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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by CameraClicker on December 28, 2011 at 4:35pm

My last two notebooks were an Acer and Lenovo.  My last three desktops were a Gateway, an Acer, and another Gateway.  The Acer notebook was expensive and I still use it, I like it better than the Lenovo.  The Acer desktop was relatively less than the Gateways, at about a third the cost.  The Gateways have i7 chips, one has 12 Gb of RAM with an additional 1 Gb on the video card, and the other 16 Gb with 1.5 Gb on the video card.  Each Gateway is addressing 5+ TB of disk.  The Acer has an i5 and 6 Gb of RAM and a more pedestrian video card.  It ran Photoshop CS5 without any problems but I needed a computer for a software lab I was setting up so it was replaced by the bigger Gateway machine.

The newer Gateway machine also came with a 65 Gb drive with the installation on it.  When it installs, it puts Windows 7 on that little drive instead of on the 1.5 Tb drive which it reserves for data.  That means there is only about 11 Gb of free space on C:.  Not realizing there were two drives, I called Gateway tech support and found them to be completely useless.  They had no idea how much memory the machine had and never mentioned the second drive.  Frustrated with them I took the side off the machine and discovered the second drive.  Then a satisfactory resolution was easy.

Anyway, all this to let you know where I am coming from.  I have no hard recommendation for you, just some thoughts.

A typical desktop hard drive spins at 7200 RPM.  A typical notebook hard drive spins at 5400 RPM.  The notebook drive has to be more robust, and part of how they get that robustness is to slow it down. 

You can purchase external drives that plug into USB ports.  You can get very small ones that still hold 1 Tb, which is ideal for carrying around with a notebook, and you can get larger ones that cost a bit less per terabyte if you are going to plug them into a desktop or you don't mind carrying around the larger form factor drive.  Having more drive space may make your editing software work better if you can have the photos on one drive and the temp folders on another drive.

More memory is a good thing.  A minimum of 4 Gb, but 6 Gb will perform better, after that it is just about being able to have more files open at a time without swapping out to virtual memory (which is a file on your hard drive).

Better monitors have a dull look when they are turned off, the less expensive monitors are shiny.  Notebook purchasers here are cost conscious, the local Staples has a couple of dozen models on display and only the top two or three have a mat monitor finish, a guy could shave in the rest.

Get the most machine you can afford, it will take a little longer for it to become obsolete.

Permalink Reply by Ricardo Gomez on February 4, 2012 at 3:42am

If you use Photoshop to edit, get a computer with the fastest processor. That's what matters most with Photoshop. Then get the biggest hard drive with a speed rating of 7200RPM. The price difference for the slower drive is not worthwhile. If you want some real performance, get a solid-state drive (ssd). Unfortunately these are really expensive.

I've been in the computer biz for 25 years and I would recommend these computer manufacturers in the following order:

Laptops: Lenovo ThinkPad, Sony Vaio, Dell Latitude, Toshiba Satelite, Hewlett Packard
Desktops: HP 5000/7000, Dell Omniplex/Vostro

Good luck!

Permalink Reply by Paul Brooks on February 4, 2012 at 4:48am

With a photo processing machine, you forgot the one thing that will speed up her processing more than anything else:  RAM.  Find the computer that has the highest combination of Hard Drive size and speed, a quad or quad-quad core proccessor, and a minimum 16 GB of RAM.  Do NOT expect to find a good photo processing machine for anything less than $800 USD, and a great processing machine for less than $1500 USD.  As CC mentioned, also look into a minimum 1.5 TB external HD, and BACK UP your data often, in multiple places.  I also tend to NOT reccommend a laptop for photo editing for two reasons: 1. Not as scalable, meaning its not that easy to upgrade components, and 2.Monitors on laptops are much more prone to color issues.

 

Unlike Ricardo, I reccomend that you do not go with the "pre-made" desktops, but rather build one on newegg.com or any one of the "computer geek" stores, as you will be able to get more of what you need for a much better price.  Good luck!

Permalink Reply by Gary Vernon on February 4, 2012 at 5:18am

I fully agree with Paul about not using Laptops for editing,

quite apart from editing on a monitor the size of a postage stamp the screens have lousy colour consistency and are not easy to calibrate properly, the only time we use a laptop is when tethering mostly in studio.

On the desk top we run dual monitors, one for the image and another holding several software interfaces for the separate editing tools - editing needs lots of screen real estate.

I agree with Ricardo on getting an SSD (Solid State) drive for the system as they have no moving parts and are way less prone to failure -  prices are now really affordable.

We'll be turning completely to the 8 Core Mac Tower next week and will run Wndows only in parallel with the few programs it needs.

Max out with the fastest Ram you can get, install a heavy duty graphics card and make sure there is plenty of room for expansion for installing your 1.5 and 2 TB drives.

Permalink Reply by Paul Brooks on February 4, 2012 at 5:25am

When Gary refers to "Heavy Duty Graphics Card", I believe he is refering to what CC was talking about in his post "1.5 Gb on the video card" refering to it's own memory cache.  That is on the lower end of what you should be looking for.  Sorry Gary, thought that clarifying that might help a little  :)

Permalink Reply by Gary Vernon on February 4, 2012 at 5:55am

That's ok Paul,

it was what i was referring to - cheers :)

Permalink Reply by Ricardo Gomez on February 4, 2012 at 2:17pm

Whoops! Forgot RAM. Yes. More the better. I also agree with $800 being the minimum for a good photo processing machine.

Permalink Reply by Gary Vernon on February 5, 2012 at 6:07am

I'm assuming the $800 doesn't include the cost of a half decent graphics monitor?

On the subject of peripherals, my old Intuos XL has just melted so that's nearly another

$800 to replace that bit of kit

Permalink Reply by Paul Brooks on February 5, 2012 at 6:26am

In my estimation, $800 only covers the machine with no perepherals.  Your getting into a whole different price range with all the peripherals that I would suggest, and another even higher range with my own wish list! 

Permalink Reply by Gary Vernon on February 5, 2012 at 8:01am

He he... aren't wish lists great eh!

This ones on my list, but not for this year:

http://www.theyachtmarket.com/boats_for_sale/201770/

Permalink Reply by Chris Keddy on February 4, 2012 at 2:56pm

I use a gateway touchscreen, works for all my needs 

Permalink Reply by Chris Keddy on February 4, 2012 at 3:16pm

 Gateway 295 14 ” wide touch-screen , resolution 1280h768 pixels, Intel Core 2 Duo T7100 1.8GHz and 2GHz T7300, 2GB DDR2 RAM, integrated Intel Video Graphics Media Accelerator X3100 to be specific my desk top is also gateway.