Speaking of Calendar Proofs....

[Neous]

PC over Mac this is the harley vs metrics topic in the music forums i frequent.
the mac is undoubtebly the computer you'd like if you're starting out but if you've been using your own software and all that on the pc the learning curve of a new app is never fun. i'll vote for the pc as you can readily upgrade it. AlienWare gets my vote as far as superiority but dell can be customized to be just as bad azz.
as you've mentioned there is also the thing about software

if you do go the PC route check out this place for coupons http://www.cheapstingybargains.com/ i saved alot of money using it.

[ImpactG]

Ask ten people and you'll get ten answers in regard to preferences. As far as the Mac - PC debate goes, Mac's were far ahead of the game years ago and dominated the graphics industry -- simply because they were the only game in town. Print houses and Graphic service shops built their business around their Mac equipment and, because making the switch to PC platform (or integrating) would have been too costly, the industry took an elitist approach. Don't get me wrong, Mac's were superior in the day, but that day's long past. Why do you think most 'Mac' software (Photoshop and other Adobe software for example) quickly put out releases that could run on the PC. How many 'PC' software companies did the opposite. In addition, Apple is now using Intel processors which have been the mainstay in PC construction for years. Anyway, one's not better than the other -- pick you poison.

In regards to PC builders -- they all use the same components. Pick you choice of Motherboard, Processer, Graphics Card, RAM, etc., put it in a case and slap a Dell, HP or Gateway sticker on it. It really comes down to customer service to determine which company you want to choose. To find the computer that suits you, decide which company you feel comfortable with and then go looking to see what 'canned' systems they offer that suits your needs, which will save you money over having one custom built.

My computer at home is an HP. I like HP and have always had good luck with their systems and services. At work, mine computer is custom built but very expensive. I can work on the same things at work as at home -- just not quite as quickly. I had to buy the computer at home, so it was a fair tradeoff!

To answer your question, check out the major manufactures you trust and see what they offer in a system inside your price range. Compare specs until you find the best bang for your buck.

The only suggestion I would tell your wife is to have at least 1GB of Ram if she's doing high-end graphics and a Video Card with 64 Meg of onboard memory. The files I work with on this calendar can be upwards of 200MB each with all the layers and because I need to maintain a higher resolution so their print-ready when we go to press. If she does similar work, she'll be pulling out her hair with anything less. RAM is key! Oh, and Photoshop is the gold standard photo-editing/design software. Nothing else even comes close.

Hope this helps.

[darkwolf29a]

I used to be a HUGE Apple hater, even though my brother has worked for the company for years. But, of late....I'm rethinking that.

They still hold the graphics market, and are catching up in the regular sectors as well. Facts are, soon they'll be able to do anything a PC can do now. It's just the software has to catch up some. Some of the programs you can get for the PC aren't available for the Mac, yet. And that is a very small yet.

With the introduction of Mac OS/X they have made a lot of strides to equalize themselves with the PC market. In fact, they run Unix better than a PC runs Unix. And....the fact is, Windows core and Apple's is now Unix based. You just get the pretty GUI screens over the top.

The days of the old DOS operating system are truly over now, or will be as soon as Vista comes out.

That stated...I build my own PCs. The only thing I'll buy is a laptop. I tend to upgrade my PCs with new motherboards and graphics cards. I do a lot, personally, with graphics stuff (Photoshop, Bryce, Poser, etc) and games. These programs take a lot of memory and graphics capabilities. Regular systems just won't do.

[darkwolf29a]

Originally Posted by ImpactG

Ask ten people and you'll get ten answers in regard to preferences. As far as the Mac - PC debate goes, Mac's were far ahead of the game years ago and dominated the graphics industry -- simply because they were the only game in town. Print houses and Graphic service shops built their business around their Mac equipment and, because making the switch to PC platform (or integrating) would have been too costly, the industry took an elitist approach. Don't get me wrong, Mac's were superior in the day, but that day's long past. Why do you think most 'Mac' software (Photoshop and other Adobe software for example) quickly put out releases that could run on the PC. How many 'PC' software companies did the opposite. In addition, Apple is now using Intel processors which have been the mainstay in PC construction for years. Anyway, one's not better than the other -- pick you poison.

