What spec PC do you have?

Gigabyte said:
I really fancy building a Mini ITX system myself. How does it handle heat? Does it get very hot?
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actually quite well.. in that case there are no fans apart from those on the CPU and in the PSU.. but if you flip the CPU fan so that it sucks through the heatsink and mount the PSU so that it sucks air out of the case its actually pretty good.

i ran it at 100% on all 4 cores for 10 hours straight and it maxed out at 52-57c across the cores. aparently the i series processors run a touch hotter.

cowasaki said:
Mac Pro

Quad Xeon 3GHz
10Gb FB-Dimm (4x2 & 4x0.5)
3 x 1Tb,1 x 512Gb
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:razz:
 
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neil_g said:
:razz:
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Thanks, it is no better than the Macbook Pro for image works using PS. The only advantage it has is a faster HD subsystem but most of the time you don't notice and I didn't notice any increase in speed when the RAM went up either.

I was always upgrading the PCs until about 3-4 years ago at which point I realised that they are all fast enough for what I want to do on them. I have no desire to upgrade the Mac Pro for quite a while.
 
cowasaki said:
Thanks, it is no better than the Macbook Pro for image works using PS. The only advantage it has is a faster HD subsystem but most of the time you don't notice and I didn't notice any increase in speed when the RAM went up either.

I was always upgrading the PCs until about 3-4 years ago at which point I realised that they are all fast enough for what I want to do on them. I have no desire to upgrade the Mac Pro for quite a while.
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:D

true, i think the pros are more aimed at video editing. christ knows why we buy them for the design dept to run illustrator.. :p

i think im still leaning that way once i get bored of my ITX (not for a while) although i was toying with the idea of a custom built watercooled twin xeon :bonk:
 
cowasaki said:
Thanks, it is no better than the Macbook Pro for image works using PS. The only advantage it has is a faster HD subsystem but most of the time you don't notice and I didn't notice any increase in speed when the RAM went up either.

I was always upgrading the PCs until about 3-4 years ago at which point I realised that they are all fast enough for what I want to do on them. I have no desire to upgrade the Mac Pro for quite a while.
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+1 - My Mac pro is the twin dual core version, but works like an absolute dream. It's also extremely well engineered inside, and I just love those hard disk trays.
 
neil_g said:
:D

true, i think the pros are more aimed at video editing. christ knows why we buy them for the design dept to run illustrator.. :p

i think im still leaning that way once i get bored of my ITX (not for a while) although i was toying with the idea of a custom built watercooled twin xeon :bonk:
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When I bought my Mac Pro (variant 2) it was actually cheaper to buy a Mac Pro, remove the CPUs and throw ALL the rest of it away than to buy just the chips! I know a company that bought 8 of them and installed Windows on them all as serious workstations selling off the mac mice and keyboards for windows ones. (Thats how I found them as I wanted a spare keyboard!)

The design dept would be better off with iMacs, they are getting to be just as fast for normal work!
 
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cowasaki said:
When I bought my Mac Pro (variant 2) it was actually cheaper to buy a Mac Pro, remove the CPUs and throw ALL the rest of it away than to buy just the chips! I know a company that bought 8 of them and installed Windows on them all as serious workstations selling off the mac mice and keyboards for windows ones. (Thats how I found them as I wanted a spare keyboard!)

The design dept would be better off with iMacs, they are getting to be just as fast for normal work!
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indeed xeons arent cheap at the best of times..

you and i know they could do their job on a machine of half the spec (for example) but unforunately for reasons that are completely bizarre to me they have their own say on computer equipment..
 
neil_g said:
indeed xeons arent cheap at the best of times..

you and i know they could do their job on a machine of half the spec (for example) but unforunately for reasons that are completely bizarre to me they have their own say on computer equipment..
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Snobbery! It says PRO on it and an iMac conjurers up HOME etc...
 
cowasaki said:
Snobbery! It says PRO on it and an iMac conjurers up HOME etc...
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exacterly..

although we have managed to get 15 non-essential mac users switched to dell latitude laptops. but these were more admin based users that had issues with running office based docs, exchange based calendars/appointments, RDC connections to windows server based apps.. yadda yadda.

so sometimes they do listen to us lol (even through we did catch 10 or so users changing their IPs to try and circumvent the web filters this week)

(sorry to the OP for the hijack by the way)
 
13" Macbook Pro (current model) 2.4 with integrated graphics :crying:. Sorely miss my last 15" with separate graphics ('upgraded' for portability) but it copes well with everything except RAW conversion! It was clear from my computer use that photo stuff was the only reason to have a powerful machine and it seemed silly to have spent more on the computer than the photo kit :LOL:.
 
