(OT) Survey...What new Computer to get??

[Greg M]

I make my own PCs also. ANY "brand name" computer is not worth what you pay for it. They cut corners on the 2 most important parts of the computer, the power supply and the motherboard. A decent power supply and motherboard will run you at least $200. If you build your own (it's not that hard) you can make sure that it is full of quality parts. If you use good parts it will cost you about the same price of a brand name computer but it will be more stable and easier to upgrade.

 

[Jamooche]

Question..

I use the Downloader Program and the Breezebrowser for all my before photoshop processing and viewing...what is the MAC equivalent program for this process? for whitebalance, conversion etc...are you stuck with the zoom browser?

-Jamil

-Jamil

Mike

I am interested in getting a new computer desktop since I only have
a laptop right now. I currently have a Dell Inspiron 8000 laptop.
I like the features and price point of the new Gateways. Since we
all do the same thing, I was wondering what most people are using?
Dell? Gateway? or Mac? and maybe some info on why you chose that
system. I hope you find this question interesting as I do.

Thanks,
Jamil

--
Mike Flaherty
http://imageevent.com/mflaherty/mikesgallery

 

[DavidP #28649]

I built the following:

Shuttle AK31A motherboard

Athlon XP1800+ CPU

1 GB of RAM (four 256-MB sticks of Crucial PC2100 DDR - CAS2.5)

Gainward "Golden Sample" GF3 video card w/DVI and VIVO

Creative Soundlbaster Audigy Platinum sound card (w/firewire)

Promise Fasttrack100 TX2 IDE RAID controller card

Two Western Digital 60 GB 7200 rpm IDE hard-drives (in a RAID-0 array)

Western Digital 100 GB 7200 rpm IDE hard-drive

Plextor 24/10/40 CD-RW

Panasonic LD-321U DVD-R/RAM (2x)

Lian-Li PC60-USB aluminum case

Enermax EG465P-VE(FC) power supply

Floppy Drive

Logitech Cordless Freedom Optical Keyboard and Mouse

Viewsonic VG191 19.1" LCD monitor

Microtech Firewire Cameramate

Visioneer OneTouch 8700 USB scanner

Used my old printers / wireless ethernet / negative scanner--The Unofficial Photographer of The Wilkinsons http://thewilkinsons.crosswinds.netPhotography -- just another word for compromise

 

[Daniel Lauring]

Wow, very similar to mine except I cheaped out in several areas.

See below.

I built the following:

Shuttle AK31A motherboard

Used same motherboard. ($75)

Athlon XP1800+ CPU

Went with the cheaper XP1600 ($112)

1 GB of RAM (four 256-MB sticks of Crucial PC2100 DDR - CAS2.5)

Made the mistake of buying two sticks of 512Mb PC2100 ram on sale at Outpost. A disaster. Switched to 2 256Mb Crucial sticks. All was well after that. ($150.)

Gainward "Golden Sample" GF3 video card w/DVI and VIVO

Went with cheapo Geforce2 w/32Mb DDR ($50)

Creative Soundlbaster Audigy Platinum sound card (w/firewire)

Hercules Fortissimo ($32) Optical in and out.

Promise Fasttrack100 TX2 IDE RAID controller card

Skipped the IDE Raid this time. Added firewire card.

Two Western Digital 60 GB 7200 rpm IDE hard-drives (in a RAID-0 array)

Maxtor 80Gb 7200. ($120) I'm a big fan of Maxtor...had the best luck with them. Like their no quibble replacement policy.

Western Digital 100 GB 7200 rpm IDE hard-drive

Use a second 60Gb firewire drive. ($100 for drive, another $70 for firewire case.)

Plextor 24/10/40 CD-RW

Acer ($70), one of the few drives that can write the necessary subtrack data for copying CDs.

Panasonic LD-321U DVD-R/RAM (2x)

Toshiba DVDrom ($50). One of the few drives that can read all subtract data for copying. I'm waiting for DVD/R or DVD/RW standards to gel before going that way.

Lian-Li PC60-USB aluminum case

Startek aluminum case w/400watt PS. ($100)

Enermax EG465P-VE(FC) power supply

400watt PS that came with Startek.

Floppy Drive

Logitech Cordless Freedom Optical Keyboard and Mouse

Same. ($55 refurbed) Love the Logitech cordless mouse and keyboard.

