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Thanks useful information: 2
hey Arthur is there a limit as to how much 64 bit can use for RAM? I have seen computers for gaming at 24 gigs of RAM and 32 gigs for editing ala Mac Pro full powerhouse set ups etc. But can it fully utilize every single RAM or is there a bottleneck somewhere?
I have two pc's running win7 64 bit and its the most stable windows OS that I have seen. main PC with 12Gb ram runs like a dream and lappy with 4gb ram works just fine. Only issue I have is PS and most of the NIK software plugins only work in 32 bits. They will run in a 64 bit environment but not make use of the RAM available. I have to run the PS 32 bit version to use them. Hopefully they will continue to release 64 bit versions.
I would not hesitate with win 7 64 bit.
"It is one thing to make a picture of what a person looks like, it is another thing to make a portrait of who they are" - Paul Caponigro
Constructive Critique of my photographs is always appreciated
Nikon, etc!
RICK
My Photography
For wWindows 7:Originally Posted by JM Tran
* Starter: 8GB
* Home Basic: 8GB
* Home Premium: 16GB
* Professional: 192GB
* Enterprise: 192GB
* Ultimate: 192GB
Snow Leopard has a theoretical maximum of 16 exabytes (although obviously you can't fit that on to a regular motherboard), although any one process is limited to addressing 4 GB .
Threadstarter
Wow fantastic response and very assuring, my mind is made up thanks to all of your advice here on Win7 64 bit, an I7 processor, 8 Gb of ram, 2Tb fast HDD and a graphics card with at least 1Gb on board that exceeds all the requirements for CS5 plus al the usual IO bits and pieces.
I can't thank you all enough for your thoughts and advice on this.
You know this started out for me in April thinking I would buy a nice camera for my trip to the UK and by the time I get the PC will have cost me around $10k and I am just getting started, thank heavens for a tolerant wife
Thanks again everyone for your time and advice.
Cheers John
My Goal in life is to be as good a person as my dog thinks I am
John that's exactly what happened to me, except it was the US, and I'm about $10k in as well
There's only one thing that I would change with your proposal - and this is just a thought rather than a strong recommendation - I'd go with 2 x 1TB HDDs. You can use one as backup until you fill the first one (as I currently do) either iniside the main case or in a $30 odd dollar external eStata enclosure), or alternatively do things like put your programs on one, data on the other. Or everything on one and backup and scratch drive on the other It would only cost you 6 or 7 bucks more, and if one fails, you have one left over.
Threadstarter
Ahh thanks macca sound advice, puting my eggs in two baskets makes good sense and I will do that & get two 1Tb drives. I had also considered putting in a small solid state drive for the OS to run on, but they are a pricey bit of kit
What would be really nice would be a RAID array like Rick has, but there I know I would be really pushing my luck.
I thought the same about SSD - I think though that for me that needs to settle a little in price and in configuration complexity. Maybe after I fill the two drives I have...
Hey John.
Don't discount the AMD processors too!(that's what I got).
For not much of a hit in ultimate psuedo technobabble synthetic performance hit, get yerself an AMD x6(6 core) processor. MSY sell them for something like $200-300.. whereas for an equivalent Intel you pay more like $600 or more.
that saving goes towards a U-Beaut screen, more HDD's, or simply in-your-pocket.
People say that you get better performance with Intel processors, but me thinks for 99% of uses, you ain't going to notice it.
Are you really worried about taking 30 seconds longer in converting 1000 raw images to jpgs in a batch lot that takes 30mins anyhow?
$300 more on a 27" screen as opposed to that lowly 24" screen can make a 'longer term difference'.
basically once I started to use AMD(exclusively now), I'd never go back to Intel(except for laptops tho, as they do run cooler). The AMD supplied heatsinks are super efficient, so overheating of upper end AMD processors is something I've never experienced.
ALSO!! I recently posted a thread about fast-ish hdd's somewhere, and how old hdd's really slowed my pretty fast system a little while back.
I have a myriad of different hard drives to play with, and I recently found a test report that finished favourably for the Samsung 1Tb F3 hard drive in their performance tests.
So I got two. The specific model number is HD-103SJ, as there is a much less speedy HD-103SI also available too. For $70 you really can't go wrong, and they're quieter than the WD equivalents too(mainly in head rattle when reading furiously)
By far the biggest boost in performance on the PC has been in getting speedier hdd's.
