[Leica] What Desktop Computer to Buy These Days?

[datamaster at northcoastphotos.com (Gary Todoroff)]

Bob - Keep the old machine for your office functions. Buy a local 
newer dual-processor PC and dedicate it to Photoshop only. Get 
minimum 2gb memory. Keep it lean and clean. Have the local shop put 
in their smallest IDE hard drive for your boot OS and a RAID5 with 
SATA drives for your photo storage. Three 250GB SATAs will 
redundantly store 500GB. When (not if) one drive fails, you don't 
lose any data. Cost of the RAID disks and adapter -  about 
$400.  Make sure you local guys understand RAID. Add a Hard Drive 
tray for backup to cheap, removable IDE drives that can be stored as 
offsite backup (buy cheap 5400rpm IDE drives on eBay). Use a KVM 
switch so both machines use one keyboard and mouse, along with a new 
monitor for the Photoshop PC. If you still have money left over, put 
in the highest speed SCSI card you can afford, connected to a 18gb or 
36gb 15000rpm drive (e.g. Seagate Cheetah)  as your Photoshop scratch 
drive. Spend money on a $150 color monitor calibrator as first 
priority. Put a dual video card on the new machine, and configure 
your new PC to use the old monitor for your Photoshop tools windows. 
Switch to the old monitor with the KVM when you do e-mail on the old 
PC. Use the older PC for testing new programs and put as few programs 
on the new PC as possible.

Have your local dealer keep an eye out for recent trade-ins by 
computer gamers. They seem to like the latest stuff, and their one 
year old PC can make an excellent foundation for the above configuration.

PCs are like sports cars - lots of horsepower, not much torque. Keep 
'em lightly loaded; they aren't freight trucks.

Gary Todoroff
(Tree LUGger)
http://northcoastphotos.com/

At 04:46 PM 01/31/07, you wrote:
>My trusty Dell P4 1.7 ghz with 1 gb of ram turned 5 years old this 
>month, and like me, it is starting to have trouble keeping up with 
>the younger generation....so I would like to ask for the wisdom of 
>the LUG regarding a replacement.
>
>Aside from surfing the internet and a little word processing and 
>Quicken   financial and such, my main need is for a machine that 
>will quickly operate the very latest versions of photoshop and 
>lightroom and their various third-party plugins and maybe an image 
>cataloging program if I can settle on one I like.
>
>I am not a gamer and although I might watch a movie on it I don't 
>see myself doing much video editing.
>
>I see three routes:
>
>1. A new Dell;
>
>2. A new local shop built; or
>
>3. A new Mac Pro.
>
>It would be easier for me to stick with Windows XP Pro because I 
>know it, but I bought a G4 Powerbook to learn on last year and in 
>light of the new intel chip Macs that allow the running of some 
>windows programs  I am not totally Mac averse.
>
>A little while back people were speaking poorly of Dell 
>quality.  Has that changed?
>
>Obviously the key elements I need to consider are which processor 
>and which video card; I know to load up on ram.
>
>With those questions, and with a projected budget as far below 
>$3,000 US as I can stay, what is the current wisdom? What 
>specifications do I need?
>
>Many thanks for your help.
>
>--Bob Baron / Oklahoma City
>
>
>
>
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