Viewsonic VG191 19.1" LCD monitor

Viewsonic VA520 15" LCD monitor ($350) For serious editing still use my aperature grill CRT.

Microtech Firewire Cameramate

Acron USB reader reads, Memory Stick, Smart Media, SSD, Microdrive and CF. ($60 from CompUSA.)

Visioneer OneTouch 8700 USB scanner

Canon u1240 scanner. ($130) Came with full version of OmniPage Pro OCR and Adobe Photoshop Elements.

Used my old printers / wireless ethernet / negative scanner

Epson C80 ($70 after rebates), USB wireless ethernet ($70)

The Unofficial Photographer of The Wilkinsons
http://thewilkinsons.crosswinds.net
Photography -- just another word for compromise

 

[DavidP #28649]

Wow, very similar to mine except I cheaped out in several areas.

How long does it take BreezeBrowser to convert a file for you? It takes me 10 seconds. Somebody else with a VERY similar system (except he had 3 GB of RAM) was claiming 6 seconds. Hard to believe that the amount of RAM matters for that.

I'm waiting for DVD/R or DVD/RW
standards to gel before going that way.

Might be next year. Right before I received mine, I read the announcement about "Blu-Ray". Apparently, all the guys behind DVD-RW, DVD+RW, DVD-RAM decided to get together and come up with one system. It's supposed to support 27 GB per side, enough for a whopping 2 hrs (yep, only 2) of HDTV. But about 30 hrs of VHS quality, IIRC.

Supposedly the technology is being licensed this year.

--The Unofficial Photographer of The Wilkinsons http://thewilkinsons.crosswinds.netPhotography -- just another word for compromise

 

[Daniel Lauring]

Wow, very similar to mine except I cheaped out in several areas.

How long does it take BreezeBrowser to convert a file for you? It
takes me 10 seconds. Somebody else with a VERY similar system
(except he had 3 GB of RAM) was claiming 6 seconds. Hard to
believe that the amount of RAM matters for that.

Good question. I gave up on RAW when my old 450Mhz Celeron took 45 seconds per conversion. Time to test it with the new computer.

I'm still frustrated with the memory. I paid good money so I would have 1Gb of memory and now I'm back to 512Mb. It took me a month to get the new memory and figure it out so I bet Outpost will give me a hard time on a return.

I'm waiting for DVD/R or DVD/RW
standards to gel before going that way.

Might be next year. Right before I received mine, I read the
announcement about "Blu-Ray". Apparently, all the guys behind
DVD-RW, DVD+RW, DVD-RAM decided to get together and come up with
one system. It's supposed to support 27 GB per side, enough for a
whopping 2 hrs (yep, only 2) of HDTV. But about 30 hrs of VHS
quality, IIRC.

Supposedly the technology is being licensed this year.

Hadn't heard about "Blu-Ray" thanks for the info (wowsa...54Gb per disk.) Had a friend who bought one of the earlier CDRs for mucho bucks and learned my lesson from him. My first CDRW, a Ricoh, could burn just about anything. I finally replaced it's horribly slow self with this Acer. Wow, it was taking me 47 minutes to burn a CD. I about fell over when my new drive did it in a little less than 6 minutes.

Found this other posting on Blu-ray for other interested parties.
http://www.sciforums.com/t5838/s47617cc8c6e804a397507f236e3cbec2/thread.html

 

[Daniel Lauring]

Had its first fatality about a year and a half into its life. Its battery died on a road trip (had it sitting on the seat, hooked to a GPS.) I bet the vibration shook something loose. But, I got a "free" second battery when I bought it and that one is working fine. Just last week I added another 128Mb of ram to it (for a mind boggling $27 dollars) and my wife is surfing the net (wireless) with it now. The Compal based Dell Inspirons were pretty tough machines...but heavy as anchors.

Danny

-Jamil

I second this opinion. As someone who is on his fourth Dell
computer I have noticed a marked deterioration in the build quality
of their products and customer support.

My Inspiron 7500 is on its fourth (and faulty) screen and third set
of hinges.

Does anyone use IBM laptops for Photoshop editing , or have a
better mobile solution?