From what I've read(so far.. or a month or two back) the 2Tb drives are generally slower... except maybe the WD black/caviar series.
I'd go even beyond what Tony recommended and get 3 1Tb drives.. and have it setup as: One drive for OS and programs, one for images/data and one specifically for cache(and temporary storage of other stuff).
(that's what I do)
My preferred program for editing my raw images is notorious for speed issues, and coming from an old AMDXP3200 processor system running WinXP, this new box is explosive by comparison. Where it used to take approximately 20seconds or so to fully render a 20mb raw file on the old system, the new box renders the same image in a second or less now. I also had a few self inflicted PC issues, where I somehow managed to kill hard drive speed with a system tweak. I then replaced these older drives with the new Samsung F3's and things are back to their explosive self again. I remember when using Light Room 3 way back(even on this new PC) it never felt as quick in editing raw images as CaptureNX was.. and when I found the setting to set cache to my dedicated cache drive, it started to drive a little faster(but crashed on batch editing 150images to jpg files, and it was only the trial version.. so it got executed in the re-install I had to do).
Again, as Tony said.. get an external eSATA drive(or try a USB3 version). The difference in transfer speed between eSATA and USB2 is incredible. When you get to the stage where you've filled 1Tb drives with images(as I find myself doing) drive speed and hence transfer speeds are the most important issue to deal with.
My motherboard has native USB3 support, but I haven't tried one yet.. and I want to pension off the uber slow USB2 drive one day soon.. but it's not an issue yet, it's a backup drive for my main backup drive, the eSATA drive.
Nikon D800E, D300, D70s
{Nikon}; -> 50/1.2 : 500/8 : 105/2.8VR Micro : 180/2.8 ais : 105mm f/1.8 ais : 24mm/2 ais
{Sigma}; ->10-20/4-5.6 : 50/1.4 : 12-24/4.5-5.6II : 150-600mm|S
{Tamron}; -> 17-50/2.8 : 28-75/2.8 : 70-200/2.8 : 300/2.8 SP MF : 24-70/2.8VC
{Yongnuo}; -> YN35/2N : YN50/1.8N
Current 64bit physical memory limit is 4PB (petabytes).
Loading Win7 on a Mac is really a waste. You are swapping to an inferior OS. (no I am not a Mac fanboi).
I have the best of both world. Run VMs on the Mac and load Win7 and XP as virtual machines when I need to run apps that are only available on Windows and no Mac equivalent.
Cheers
Rob
Last edited by Cheach; 21-10-2010 at 3:52am.
Mine too - but there still seems to be precious little that you can do with it...
Threadstarter
Just looked at an online dealer who I always use to buy components from and speced this up - seems damn good value. I might change the case as the one i picked is a bit showy
If you see anything wrong with this idea let me know
System assembly $55
INTEL i7-930 - INTEL CORE i7 PROCESSOR, 2.8GHz/4.8GT QPT/8MB CACHE/LGA1366 $406.56
ASRock X58 EXTREME, iX58,6*DDR3,3*PICE16,6*SATA,RAID,1394 $214.83
Corsair HX3X12G1600C9 12GB (6x XMS3 2GB) PC-12800 (1600MHz) XMS DDR3 For X58 MB/i7 Core $355.4
2 x Samsung Spinpoint, 1000GB SATA II 3.5" 32MB Cache, 7200rpm, HD103SJ $140.8
Gigabyte ATI HD 5850 PCI-E 2.0 1GB 256-bit GDDR5, 725/4000MHz, Dual DVI/ HDMI/ Display Port, DX $308.02
LG BluRay Burner, BH10LS30, 10xBD-R Read/Write, 16xDVD+-R Read/Write, SATA, LightScribe, Retail $145.2
GMC ATX Middle-Tower Case, R4 Bulldozer, Black, without PSU $68.2
700 watt ATX power supply Enermax, MODU87+ 700W CrossFireX™, 87 PLUS, EMG700AWT $198
Creative Sound Blaster Audigy Value - Retail, 7.1 channel, 100dB SNR, 24-bit Advanced HD2 Effects $38.72
LG W2353V-PF BLK Glossy 23" Widescreen LCD -16:9 (1920x1080), 2ms, HDMI, DVI, 50000:1 Contrast, Ful $208.67
LOGITECH CORDLESS DESKTOP EX90, USB/BLACK/WINDOWS XP - RETAIL $30.8
MICROSOFT MS W/L MOBILE MSE 6000 BLUETRACK MHC-00005 $49.38
Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate 64-BIT, GLC-00736, OEM 1PK - Must be purchased with hardware $218.21
Microsoft Office Home and Business 2010, ENG MICROCASE Product Key Card, No Media $228.94
Subtotal: $2,666.73
Cheers - JB
A few comments, if you wanted to drop the price a little (although the specs you have represent a kick-ar$e system)
Do you really need W7 Ultimate? You can get a family home pack (3 licenses) for less than the Ultimate cost.