+1

Originally Posted by ImpactG

The only suggestion I would tell your wife is to have at least 1GB of Ram if she's doing high-end graphics and a Video Card with 64 Meg of onboard memory. The files I work with on this calendar can be upwards of 200MB each with all the layers and because I need to maintain a higher resolution so their print-ready when we go to press. If she does similar work, she'll be pulling out her hair with anything less. RAM is key! Oh, and Photoshop is the gold standard photo-editing/design software. Nothing else even comes close.

Hope this helps.

I can't agree wiht only 64MB of video RAM. There are too many situations I have found myself in, recently, where more video RAM has helped me out big time. I have a Nvidia GT6800 GT with 256 MB RAM, and doing some of the rendering and graphical type stuff I do...I just need more then 64mb. My laptop has 64mb on it, and it just isn't the same as my 256MB. I would suggest that the more RAM, video and regular, that you can get...is all the better.

Currently, I'm running an AMD 3800+, 2 GB RAM, Nvidia GT 6800 GT with 256MB Video RAM, and 240 GB of Hard drive space. I, rarely, ever have problems with software crashes etc.

[Crue]

Originally Posted by darkwolf29a

+1



I can't agree wiht only 64MB of video RAM. There are too many situations I have found myself in, recently, where more video RAM has helped me out big time. I have a Nvidia GT6800 GT with 256 MB RAM, and doing some of the rendering and graphical type stuff I do...I just need more then 64mb. My laptop has 64mb on it, and it just isn't the same as my 256MB. I would suggest that the more RAM, video and regular, that you can get...is all the better.

Currently, I'm running an AMD 3800+, 2 GB RAM, Nvidia GT 6800 GT with 256MB Video RAM, and 240 GB of Hard drive space. I, rarely, ever have problems with software crashes etc.

+1 to that

My laptop has a 256mb Geforce 6600 Go and my desktop has a 7900 gt (also 256mb).

[ImpactG]

Originally Posted by darkwolf29a

+1



I can't agree wiht only 64MB of video RAM. There are too many situations I have found myself in, recently, where more video RAM has helped me out big time. I have a Nvidia GT6800 GT with 256 MB RAM, and doing some of the rendering and graphical type stuff I do...I just need more then 64mb. My laptop has 64mb on it, and it just isn't the same as my 256MB. I would suggest that the more RAM, video and regular, that you can get...is all the better.

Currently, I'm running an AMD 3800+, 2 GB RAM, Nvidia GT 6800 GT with 256MB Video RAM, and 240 GB of Hard drive space. I, rarely, ever have problems with software crashes etc.

I certainly wouldn't disagree with you. The more RAM the better. But if LordGT's wife is just doing some basic photo editing/design - even in a software program as memory intensive as Photoshop - 64 would serve her well. I'm certain he doesn't want to take out a second mortgage on his home and you know how the prices jump on graphics cards when you step up from 64MB. Significant price increase. Now if he's going to do any gaming -- it's a given!

[Neous]

http://www.cheapstingybargains.com/

[darkwolf29a]

Originally Posted by ImpactG

I certainly wouldn't disagree with you. The more RAM the better. But if LordGT's wife is just doing some basic photo editing/design - even in a software program as memory intensive as Photoshop - 64 would serve her well. I'm certain he doesn't want to take out a second mortgage on his home and you know how the prices jump on graphics cards when you step up from 64MB. Significant price increase. Now if he's going to do any gaming -- it's a given!

Ahh...incorrect, sir.

http://www.pricewatch.com

Your friend for all things computer. Seriously, I paid $150.00 for mine. I have paid A LOT more for less, that's for sure. You can find some really good deals, if you watch out for them. Honestly, when I build a new computer, I start months in advance and start watching prices closely, to get the best deals.

[ImpactG]

Originally Posted by darkwolf29a

Ahh...incorrect, sir.

http://www.pricewatch.com

Your friend for all things computer. Seriously, I paid $150.00 for mine. I have paid A LOT more for less, that's for sure. You can find some really good deals, if you watch out for them. Honestly, when I build a new computer, I start months in advance and start watching prices closely, to get the best deals.