Here's an interesting site for comparing all the processors: http://www.cpubenchmark.net

To think that mine was top of the range not so long ago and it's been easily overtaken these days! lol Still, it runs fast for what I need.

Dell XPS
Intel Core2 Extreme Q6850 @ 3.00GHz
4GB Ram PC2-5300
Nvidia 8800GTX 768MB
 
Will seriously consider the mini ITX Neil. What motherboard would you recommend with the Athlon 635 / 640 with 4 gig DDR3? I won't need a separate graphics card at the moment so an onboard GPU would suffuce.
 
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* Intel Core Duo T2300 (1.66 GHz, 667 MHz FSB, 2MB L2 cache)
* 15.4" WXGA CrystalBrite LCD with 16ms refresh rate.
* ATI Mobility Radeon X1400 128MB
* 100GB 5400 RPM SATA hard drive
* Slot-Load DVD super multi drive
* 2GB DDR2 dual channel memory
* ExpressCard slot


proberbly the slowest system here and i run cs5 and lightroom 3 and it runs fine for me
 
wiganwez said:
* Intel Core Duo T2300 (1.66 GHz, 667 MHz FSB, 2MB L2 cache)
* 15.4" WXGA CrystalBrite LCD with 16ms refresh rate.
* ATI Mobility Radeon X1400 128MB
* 100GB 5400 RPM SATA hard drive
* Slot-Load DVD super multi drive
* 2GB DDR2 dual channel memory
* ExpressCard slot


proberbly the slowest system here and i run cs5 and lightroom 3 and it runs fine for me
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It's pretty much identical spec to my iMac which runs cs5 and networked lr3!
 
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My 24" 2.4Ghz iMac has started buggering around, so I built my self a new PC, initially for gaming, but it runs PS well too.

MSI P55-CD53 Mobo

Intel Core i5 760 2.8Ghz

Zalman CNPS9900A-LED T.FLOWER cooler

Zotac Geforce GTX470 1280Mb < this thing is a beast >

4GB Crucial XMP 1600

COOLERMASTER ELITE 310 case

850w PSU

500GB Samsung SATA HD

WINDOWS 7 64Bit

Runs really well, although the GPU hits 93 degrees C under high load. In time will add some more RAM, but it seems pretty fast and stable as is.
 
Dell XPS 720SPAM
Intel C2Q Extreme Q6850 @ 4GHz
4Gb Corsair DDR2
Quadro FX 4600
2x 1TB HDDs
Sony Blu-Ray Burner
Creative X-Fi Xtreme Music
1kW PSU
Windows 7

Dell U2410 monitor
 
tictoc said:
13" Macbook Pro (current model) 2.4 with integrated graphics :crying:. Sorely miss my last 15" with separate graphics ('upgraded' for portability) but it copes well with everything except RAW conversion!
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The current 13" MBP has the nVidia 320GTm, they're not integrated.
 
I have just purchased a new 15" MacBook Pro with a 2.4GHz i5, 4GB RAM, upgraded to 500GB 7200rpm HDD and the matte 15" 1680x1050 screen (plus a 24" P-MVA external LCD). Runs CS5 very nicely, but I'm currently demoing Aperture and Lightroom.
 
i7 920 @ 4GHz (air cooling)
6GB OCZ DDR3 RAM
128GB Kingston SSD
1TB Western Digital 5600rpm storage drive
XFX Radeon 5870 Graphics
Corsair 850W power supply

Dell Ultrasharp 22" monitor
Samsung 24" monitor
 
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I had planned to upgrade my system this month, but it seems my dishwasher needs upgrading instead :(

AMD 8650 Triple Core 2.31GHz
6Gb Corsair xms2 Ram
64gb Crucial SSD, 500Gb HD 630Gb NAS, 320Gb usb drives
GeForce 9800 GTX+
24" monitor and 32" Sony tv as monitor 2
Other 'stuff' too numerous to mention.
 
lolololol, only if I can find one with a working pump

moob moob :)
 
Les McLean said:
Agree with most of what's been said, I have an i5 with 8gb of memory, an upgrade to a SSD drive saw significant speed gains in PS, I did a comparison against a 'normal' hard drive here:

http://www.talkphotography.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=174825&highlight=intel
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Interesting, thanks Les. I'm planning my next photo editing PC, and reading through your results I'm not sure an SSD would make much difference, because my RAW files etc won't be on the primary drive. Loading up SC5 or LR3 would be quicker, but that doesn't really matter. Did you do any tests where your SATA drive/SSD had the OS and software on, but nothing else (ie, not the photos)?

