Has Anyone Updated Their Systems Lately

[Cactus Cowboy]

I just installed 8 more gigs of RAM. Did it myself and it posted! Yippie! I now have 12 gigs and let me tell you it's like a vitamin B12 shoot to it. The difference is like night and day. Windows boots quicker, programs launch faster and even my monitor looks better. Tomorrow, another 8 gigs to max it out at 16 gigs. I shouldn't need anymore than that as I'm not running anything that memory intensive I think. After this, gonna get a better video card and then who knows maybe a newer CPU.

How about you folks anyone updating their hardware? If so, with what?

[Nancy OShea]

I bought a new work computer last year so I've no immediate plans to upgrade hardware.  But RAM is good.  Lots or RAM is even better  . 

And a good graphics card & video memory is A++.  If I had it to do over, I think I would have splurged more on the graphics side.  Maybe next year.

Nancy

[Cactus Cowboy]

Well Nancy don't tease me like that, what did you get and what are the specs. I've got an older Dell Optiplex 990 so adding the RAM really helped it. I can see the difference when I'm in Illustrator and Photoshop. I'm going to max the memory out at 16 gigs and that'll about do it for this box. But I am going after a better video card next. I doubt I'll pop for a CPU chip upgrade. If I need that I'll just get a newer computer. Just the memory and video card and I'm good to go for now.

PS: You should have seen the dust bunnies on the video card and system fans. I got creative and used my little shaver brush to get at 'em. I'm just glad there were no cobwebs HA!

[John T Smith]

2.5 years old now, but the computer I built in July 2014 does well for me... reply #6 for my hardware list in https://forums.adobe.com/message/6536849

[Ussnorway]

ime you are better to get a good system to start with but ram, ssd (not vista or xp) and gcards are the upgrades that work

cpu upgrades don't pay because you tip have to upgrade the motherboard as well so at that point you may as well just replace the system with a new one.

p.s, I'm holding off on my new system because I want the new AMD chip... but thats more for games than any Adobe issue

[Szalam]

A newer video card will help with Premiere, but not much with most other Adobe software. (A bit with After Effects, Illustrator and Photoshop, but not a huge amount [of course, that depends on how bad your old card is...])

One thing that makes a huge difference is having an SSD in your system instead of a traditional hard drive. Your OS will boot much faster, apps will load more quickly, saves happen faster, etc.

[Cactus Cowboy]

I installed the final two sticks of RAM and that maxed this box out at 16 gigs. From 8 gig's to 12 gigs I truly believe I noticed a difference but from 12 gigs to 16 gigs I honestly can't say. Maybe my eyes are just getting to old to tell anymore.  As for getting a video card; well the card it's got now has 512 megs onboard memory and the list of cards that are compatible with this mobo max at 1 gig ea. I'm not a gamer my main concern is the color vibrance in my monitor and if maybe I could amp up the refresh rate from 60mhz to maybe something like 75 mhz or better I don't think the video card has anything to do with that so now I'm thinking that maybe it's the Dell monitor and I should use the money to get a better one. I've had a ViewSonic before and that was a nice Monitor so I'll just have to do bit more investigating on that. But installing more RAM was a good thing and it was cheap enough. 

[Kanikas]

Moving to Hardware Forum​

[Ussnorway]

just be careful with ssd that your motherboard has the drivers to use them... a vista, 7 or 8 system may need firmware updates (risky) and isn't worth it ime

for these systems I recommend a sshd ... they are not as fast as ssd but the hybrid interface is far more compatable with older motherboards and you will notice the difference as your software speeds improve