12GB Ram might be a little overkill - I have 6, and that runs just nicely. it is not a big matter to later go and get more and install it yourself if need be.
The quoted price for the chip seems a little exxey.
The graphics card seems a little on the overkill side as well unless you are a gamer.
Unless you plan on storing alot of stuff optically, or watching blu-ray movies on your PC, you could probably drop the blu-ray burner in favour of a conventional one and save $100.
You seem to have 2 mice - the logitaech cordless desktop includes a mouse, and you have the microsoft bluetrack as a separate item.
I don't think that you need the sound card as the motherboard already has 7.1 integrated audio.
All together that would knock 6 or 7 hundred dollars off the price.
Threadstarter
Thanks for those observations, I also went back and looked again - dropped the Ram to 8Gb. I am not a gamer but wanted to make sure the graphics card could handle all aspects of photo and video editing i may ever need. I did pick a cheap sound card but did not check if the MB onboard sound would doi will definitely drop that then as the only sound i need is for comedy emails people send me and Itunes, I wll also look at backing off the W7 64bit version as you suggest to save a few bucks.
I have also found on the site an LG ultrathin 23" LED backlit monitor for less than $30 more
I too was unsure about the Blue Ray burner but Blue ray seems to be the coming thing so i thought for an extra $100 i might as well be ready for it. Never had anything to do with Blue ray before but i assume i can burn Photo Archive backups to it and fit around 4 DVD's worth on each disc ?
Will go back to the site tonight I think with your suggestions and pare it down a bit more before putting in my order.
Thanks for taking such a good look at the specs for me, an extra brain and pair of eyes is always a valued contribution. When i bought my last house I took a mate along and told him, "don't tell me what you like, tell me whats wrong and rip off my rose coloured glasses before i spend any money"
You're most welcome. One clarification - stay with W7 64bit, but just have a look at the differences between Ultimate and Home and see which one you need. 64 bit is the way to go, and it is available in several different flavours.
With the price of HDD space so cheap these days, I don't know too many people backing up to optical media such as blu-ray.
My Toshiba Laptop which I bought about 3 months ago had the option of Windows 7 32 bit and 64 bit. As the machine came with 4GB of RAM it made sense to use the 64bit version so I took that option. Only problem was Windows 7 32 bit version would not get though the first Windows update immediately after installation. I tried reinstalling 3 times and that was with no add-ins of extra equipment.
Over to the 32 bit version and no problems what so ever.
Cheers
PeterB666
I'd go with Win7 Pro(sorry.. make that I went with Win7 Pro!!) .. I found a few of the extra admin features I use all the time(I think $150 or so for the OEM version)
Macca's idea of forgetting the BlueRay burner makes sense, intially at least, unless you think you may ultimately want to burn to BR discs that is.
I got a seriously cheapo graphics card(I'm not a gamer either) and it runs both of my two screens, a 24"@ 1920x1080 and a 17"@ 1280x1024 at the same time with ease.
I watch the odd video every now and then too(not much tho).
They say men can't multitask.. but give' 'em two screens and watch them fly, I say!I'll have three or four apps running concurrently and continuously(or so it seems). made so much easier with dual screens tho.
Mine cost about $70 and is a Asus 1Gb ENGT 220(low end in the Nvidia lineup).. you don't need that much graphics power for photos and videos.
if you drop a few hundred here and there(easily done with your specs) you could easily set yourself up with two screens too.
If you go with the LG W2353 screen(I have the W2442, 24" as my main screen!!) plan to get yourself a calibrator too!
You may seriously need it. The difference between the default setup of the LG screen and how it subsequently looks when calibrated to match the older 17" screen is startling!
