Please help me spec a new PC set-up!

anniephoto

anniephoto

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Annie
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Hi, well at the moment my trusty dell 17" laptop is having to do all my photo editing but now that I'm doing this as a business I need to get a new set-up... so criteria is as follows:

- I don't want to move to a MAC I have enough to do without learning a new OS and I will still use my laptop on the road so want a 100 compatible set up at home.
- I need advice on where to buy, what to buy and how much I should spend.
- I need a PC, decent monitor and wacom tablet (I have an ancient wacom that I am very attached to but it's worn out!!!)
- I need to understand why I need a colour calibrator and what to get...I've never had an issues with colours in print so I'm a bit confused why a decent PC and monitor needs hundreds of pounds worth of colour calibration?????

I know your first question will be budget.... it's flexible as I've got a few pennies in the bank from my redundancy however I would like to keep spending under £2000.... if that means something has to wait (wacom/calibrator) then so be it... I could stretch further if I really had to but only if it was for amazing stuff!

So can anyone help? offer advice? Point me in the right direction? thanks!
 
Don't forget about backup. That is very important as well if you are doing this as a business. If the budget is £2000 it should break down into something like this:

-£700-800 for the computer minus the monitor
-£400-500 for a decent 24 inch monitor
-£300-400 on a backup solution (or that will be less initially if you go for a online backup solution)
- £150 for a monitor calibrator
- £150 for two copies of windows 7 (if you want a 100% compatible system on the road and at home you should have the same operating system for both computers)

When I rebuilt my current system at the start of the year, I spent total of about £650 for a:
- Intel i5 750 bassed system
- 8 gigs of ram
- P55 motherboard
- Ati graphics card
- 3 TB of storage

That included the power supply. If you are not comfortable building your own pc, then have a look at the Dell or HP website. Especially the Dell outlet, where you can save some money.
 
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FranchiseJuan said:
-£300-400 on a backup solution (or that will be less initially if you go for a online backup solution)
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Thanks, I already have a big fat iomega back up so that's covered :) Hadn't thought about making sure I have windows 7 on both! good point!

There's no way I would build my own, not enough knowledge or time to do it! I've been told I'd be better off buying from somewhere like PCPRO than Dell as a smaller supplier generally means better build quality and more robust components????
 
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anniephoto said:
Thanks, I already have a big fat iomega back up so that's covered :) Hadn't thought about making sure I have windows 7 on both! good point!

There's no way I would build my own, not enough knowledge or time to do it! I've been told I'd be better off buying from somewhere like PCPRO than Dell as a smaller supplier generally means better build quality and more robust components????
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I would recommend against having just an external drive as your only backup solution, as that is quite often not very reliable. I had the situation my notebook drive failed and turned on my backup Hard drive only to find that it had corrupted and most of my files that I needed was lost. If you have a fast enough internet connection you might consider looking into something like Carbonite or Mobi which will allow you to keep your important files backed up constantly, and the comfort in knowing that even if your house burns down your files are safe (worst case scenario)

Also on the subject of backup, the one thing people don't consider is redundency. What I mean by this is that you should be able to setup your notebook and your desktop in exatly the same way (including the same plugins for photoshop, the same presets in lightroom, etc) so that if one of them goes down and you need to deliver photos to clients the next day, you just turn on the other computer and keep working. As part of this you should have all your photo files, and important documents all accecible between both computers. This could mean a NAS or another popular solution is drobo.

Yes it might be better to get a smaller shop to build your computer, but then they won't be able to offer the 24 or 48 hour turn around support that Dell or HP does. If you are not comfortable tooling around in your own computer, then it pays to have that kind of support behind you.
 
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Thanks I am going to be backing up using the external hard drive and DVD... I'm happy with that solution for now and it fits the amount of work I'm able to do... I have 24hr support available through my brother-in-law who can do anything with computers... the only reason I'm not going to him for this advice is because I wanted to hear from photographers... he's an IT geek not a photographer.

So, back to my original question what I really need is advice on what spec PC to look for, which monitor and which wacom to buy....any ideas anyone?
 
anniephoto said:
Thanks I am going to be backing up using the external hard drive and DVD... I'm happy with that solution for now and it fits the amount of work I'm able to do... I have 24hr support available through my brother-in-law who can do anything with computers... the only reason I'm not going to him for this advice is because I wanted to hear from photographers... he's an IT geek not a photographer.

So, back to my original question what I really need is advice on what spec PC to look for, which monitor and which wacom to buy....any ideas anyone?
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He is an IT freak for a reason and thats because he knows exactly what he is talking about.
Do yourself a big favour and go get him to put it all together.
He will just go about it in a different manner but he will get you exactly what you need for the purpose you need it for.
The guys on here can most certainly advise you on a Wacom tablet but as for Hardware stuff if you have an expert on tap then use him.
 
anniephoto said:
Thanks I am going to be backing up using the external hard drive and DVD... I'm happy with that solution for now and it fits the amount of work I'm able to do... I have 24hr support available through my brother-in-law who can do anything with computers... the only reason I'm not going to him for this advice is because I wanted to hear from photographers... he's an IT geek not a photographer.

So, back to my original question what I really need is advice on what spec PC to look for, which monitor and which wacom to buy....any ideas anyone?
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I would highly recommend you use the same person to build the computer as the one that is going to support it.

