Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2011/03/23
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Peter, Dell has the most awful and atrocious after sales service you can imagine, at least here in India - so check that out. Buy from the local clone shop, and specify parts - it is what I do, because service is generally much better and quicker. For most of our processing, the single most important factor is RAM, the second is the efficiency of the hard drive, especially the one with the Windows/Photoshop scratch disks. I have an i7 920 processor with a Intel motherboard that I bought as a package (I never overclock so a plain vanilla motherboard is fine), a last generation Nvidia 8800 graphic card, but I have two small capacity drives running the operating system and scratch disks (one for each), 4 TB of application/data storage disks and 16 GB RAM. I am thinking of replacing the two smaller drives with SSDs to speed things up a little more. Cheers Jayanand On Thu, Mar 24, 2011 at 2:34 AM, Peter Klein <pklein at threshinc.com> wrote: > LUG: I'm going to get a new desktop computer soon. Things have changed a > lot since I last bought a computer (uhmm, 7 years ago!!). So I find > myself drowning in specs without really knowing how much practical effect > they will have on my two principal activities: Photo editing and music > composition. Any advice would be appreciated. > > Whatever I get, I will have Windows 7 64-bit, at least 4 gigs RAM and a > current SATA hard drive. Sorry, no Macs--I work in a Windows company, so I > want to stay with what I'm good at. > > The good news: I don't use Photoshop, I use Picture Window Pro, which has > a much lower resource footprint. > The bad news: I use Capture One Pro, and Sibelius (music writing and > playback). These do benefit from faster processors and more cores--up to a > point. > > I'm trying to find the "sweet spot" in processor power. I'm happy to pay > for something that will give me a true, real world benefit, but I don't > want to pay nearly twice as much for a 5-10% bump in performance. I'm more > interested in reliability than bleeding-edge gamer-class performance. At > the same time, I don't want to have to wait 2 minutes to run unsharp mask > on a 16-bit TIFF. > > Would I gain any real, practical increase in photo editing performance if > I spent the extra money for a quad core processor as opposed to a dual > core? > > I looked at two Intel-based machines at the local clone shop, which I know > uses good parts: > > * i3-550 Dual Core CPU, 3.2GHz 4MB L2 Cache / 733MHz, INTEL BOXDQ57TM > motherboard, Intel Q57 chipset. > <http://shop.hdnw.com/product.aspx?n=SY-SU012> > * i5 760 Quad Core CPU. 2.8GHz / 8MB L3 Cache, ASUS P7P55D-E PRO > motherboard, Intel P55 Express Chipset > <http://shop.hdnw.com/product.aspx?n=SY-PE012> > > Then there's that tempting deal from Costco for a screamer "ZT Affinity" > with an Intel i7-950. But I wonder how they can sell that much horsepower > so cheaply... > < > http://www.costco.com/Browse/Product.aspx?Prodid=11629566&whse=BC&Ne=5000001+4000000&eCat=BC|84|56671&N=4047237 > > 4294908621&Mo=9&No=1&Nr=P_CatalogName:BC&Ns=P_Price|1||P_SignDesc1&lang=en-US&Sp=C&topnav=<http://www.costco.com/Browse/Product.aspx?Prodid=11629566&whse=BC&Ne=5000001+4000000&eCat=BC%7C84%7C56671&N=4047237%0A4294908621&Mo=9&No=1&Nr=P_CatalogName:BC&Ns=P_Price%7C1%7C%7CP_SignDesc1&lang=en-US&Sp=C&topnav=> > > > > A relative who owns an IT business says he never trusts "clones," and I > should buy a new or recent refurb Dell Optiplex (we've had very good > reliability with Optiplexes at my workplace). Another colleague says that > the clones and the name brands are all made in the same factory, so if > Costco offers a great deal, go for it. > > Decisions, decisions. > > --Peter > > > _______________________________________________ > Leica Users Group. > See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information >