EricM

<blockquote> <p>Thanks again, Eric. As I said that I don't know much about computer. I wonder how I specify CPU and GPU When you said:"a fast cpu..", did you mean the processor speed?</p> </blockquote> <p> <br> You're welcome, Jasmine. Yes, fast cpu means the frequency and is measured in GHz. </p>

<blockquote> <p>Photoshop uses all available physical cores. Lightroom uses all available logical cores via Hyper-threading. The white paper discusses why they use different methods.</p> </blockquote> <p><br /> Yes. But I'm not sure what you are trying to point out, Richard? If you have a six core cpu with hyperthreading, Ps will only use the 6 real cores but Lr will use the 6 real plus the 6 available from hyperthreading, and making it 12. That's what I've typed here, already.<br /> <br /> I've also typed that a cpu with fewer number of cores running at faster frequencies (ie. quad core @ 4.4ghz) will feed the gpu more effectively than a cpu with more cores operating at lower frequencies (six-core @ 3.6ghz). There is also the law of diminishing returns. <br /> </p> <blockquote> <p>Kinda off topic, but the OP is looking for a machine to run Photoshop CS6. </p> </blockquote> <p> <br> The op said in the last sentence both Ps and Lr.</p>

<p> </p> <blockquote> <p>Did anyone read the white paper from Adobe? Its goes into great detail on hardware requirements.</p> </blockquote> <p>Is there something in this thread that counters the white paper or your conclusion of it? I always find the Adobe "white" papers vague. It's nice however that they have finally typed more than three sentences on video cards this time, and are a bit more specific. The CS6 PS Optimize Hardware white paper links to a third party article on ssds that states that ssd showed little or no improvement...historically, the white papers are taken with a grain of salt and even countered by others like DigLloyd and SLR Lounge. This CC article leads us to believe 8gb of ram is "the sweet spot"?</p> <blockquote> <p>For this discussion, Photoshop is similar enough to Lightroom in regards to hardware acceleration technologies exposed via OpenGL, OpenCL, and CUDA.</p> </blockquote> <p>I disagree with this. Maybe things have changed with Lr and I didn't notice, but as far as I know, Lr doesn't use OpenGL, OpenCL, or CUDA. Lightroom doesn't use gpu to the extent that Ps does. Depending on the size of your monitor and the size of your previews in Lr, usually the on-board graphics of the cpu is enough to drive Lr.</p> <p>For cpu, Lr and Ps are also written entirely different and use cpu resources differently. Anyone that works in both Ps and Lr and keeps an eye on their cpu monitor while working, knows this. My i7, with four real cores and four virtual cores, will use all 8 cores in Lr and only 4 cores in Ps.</p> <p>If you are under a budget and building a computer primarily for Ps, you would spend the money on a fast cpu quad core, lots of ram, and a decent gpu. If you are building a computer primarily for Lr, you would spend the money on a more expensive 6 or 8 core cpu, not needing as much ram, and probably a low-end gpu. </p>

<p>Jasmine, I'd chose a Dell over those low-end HP's. You can also purchase directly from Micorsoft now. It's a bit more expensive, but it doesn't come loaded with bloatware and 30 different trial versions that will constantly pop up and pester you for attention.<br> </p> <blockquote> <p> <br> <br> Choose more physical cores versus a faster processor with less cores when picking CPU.</p> </blockquote> <p>With Lightroom, yes. With Photoshop, no. Photoshop isn't coded to run on multi-threaded cores, therefore anything over a quad-core, is waste imo. Money is better spent on a $400 4.0ghz quad-core as one will certainly have better Photoshop performance on the quad-core than otherwise on a slower $700 3.5ghz six-core or even a $1200 3.0ghz octa-core.</p> <p>It is the opposite with Lightroom. It is coded to run on multiple cores and therefore spending more money on a $700 3.5ghz six-core, will give you a faster performance than a $400 4.0ghz quad-core. Lightroom doesn't need ram or gpu to the extent of Photoshop.</p> <p>Photoshop needs ram and feel that 8gb is the bare min today. I run 32gb and often use 100% of it.</p> <p> </p>

<p>Howard, the "Mac isnt any better." statement was in regards to Harry's opinion.<br> </p> <blockquote> <p>Windows that never seems to get any better no matter how many patches and updates.</p> </blockquote>

You have to nuke any store bought Windows machine in order to get rid of the bloatware. It's people on a two year old Dell from the big box office depot that usually complain about Windows and not so much from those that custom build with a clean instal Mac isnt any better.

