Computer help.

[Joe Copalman]

My wife and I are in the market for a new PC.  The power supply on our six-year-old Compaq died yesterday and the primary hard drive (a six-year-old 40GB drive - I've since added a 300GB hard drive) is, according to Data Doctors, "bad."  It's been slow and glitchy for a while, so this is no surprise.

Anyway, we're looking at a buying a new PC - just the tower/processor.  I don't know all the specs on our current system, but being that it was a bargain computer back in 2003 when my wife bought it, I can't imagine they're all that stellar.  I can get maybe 2-3 photos edited on Photoshop before it really starts to slow down - in some cases I'll wait more than five minutes for a simple adjustment like a minor rotation or a re-size. 

What are the magic numbers I should be looking at in terms of processor speed/RAM/etc.?  I'm not looking for a dream machine right now, just something that will get my wife back to work ASAP (she works from home) and represent a decent improvement over what I had been working with before as an editing platform. 

Thanks in advance for any input you can offer. 

-Joe

[Rob Silliman]

Speed - 2 GHz
RAM - 4GB (minimum)
CPU's - two (my preference is Intel)

Probably want a full tower - so you can expand - esp w/ a good graphics card.  Bad news - not many stores carry full towers these days (mostly laptops and netbooks), but when you find one - you should be able to get a pretty good deal on one.

Email me direct if you want more info.

Rob

[BillOz]

I'd say primarily look for a machine with at least the following

Intel Quad-Core processor, or at least a Dual-Core processor.  Any speed of either of these will be adequate.
Memory of at least 4 Gigs
Hard Drive at least 250 Gigs
Graphics card memory, 32 Meg, best to be a separate board, but may not be for under $700
Power supply: 1.21 Jigawatts preferred, but could settle for less.

This will perform quite well, for just about any application short of creating video animation modeling like Toy Story 3D.
I'd bet you could find this for less than $500, without the monitor.  Virtually anything out today will outperform something you bought 6 years ago, even the $350 machines with a monitor.

Sorry, you aren't going to find a reasonable priced machine with 2 processors

[Joe Copalman]

What about the OS?  Is Vista the nightmare those smartass Mac ads have been making it out to be?  I never had any problems with XP. 

[Rob Silliman]

What about the OS?  Is Vista the nightmare those smartass Mac ads have been making it out to be?  I never had any problems with XP. 

• Do you properly patch your XP machine?
• Do you have a separate Virus/Firewall program, that you keep updated?
• Do you download s/w off the Internet from only reputable or trusted sources?

My laptop is Vista (Home Premium SP1), and all of my other machines are XP.  Once you get over some of the quirks of Vista - its really not as bad as the marketing makes out (and the network throughput screams).

Two things to keep in mind;
1) How long as you going to be on Vista?  Most major brand PC's come w/ free upgrades to Windows 7, and those are due to ship this month.
2) How many 32bit only programs do you have?  Anything you want to buy (for the long term) should be 64bit.  You may be forced into buying upgrades on your core software to take advantage of new h/w.

[Matt Ottosen]

Here's what I'm using in my laptop, and it works great for me:

• Intel Core 2 Duo - 1.5 GHz
• RAM - 2GB
• Hard Drive - 285 Gigs internal & 1 Tera external
• Windows Vista - Home Premium

[jslugman]

Take note that if you have any newer software there *may* be compatibility issues. I had to wait forever for CaptureOne to come out with a 40D/Vista combination and officially Vista doesn't support the 20D. I also have had difficulty with my Epson R2400 as Microsoft and Epson are in a blame-game over Firewire support. Nothing that stops my work flow but it took some time to find work-arounds.

[Joe Copalman]

Thanks for all the input guys.

We're sitting tight with what we have right now - just replaced the power supply and it's working like it did before, moving at a glacial pace.  But we're also making sure we have everything backed up (most of it already is) in case the C drive goes Mama Cass on us.  Turns out Data Doctors overstated the severity of the situation.  I'm pretty sure if they were auto mechanics, they would have told me my car was all out of turning signal fluid.  And seriously - they wanted $55 for a $25 part and $99 for five minutes worth of the "labor" it took to install it.   

[BillOz]

So that's why my turn signals don't work.   Anybody have some they wanna sell?  Maybe I can just pee in the container, like it was a radiator and I was running from the Ruskies.   Maybe Dave can fill it for me.

[Joe Copalman]

HA!

[Jay Beckman]

Under the heading of Irony...

My computers (Laptop and Desktop) were built by Data Doctors and I've been nothing but happy with 'em both.

The thing I really like: Neither came jammed full of crap software and Free Offers like the major name brand computers do.  Both are very lean machines and perform really well.

And now, back to our regularly scheduled thread. 

[jslugman]

I'm pretty sure if they were auto mechanics, they would have told me my car was all out of turning signal fluid.

Next time she starts to buck gimme' a call, I have a bottle next to my jug of in-focus developer.