Cheers
 
The speed increases from an SSD are mainly due to the cpu being able to access several points of the drive simultaneously as opposed to the needle having to move around.

It means that when photoshop, windows and a couple of other programs need something from the drive at the same time there's no latency.

If you're looking for a drive to store Raw files on a Samsung F3 drive as a storage drive is a better option. Apart from being cheaper the drives are 5200rpm so output lower heat, noise and because the drive platters are denser the continuous data rate is up there with 7200rpm drives.

The burst rate on an SSD though is insane.

If you are going to get a big drive though, use it in a mirrored raid array like the infosafe external caddies.
In all my years of computing I've never found a dead drive. This year though I've had 1 500gb Seagate fail 5 months ago, and Iomega Maxstore (with Seagate drives but it was the control board that failed not the drives) and 1 2TB Samsung F3 drive fail today.

Raid or nothing when you're storing photos.
 
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Gel said:
The speed increases from an SSD are mainly due to the cpu being able to access several points of the drive simultaneously as opposed to the needle having to move around.

It means that when photoshop, windows and a couple of other programs need something from the drive at the same time there's no latency.

If you're looking for a drive to store Raw files on a Samsung F3 drive as a storage drive is a better option. Apart from being cheaper the drives are 5200rpm so output lower heat, noise and because the drive platters are denser the continuous data rate is up there with 7200rpm drives.

The burst rate on an SSD though is insane.

If you are going to get a big drive though, use it in a mirrored raid array like the infosafe external caddies.
In all my years of computing I've never found a dead drive. This year though I've had 1 500gb Seagate fail 5 months ago, and Iomega Maxstore (with Seagate drives but it was the control board that failed not the drives) and 1 2TB Samsung F3 drive fail today.

Raid or nothing when you're storing photos.
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Must correct you there.

The Samsung F3 is a 7200rpm drive with a 'Single' platter.
 
Gel said:
The speed increases from an SSD are mainly due to the cpu being able to access several points of the drive simultaneously as opposed to the needle having to move around.

It means that when photoshop, windows and a couple of other programs need something from the drive at the same time there's no latency.
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Yeah that's roughly what I thought. I plan to use different drives for my OS, Software, LR Catalogue, LR Photos & Cache.

If you're looking for a drive to store Raw files on a Samsung F3 drive as a storage drive is a better option. Apart from being cheaper the drives are 5200rpm so output lower heat, noise and because the drive platters are denser the continuous data rate is up there with 7200rpm drives.
...
If you are going to get a big drive though, use it in a mirrored raid array like the infosafe external caddies.
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I've never used raid and I don't trust it enough to start - I think I read someone who lost both drives due to raid software issues, rather than both drives failing. I backup everything on separate drives and I'm happy doing that by hand.

The speed and heat output is a good point, I need to learn about the options. I'm thinking of getting a Backplane for 3 SATA drives (for raw files and backup etc), so I can change them, and possibly kepe heat down when not in use (but I need to learn about this too).
 
Gigabyte said:
Must correct you there.

The Samsung F3 is a 7200rpm drive with a 'Single' platter.
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Ecogreens are 5400rpm, I should of been clearer apologies.

Samsung SpinPoint F3EG Desktop Class 2 TB Internal hard drive - 300 MBps - 5400 rpm
 
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Gigabyte said:
The Samsung F3 is a 7200rpm drive with a 'Single' platter.
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This is all new stuff to me, but here's a few from Samsungs from Scan:

1TB Samsung HD103SI EcoGreen F2, SATA 3Gb/s, 5400rpm, 32MB Cache, 8.9 ms

1TB Samsung HD103SJ Spinpoint F3, SATA 3Gb/s, 7200rpm, 32MB Cache, 8.9 ms

1.5Tb Samsung HD153WI, SpinPoint EcoGreen F3, SATA II 3Gb, 5400rpm, 32Mb Cache, 8ms

So one of the F3s is 7200, the other is 5400 rpm.
 
I have....