 

[Daniel Lauring]

Running my 850 T-bird at 935 for a slight boost. Haven't cranked on this one yet. Are you overclocking your 1700?

 

[Thomas Gardner]

I am interested in getting a new computer desktop since I only have
a laptop right now. I currently have a Dell Inspiron 8000 laptop.
I like the features and price point of the new Gateways. Since we
all do the same thing, I was wondering what most people are using?
Dell? Gateway? or Mac? and maybe some info on why you chose that
system. I hope you find this question interesting as I do.

I didn't get any of the brands above. Why? Because I had my local computer botique build a box to my specifications. It's a bit more expensive, okay, a lot more expensive but I was able to put the order in and make necessary chages as it Web Surfed for info on each of the cards are products that were being installed in the box. They ordered up the parts and put them together with a MS-XP OS in it and a couple of crashes and a HDD replacement later, I'm off to the races and a happy camper. I couldn't have done the same thing if I had bought a Dell or Gateway as I PC oriented and not Mac oriented.

Hope this helps.

 

[DavidP #28649]

I haven't bothered overclocking my XP1800 +

Most people aren't getting more than about 7 or 10% extra out of them anyway.

I only overclocked my old Celeron 300A (up to 450) and a Celeron 366 (up to 550.

This was back in the days you could get a 50% overclock on certain chips by just going from 66 MHz FSB to 100 FSB.

Today, with locked multiplier and 133 FSB standard, it's hard to overclock things without affecting ALL your components (PCI/AGP). And it's hard to get those components to stand much overclocking, either.

Plus, prices have come down quite a bit. And, speed is hardly an issue anymore, except for converting batches of RAW files or rendering videos for DVD.

Running my 850 T-bird at 935 for a slight boost. Haven't cranked
on this one yet. Are you overclocking your 1700?

--The Unofficial Photographer of The Wilkinsons http://thewilkinsons.crosswinds.netPhotography -- just another word for compromise

 

[Fazal Majid]

I am interested in getting a new computer desktop since I only have
a laptop right now. I currently have a Dell Inspiron 8000 laptop.
I like the features and price point of the new Gateways. Since we
all do the same thing, I was wondering what most people are using?
Dell? Gateway? or Mac? and maybe some info on why you chose that
system. I hope you find this question interesting as I do.

Thanks,
Jamil

You basically have three alternatives:
1- Buy a name brand PC
2- Build your own PC from parts
3- Buy a Mac

1) advantages: you don't have to worry about integration and conflicts between peripherals, as the vendor has done the testing for you. Can be cheaper than building your own because the big vendors have purchasing economies of scale and with the cut-throat competition they are not overcharging as much as they used to for the privilege.

2) advantages: you can select best of breed components for everything. Used to be cheaper but is not always the case.

3) advantages: completely integrated solution, the new iMac is a very good computer (I have the superdrive version), unfortunately the affordable version is going to take a few more months before it is shipping in quantity

disadvantages: less software choices, although I've found this isn't really an issue for most people who don't use highly specific apps like Visio or Microsoft Project 2000.

What I did for my latest PC is to buy a barebones Athlon XP+ 1800 from AccessMicro and swap with the higher-spec memory, power-supply and case from my previous dual-PIII 800, and add a good video card, hard drive, NIC and sound card.

I would not recommend getting a dual-CPU, as many peripheral hardware vendors do not have multi-threaded drivers and stability becomes an issue. For instance, my dual-PIII workstation with a Matrox G400 video card had constant freezing problems in Windows 2000, while it works flawlessly in Solaris/x86.

If you like tinkering with computers, option 2 has great price/performance and can be a lot of fun, albeit time-consuming. If you just want the darn thing to work, the Mac will give you the best user experience. If you use OS X, shooting in RAW mode will be problematic until Canon releases OS X drivers, however.

If you choose a Windows PC, one key to stability is rigorous configuration management: always be careful about what software you install, partition your disk into a system+apps partition and a data partition, and make images of your system partition with Norton Ghost regularly so you have known good configurations to fall back to.