I'm really liking Mint Cinnamon over Ubuntu

<p>A little. And they are known to be a bit finicky. It's a geek thing for sure </p>

<p>And also sorta Unix/Linux, Adobe and Google have Photoshop running in the cloud via Chrome browser. Sadly, it's only for educational purposes at the moment </p>

<blockquote> <p>I can be a happy camper with a card reader that is much slower than 200 mb/s, <strong>as long as it's reliable</strong>. </p> </blockquote> <p>My fastest card with my external usb3 Lexar 3 card reader, does 150mb/s to my internal ssd. With those speeds, I never bothered looking at internal card readers.</p>

<p>lol @ Richard. Yes, the early days with diy kits, I wouldn't tempt it either. But if you research the Corsair wc units, they are fine and fit inside the Corsair 500 case nicely. Mine will be three years old in June and no issues. And less air movement also means less dust and dog hair as well.</p>

<p>I don't see adding a pcie card and going with two internal hard drives on raid 1 inside my computer as simpler, or safer, than a two bay external nas. I've done raid 0 for years on a few computers and I know first hand that with a single windows or bios update and suddenly you're in there tweaking things again to get your raid up and going. And to have your nas on Windows or osx? No thank you. I love having my nas on Unix and plugged into my router. It suits me much better than having all those drives and data stuffed into my Corsair 500 and wish I had done a nas box much sooner than now</p> <blockquote> <p>... but make sure before buying that the NAS these large disks are meant to be used in can handle them.</p> </blockquote> <p>Funny you mention that. Great advice. I bought my 1515 or whatever it is and the Synolgy FAQ page says that you can use up to 3Tb drives so that's what I went with... 5 x 3TB. Then the user forums at Synolgy are confirming that people are using the newer 6TB red drives in the older nas just fine. I wish I had started with 3 x 6TB red drives and then just filled the last two bays with 6TB drives when when I needed. Oh well. At least you can daisy chain these nas boxes.</p> <p> </p>

<p>Another reason why I love water cooling...everything goes where it supposed to</p>

Click bait. With "exposed" and "scheme" in the headline, I anticipated reading about how he broke the law.

Seems simple to buy a pcie raid controller and hook up a couple 4tb red drives. But layers of defense would be a nas running on Unix and protected from viruses/spyware/malware that the OS would otherwise make your internal Windows raid vulnerable to. Internal raid 1 or 5 is also another duty for the OS and cpu when I'd rather them be busy with Lr?

Agree with QG above. I wouldn't put raid 1 (or raid 5) inside a computer. I also feel a two bay nas is pointless and you may as well just stick with external drives in enclosures. Raid 5 in a three bay nas makes more sense to me although it is a lot slower than raid 1 or raid 10. But you don't use a nas for speed. The differences in raid 1 or 5 should be researched before jumping in though. http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/244377-32-raid-raid-raid I don't like Drobo or any of the smaller nas companies for the reasons Jeff mentions. Also with nas, most run a variant of Unix/Linux and is another safety net.

