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What Computer with Sony A99 II

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The "what computer?" question gets asked (and answered) a lot over in the "PC Talk" forum.

I'd go there and read/search the existing threads on this subject.
 
tbcass said:
Endos said:
The problem with PCs is that they slow down over the time and that didn't happen to the Macs. If you can buy a Mac it's a cheaper solution at the end. My 2008 mac pro can process A7RII RAW files without problem.
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That used to be true but not since Windows 7. They go on and on just like Macs. My second computer, an 8 year old Win 7 machine, can process any sized photo with ease. I only upgraded it a year ago because it's single core processor struggled with HD video.

--
Tom
Look at the picture, not the pixels
------------
Misuse of the ability to do 100% pixel peeping is the bane of digital photography.
Click to expand...
Nice to learn that Microsoft solved that historical problem.

My 2008 Mac pro has two Xeon processors with 4 cores each one (8 cores). Even today it's pretty fast.

--
Regards,
Juan
http://500px.com/endosphoto
 
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VirtualMirage said:
Lensmate said:
Some good advise here already, but a couple additional points to add. Avoid the Mac system unless you like paying twice the amount that a PC can provide. Most are still only using intel i5 and only partial SSD.
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Nothing wrong with an i5. The biggest difference between an i5 and an i7 is the i7 offers hyperthreading. While that is all well and great, some applications don't take full advantage of that capability, so the performance difference can be moot.
VirtualMirage said:
SSD also has drawbacks that people aren't aware of so research that option closely. Speed isn't everything!
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Care to elaborate?

Aside from cost, I haven't seen much issues with them. Early in their life durability was a potential issue and some SSD controllers (Sandforce) didn't perform well when the SSD got full, but much of that has been resolved.

Currently, I have 3 SSDs in PC (a 512GB M.2, a 1TB, and a 256GB) along with two 5 TB 7200 RPM drives. I have a few other SSD's lying around that were in old servers and laptops. None of them have given me any issues and all have provided performance that was leaps and bounds better than the mechanical drives.
VirtualMirage said:
Avoid Windows Ten like the plague... try to purchase Windows 7 if possible and block Windows Ten from forcing itself onto your system.
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I've been using Windows 10 since it released last year and I haven't had an issue. So unless there is a specific reason to avoid it, I don't know if this is really good advice to give.
VirtualMirage said:
The use of portable hard drives is essential to keep your computer from being bogged down.
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Huh?

Portable drives are great when you want to store a backup in a safe space, need to transfer data, or you have to access your data on multiple systems (of course, the cloud has largely taken over this task). But to use a portable drive to prevent your system from being bogged down? Unless there is a miswording here, I have never heard of this in all my years in IT (large data centers, etc.).

Portable drives, depending on their connection, can actually be slower than one built into the computer. Also, since many external drives tend to power down or go to sleep when not in use (more so than those internal to the PC), any time something needs to be accessed or a list of drives needs to be called, the drive will then need to wake up. This can cause a hitch, pause, or delay on your machine until the drive has completed "spinning up". This happens all too often on my USB 3.0 drive dock that I use to make backups to. It is only needed a few times a week for backups late at night. If I forget to turn it off when not in use, I run into pauses on my machine as the drive wakes up, even when I am not trying to access the drive itself. It could be something as simple as opening My Computer, doing a file search, or launching a program that tries to make contact with all connected drives.
VirtualMirage said:
Good monitor/graphics card is important for good display and post processing!

-Martin P

https://www.flickr.com/photos/photosauraus_rex/
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
Endos said:
The problem with PCs is that they slow down over the time and that didn't happen to the Macs. If you can buy a Mac it's a cheaper solution at the end. My 2008 mac pro can process A7RII RAW files without problem.
Click to expand...
 
Slick Fork said:
Some good advice already.

