Desktop? - DPChallenge Forums

Olympus OM-D E-M5 Mark III

06/17/2011 09:33:59 AM · #1

Hi!

Hope you don't mind me picking your brains? I'm looking for a reliable, fast desktop for my son. He does a lot of photoshop with large files. Is this one any good, do you think? TIA;)

Acer M3400 Blu-ray Desktop Tower.
Experience powerful PC performance for all your computing needs with the Acer M3400 Blu-ray Desktop Tower. This robust tower is bursting full of technology including a powerful AMD Phenom II Six Core X6 processor, large 500GB hard drive, 4GB RAM and GeForce graphics card. In addition to a wired keyboard and mouse, this sleek computer tower offers fantastic output facilities with a HDMI and 10 USB ports.

CPU and Memory:

�AMD Phenom II six core X6.
�Processor speed 2.6GHz.
�4GB DDR3 RAM.
Hard drive:

�500GB SATA hard drive.
DVD optical drives:

�Dual layer.
Graphics:

�nVIDIA GeForce 315 graphics card with 512MB memory.
Interfaces and connectivity:

�10 USB ports.
�1 HDMI port.
�Wired keyboard and mouse.
Operating system & software:

�Microsoft Windows 7 Premium.
General features:

Yo_Spiff

Olympus 12-100mm f/4.0 M.Zuiko ED IS PRO

06/17/2011 10:05:51 AM · #2

The processor is plenty. I have a dual core AMD that I built 2 years ago. Your cores are a touch slower than mine, but the extra cores will help with multitasking and multi-core aware editing applications.

A 500Gb hard drive is plenty for the average person, but on the smaller side for photo editing. It will fill up quickly, especially if your son uses a DSLR and shoots RAW. I'd suggest adding a second, larger drive for storing those RAW files. And another one for backup in the near future. Big drives are cheap these days.

4Gb ram is sufficient, but 6 or 8 would be better. You can expand that down the road if you need to stick to a budget. I run 4 Gb of ram on my system and will likely expand it when I see a good deal.

Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 24-70mm f/2.8G ED

06/17/2011 10:09:48 AM · #3

Thanks for that Yo-spiff.

He does a lot of photo editing.

Looks like I'll have to have a rethink ;)

adigitalromance

Nikon D750

06/17/2011 10:11:16 AM · #4

I 2nd spliff, with an emphasis on at least 8gs memory. I'll also point out that it's always good to leave room for upgrades. i.e. If you only want 4g ram now, buy a 4g stick as opposed to 2 2g sticks or 4 1g sticks.

Yo_Spiff

Olympus OM-D E-M5 Mark III

Olympus 12-100mm f/4.0 M.Zuiko ED IS PRO

06/17/2011 10:19:55 AM · #5

Another advantage of having more than one physical hard drive is that you can keep your OS/Apps on one drive and your data files on another. If a drive fails, you have halved the damage. If it is the OS and app drive that failed, your data files are intact. If it is the data drive that failed, you can still boot the computer to try and recover the files. If you also have a recent data backup, then a failed data drive is just an inconvenience. (It's happened to me twice.)

If you have everything on one physical drive, then you have lost everything when it fails.

06/17/2011 10:41:29 AM · #6

Thank you guys, but I'm not really good at all the techy stuff.:(( Goes mostly over my head. But I will pass on the advice to him.

How about this one?

The HP G5370uk Desktop PC offers excellent performance for home computing. It is powered by the Intel® Core� i3-550 Processor which effortlessly runs the pre-installed 64-bit Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium operating system. This PC base unit comes with a roomy 1TB hard drive and 4GB of RAM to complete the core specification.The HP G5370uk Desktop PC offers outstanding value for money, with a complete set of features including some you wouldn't expect at this price, such as a high-speed FireWire port - ideal for importing footage from a DV camera, for example. In addition to the powerful dual-core processor, the HP G5370uk Desktop PC sports Intel HD Graphics, for competent High Definition video playback and excellent energy efficiency.Besides FireWire, the HP G5370uk Desktop PC has connectivity options including analogue and digital audio, a VGA monitor port, and fully eight USB 2.0 ports! It also has the all-important Wireless N WiFi built in, so you don't have to trail Ethernet cables across the hall to connect to the web.Used with your existing VGA monitor, or a new one,

Message edited by author 2011-06-17 10:41:59.

kirbic

Canon EOS R5

Canon RF 24-70 f2.8 L IS

06/17/2011 10:43:33 AM · #7

For pure performance, you cannot beat Sandy Bridge. In particular, the Intel i7 2600K processor is a beast, and when coupled with a motherboard using the Z68 chipset, it is a screamer.
Assuming he will be running Win7 64-bit, then 8GB of RAM would be reasonable. I would not go less than that, but unless he deals with *very* large panos or big files with a whole lot of layers, 8GB should be fine.
A separate data drive of at least 1TB in size is a good idea. A back-up data drive is also a requirement.
For photo editing, pay special attention to the graphics card and monitor. You do not need a high-powered gaming graphic card. I use an nVidia QuadroFX 570, which consumes only 38 watts. It supports Ps GPU processing and I run dual monitors off of it, one at a resolution of 2560x1440. It performs fabulously, and it's made for graphics use, not gaming. The one sticking point on the QuadroFX cards is that they don't play well with sleep mode.