Samriel
TPF Noob!
- Joined
- Nov 30, 2007
- Messages
- 325
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- Location
- Fukuoka, Japan
- Can others edit my Photos
- Photos NOT OK to edit
I was thinking of posting this in the equipment forum, but somehow it seemed like I’d find more knowledgeable or at least more interested people around here.
I’m looking to upgrade my computer sometime soon, and since photography is becoming an important part of my life, I’d like some advice from some fellow photographers concerning this. First my current configuration:
AMD Athlon 64 3500+
Corsair 512Mbx2 DDR400 RAM (forgot the exact naming)
MSI nVidia nForce 4 (I think…I forgot the exact name of this one as well) SLI Diamond
2x250GB 7200rpm Hard Drives
2xnVidia GeForce 6800GT (SLI)
24” Dell Monitor
Pioneer DVD writer
Etc.
OS: Windows XP x64
I bought it about 4 years ago, and it served me quite well. However, as I recently started doing a lot of photo editing and processing, it sometimes just takes too much time to finish a job, or to respond to a command. It gets even worse when I start running multiple applications. I'm basically using only Lightroom, and occasionally CS3. However, I’m using Lightroom very often, and I feel my current machine is dragging me down. Here is what I was thinking of getting:
Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550
Corsair TW3X4G1600C9DHX-G (DDR3 PC3-12800 2GBx2) (I'd add 4Gbs more later on)
DDR3 compatible motherboard (Intel X38,X48 or nVidia 790i SLI chipset)
Everything else would stay the same (maybe I’d change the casing – my current one is not really practical, and possibly the hard drives). While I’m basically set on the CPU and memory, I’m wondering about the motherboard: and SLI chipset would allow me to use both my GPUs, but honestly speaking, I don’t play games as much as I used to, and it wouldn’t be a tragic loss if I couldn’t use one, and both the X38 and X48 seem worth considering, especially budget-wise. After reading some reviews, I’ve come to the conclusion that there is no big difference between the chipsets for someone like me (who will not overclock etc.), but the nVidia boards seem to be rather on the pricey side compared to the Intel ones.
So, my first question is if you have any general suggestions concerning the setup. The second question is if you have a motherboard you’d like to recommend to match the components above.
Then I’d like to get a laptop as well, one of the really small ones which are being sold at bargain prices all around now (EeePC & Co.) I’d be using it for storing, transferring and reviewing photos, writing, surfing, watching movies etc. It would be good if it would allow some basic editing in CaptureNX or Lightroom, or at least conversion to DNG at a not too bothersome speed level. I was looking at the EeePCs and their competitors, and the ASUS EeePC 9” version seemed really good (up to 2Gbs of RAM, fast SSD drive), just that the keyboard is a bit too small for my fingers. The 10” EeePC seemed better, but it can only have 1Gb of memory. I do not want anything bigger than 12” and anything more expensive than USD600, but I’d be willing to consider used machines.
I’d appreciate any advice and suggestions on both topics.
Cheers,
Vlad
I’m looking to upgrade my computer sometime soon, and since photography is becoming an important part of my life, I’d like some advice from some fellow photographers concerning this. First my current configuration:
AMD Athlon 64 3500+
Corsair 512Mbx2 DDR400 RAM (forgot the exact naming)
MSI nVidia nForce 4 (I think…I forgot the exact name of this one as well) SLI Diamond
2x250GB 7200rpm Hard Drives
2xnVidia GeForce 6800GT (SLI)
24” Dell Monitor
Pioneer DVD writer
Etc.
OS: Windows XP x64
I bought it about 4 years ago, and it served me quite well. However, as I recently started doing a lot of photo editing and processing, it sometimes just takes too much time to finish a job, or to respond to a command. It gets even worse when I start running multiple applications. I'm basically using only Lightroom, and occasionally CS3. However, I’m using Lightroom very often, and I feel my current machine is dragging me down. Here is what I was thinking of getting:
Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550
Corsair TW3X4G1600C9DHX-G (DDR3 PC3-12800 2GBx2) (I'd add 4Gbs more later on)
DDR3 compatible motherboard (Intel X38,X48 or nVidia 790i SLI chipset)
Everything else would stay the same (maybe I’d change the casing – my current one is not really practical, and possibly the hard drives). While I’m basically set on the CPU and memory, I’m wondering about the motherboard: and SLI chipset would allow me to use both my GPUs, but honestly speaking, I don’t play games as much as I used to, and it wouldn’t be a tragic loss if I couldn’t use one, and both the X38 and X48 seem worth considering, especially budget-wise. After reading some reviews, I’ve come to the conclusion that there is no big difference between the chipsets for someone like me (who will not overclock etc.), but the nVidia boards seem to be rather on the pricey side compared to the Intel ones.
So, my first question is if you have any general suggestions concerning the setup. The second question is if you have a motherboard you’d like to recommend to match the components above.
Then I’d like to get a laptop as well, one of the really small ones which are being sold at bargain prices all around now (EeePC & Co.) I’d be using it for storing, transferring and reviewing photos, writing, surfing, watching movies etc. It would be good if it would allow some basic editing in CaptureNX or Lightroom, or at least conversion to DNG at a not too bothersome speed level. I was looking at the EeePCs and their competitors, and the ASUS EeePC 9” version seemed really good (up to 2Gbs of RAM, fast SSD drive), just that the keyboard is a bit too small for my fingers. The 10” EeePC seemed better, but it can only have 1Gb of memory. I do not want anything bigger than 12” and anything more expensive than USD600, but I’d be willing to consider used machines.
I’d appreciate any advice and suggestions on both topics.
Cheers,
Vlad