I need advice on buying a new computer and monitor.

[picture-me]

Without going into huge detail, I am ready to buy a new desktop for my photography hobby.  I am still running

CS3 (hoping that will work with Windows 7?), Corel Paint Shop Pro X (yeah, I know I have really old software, but I

don't feel the need to upgrade just yet), Picasa, and all the software that comes with my Canon 40D.  I take all my pics in

.raw and then edit/convert.  I have a 1 terabyte eternal drive where I store my photos, but editing from that source is S-L-O-W.

Someone mentioned on another site something about aneSata drive.  Need more info. (I want an easy way to backup my

photos monthly, because I have a fear of someone breaking in my home, stealing my pc and then all my photos are gone.

With the external drive, I can put it in my safe deposit box.)

I want a monitor (preferably not widescreen) that will be accurate with color and not have a glare, maybe 20" or so.  I print photos at home on my HP Photosmart printer, but I also have some printed professionally.  I would like recommendations on monitor calibration gadgets/software

so that what I see is very close to what will print.

This computer will have MSOffice 2010 on it. Will have quite a few other softwares on it that are currently on my old pc.

We don't watch movies on the PC or do any gaming so the video card will mainly be used for photography and some light video use.  We do skype.

Would like to stay in the range of $1500-2000 if possible.  I've basically purchased Dell's in the past due to the ease of designing my system,

but I have had two lemons and am certainly not tied to Dell.

I know I want a wireless mouse/keyboard.  Currently have Dell Speakers 5/1, which are decent enough for my use, as long as I can connect them to my

new PC.

Thanks for good advice!!  (And I want this PC to last me about 5 years so I would guess I need at least 8 g ram, 3.5 GHz processor, preferably Intel.

Also want 4 or more USB ports on the front or side, as my PC location is not suitable to use the back ports easily.)   Thank you!

[Claudio_González1]

This forum is for discussions on these Adobe forums. While your questions are completely legitimate and understandable, they are not in any way related with these forums, or with any Adobe products. I wish I could help you in taking the delicate personal decissions you will have to take, but all I could possibly offer are nothing but personal opinions. I would say the same must be true for any other participant.

[John T Smith]

IF you had mentioned video, I would say go to the Hardware sub-forum at http://forums.adobe.com/community/premiere

Since you don't mention building your own, the place I know of that builds is http://www.adkvideoediting.com/ - but their orientation is video editing

[Noel Carboni]

picture-me wrote:

Would like to stay in the range of $1500-2000 if possible.

I've taken quite a "non-standard" approach to this...  a little while back I purchased a powerful Dell Precision T5400 workstation that's come off lease from eBay, then populated it with good hardware.  Result?  Dual quad core Xeon 3.16 GHz 16 GB system with 3 TB of internal RAID disk storage and a good modern video card for about $1500.  This is a system that would have sold new for probably $6,000 just a few years ago.

I didn't have to buy any of the external stuff (monitor, backup drives, keyboard/mouse, etc.) because I upgraded from an existing workstation and was able to re-use all that stuff, plus one 1 TB drive from the old system - which I then sold for $700 to recoup some of the cost (total outlay was then only $800).

I describe the system and how I put it together in some detail here:

http://forums.adobe.com/thread/827500

This is a far more powerful system than anything I could get new for the same price.

Just a quick glance at eBay and I see that some T5500 workstations are becoming available for reasonable prices now.  I see, for example, a dual quad system with 12 GB of RAM for a Buy It Now price of a hair over $1000.

-Noel

[Phillip_M_Jones]

Since you have all That PC Software I would get anything Dell.

If you were starting from Scratch I would recommend Macintosh.

Whatever, ever you get since you will be Photo editing make sure it has a top of the line Video Card with plenty of RAM 512K minimum Either ATI Radeon, or Nvida Gforce.

And as for Amount of RAM in today's day and time if you don't have 8 GB System RAM you will being sipping two cups of Coffee waiting for things to get done.

The absolute minimum would be 2GB anything less you'll be able to take several Hour Naps in between processes.

You'd think that software would get smaller with technology, but the opposite is true, as thing go on software, everything gets larger, and larger.

Apple is on a Kick to get rid of any optical Drives in any of their Computers. Windows machines will Follow along shortly.

So to get these 3,4.5, 10 GB applications you'll need at least 25 MB Cable Connection or FIOS. Unfortunately for the majority of people in the US that gets paid Low wages and can't afford, or don't have jobs. FIOS is not available.  In the state of Virginia FIOS is only available in the eastern part of the state. Even 25 GB Cable is almost unaffordable.

I haven't upgraded to OSX7. simply because I've go to travel out of the state to an Apple Store to get on their system to upgrade. There is nothing fast enough to download the system file which is 4 GB.

So have fun while you can.

[Wourell1982]

I would have to agree with Philip Jones above with what he said about your video card.  Have you seen Dell XPS 8700 with NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650 Ti 1.0 GB GDDR5?  That should work great for your photos.  Another thing I like best about it is that it is fully expandable.  However, if you have to settle for a laptop that you can take along with your camera, the Dell XPS Ultrabook should work well.  Hope this helps somehow. Just put more focus on expandability and the video card.

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