<p>Optical burning is a great idea. But I don't understand how can you have a 45gb catalog with only a 1.5TB hard drive of images?</p> <p>I love my nas and suggest them all the time now. Although I'm only a half a year into using one, I wish I had started it sooner. I'd perhaps look at a 3 bay nas made by Qnap or Synology and then put 3 x 4TB western digital red drives in it and run them raid 5. Raid 5 with 3 x 3Tb will give you just under 6TB of space but also allow for the comforting ability that if one drive goes bad and dies, you just replace the bad drive and the nas rebuilds itself without losing any data.</p> <p>Another thing to consider is MS Office 365. With their $9/mnth subscription, you get unlimited cloud storage in their OneDrive. I'm currently in the midst of switching to it from the popular Crashplan for cloud backup. I've confirmed with MS and they will take my 10TB of data.</p> <p>I use SyncBack software to mirror/synchronize my drives. When I export from Lr to my computer, a mirror copy of the file is sent to the nas as well as MS OneDrive. That's really handy when I open other computers/tabs/phones and have my Lr work instantly available on them. The OneDrive app for Android is surprisingly nice as well.</p>

<p>My life has never been easier and safer since switching to gmail in 2005. I shudder at all the spam that used to come into Outlook prior to using Gmail and how vulnerable I used to be when downloading heavens-knows-what via Outlook. I'll let google deal with any possible threats that are sent my way before I even open gmail. My wife is on a Google Chrome book and that is by far the safest way to use the net, imo. Too bad Adobe wont run on it...sigh. I also really appreciate the <a href="http://googleprojectzero.blogspot.ca/">"Project Zero"</a> that Google has been doing and <a href="http://www.zdnet.com/article/googles-project-zero-reveals-three-apple-os-x-zero-day-vulnerabilities/">bringing to light some of the Apple and MS vulnerabilities</a> that don't otherwise seem to get attention. Both Google and MS seem to be putting a fair amount of effort into making the net a safer place. Windows 8 is much safer than W7 and hopefully W10 (and only having a MS app store to mostly download from) will be even safer.</p>

<p><br />Matt knows his stuff alright. But a heck of lot changes in three years in regards to av security. This is the general consensus of MS Essentials in the geek tech world. Just googleing MSE would make me choose a free alternative like Avast instead.<br> <a href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/replace-microsoft-security-essentials-proper-antivirus/">Why You Should Replace Microsoft Security Essentials With A Proper Antivirus</a></p> <blockquote> <p>Microsoft threw its hat in the anti-virus arena in 2009 with Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE), a tool that runs on Windows XP, 7 and 8. The move received early praise, as it seemed strange that the company had gone so long without providing even the most basic anti-virus protection, and early tests showed MSE to be nearly as effective as paid competitors.<br />The honeymoon didn’t last, however. More recent tests have shown that MSE doesn’t provide the features users should look for in an effective anti-virus. Here’s where it falls short – and what you should look for in a replacement.</p> <p>Ironically, MSE has fallen victim to the problem it was meant to solve. Windows has always been the most popular target of malware because it’s the most popular operating system. Now that MSE is out, and used by millions of users, it too has become a target.<br />Whether this is the reason why the software suffers from such power scores in independent tests is hard to say. The idea that malware developers might be taking MSE into account when creating a new Trojan or virus is plausible, but also hard to prove one way or the other.</p> <p>Still not convinced that you should look for a third-party security suite? Then perhaps you’ll take Microsoft’s advice!<br />Holly Stewart, senior program manager of the Microsoft Malware Protection Center, told Dennis Technology Labs that the company only pursues a “baseline strategy.” In other words, MSE isn’t designed to be good, and is instead developed to head off only the most prevalent attacks. She also said that “the natural progression is that we will always be on the bottom of these [antivirus] tests.” This is allegedly because Microsoft actively shares what it knows about security threats with third-party partners.</p> <p>A good antivirus stops the vast majority of threats, has features that protect against a wide range of threats, and doesn’t see its effectiveness reduced by fakes or threats specifically designed to circumvent it.<br />MSE, unfortunately, fails in all three areas. Initial praise for the software has turned to disappointment and it’s now clear that a third-party antivirus remains the best pick even for users who don’t want to pay. While it does provide some protection, there’s no reason to use MSE when other free antiviruses provide better protection, better performance and more features.</p> </blockquote> <p>http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/replace-microsoft-security-essentials-proper-antivirus/</p> <p><a href="http://www.howtogeek.com/173291/goodbye-microsoft-security-essentials-microsoft-now-recommends-you-use-a-third-party-antivirus/">Goodbye Microsoft Security Essentials: Microsoft Now Recommends You Use a Third-Party Antivirus</a></p> <blockquote> <p>We’d like to apologize for continuing to recommend Microsoft Security Essentials for so long, in spite of test results. We found it worked for us and we didn’t like how heavy and obnoxious other antivirus solutions can be. We believed Microsoft when they argued that MSE provided “comprehensive malware protection” for real-world threats and that antivirus tests weren’t representative of real-world results, as MSE performed well for us. We feel betrayed by Microsoft — they made an internal decision to let MSE decline without telling us. They’re still communicating two different messages — one to antivirus testing companies in interviews and one to average users on their website.</p> </blockquote> <p>http://www.howtogeek.com/173291/goodbye-microsoft-security-essentials-microsoft-now-recommends-you-use-a-third-party-antivirus/</p>