As for the computer specs I listed it in my first response really:

- Intel i5 750 (quad core 2.66 ghz cpu)
- A P55 motherboard to go with it. They are all good so pick one you like with the connections you need.
- A nice tower case (you will want a large case so that you can add more hard drives into it as needed). I have one that can take up to 6 drives and I already have 4 in it.
- A 750 watt power supply (getting more power than you need means that you are less likely to stress it and have problems. I burnt out 3 power supplies in a year before I learnt my lesson in this).
- A medium range modern Graphics card (ATI or Nvidia does not really matter. Make sure it has 1gigs of ram)
- 8 Gigs of ram (get 8. Even if you end up holding off a little on your new graphics tablet, get 8).
- As much Hard drive space as you need. I have a mixture of all the brands as it reduces the risk of all my drives failing at once. Currently the 1gig Samsung F3 drives are a good deal.
- If you are going to be sticking with PC only then maybe a blue ray drive at about £100 may be a good idea. backing up to 25 gig disks is better than the 8 gigs for DVD.

As for monitor I would think a Dell U2410 (about £450) or a HP ZR24W (about £340) are both IPS panel 24 inch LCD panels. The Dell has a little wider colour range and more connection options.
 
leaving budget for software, screen(s) and periperals.. something along these lines should do the job..

4922338129_9dd7249d0d_b.jpg


scan.co.uk
 
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neil_g said:
leaving budget for software, screen(s) and periperals.. something along these lines should do the job..

4922338129_9dd7249d0d_b.jpg


scan.co.uk
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Looks a little over the top to me. I would be looking at a socket 1156 i5 quad for this build. It will work out cheaper and only be slightly slower. That should make the ram and mobo cheaper. TBH that looks rather like a gaming build with the gfx card downgraded slightly. I don't think there will be any need for a 5770 either.

I am actually thinking about a new build but have not done one for a good couple of years now.

EDIT: do you want to build yourself or would you be happy with prebuilt? If so look at the dell website and then when you find one you want phone them and bargain- you may get a better price, especially if you get the monitor from them too.
 
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neil_g said:
over the top or slightly more futureproof..

worth baring in mind that an application like lightroom2 will use all 98% of 4 cores of my Q9550 when batch exporting for example.
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I am aware of that, however I would call either particuarly futureproof, especially wil intel changing sockets every 5 minutes! The 1156 i5's have quite a lot more clout than the old 775 quads though and I would think I would be happy to run one for the next 3 years or so. I have with my 775 E6750!
 
fair enough.. but for the amount of money the OP is willing to spend and its for business use so may need some clout (although the OP hasnt said exactly what apps theyre using) personally id go i7 every time.

itd still come in under budget after all the extras like OS, screen and accessories too but horses for courses and all that :)
 
neil_g said:
fair enough.. but for the amount of money the OP is willing to spend and its for business use so may need some clout (although the OP hasnt said exactly what apps theyre using) personally id go i7 every time.

itd still come in under budget after all the extras like OS, screen and accessories too but horses for courses and all that :)
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Fair enough, I think you can decrease the cost slightly though. There are decent mobos with USB and SATA 3 for £150, go from bluray to dvd (I don't think that bluray is viable for backup yet) and a more budget gfx card could leave even more money! If I was professional I would want 2 24" monitors!
 
Annie

Every one will have their own opinion as to what constitutes a good computer. Before moving to Mac I had a number of Dell machines which I found to be reliable. I don't know if that helps

I don't know what software you are running, but I ran both Photoshop and Lightroom and found 4Gb RAM was just about sufficient with 5D mk1 files. If you go for a quad core option look at upgrading to 8Gb of RAM .If you store your images on external hard drives, then you may may not need huge internal hard drives. My Mac runs the intel i5 processor and that handles 20+Mb RAW files easily. Also you don't need a gaming video card, unless you do gaming. But as this is a business machine I'd guess not. :lol:

Get a good monitor, plus a calibration device. Why a calibration device. Simply put computer monitors are not set up to view photographic images correctly. It's sad but true. Plus all monitors age and the characteristics change with time. You need to ensure the monitor gives you consistent and correct results. Hence the need to calibrate the monitor. I use X-Rite for mine but people speak well of Spyder which is a cheaper option

Tablets, I have an Graphire tablet that I have had for a number of years, but is no longer available. I think you only real option is he Intuos range. Unless you need something special just go for the basic model.

Depending who you purchase the computer from, try and buy from their business outlet if they have one. You often get different options this way. Also look at business support, in case of problems. You don't really want to have to send the computer back to a repair depot if you've got to get images out to customers. On site repair may be a better option. But look at the costs.

John C
 
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Regarding CPU: If you go for a Socket 1156 Core i5 now, should it become too slow in the future then you've still got the option of sticking a faster Core i& in your motherboard.
The i5 should be plenty quick enough now for photo editing.

Also, check out reviews of power supplies before you buy as they are not all created equal. Look for what they can produce as a constant output, not what they print on the box (which is normally their peak output).
 
Also consider AMD. I moved from an i5 750 to a Phenom II X6 1055T (2.8ghz at stock, Hex Core CPU, costs about the same as the i5 750). The setup allowed me to save some money as you get a lot more value for money with AM3 boards, I'd say it feels a bit snappier than the i5 and on top of that, the AM3 socket is a lot more futureproof.
 
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