I'm really unsure how much a graphics card can help. I don't notice a lot of utilisation on my high end graphics card using lightroom 5.7 so that would be worth looking into before spending money. An Nvidia 1060 would likely be TONS of graphics card power as they mostly focus on creating graphics from code, not reproducing image files.
Click to expand...
If I recall correctly, Lightroom 5 doesn't offer any kind of GPU acceleration. That is probably why you don't notice much impact on your graphics card. GPU acceleration became available in Lightroom 6/CC. I have Lightroom CC and the improvement in performance when editing photos with and without GPU acceleration is noticeable, especially if you use adjustment brushes and filters. Here's a video giving a demonstration:


As for your comment that graphics cards are mainly for creating graphics from code, that is completely false and no longer the case. GPUs are very powerful processors that can be used to accelerate video processing, image editing, decryption, cancer research, physics calculations, science, etc. Some of the most powerful supercomputers in the world use hundreds to thousands of GPUs to crunch data faster than what is possible on today's CPUs.

A GTX 1060 isn't too expensive. They could go with a 900 series if they want but the new Pascals have been doing a wonderful job.
Slick Fork said:
My overclocked I5 @ 4.4ghz however frequently maxes out at 100% when working in lightroom so I'd suggest skimp on the graphics card initially if budget is a factor as that can be added really easily down the road, and spend the money instead on the latest I7 processor and a couple of really good SSD drives as well as a large mechanical drive for backup. A reputable computer store (e.g. not Best Buy) will be able to put together a custom system for you if you're uncomfortable building yourself. Given that it sounds like you keep them for a while it would be more "future proof" than an off the shelf box store solution.

If a laptop is more your style the new microsoft surface tablets are really impressive, I set one up for a good friend of mine and she is thrilled with its performance and the way it handles lightroom and a beautiful display. The big limit there is storage but she gets around it with an external hard drive.

--
http://www.flickr.com/photos/chdeeth/
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Just put the catalog and image cache on an SSD and your photos on a regular drive and that will help a lot with Lightroom. Once Lightroom imports photos and creates a photo preview cache, it rarely accesses the original photo for anything else. By doing this, browsing catalogs will be a lot faster. I prefer a dedicate SSD since you can easily hit 140-200GB in image cache files if you have a catalog spanning many years with no image cache expiration date.

--
Paul
http://www.flickr.com/photos/virtualmirage/
 
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The guy who wrote that article is wrong and doesn't know what he's talking about.

Loading…

www.cnet.com

Loading…

www.pcmag.com
 
richardsealane said:
Steve West said:
tbcass said:
Intel A7 quad core processor, 8 GB min RAM and 2 terabyte min hard drive.

--
Tom
Look at the picture, not the pixels
------------
Misuse of the ability to do 100% pixel peeping is the bane of digital photography.
Click to expand...
I'd go for 20GB RAM, and now that lightroom's GPU processing works, I guess you should get a nice gaming graphics card to speed processing up.

--
Steve W
Click to expand...
Steve, thanks for pointing out the need for a good graphics card with the computer.
Click to expand...
What nobody has mentioned if you are dealing with photograps, is a decent monitor. Look for one with a wide as possible color gamut, ideally AdobeRGB and look at having your monitor calibrated.
richardsealane said:
Richard
Click to expand...
 
Get a PC with latest multicore processors and addon a good 2-4GB graphic card. Also get a good 27" or bigger monitor wih at least 4K resolution. EIZO is highly recommended.
 
Lensmate said:
Many things can be argued till the cows come home , but in short I'll put it like this...

yes, there are differences between intel i5 and i7

some of the drawbacks to SSD are:

http://www.versiondaily.com/ssd-advantages-disadvantages-solid-state-drive/
Click to expand...
Wow, those drawbacks are really stretching it, and there are only four listed, with two pretty much tying into each other (cost and capacity, which I mentioned already).

The availability remark, that is becoming less and less of an issue. SSD production has ramped up so much, even since February when the article was published, it isn't an issue. In fact, I might even say it is the other way around and that the SSD market is being saturated. SSD production has grown so much it has been having a negative effect on memory production. How many brands do we need? How many different 256GB SSDs do we need to choose from when in reality most of them are from the same manufacturer and only have a slightly different controller or firmware flash to differentiate them?

Again, with the reliability, it is becoming less and less of an issue. Unless you are running a server database that generates thousands and thousands of writes a day, durability shouldn't be an issue for most. The drive, for many, will out last their computer and will most likely still be useful even when it comes time to replace it. Many of today's SSDs from reputable brands have survived endurance tests that have written several hundred to well over a thousand TBs (which then becomes known as petabytes) of data before failing. For a 256GB SSD (which is the smallest I recommend for the primary drive of a machine), that would be equivalent to writing data to that drive until it is full, erasing it, and writing to it again 4,000 times over (and that is just assuming it doesn't even reach the highest values these drives have been known to fail at).