 

[Bob R]

Bob, please help me out. How can I tell which IBM drives are the SE
Asia ones versus the other IBM drives, like the ones that failed
you? Do you think that the ones that failed show a problem with
their 40GB size, or due to the fact they were not the SE Asia ones?
Thanks, Chris

The ones that failed were all made in Eastern Europe, specifically Hungary I think. They were replaced with ones made in Malaysia by IBM with no new problems. All were 40 gb drives. I have 60 gb IBM drives (also Malaysia) with no failures so far. Basically I would ask wherever you intend to purchase where the drive was made, although I suspect by now the problems with the IBM drives could very well be resolved. Regardless, always back up the valuable data that you can't afford to lose. By the way I would not hesitate to buy other IBM hard drives; I still think that they are some of the best .
-Bob

 

[Daniel Lauring]

I did the Celeron 300a to 450 as well. In fact, that is the machine I'm replacing. Apparently people are unlocking lower speed Athlons (700-800Mhz) and getting 1.1Ghz out of themn by changing the multiplier. But, like you said, when the 1.4-1.5Ghz Athlons only cost $100-$130 it is hardly worth the trouble.

I boosted the 850 with a straight clock speed increase which hasn't seemed to effect anything detrementally on the PCI bus.

On the latest P4's with the 815 DDR chipset the multiplier is locked on the chip but the PCI bus speed is entirely independant of the processor and memory speed so you can boost it as much as the processor and memory will handle. I bought a 1.6Ghz P4 with PCI2700 heatsinked memory and will see what it can do.

Danny

Most people aren't getting more than about 7 or 10% extra out of
them anyway.

I only overclocked my old Celeron 300A (up to 450) and a Celeron
366 (up to 550.

This was back in the days you could get a 50% overclock on certain
chips by just going from 66 MHz FSB to 100 FSB.

Today, with locked multiplier and 133 FSB standard, it's hard to
overclock things without affecting ALL your components (PCI/AGP).
And it's hard to get those components to stand much overclocking,
either.

Plus, prices have come down quite a bit. And, speed is hardly an
issue anymore, except for converting batches of RAW files or
rendering videos for DVD.

Running my 850 T-bird at 935 for a slight boost. Haven't cranked
on this one yet. Are you overclocking your 1700?

--
The Unofficial Photographer of The Wilkinsons
http://thewilkinsons.crosswinds.net
Photography -- just another word for compromise

 

[DavidP #28649]

I know several people who've tried to overclock the XP1800+ chips. They typically get from the 133 MHz FSB up to about 140 FSB before problems begin. Just enough to get it to display XP1900+ on bootup.

I must be getting old -- it just doesn't seem like it's worth the effort.

However, I did finally opt for the RAID-0 array on my two 60 GB HDD's, instead of the original RAID-1 I had planned. Life on the wild side.

I know a guy who got FOUR 100 GB HDD's and put them all in a RAID-0 array. Now THAT'S nuts.

I did the Celeron 300a to 450 as well. In fact, that is the
machine I'm replacing. Apparently people are unlocking lower speed
Athlons (700-800Mhz) and getting 1.1Ghz out of themn by changing
the multiplier. But, like you said, when the 1.4-1.5Ghz Athlons
only cost $100-$130 it is hardly worth the trouble.

I boosted the 850 with a straight clock speed increase which hasn't
seemed to effect anything detrementally on the PCI bus.

On the latest P4's with the 815 DDR chipset the multiplier is
locked on the chip but the PCI bus speed is entirely independant of
the processor and memory speed so you can boost it as much as the
processor and memory will handle. I bought a 1.6Ghz P4 with
PCI2700 heatsinked memory and will see what it can do.

--The Unofficial Photographer of The Wilkinsons http://thewilkinsons.crosswinds.netPhotography -- just another word for compromise

 

[Daniel Lauring]

I did the Raid thing for a while with my Abit KT7A-Raid board. The Raid was purely for streaming video. Every other bios upgrade available would destroy the Raid array and require a rebuild. Since I was just using it for data I didn't lose anything but it quickly became a PITA. That and reading information at Pinnacle (big video editing company) which said that software Raid arrays like Highpoint and Promise can actually cause video hiccups because of their high PCI bus usage, convinced me to bag the Raid. Now I use it purely as a second set of controllers. The thing is, modern drives...even 5400rpm models, are plenty fast enough for streaming video so why bother?

Danny

I must be getting old -- it just doesn't seem like it's worth the
effort.

However, I did finally opt for the RAID-0 array on my two 60 GB
HDD's, instead of the original RAID-1 I had planned. Life on the
wild side.