I understand what you're saying, Wolf, but I don't think LordGT is looking to build his own system. Of course it's been a couple of years since I bought a new computer (I did upgrade my Video Card last year for gaming), but I believe the 'package' companies will charge a premium for any upgrades over the standard, which is (at least was) 64MB. Then again, things change so fast...

[bross]

Here's our two standard dell configs for cad stations, a 390 and a 490

[LordGT]

Originally Posted by Army_of_Ninja

ever heard of Alienware? They are leading edge graphics and are very cool looking to boot. I"d definitely have one if i could afford one i've wanted one since i first heard about them 2 years ago. ALIENWARE nothing but good reviews from everyone i've ever talked too.

*
ok ya i definitely need to read more of the post before i type a response lol but i still stand by the alienware one day i'll have one

Oh I've heard of Alienware. They are mostly considered a Big Gamers Computer, very fast graphics for games, high resolutions and high frames per second. Some are liquid cooled.

I just don't know if a Great Gaming computer equals a great Graphics/Multimedia/video editing computer.


I'm not ignorant of computers and what each part does, ie: Ram, Processor, Dual Channel DDR Ram, Front Side Bus speeds, IDE, AGP video ...etc..etc.. but I'm no expert. I got away from building my own computers back when we used Windows for Workgroups 3.11, or maybe a little after, when Win95 came out.

Some of the newer stuff I have heard about, kinda know what it does, but have never delt with it, like the SLI set up for dual video cards, sounds good, but does it help only in games or will it be helpful on a Multimedia computer? Same with the hard drives, I've always used just one, now they have Raid setups, using two drives at a time. How will this fit into what Debi wants to do?

Debi doesn't play games, well nothing with intense graphics anyway, but that's not to say it will never be used for that.


Answering one question brings up 3 more...



Thanks everyone for your inputs, I'm reading them all...

[danb]

I am a consultant/network geek, I am responsible for hardware/software on about 10 networks. Mostly I deal with WinTel, however two of my clients are larger print companies, Most of the "creative people" there have mac fever and have no clue about anything else. Recently, they have been forced to move to a dual environment as more and more of their clients are sending files to them built in Windows programs.

When building a good computer for a client the first thing to find out is how the client uses that computer, and then build a computer that maximizes the subsystems that they need most. If your hard drives are slow, all the ram or processor in the world won’t make that computer fast.

I found that they are opening files that are huge, 10 meg up to the gig size files. I built them a computer that has lots of ram and a 3ware raid controller with 256 meg cache and a pci-x interface, 3X400 gig hard drives with 16 meg caches, with two drives striped. This allows the computer to read or write to the stripped drives at 2x hard drive speedafter the cache is filled and to burst write at a far larger amount than one drive can do. The third drive is for swap file only.

They kept telling me “ my buddy has a windows computer he got at Future Shop and it is a piece of sh** compared to my G5”. No kidding, comparing a $500 computer to a $4000 is totally senseless. When they got to use the Windows machine, they shut up fast when I told them that it cost $1000. less than a mac, and software is a lot cheaper also.

I guess you get what you pay for.. a $500 mac is called i-pod.. lets see that create a pdf file from illustrator!!

[ImpactG]

Originally Posted by danb

I am a consultant/network geek, I am responsible for hardware/software on about 10 networks. Mostly I deal with WinTel, however two of my clients are larger print companies, Most of the "creative people" there have mac fever and have no clue about anything else. Recently, they have been forced to move to a dual environment as more and more of their clients are sending files to them built in Windows programs.

When building a good computer for a client the first thing to find out is how the client uses that computer, and then build a computer that maximizes the subsystems that they need most. If your hard drives are slow, all the ram or processor in the world won’t make that computer fast.

I found that they are opening files that are huge, 10 meg up to the gig size files. I built them a computer that has lots of ram and a 3ware raid controller with 256 meg cache and a pci-x interface, 3X400 gig hard drives with 16 meg caches, with two drives striped. This allows the computer to read or write to the stripped drives at 2x hard drive speedafter the cache is filled and to burst write at a far larger amount than one drive can do. The third drive is for swap file only.

They kept telling me “ my buddy has a windows computer he got at Future Shop and it is a piece of sh** compared to my G5”. No kidding, comparing a $500 computer to a $4000 is totally senseless. When they got to use the Windows machine, they shut up fast when I told them that it cost $1000. less than a mac, and software is a lot cheaper also.