The confidence level of SSD reliability has grown so much, manufacturers are selling them with 5 and 10 year warranties. The best consumer warranty I can find for a standard HDD is in the 3-5 year range.
Lensmate said:
Windows ten might be for you but certainly is not for many, many others ...

http://itvision.altervista.org/why-windows-10-sucks.html
Click to expand...
I've already commented on this.
Lensmate said:
portable hard drives to store large photo files especially if you're using SSD...think about it!
Click to expand...
If you would have read my recommendation, I recommended both SSD and mechanical. SSD for the OS, programs, catalog, and image cache while mechanical stores the photos and backups. It's a great combination and the most cost effective.
--

Paul
 
VirtualMirage said:
Lensmate said:
Many things can be argued till the cows come home , but in short I'll put it like this...

yes, there are differences between intel i5 and i7

some of the drawbacks to SSD are:

http://www.versiondaily.com/ssd-advantages-disadvantages-solid-state-drive/
Click to expand...
Wow, those drawbacks are really stretching it, and there are only four listed, with two pretty much tying into each other (cost and capacity, which I mentioned already).

The availability remark, that is becoming less and less of an issue. SSD production has ramped up so much, even since February when the article was published, it isn't an issue. In fact, I might even say it is the other way around and that the SSD market is being saturated. SSD production has grown so much it has been having a negative effect on memory production. How many brands do we need? How many different 256GB SSDs do we need to choose from when in reality most of them are from the same manufacturer and only have a slightly different controller or firmware flash to differentiate them?

Again, with the reliability, it is becoming less and less of an issue. Unless you are running a server database that generates thousands and thousands of writes a day, durability shouldn't be an issue for most. The drive, for many, will out last their computer and will most likely still be useful even when it comes time to replace it. Many of today's SSDs from reputable brands have survived endurance tests that have written several hundred to well over a thousand TBs (which then becomes known as petabytes) of data before failing. For a 256GB SSD (which is the smallest I recommend for the primary drive of a machine), that would be equivalent to writing data to that drive until it is full, erasing it, and writing to it again 4,000 times over (and that is just assuming it doesn't even reach the highest values these drives have been known to fail at).

The confidence level of SSD reliability has grown so much, manufacturers are selling them with 5 and 10 year warranties. The best consumer warranty I can find for a standard HDD is in the 3-5 year range.
VirtualMirage said:
Windows ten might be for you but certainly is not for many, many others ...

http://itvision.altervista.org/why-windows-10-sucks.html
Click to expand...
I've already commented on this.
VirtualMirage said:
portable hard drives to store large photo files especially if you're using SSD...think about it!
Click to expand...
If you would have read my recommendation, I recommended both SSD and mechanical. SSD for the OS, programs, catalog, and image cache while mechanical stores the photos and backups. It's a great combination and the most cost effective.

--

Paul
http://www.flickr.com/photos/virtualmirage/
Click to expand...
Bit of an overkill here.... waaaaa !

yawn meh...that stuff has only just changed....but keep painting it rosy!

-Martin P

https://www.flickr.com/photos/photosauraus_rex/
 
richardsealane said:
I intend to purchase the A99 II . My computer is as old or older than my Sony A850, so I intend to also replace it. What minimun computer specs would you suggest ????
Click to expand...
Since the camera's not coming out for a couple of months, I'd wait to see what the AMD Zen options are.
 
Endos said:
The problem with PCs is that they slow down over the time and that didn't happen to the Macs. If you can buy a Mac it's a cheaper solution at the end. My 2008 mac pro can process A7RII RAW files without problem.

--
Regards,
Juan
http://500px.com/endosphoto
Click to expand...
My 10 year old XP machine must have missed this piece of information. It's no slower than when first bought, even during its second life as a machine for the kids.

Just a matter of keeping the "trash" out.
 
I think a 7th generation intel i7 with a GTX1070, minimum of 32Gb RAM, 512Gb SSD as primary harddisk and plenty of storage, a 4K monitor with 100% Adobe color gamut is the starting point. My PC builder recommended me having 128Gb RAM, two M2 512Gb SSDs...
 
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