Upgrading PC

I currently have an HP desktop with a Q6600 processor, 4GB DDR2 - 800 Memory, Many 7200 RPM hard drives, and a 512MB NVIDIA GeForce 9500 GT video card. I'm running Vista 7 64 bit.

I do a lot of heavy lifting with this PC (Flipping through thousands of RAW images from an event in Lightroom 3 and back and forth to PS CS5).

Am I better off putting my money towards a new computer, or upgrading my existing one. If I were to upgrade, I would lean towards replacing the video card or replacing the memory and going to 8GB.

Anyone's thoughts?

I don't think I'm the expert here, but I've had my Dell laptop 17 inch with all the bells and whistles that is 3+ years old and it was driving me crazy. I upgraded the HD and put Windows 7 on it, but decided, what the heck? I bought a new HP 17 inch laptop with 6 GB RAM and a faster processor. It was through Costco, so I used my rebate check. It wasn't too painful. The speed of the new computer is significant to me. I can put many more images up and work at the same time. The old computer is still struggling to do what I need done faster. I shoot RAW, so the 5D2 images take a while on the old one. If you are wanting more speed, upgrading every 3-4 years is about what I do, but then again, I am not brave about adding RAM or hard drives internally. Some people swear by that. I just feel if you can upgrade, after so many years, it's okay.

I'm willing to bet you're disk limited. An SSD would probably solve all/most of your 'lag'.

The videocard would not have any affect on performance for CS5/lightroom. More ram would help but you'd have to get DDR2, and your mobo may not support more.

IMO put an SSD and another 4GB in there, and come back second half 2011 for a new system.

Bump the RAM and you should see plenty of bang for your buck.

I would add some memory first

Upgrading your videocard would give you no performance increase at all.
I'm in Lightroom <-> PS alot, it runs fine with 4gb, because both programs never use all resources at the same time. But sometimes PS holds on to a gb or two of memory when it's doing nothing (even when I close the picture) so I have to close down PS. talk about memory hogs...so yeah, in this case more is better. That's the only upgrade that I would personally do.

With 6gb or more RAM, you can move the performance sliders all the way to 100% in photoshop elements, and use all 1919537k RAM allocated to Photoshop (of 3839074k available ram)....and still have plenty RAM left over for OS and other programs.

Simply having 4gb RAM more than is used by the OS allows PS to use at least 50% of the rest and for all to be well...

I think you will see a large performance increase with another 2 or 4 gb of ram.

Win7 64bit is a big upgrade IMO, SSD, and ram but not necessarily in that order.

wdwpsu wrote in post #11515748
I currently have an HP desktop with a Q6600 processor, 4GB DDR2 - 800 Memory, Many 7200 RPM hard drives, and a 512MB NVIDIA GeForce 9500 GT video card. I'm running Vista 7 64 bit.

I do a lot of heavy lifting with this PC (Flipping through thousands of RAW images from an event in Lightroom 3 and back and forth to PS CS5).

Am I better off putting my money towards a new computer, or upgrading my existing one. If I were to upgrade, I would lean towards replacing the video card or replacing the memory and going to 8GB.

Anyone's thoughts?

You're in that situation where almost anything will increase the performance of your machine. An SSD would solve your lag when moving around photos, a faster CPU would gain even more speed and more RAM would lessen the amount of times the program(s) would need to access the hard drives. That, IMO, is the point where it makes more sense to think about just upgrading your computer.

The thing about 64bit OSes is that they increase the size of your memory 'chunks' allowing for more total memory. It's also wasteful. There's almost no benefit in using a 64bit OS if you're only going to have 4GB of RAM. It actually can harm performance if you start multitasking too much. With a new computer, shoot for 8GB of RAM, an i5 or i7 and the fastest/largest hard drive you can afford. A new video card wouldn't hurt, but your current GPU isn't really all that bad if you're not planning to do 3D or gaming. You could probably reuse it for a while until the next gen of cards are out. The same goes for your DVD player and hard drives. If you're planning on building your own, that is.

If you're planning on making the most from your current system, buy parts that you'll reuse in a new computer. An SSD could benefit you a good bit as would increasing RAM, but remember, RAM won't be able to be reused, so buy cheap/used. Don't bother with a new video card unless you plan on gaming or using Adobe After Effects, Premiere or other rendering software.

wdwpsu wrote in post #11515748
I currently have an HP desktop with a Q6600 processor, 4GB DDR2 - 800 Memory, Many 7200 RPM hard drives, and a 512MB NVIDIA GeForce 9500 GT video card. I'm running Vista 7 64 bit.

IMO you should wait for another 6-9 months before getting a new PC. The new Intel platform is coming out Q1 of 2011, and it'll take a few months after that for prices to settle and what not, but if you can wait that long it'll be worth it.

If you really feel that you need some extra speed right now, focus on your storage - get yourself an SSD, and possibly look at replacing some of your hard drives to faster ones. Contrary to what marketers want you to think, saying that a drive is 7200RPM is the equivalent of saying a camera has 10 megapixels. It means absolutely nothing on it's own. If you switch to some known fast drives, like the WD Caviar Black 1TB for example, you'll likely gain some speed.

Then when you get a new PC, just sell whatever cheap-o hard drive comes with it and use these instead.

Sorry, I would not put a dime more into that machine. Instead consider building your own computer. If you like the current case, keep it plus any DVD drives. For boot, put in a SSD in the 100GB range to house Windows 7 64bit, all applications, and all the /user files. I would replace any HDs with a pair of 2TB SATA II 7200rpm HDs in RAID 1 configuration. When Windows is installed on the SSD, drag all the individual user folders (that each have My Music, My Pictures...etc.) from the SSD to the RAID pair. Personally I would go with an MSI or ASUS motherboard for an AMD x6 CPU. While it will not be as fast as a top Intel CPU....it will not cost a fortune either.

If you are not gaming, go with a the most powerful video board that does NOT require a serperate power connection. That will give you enough graphics capability to do all but the most demanding gaming.

The one thing the above set...no native USB 3 header support yet on most motherboards. You can find lots of motherboards with USB 3 ports on the back...but not with headers that allow for any USB 3 connectors on the front of the case. So you need to think about how important having USB 3 on the front of the case will be for you. This spring we will start to see USB 3 ports on cases...and USB 3 headers on motherboards. So if USB 3 is hot for you.....save your money and wait for a few months until the USB 3 cases (or parts that allow you to replace USB 2 ports on the front of the case with USB 3 ports) and most importantly...USB 3 headers on the motherboards.

Some folks shy away from computer building. I find it relatively straightforward. Remember that knowledge (around cameras, computers,..etc.) is power. Don't let a high school gamer at Best Buy "advise" you on a new machine. Instead spend the time to learn about your options. Use the time to build up a budget. Look for serious sales on HDs, SSDs, video boards....even keyboards (led backlite ones) and mice.

Enough of my ramble. I hope it helps.

I second the above and would not put any more money into the current system if your budget allows you to go for a new one.

The video card won't really help you. Depending on your budget, I'd either replace your Q6600 with a Q9550, or change platforms entirely to either the i7 860 or the new Sandy Bridge CPUs due out next week.

My votes still for an SSD (and Win7 64)/more ram and come back later.