Getting New Computer...need help

[john_mauser]

I do wedding photography on the side along with other digital

photography. I am looking to upgrade from my old laptop to a new

desktop. I am just curious what you think I would need as far as

hard drive size and memory size. I usually keep several hundred

images on the computer while I am working on them in photoshop. Next

year I will probably have a couple wedding's worth of images on the

hard drive at a time. Anything else I should customize when building

a laptop, ie speed? Thanks, John

[beauh44]

Hi John, I'm not sure if you're looking at an Apple or a Windoze system, but if it's the latter, you might want to <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/digitalphotography/expert/optimizedsystem.mspx">start here.</a> Good luck!

[acearle]

Dunno how you work, or if you sometimes shoot film and work with insanely large scans, but if you DO, I'd recommend a dual processor, regardless of Mac vs. PC. If they are your standard 12-14MB files from most DSLRs, dual processors is overkill. Memory? MINIMUMINIMUMish 1GB. With 1GB, for my porpoises, swapping to disk has ceased, and processor speed has become a factor. I'd go as fast as you can possibly afford, with the justification that it will have a 6-12 month longer useful life than the next system down. Hard drives? Personally, I have two 80GB drives in my desktop, and occasionally have space problems (I offload the images to DVD). However, my images are around 200MB each (film scans). I'd recommend a minimum of 160GB because what seems roomy today will be cramped soon (I think there is a natural law that the total data on a computer will grow to consume all available hard drive space within 12 months of installation of new drive).

 

BTW, my CPU is a Pentium 4 2.4GHz, with 1GB of RAM it takes about 3 minutes to run NeatImage on a single 200MB scan. That is with very little hard drive activity, most of the work is being done in RAM.

[john_mauser]

I was looking at the Dell packages. Thinking about 1GB memory and 250 GB Hard Drive. Anything else I should consider when shopping?

[andrew_certain]

If you look at the cost per GB for various sizes of hard drives and the cost per GB for

various sizes of RAM modules, you'll usually find the lowest cost per GB about 1/3 of the

way down from the highest-capacity drive/module. That's what the best value is.

 

I have a 160GB hard drive, which is 25% full, and 1GB RAM. You could certainly go with a

smaller capacity drive, but there's nothing as frustrating (to me, anyway) as having to

worry about disk space. The 1GB RAM is sufficient for

editting a 16-bit image from my 10D with several layers in Photoshop CS. I wouldn't go

much smaller than that if you want to edit a 6MP image in 16-bit mode.

 

Also, I've never heard anybody complain that they had too much disk space or RAM...

 

Andrew

[scott_eaton]

<I>Anything else I should consider when shopping?</i><P>The Dell Dimension 8400s and Precisions are nice machines. I've had significant performance and quality problems with the other lower end Dimensions (and strongly recommend you avoid them). There's about a $300 price difference between the 8400 and lower models, and boy, it sure is obvious when you use them side by side even with similiar processors.

[john_mauser]

Thanks for the info. The Dell Dimension 8400 is the one I was considering. I thought about going for the next lower model but now that you gave the info on the lower models I think I'll stay away from them. John

[scott_eaton]

I have no idea what's up with Dell, but all my tech friends are complaining about the same thing. The 8400's are nice boxes, and even though the processors are similiar with the lesser Dimensions, there's some serious performance issues with the cheaper machines. Where the line draws in the sand between the 2400 and 8400 I haven't quite clarified, but I can confirm the 8400's are nice machines and every 2400 I've deployed runs slower than a laptop.

 

In any respect the bottom tier machines from HP, Dell, IBM etc., have always generated the most complaints, while the upper tier workstations have much better satisfaction ratios.

[mendel_leisk]

Get more drives. Four is a comfortable number. 250 gig level is pretty good as far as size/price ratio, these days. And a dvd burner.

[mark_jacoby___raleigh__nc]

I got the Dell 8400 a few moths ago and love it. Highly recommend the 160gb hard drive, igb memory, Pentium 4 processor 530, 3ghz.

 

Great machine.

[brian_m2]

Take a look at ABS Computers. I have a machine with 360 gb HD RAID -0 striped, 1 gb RAM, and the AMD Athlon 64-FX processor (64 bit). I'm hoping to take advantage of the new 64-bit apps soon. I can't recommend it enough. ABS is great on customer service (unlike Dell). And you're not paying the ridiculous premium for an Intel processor (AMD is just as good).

[acearle]

The Dell looks like a good match...or any machine with those specs.