help me out please

[JonMikal]

i may slip out today and buy a cpu. it will only be used for image editing and internet. what is the minimum i could get by with: p4?, speed, ram, etc.

thanks in advance for your ideas :thumbup:

 

[Verbal]

i may slip out today and buy a cpu. it will only be used for image editing and internet. what is the minimum i could get by with: p4?, speed, ram, etc.

thanks in advance for your ideas :thumbup:

By CPU you mean computer, right? I used to build computers for Northwest Computer Supply, so to me CPU means "central processing unit"..that little chip on the motherboard.

Anyhoo, here's what I would recommend:

-AMD Athlon XP 3000+ or greater
-1024mb (1gb) of DDR RAM (DDR2 if you can afford it)
-at least 100gb 7200RPM Hard Drive... I'm a big fan of Western Digital, 8mb cache drives
-ATI Radeon 9600 or better
-any ol' soundcard (but I'm an Audigy 2 fan)

Somethin' along those lines. :mrgreen:

 

[JonMikal]

is a AMD better than a P4?

 

[Xmetal]

Depends which chip you're refering to...

Athlon = Pentium

Duron = Celeron

or something along those lines.

 

[Verbal]

Depends which chip you're refering to...

Athlon = Pentium

Duron = Celeron

or something along those lines.

Sorta... but that would be kinda confusing for someone not knowing the specifics.

In my opinion, AMD is better than Pentium because they're cheaper, and (in my experience - I've built 172 computers, btw) more reliable. Duron is an older AMD chip which isn't really used anymore, but Intel is still pushing their retarded Celeron chips because they're down near AMD's level of pricing... however Celeron's are a very low-quality chip, and I wouldn't ever recommend someone buy one.

 

[Rob]

I'd say that you'll be best off not worrying too much about the chip speed - there won't be too much of a noticable difference between say a P4 670 with HT technology 3.80GHz, 800MHz fsb, 2MB cache and say an Athlon XP 3000+ or whatever. Spend the extra on a good graphics card and more RAM for a smoother better performance.

Something like a 256Mb nVidia GeForce 7800GTX would be more than adequate, try and get at least 128Mb for heavy duty graphics stuff, especially if you have a large display. 1Gb of RAM is probably the amount to go for.

Rob

 

[voodoocat]

RAM is going to be key for photoshop (1gig minimum). The video card isn't going to make any difference. I've always recommended AMD over Intel because you get more bang for your buck.

 

[JonMikal]

i appreciate your input very much...you're awesome! :thumbup:

 

[JonMikal]

oh, i almost forgot and i know it's a debatable question; is there any particular brand to stay away from.

 

[Rob]

If PS is your primary performance application you may want to have a look at:

http://www.adobe.com/support/techdocs/318243.html

Rob

 

[Rob]

oh, i almost forgot and i know it's a debatable question; is there any particular brand to stay away from.

Apple? :mrgreen:

 

[JonMikal]

If PS is your primary performance application you may want to have a look at:

http://www.adobe.com/support/techdocs/318243.html

Rob

great info.

btw, can you mix ddr and ddr2? say you had a 512 ddr chip and a 512 ddr2 chip, is that better than (2) 512 ddr chips?

 

[Verbal]

great info.

btw, can you mix ddr and ddr2? say you had a 512 ddr chip and a 512 ddr2 chip, is that better than (2) 512 ddr chips?

It's pretty much a waste... I believe using two sticks like that will simply downclock your DDR2 to the speed of normal DDR.

 

[JonMikal]

It's pretty much a waste... I believe using two sticks like that will simply downclock your DDR2 to the speed of normal DDR.

gotcha.

 

[JonMikal]

what do ya think of this? i plan on adding an additional 512 ddr stick

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=7439603&type=product&productCategoryId=pcmcat60700050017&id=1124431830866