Any computer heads in here?

wxnut

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I approached a friend, who has a side job of building and repairing computers. I told him I was sick of the slowness of my current pc while working in photoshop, and asked him to build me something VERY fast. This is what he came up with, it will only have Windows XP, CS2 and Irfan view installed. I do know the hard drives will be mirrored so I do not have 500 gigs of space... I will be keeping my current PC for internet use. This one will be ONLY for editing. Great system? Overkill? Any other suggestions for programs? One thing I like is it will have a CF card reader built right into the front, along with some USB slots.


black atx mid tower
intel g965 motherboard
intel e6320 cpu
corsair xms pc6400 ddr2 2 gig
20x sata dvd burner with lightscribe
floppy card reader
2 250gig sata 3.0 hard drive with 16mb cache
nvidia 8500gt video card
350 watt psu
 
make sure the case can accept a micro atx Mb, most likely it can, but something to doublecheck.

Also, 2 HD's and everything else crammed inside a micro... gets hot inside those. I wouldnt personally go for a micro atx motherboard. fewer i/o ports means limitations for future upgrades.

IF you run 2 1GB sticks @6400 and 2 hd's its hot...

I would also go kingston with the ram, sure its 10 bucks more per stick, but
it almost never fails.....

Good to see your going with the core 2 duo !!! nice cpu !!!


btw, ditch the floppy... save the space and the 10 bucks...

youll never need it... but it you do someday, they have usb floppies, just use that space to stick an internal card reader !!!!!!


the video card is decent, at least its a value for a direct X 10 card, and looks like you can do dual monitors easily...

you should be having a blast in no time !!!!
 
He said he was installing the floppy more for the sake of anyone needing to work on the computer later. Also he said it would have lots of cooling fans.

Thanks for taking the time to reply.

Doug
 
I agree on dumping the floppy. They make external/internal card readers that can read those giant archaic disks.

Make sure you are getting a quality PSU.
 
Looks pretty decent. I'm not sure what Thorhammer is talking about with the Micro ATX stuff, an ATX mid tower has plenty of space and cooling. Don't worry.

I also give one more vote for not needing the floppy drive. Ever since bootable CDs have been around, I have never used the floppy drive, for any maintenance. But on the other hand it's cheep so who cares.

You might be able to save a few bucks on the Video card. Since your going to be running XP and not Vista the DX10 capability on the 8500GT won't help you at all. But it will if you ever have the desire to upgrade.

xfloogingkylex is right about the power supply. A bad one could fry everything else when it goes. That was a real pain. I was lucky my HDs survived.
CORSAIR CMPSU-520HX ATX12V v2.2 and EPS12V 2.91 520W Power Supply - Retail is pretty much rock solid.

All else looks good. Good luck.

 
Corsair ram is a lot better then Kingston
Antec for the power supply (Or PC Power & Cooling if you have the dough)
 
You might be able to save a few bucks on the Video card. Since your going to be running XP and not Vista the DX10 capability on the 8500GT won't help you at all. But it will if you ever have the desire to upgrade.

If I understood him right, he picked that card because it was one of the cheapest ones he could find with a DVI jack. I will be sharing the computers with the same monitor. My exsisting one is using the HD15 jack.
 
I just meant that the matx board is tight, make sure you have all the fans !!

sounds like your guy allready thought it out.

-------------

on the ram issue , we could debate brands all day long but Kingston
is a True Dram Manufacturer and they test every cell on every module they manufacture. Also, they werent part of that gang that did that price fixing crap. Thats why I like them. Also they are easy to deal with .

besides that, its pepsi vs coke, both are about the same performance wise. Whatever works for you, I just wanted to back up what I said with some facts...

------------------------------
 
I'm going to have to buck the trend here and recommend the floppy drive: never needed... untill your computer crashes.

[rant]

Your hard drives are going to be a 'SATA RAID' - well they should be anyway and most raid drivers are not included with windows, so when your computer dies - and your stressed enough as it is. you switch it back on to find that your hard drives are are not recognised, which really doesn't help when you need to pull the tower appart, in order to attach a disk drive, to get your hard drives working again, before you can try and fix the original problem...

i originally built my pc without the floppy, firmly in the camp that i didn't need it... its now in the pc and its staying there!

[/rant]
 
I'm going to have to buck the trend here and recommend the floppy drive: never needed... untill your computer crashes.

[rant]

Your hard drives are going to be a 'SATA RAID' - well they should be anyway and most raid drivers are not included with windows, so when your computer dies - and your stressed enough as it is. you switch it back on to find that your hard drives are are not recognised, which really doesn't help when you need to pull the tower appart, in order to attach a disk drive, to get your hard drives working again, before you can try and fix the original problem...

i originally built my pc without the floppy, firmly in the camp that i didn't need it... its now in the pc and its staying there!

[/rant]

Agree. I may not need a floppy for much, but I still have over a thousand of them from over the years. I may want to read that data some day. I still back up the business to floppies, so I can carry it from system to system. I can find a bunch more reasons to waste $10 than to have a USB floppy which in my experience don't work that well.

#1 in Photoshop is have a second drive for data, temp files and working files. It makes the process faster. Otherwise, cool system! Good idea.

I have one more port on the KVM switch, so I could add a 4th computer to the one monitor. The thought of a dedicated system just for editing photos and video, with nothing but the OS and all the various editing software, sounds good.

I already have an old junk computer running News Rover 24/7 and it does nothing else. It's too slow for a webcam or I'd have that going on it at the same time. Guess I better hit some rummage sales and dumpsters for something better. :lol:

One laptop that's pretty much only for Wardriving. Even at that, it is too slow, but the battery is still good?

wxnut How much is your photo system going to cost?
 

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