I guess you get what you pay for.. a $500 mac is called i-pod.. lets see that create a pdf file from illustrator!!

+1

[2WheelFun]

Originally Posted by danb

I am a consultant/network geek, I am responsible for hardware/software on about 10 networks. Mostly I deal with WinTel, however two of my clients are larger print companies, Most of the "creative people" there have mac fever and have no clue about anything else. Recently, they have been forced to move to a dual environment as more and more of their clients are sending files to them built in Windows programs.

When building a good computer for a client the first thing to find out is how the client uses that computer, and then build a computer that maximizes the subsystems that they need most. If your hard drives are slow, all the ram or processor in the world won’t make that computer fast.

I found that they are opening files that are huge, 10 meg up to the gig size files. I built them a computer that has lots of ram and a 3ware raid controller with 256 meg cache and a pci-x interface, 3X400 gig hard drives with 16 meg caches, with two drives striped. This allows the computer to read or write to the stripped drives at 2x hard drive speedafter the cache is filled and to burst write at a far larger amount than one drive can do. The third drive is for swap file only.

They kept telling me “ my buddy has a windows computer he got at Future Shop and it is a piece of sh** compared to my G5”. No kidding, comparing a $500 computer to a $4000 is totally senseless. When they got to use the Windows machine, they shut up fast when I told them that it cost $1000. less than a mac, and software is a lot cheaper also.

I guess you get what you pay for.. a $500 mac is called i-pod.. lets see that create a pdf file from illustrator!!

LMAO!!!!

[LordGT]

Originally Posted by ImpactG

I understand what you're saying, Wolf, but I don't think LordGT is looking to build his own system. Of course it's been a couple of years since I bought a new computer (I did upgrade my Video Card last year for gaming), but I believe the 'package' companies will charge a premium for any upgrades over the standard, which is (at least was) 64MB. Then again, things change so fast...

Wow, where to start. I have built or have had built my last few computers from the same place over the last 8 years. What I have found out is that while on the outside you can see all these nice specs of Ram, Processor speed, Video card speed/ram/type of slot, AGP vs PCI..blah..blah...blah...they all go about it in different ways.

Some Mother Boards have a lot of that stuff built in, others add all the options separately. Sound Cards and Video Cards being the two this usually happens with.

Some Motherboards say you can disable their video card, and add your own, great???? But the manufacturer told me once, that if you plan on putting your own video card in, get a different M/B, because even though it says you can disable the onboard video, they still have compatibility problems.

Lots of Ram is a good thing, but now you have to look at the Front Side Bus speed the ram traverses. Not only that, if the M/B has dual channel it's supposed to be faster to break a Gig of ram into two 512 MB ram sticks and run one on each channel, which is supposed to basiclly double your ram speed.

SLI for video cards. Same sort of thing, run two slightly slower video cards together is supposed to blow away a faster single card. They both take 1/2 the load instead of being pushed to the limits I guess.

Hard drives, which one and which standard to use, IDE, or one of the others, One drive or a raid set up with multiple drives.

You may find a Computer with a really fast Processor, but it's Front Side Bus for the Ram is only 1/2 the speed as another PC with a slighty slower PC. Which one really runs faster????

A PC is like plumbing in a way, you can have all the huge pipes you want, to push huge amounts of water along, but if just ONE section is just 1/2 the diameter of the rest, then you have a bottle neck and you limit the water flow with just ONE piece of pipe.

Same thing with PC's, all those components have to work in harmony or in sync with each other, or that Mega fast Processor speed is of no importance. If you limit the Ram to only 16 MB's, that super fast computer is a slug, if it's all Mega fast and you choose an old video card with less ram, some of the newer games will just overwhelm that card and your mega fast Processor PC is still junk. Video cards have their own processors and ram on them to take the load off of the system's Processor, to free it up to do other tasks.

You all make good points, and have different experiences. And all this info will help guide me to a perfect choice I hope...

Debi used to have an HP, and she had good luck with them.
I hear good things about Dell, but then I hear reliability is an issue from some.
Gateway had a nice sounding PC, ran 2nd in the speed testing, but they rated it low for terrible customer service.