<blockquote> <p>Bad news? It made absolutely ZERO difference in the speed of the PC. I immediately did the test we've been using all along, that is pulling up that one image and hitting filter-liquefy.<br> </p> </blockquote> <p>You haven't run memtest86 and unsure why you aren't responding to the mention of it. It is so common to get a bad stick of ram or a flaky dimm slot on a mothboard. Memtest and a burnin stress test are the two diagnostic tests that every custom computer builder runs after assembly. Goofing around like this or resorting to upgrading to CC is what you do after eliminating the possible hardware problems out of the equation, not before.<br> <br> I said it in the beginning of this thread. Find the local pimply-faced teenager that builds gaming boxes and through him $75.</p>

<blockquote> <p>When I do have to use Windows (Win7/64bit), I use Microsoft Security Essentials. It's Windows own security program......you would think that they would know best how to protect themselves. So far, no problems.<br> </p> </blockquote> <p>But MS is the first to admit they are not the best at zero day first attacks and they themselves suggest people use paid third party av software. MS Essentials was really popular with XP through to Windows 7 but lately, you're better off with a free Avast imo. I use Clam av on my mac book pro as well as on Linux Mint. <br> <br> The thing with (good) viruses is that you don't know you have a problem at all. We really do just cross our fingers the whole time and hope for the best as we never know if we're safe and uninfected. Just look how many people have been using Lenovo all this time along with every single av product on the market, and it wasn't detected? This stuff freaks me out...f<a href="http://www.cnet.com/news/nsa-planted-surveillance-software-on-hard-drives-report/">rom www.cnet.com</a><br> <br /><em>In a new report, Kaspersky revealed the existence of a group dubbed The Equation Group capable of directly accessing the firmware of hard drives from Western Digital, Seagate, Toshiba, IBM, Micron, Samsung and other drive makers. As such, the group has been able to implant spyware on hard drives to conduct surveillance on computers around the world.</em><br> <br> http://www.cnet.com/news/nsa-planted-surveillance-software-on-hard-drives-report/<br> <br> </p>

<p>I ment to say Eset Nod 32 earlier, not Avast Nod 32...where's the edit button...</p> <p>Lifehacker has a decent article on the top five and wont even list MS Essentials because even MS themselves advises you to use a paid third party av software http://lifehacker.com/five-best-desktop-antivirus-applications-1607557993</p>

<p>Kaspersky and Avast Nod 32 are the two best. Great choice, Alan. Malwarebytes is another great bit of software you can run with Kaspersky.</p>

<p>I read this article last night after posting incorrect info. I wish you could edit and correct your posts on PN like every other forum and social media site on the net...anyways, great noob article and indeed, it seems your ram frequency is in fact set incorrectly </p> <p>http://www.overclock3d.net/articles/memory/how_to_manually_set_up_your_ram_speed_timings_and_voltage/1</p> <blockquote> <p>So in Randy's case, the actual speed should be about 1500 (3000/2) if it was running at full speed.</p> </blockquote> <p> <br> Yes. And I'm convinced there is something up with his ram or settings. He shouldn't be waiting 8 seconds for Liquefy filter to perform on such a small file with this new computer of his. Do a memtest! Any IT worth their salt would have done one by default anyways </p>

Superb, thanks Richard