I know a guy who got FOUR 100 GB HDD's and put them all in a RAID-0
array. Now THAT'S nuts.

I did the Celeron 300a to 450 as well. In fact, that is the
machine I'm replacing. Apparently people are unlocking lower speed
Athlons (700-800Mhz) and getting 1.1Ghz out of themn by changing
the multiplier. But, like you said, when the 1.4-1.5Ghz Athlons
only cost $100-$130 it is hardly worth the trouble.

I boosted the 850 with a straight clock speed increase which hasn't
seemed to effect anything detrementally on the PCI bus.

On the latest P4's with the 815 DDR chipset the multiplier is
locked on the chip but the PCI bus speed is entirely independant of
the processor and memory speed so you can boost it as much as the
processor and memory will handle. I bought a 1.6Ghz P4 with
PCI2700 heatsinked memory and will see what it can do.

--
The Unofficial Photographer of The Wilkinsons
http://thewilkinsons.crosswinds.net
Photography -- just another word for compromise

 

[Daniel Lauring]

I am extremely worried because I have an IBM GXP drive. My build date matches the ones I've read people have problems with.

Meanwhile my inexpensive Maxtors have never given me a problem and I like their no quibble replacement policy (though I never had to use it.)

Fujitisu has a similar no quibble policy which I had to use only once (with a new non-functioning drive.) It was nice to be shipped a replacement where all I had to do was stick my old drive in the replacement box when it arrived and slap their return shipping label on it. Quick, painless and free. That alone made me a lifetime Fujitsu customer...unfortunately, it is much harder to find large Fujitsu consumer drives than Maxtors.

Danny

Bob, please help me out. How can I tell which IBM drives are the SE
Asia ones versus the other IBM drives, like the ones that failed
you? Do you think that the ones that failed show a problem with
their 40GB size, or due to the fact they were not the SE Asia ones?
Thanks, Chris

The ones that failed were all made in Eastern Europe, specifically
Hungary I think. They were replaced with ones made in Malaysia by
IBM with no new problems. All were 40 gb drives. I have 60 gb IBM
drives (also Malaysia) with no failures so far. Basically I would
ask wherever you intend to purchase where the drive was made,
although I suspect by now the problems with the IBM drives could
very well be resolved. Regardless, always back up the valuable
data that you can't afford to lose. By the way I would not
hesitate to buy other IBM hard drives; I still think that they are
some of the best .
-Bob

 

[Bob R]

I have had a Maxtor 40gb drive fail (actually in one of my son's computers and he was overclocking his system and partioning and repartioning with Linux and who knows what else a 14 year old may have been doing...sure that somewhere along the line he screwed up the master boot record). Anyway, Maxtor replaced the drive (no questions asked) as it was within the 3 year warranty timeframe. I sent them the broken 40gb....they returned a brand new 60gb drive.

So my experience with both IBM and Maxtor as far as getting a replacements has been good.
-Bob

Meanwhile my inexpensive Maxtors have never given me a problem and
I like their no quibble replacement policy (though I never had to
use it.)

Fujitisu has a similar no quibble policy which I had to use only
once (with a new non-functioning drive.) It was nice to be shipped
a replacement where all I had to do was stick my old drive in the
replacement box when it arrived and slap their return shipping
label on it. Quick, painless and free. That alone made me a
lifetime Fujitsu customer...unfortunately, it is much harder to
find large Fujitsu consumer drives than Maxtors.

Danny

Bob, please help me out. How can I tell which IBM drives are the SE
Asia ones versus the other IBM drives, like the ones that failed
you? Do you think that the ones that failed show a problem with
their 40GB size, or due to the fact they were not the SE Asia ones?
Thanks, Chris

The ones that failed were all made in Eastern Europe, specifically
Hungary I think. They were replaced with ones made in Malaysia by
IBM with no new problems. All were 40 gb drives. I have 60 gb IBM
drives (also Malaysia) with no failures so far. Basically I would
ask wherever you intend to purchase where the drive was made,
although I suspect by now the problems with the IBM drives could
very well be resolved. Regardless, always back up the valuable
data that you can't afford to lose. By the way I would not
hesitate to buy other IBM hard drives; I still think that they are
some of the best .
-Bob