Advice on a new PC & Graphics Card

Hi all,

I'm in the process of getting ready to put together a new PC and purchase a new graphics Card. ATI and NVidia have been cards I have used and been happy with before and I will probably head down that way again.

Since getting the 7D a year ago, I have found it very difficult (it's super slow and crashes often) to process images on my 6yo 3.2Ghz machine, 3Gig RAM and 256MB ATI 9550. Another reason for an upgrade is the limitation of available drive sizes for the current IDE configuaration I have. SATA will permit >750gig internal drives which don't seem to be made for IDE.

Though I used to game, I mainly use my PC for internet, lots of photoprocessing which included Nik Software, HDR, LR3, CS4, soon to be CS5.

I see there are options for quad core machines, 32 or 64bit operating systems and software etc. I have no problems putting the machine together myself but essestially would like a machine that will last several years again and I can upgrade a little over time.

Thoughts - particularly on graphics cards etc?

[I alreadly have a descent monitor and keyboard etc]

Thanks.

Quad
64Bit
650Watt power Supply
4GB or more of Ram
NVidia card GTX 240 or there abouts

My 2p worth..

TTk wrote in post #11562794
Quad
64Bit
650Watt power Supply
4GB or more of Ram
NVidia card GTX 240 or there abouts

My 2p worth..

No such thing as a GTX 240
Not to mention a 650W is way overkill. I've ran a dual card setup (both OCed) with an OCed Core 2 Quad before with an 80+ certified 550W before.

wayne_eddy wrote in post #11562770
Hi all,

I'm in the process of getting ready to put together a new PC and purchase a new graphics Card. ATI and NVidia have been cards I have used and been happy with before and I will probably head down that way again.

Since getting the 7D a year ago, I have found it very difficult (it's super slow and crashes often) to process images on my 6yo 3.2Ghz machine, 3Gig RAM and 256MB ATI 9550. Another reason for an upgrade is the limitation of available drive sizes for the current IDE configuaration I have. SATA will permit >750gig internal drives which don't seem to be made for IDE.

Though I used to game, I mainly use my PC for internet, lots of photoprocessing which included Nik Software, HDR, LR3, CS4, soon to be CS5.

I see there are options for quad core machines, 32 or 64bit operating systems and software etc. I have no problems putting the machine together myself but essestially would like a machine that will last several years again and I can upgrade a little over time.

Thoughts - particularly on graphics cards etc?

[I alreadly have a descent monitor and keyboard etc]

Thanks.

Quad Core: Intel i5 or i7 (depending on your budget). I'd wait a month. The newer i5/i7s (codenamed Sandy Bridge) are due out this month. You can either get the latest chips or watch as current chip prices fall. Either way, you win.
RAM: 4GB+ (it's all DDR3 now anyways so no need worrying about DDR3 vs DDR2)
Power Supply: Quality 450-550W: Antec TruePower New, Seasonic, Corsair non-AX series
Harddrive: SSD + HDD if you can afford it, normal HDD with storage size of your choosing if not.
Graphics card: Unless you're gaming, something cheap like a GT210 will do.
Operating system: 64-bit. Lots of techno babble involved, but the most relevent to you is that 4GB RAM needs 64-bit for all 4GBs to be recognized by the PC.

GTS 240.

The video card isn't important for processing stills. If thinking ahead, in case you get back into gaming and don't want to break the bank, one of the overclocked 460GTX's.

If you can wait 6 days for Sandy Bridge you don't need a videocard at all (the integrated outclass the GTS 240 for free), and the ~317$ i7 quad Sandy Bridge will be faster than the current i7 hexacore for PS.

The new processors seems to be excellent for trans coding video and Photoshop. I was waiting to upgrade and actually ordered about a month ago, a MB/I7/memory, only to cancel it before it shipped. The thing is, adding a video card will disable the onboard graphics in the chip, no ?

My interest has peaked, once again.

I wonder what the price differential will be between the new Sandy Bridge chips and the most recent i5/i7's. Looking at our price range we will be heading down the i5 range (Sandy or other).

bohdank wrote in post #11567678
The new processors seems to be excellent for trans coding video and Photoshop. I was waiting to upgrade and actually ordered about a month ago, a MB/I7/memory, only to cancel it before it shipped. The thing is, adding a video card will disable the onboard graphics in the chip, no ?

My interest has peaked, once again.

You actually have to get MB that supports the on board video (aka has the actual ports for video output). Anandtech has a great overview.

Ah, so forget it. I'd be dropping in a discrete video card.

I would not, repeat not, be buildin a PC right now. Why? For me it has zero to do with the latest Intel CPUs as I do not think Intel gives the best bang for the buck.

What I am waiting for is a choice of motherboards from ASUS and MSI that have USB 3 headers. I also want a case that has more than one USB 3 port on the front. Silverstone already has a combo card reader that connects to a USB 3 header. We should be seeing the mobos and cases before mid 2011.

Combine an AMD xi CPU, 8GB of OCZ ,memory, native USB 3 support on the mobo, SATA III connections for individual drives plus RAID, an OCZ Vertex II SSD, and a pair of Seagate 2TB drives set up in RAID 1 would be my basic package. Add in a blueray reader/writer and a good Radeon video board and we are good to go.

USB3 isn't a concern for some people. I already configured my setup to E-SATA, which is plenty fast enough.

Not sure if the brands you suggested were for you or for the OP, but some of those I think shouldn't matter too much to the OP, such as the OCZ RAM, ATI video card, Seagate drives, and AMD CPU. Everyone has their preferences but as of right now there isn't much of a difference really to recommend to someone "You have to get this!"

Sandy Bridge sure looks attractive. And if rumors are correct, pricing will be similar to current units.
Look down at the CS5 benchmarks.

http://www.tomshardwar​e.com …ore-i5-2500k,2833-15.html

The problem I have with Sandy Bridge is that OCing is impossible without an unlocked (k-variant) CPU. The unlocked chips OC extremely nicely, but not so much with the locked chips.

If you read the article, it states that you can still overclock the unlocked variants up to 4 steps. But come on, the price difference between an unlocked and locked version is only like 11 bucks!

I agree that the price difference is negligible for the K versions.

I see no reason to buy an AMD processor unless you're on a tighter budget.

If I recall, there have been MB's out there with USB3 headers for awhile now.

I have and need ESATA so any upgrade would have to have that on the MB.

My case has 2 USB ports on the front. It's not unusual to have more than 1. If it had none, I would not be too inconvenienced. My monitor has a built in hub with 3 USB ports.

The only issue I have is that video cards tend to be pretty long these days making it a struggle to install them without hard drives getting in the way or some cable that can't be moved.