly for photo processing and demanding games like solitaire.

My friend, (Que southern accent) I'm an American. No such thing as too rich, too thin, too much chocolate or too much horse power. Bigger is always better. Yes it may be a waste but if it keeps my wife happy, I'm happy,
Have a Merry Christmas.

I was thinking the i7 8xx series might be good enough, but if you can afford that lineup of lenses I wouldn't worry about it.

kitacanon wrote in post #11500807
...but HOW THE H*** CAN ANYONE GIVE ANY ADVICE without first asking what OP is going to do with the machine??????

We know who "the wife" is. Maureen is a moderator and is well known about these parts, she photographs weddings and other things like that, which means she deals with a high volume of images on a regular basis.

tim wrote in post #11500888
I was thinking the i7 8xx series might be good enough, but if you can afford that lineup of lenses I wouldn't worry about it.


We know who "the wife" is. Maureen is a moderator and is well known about these parts, she photographs weddings and other things like that, which means she deals with a high volume of images on a regular basis.

Thanks...well, I did start out my rant/concern with "Maybe I'm missing something..."

Skip Souza wrote in post #11500877
Easy Kit. Thank you for your concern. Yes my wife will be using it mainly for photo processing and demanding games like solitaire.

My friend, (Que southern accent) I'm an American. No such thing as too rich, too thin, too much chocolate or too much horse power. Bigger is always better. Yes it may be a waste but if it keeps my wife happy, I'm happy,
Have a Merry Christmas.

I didn't mention money-squandering at all, (other than, as Tim suggests an i7-860 machine, which I just got and feel secure in its capabilites)......just relevance...so many people buy top of the line gear for far less demanding needs...

I don't do video nor do I batch process, and I found my conversion time of a 40D Raw image to Jpeg has improved from 15+ seconds to about 3 secs.

...have a happy new year to all...

Tim, you nailed it.

Kit, I did not hear money squandering. You expressed your opinion and I am not offended. You may be correct that the computer I am contemplating is a waste of computing horsepower for the needs I have described. Well, it is, but I believe that shock and awe is superior to shock and ahh and that a computer never suffered from too much power.

Skip Souza wrote in post #11501020
Tim, you nailed it.

Kit, I did not hear money squandering. You expressed your opinion and I am not offended. You may be correct that the computer I am contemplating is a waste of computing horsepower for the needs I have described. Well, it is, but I believe that shock and awe is superior to shock and ahh and that a computer never suffered from too much power.

no no....It seems your wife will be doing much more with pc than my simple needs...that's all...

if you have microcenter close to where you live, you can get much better deal on i7-950. the rest you can get from newegg. i'm also a big fan of huge cases so i would vote for full tower case, i use CM Haf932 and love it. agree with 1000w psu is overkill, way overkill. i would get 650w even though it is still more than you need. i use xfx 650w and love it. you can save few bucks on the 1tb hd by going with samsung f3, unless you're a big fan of western digital. too bad newegg shows out of stock. for ssd, i would get 2x64gb rather than 1x120gb, 1st one for OS, utilities, antivirus and everything system related. 2nd one for Adobe stuff, any other work related software and...scratch disk. it is preferred that page file and scratch disk to be set on different ssd/hd, not different partition. the rest looks nice. it looks like you have unlimited budget and if that's the case i would get several hd of the samsung f3 for backup. pair them with hdd dock and you're all set. oh, and of course a nice IPS monitor with calibrator if you don't have one already. nice system and good luck....

Skip Souza wrote in post #11500842
No, I had the fastest 32 bit computer made, that lasted 3 months before it was surpassed. i will not chase that dragon again.

...Isn't that exactly what's happening here? The i7s are nearing the end of their ~2 year lifespan and are going to be replaced by Sandy Bridge parts which are going to offer better everything at the same price points come January 9th. Regardless, the Intel SSD is still slower than the Vertex2 (http://www.anandtech.c​om/bench/Product/126?v​s=152), the 1000 watt PSU will run at ~200 watts and get terrible efficiency (PSU efficiency is a bell-curve), and the Samsung F4 still beats the Caviar Black 1TB.

I really want you to make sure you do have an IPS monitor, I'd really feel bad if you spent all that money on processing power but then left her with a TN monitor because I didn't make it clear how terrible they were (6-bit color, viewing angle shift, dithering, inaccurate reproduction). And from what I can tell it appears Samsung didn't actually make any 23'' S-IPS panels until 3 months ago.

Just built this, https://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthre​ad.php?t=968588

As someone else has mentioned, get the Vertex2 or the new Intekl x25 g2. There is no reason to go Ultimate just get the Win7 pro 64bit. For power, you only need 550-650 watts, dont believe me? Go look at some of Dell's gaming rigs,most have 450 watt p.s. Also the Rosewill card reader is junk, they are all made by one company and for some reason the CF slot is upside down,had one and it also very slow. Sony makes a nice one but you will have to order it from Amazon as newegg doesnt carry it. I agree, build more computer then you need and it will last six month longer before you need a new one. If i could have afforded it I would have had a six core extreme i-7.

Just to throw this out there, I don't believe in "overkill" in terms of power sources, a larger power source is plenty efficient at lower power draws oppose to something running at it's max. I also don't believe in too much RAM. With enough RAM you can turn off page filing which is very nice. The video card might be a little over kill assuming you don't game, just get something compatible with the programs you want to run in terms of GPGPU.

themadman wrote in post #11509292
Just to throw this out there, I don't believe in "overkill" in terms of power sources, a larger power source is plenty efficient at lower power draws oppose to something running at it's max. I also don't believe in too much RAM. With enough RAM you can turn off page filing which is very nice. The video card might be a little over kill assuming you don't game, just get something compatible with the programs you want to run in terms of GPGPU.

So one should buy a 1000hp car to run errands around town? Even a 500W PSU is MORE than adequate for this machine, the 1000W is just complete overkill and unnecessary.

i would rather put the extra money from 1000w psu to something else such as ram or storage, and get 650w or maybe less instead.

More importantly than that, this system will idle somewhere below 100 watts, meaning a 1000 watt PSU will be running at ~40-60% efficiency (if that). Even at load (~200 watts) it would only get ~80% efficiency.