I stupidly purchased a Syder3 Elite.. for the software, but it turns out that the software is barely acceptable. I subsequently got BasicColor display which calibrates them a lot better.
The Sypder software does a much less efficient job of calibrating the two screens properly. It seemed to do one or the other ok, but setting the correct Gamma was an exercise in frustration.
Once I learned a little about BasicColor4.. I was sold on it.
The beauty of the basicColor software is that it will calibrate with just about any hardware calibration device.. Spyder's, Huey's and so forth. And I think you can purchase the BasicColor software with a hardware device, so saving a few dollars in going the integrated route.
Also, I'm not massively into Office type applications, so I never thought to bundle a cheaper Office suite into my purchase, but I do need access to various Office file formats and be able to create them for others to use too.
I tried out OpenOffice, and was very impressed at how well it handled MS Office files(so far), I resent various edits of Office file formats to my sis(who uses Office 2010) to confirm OO's ability to handle MS's file formats and she was happy with them.
My only issue with not having MS Office is that I can't sync entirely with my old PDA(WM2K3), and I haven't found any way to sync the PDA to OO. It syncs perfectly with the PC and I can access all files on the PDA, but I continuously get an error message that no associated email program is available(for the PDA to sync too). I don't use the PDA for emails tho.. the error message is just annoying.
Finally. make sure that the case is user friendly. Antec!!)
Problem is that the case was designed by monkeys on hallucinogenics!! adding hard drives is a pain in not only the bum, but on the fingers as well. Coming from a series of Antecs, who's hard drive bay designs were a pleasure to use, this Aero Cool case is a pile of junk. I now have all hdd bays filled. Not all drives are connected, but I don't want to go through the ordeal of adding a hdd to this case again.
(actually it's nto that bad as a case.. pumps a lot of air through itself, and once setup, is more than acceptable(9/10 in fact).. just adding hdd's is so painful, even when empty!
I should have spent the extra $100 on the Antec!(live and learn, I guess).
I'm not saying that you will be looking to add any more hdds into any PC case, but if the need ever arose, and the case was badly designed.. you'll regret it(then).
anyhow.. just a few other thoughts to share.. before you totally commit.
Just remember as you take more and more photos, and start filling the hdd's with 1Tb of images in 2 or 3 years... that Antec case will be an extra $100 that you'll be happy to have wasted away
Concur with King Arthur and Maccas.
Windows 7 pro x64
Don't skimp too much on the case. get a decent case and it will give you better cooling etc. Antec is a very good case. i got one and can't fault it
On board sound card is more than enough if you are not a gamer.
If you want good video card for apps rather than games, i would go with nVidia Quotro range.
Personally I would go with Seagate HDD.
Have looked at www.msy.com.au ? they generally have very good prices.
Cheers
Rob
Threadstarter
Thanks once again for the comprehensive assistance from you all in reviewing the specs and suggesting changes. I have the price down to $2240.00 now including monitor an LG 23" LED.
I down speced the graphics card to a Gigabyte ATA HD 5750, cut windows back to W7 Pro. 64bit and changed the case to an Antec Dark Fleet DF30 with a 600W PWS. The case looks realy well made from the specs and has plenty of easily accessable bays, i really liked the Antec server case too, but it was just way too deep at 26", but boy does it look like it would be easy to work on.
I kept the Blue ray burner, just in case I ever need one and because i like the LightScribe feature, it will save me looking for a printer with a CD tray.
That price still includes the same version of Office, but i plan to shop around for that tommorow and cut that price back too, so i should come in at less than $2K including frieght
Thanks in large part to you all reviewing the specs and pointing out where i have gone over the top.
A HUGE THANK YOU
Windows device drivers - by definition - for the most part run "unhindered" by the operating system and are at the mercy of the architecture of the underlying hardware. So there's no easy way Microsoft can "include a way" for 32-bit drivers to run on a 64-bit processor. The 32-bit code simply doesn't "expect" to be running on a 64-bit processor and (sometimes) breaks. There's not a lot anyone can do with a 64-bit-unfriendly 32-bit driver. For once, you can't blame Microsoft...
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Nikon D90
Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR II, Nikkor 35mm f/1.8G
Nikon SB-700 Speedlight
RRS BH-55 Ballhead & B2 AS II Clamp
(no legs yet)
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