Customer service is a big deal, as some have implied. If you've ever worked with one of the customer service people you know what I mean, sometimes they are just stupid, they read a script and go down a list of things to try, not because they know what they are doing, but because it's a procedure they follow. You tell them you have a video card problem, and they end up telling you to change the Oil in your Vulcan...WHAT in the hell does my bike have to do with my video card???? Ok a bit of a stretch, but I'm not far off.

A lot of nice features/specs sound GREAT on paper but some don't really deliver in the real world every day use.

So again, I am listening to all comments and learning from your experiences to help me decide on what to build.

The one thing that really has me confused or is where I have minimal knowledge on, is the hard drive setups.

Does anyone really understand the whole drive concept?
IDE vs ATA vs SATA, vs Raid and Striping? Having two or three drives running at once. I assume it's kinda like having dual channels for the DDR Ram on the M/B??

In reality, I believe the Hard Drives are your SLOWEST point on a PC. They are getting faster, but they can NOT run near the speed of the Ram or Processor, so usually Data transfers from a drive are your slowest point or bottle neck.

[danb]

Originally Posted by LordGT

Wow, where to start. I have built or have had built my last few computers from the same place over the last 8 years. What I have found out is that while on the outside you can see all these nice specs of Ram, Processor speed, Video card speed/ram/type of slot, AGP vs PCI..blah..blah...blah...they all go about it in different ways.

Some Mother Boards have a lot of that stuff built in, others add all the options separately. Sound Cards and Video Cards being the two this usually happens with.

Some Motherboards say you can disable their video card, and add your own, great???? But the manufacturer told me once, that if you plan on putting your own video card in, get a different M/B, because even though it says you can disable the onboard video, they still have compatibility problems.

Lots of Ram is a good thing, but now you have to look at the Front Side Bus speed the ram traverses. Not only that, if the M/B has dual channel it's supposed to be faster to break a Gig of ram into two 512 MB ram sticks and run one on each channel, which is supposed to basiclly double your ram speed.

SLI for video cards. Same sort of thing, run two slightly slower video cards together is supposed to blow away a faster single card. They both take 1/2 the load instead of being pushed to the limits I guess.

Hard drives, which one and which standard to use, IDE, or one of the others, One drive or a raid set up with multiple drives.

You may find a Computer with a really fast Processor, but it's Front Side Bus for the Ram is only 1/2 the speed as another PC with a slighty slower PC. Which one really runs faster????

A PC is like plumbing in a way, you can have all the huge pipes you want, to push huge amounts of water along, but if just ONE section is just 1/2 the diameter of the rest, then you have a bottle neck and you limit the water flow with just ONE piece of pipe.

Same thing with PC's, all those components have to work in harmony or in sync with each other, or that Mega fast Processor speed is of no importance. If you limit the Ram to only 16 MB's, that super fast computer is a slug, if it's all Mega fast and you choose an old video card with less ram, some of the newer games will just overwhelm that card and your mega fast Processor PC is still junk. Video cards have their own processors and ram on them to take the load off of the system's Processor, to free it up to do other tasks.

You all make good points, and have different experiences. And all this info will help guide me to a perfect choice I hope...

Debi used to have an HP, and she had good luck with them.
I hear good things about Dell, but then I hear reliability is an issue from some.
Gateway had a nice sounding PC, ran 2nd in the speed testing, but they rated it low for terrible customer service.

Customer service is a big deal, as some have implied. If you've ever worked with one of the customer service people you know what I mean, sometimes they are just stupid, they read a script and go down a list of things to try, not because they know what they are doing, but because it's a procedure they follow. You tell them you have a video card problem, and they end up telling you to change the Oil in your Vulcan...WHAT in the hell does my bike have to do with my video card???? Ok a bit of a stretch, but I'm not far off.

A lot of nice features/specs sound GREAT on paper but some don't really deliver in the real world every day use.

So again, I am listening to all comments and learning from your experiences to help me decide on what to build.

The one thing that really has me confused or is where I have minimal knowledge on, is the hard drive setups.

Does anyone really understand the whole drive concept?
IDE vs ATA vs SATA, vs Raid and Striping? Having two or three drives running at once. I assume it's kinda like having dual channels for the DDR Ram on the M/B??