X7DBN mother board
Two Intel Quad Core Xeon processors
8Gb DDR3 ram
30Gb SSD
Two 1Tb drives in Raid

Not really sure what all that means to be honest. :LOL:
 
Triggaaar said:
This is all new stuff to me, but here's a few from Samsungs from Scan:

1TB Samsung HD103SI EcoGreen F2, SATA 3Gb/s, 5400rpm, 32MB Cache, 8.9 ms

1TB Samsung HD103SJ Spinpoint F3, SATA 3Gb/s, 7200rpm, 32MB Cache, 8.9 ms

1.5Tb Samsung HD153WI, SpinPoint EcoGreen F3, SATA II 3Gb, 5400rpm, 32Mb Cache, 8ms

So one of the F3s is 7200, the other is 5400 rpm.
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Note the Ecogreen bit, less power, less temperature etc. The new 2TB ones I have are also 5400rpm. I think you only need high rpm drives for burst reading not so much for moving large files.
 
2x Pentium II 233MHz
768MB RAM
2x 4.5GB + 2x 36GB Ultra2 SCSI disks

My laptop is an IBM T43 - 1.3GHz Pentium III, 512MB RAM and 40GB disk.

I have just never understood this fad of constantly upgrading computers :thinking: Mine work just fine and probably will for another couple of decades...
 
Mine is


i7 920 With a prolimatech megahalems cooler, clocked to 3.8.
6GB DDR3
Gigabyte EX58-UD5 Motherboard
Two 1TB Harddrives, 1 500GB HD (1 seagate 2 western digital).
Creative Soundblaster X-FI Fatal1ty Soundcard
Sapphire Vapor-X Radeon 4890 Graphics card.
Antec 902 Case

will add some more ram and a better graphics card soon.

I find that when i am running lightroom 3 and Photoshop cs5 with bridge open at the same time with a good number of photo's open, i start to get low on memory.
I'm Hoping that going from 6gb to 12gb should cover it.

Forgot to say i'm running windows 7 64bit.
 
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After reading this thread it reminds me what I liked about PCs, building and modifying them. It was good to be able to simply replace motherboard, CPU and RAM and have a new computer :) My Windows machine is still running a pre core2duo P4 but well overclocked.
 
tintin said:
This the chip you're talking about?

Google search

And I can get that to 3.6 on air you say? Without modding the voltages? If so that may well be the chip for me (y)
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If it's D0 stepping then yes.

Currently mine is running at 3.6 stable.
BCLK 180mhz
Cpu voltage 1.2
Cpu 48 degrees
Cpu fan 1562rpm
Motherboard 42 degrees.

Cooler is a scythe mini ninja

That's it.

I can take it up to 3.8 and it starts to fall over due to heat.
If I burn test the cpu it fails, it just gets too hot and shuts down.

But, I can convert video, surf the net and convert and resize 300 raw files to jpg without the temp going above 58 degrees.

Works fine for what I need it for.

My weak point on the whole system is the cooler, you can easily get 4ghz on air with the right cooler.
 
You will struggle to reach 4GHz without upping the voltage a little unless you have a truely exceptional chip. My computer is mostly stable (1 BSoD every month or so), with a voltage of just over 1.3V
 
I have

Intel i7 860
2.8 GHz
- 2.5 GT/s
- 8 MB L3 cache

6GB Ram

ATI Radeon HD5570

2x 500GB - 72,000rpm - main drive
1x 500GB - 54,000rpm
1x 1000GB - 54,00rpm

24" Samsung 244t monitor

Microsoft 3000 wireless keyboard and mouse
 
Gel said:
If it's D0 stepping then yes.

Currently mine is running at 3.6 stable.
BCLK 180mhz
Cpu voltage 1.2
Cpu 48 degrees
Cpu fan 1562rpm
Motherboard 42 degrees.

Cooler is a scythe mini ninja

That's it.

I can take it up to 3.8 and it starts to fall over due to heat.
If I burn test the cpu it fails, it just gets too hot and shuts down.

But, I can convert video, surf the net and convert and resize 300 raw files to jpg without the temp going above 58 degrees.

Works fine for what I need it for.

My weak point on the whole system is the cooler, you can easily get 4ghz on air with the right cooler.
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Sounds good, I'll look in to it over the next few months ;) I was contemplating picking up a new AM3 chip for the system I currently have so I wouldn't have to buy a new mobo but I'd loose out on the higher HT as my mobo is limited to 1000 and I've always preferred intel anyway :D.

Thanks for the advice (y)
 
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