In reality, I believe the Hard Drives are your SLOWEST point on a PC. They are getting faster, but they can NOT run near the speed of the Ram or Processor, so usually Data transfers from a drive are your slowest point or bottle neck.

IDE is a type of hard drive that has the controller electronics on the drive (integrated drive electronics) which differs from rll or scsi which need an external controller card to function. Ide comes in two main flavors, Serial (sata) and Parallel (pata aka ata). Parallel drives are easy to recognize as the ribbon cable is about 2.5 inches wide, while the sata is only about .5 inches wide.

The sata drive has the potential to be faster because there is less data lines running next to each other. This minimizes cross talk. You can then have a higher wire speed connection on stat which allows a higher transfer rate.

Any hard drive has a maximum data transfer, which is comparatively slow. The head has to move to a sector, read it transfer the data, wait for the next request, find the next sector and repeat. Moving the head takes A LOT of time. If you can put your data in order so the next sector in line on that cylinder has the data you need next, ( defrag) the head doesn’t have to move so the next read is faster, Some files can span thousands of sectors. So if the next sector contains pertinent data, we can read the complete cylinder and store all of the data in a memory cache on the drive. The next request for data could then be read from cache rather than off the disk. A cache is probably 1000 times faster than a head read, so more cache can be better with a defragmented drive.

Raid is random array of inexpensive devices. This means hooking up two or more drives to one controller.

Raid can hook up two or more drives so that the computer sees them as one drive. This is called striping. Two 400 gig drives would look like one 800 gig c: to windows. With the proper controller with lots of memory, the computer would the read and write from the controller memory while the controller would read write to multiple disks at the same time. This will greatly speed up your hard drive access. Drawback is if one drive kacks, all your data is gone from all the drives!

Two drives could be hooked up as a mirror, any thing that is written on one drive gets written on the other. If you lose one drive the other still has all your data. This concept is just a little slow than one drive.

Three or more drives can be hooked up as parity. All data is stored in at least two locations on different drives, If you lose one drive, just put a new one in place and it can be rebuild while running your day to day stuff, with no lose of data. This is sort of an in between concept. It is also probably the most used for critical data.

There are a bunch more ways to connect to a raid controller, however these may be the most common ones.


opps left over stuff deleted

[bross]

Originally Posted by LordGT

Does anyone really understand the whole drive concept?
IDE vs ATA vs SATA, vs Raid and Striping? Having two or three drives running at once. I assume it's kinda like having dual channels for the DDR Ram on the M/B??

In reality, I believe the Hard Drives are your SLOWEST point on a PC. They are getting faster, but they can NOT run near the speed of the Ram or Processor, so usually Data transfers from a drive are your slowest point or bottle neck.

Yep you got it. Any new system will most likely be using SATA drives, which is a good thing, they are currently the fastest drives for a PC. If you think you need more speed then as suggested you can install 2 SATA drives and using RAID, "stripe" them, which is RAID 0. This gives you twice the performance as one drive alone. For casual use it's not necessary though.

A few of our large workstations where users are working with multiple 800+ meg files, get striped drives (2 or 3) for their swap drives, and possibly 2 striped drives for their data.

Just check that the motherboard you are planning to use will support RAID 0 (striping) or RAID 1 (mirroring) on the SATA connections, most do.

[trikebubble]

Originally Posted by bross

Yep you got it. Any new system will most likely be using SATA drives, which is a good thing, they are currently the fastest drives for a PC. If you think you need more speed then as suggested you can install 2 SATA drives and using RAID, "stripe" them, which is RAID 0. This gives you twice the performance as one drive alone. For casual use it's not necessary though.

A few of our large workstations where users are working with multiple 800+ meg files, get striped drives (2 or 3) for their swap drives, and possibly 2 striped drives for their data.

Just check that the motherboard you are planning to use will support RAID 0 (striping) or RAID 1 (mirroring) on the SATA connections, most do.

.........huh?...........

[2WheelFun]

Originally Posted by trikebubble

.........huh?...........

Plug that thingy in there...pull that whatchyamacallit and hold onto it...now bring the doohicky to the front...and keep a tight squeeze on the flippenbaacken...

[danb]

the onboard raid works in low use situations, however a real raid controler with cache will be lots faster