guys
i have to buy a pc
well, this is not a must but my old sony vaio (2003) is very very tired.
i make architecture (autocad/photoshop/3d studiomax etc), music (Live, soundforge, acid etc) and internet with.
what i liked of it it's the fact that apparently Sony make (made?) all the inner pieces...
it has 1giga ram. i don't know its processor. at that time it was avantgarde but now...
i'm about thinking to buy one just for music/video. but i would like however to be able to use autocad/photoshop etc with. NO MAC NEEDED!
...so, what do you suggest for:
-label
-processor
-ram
-(others)
?
i use an acer, they are affordable and dependable, don't come with much crap pre-installed, and easy to maintain. ram is cheap now so you might as well get as much as you can i have an intel i5 and got 6gb ram- when i run photoshop, music, internet and premier all at once there are no hiccups and i'm pretty sure i can push it further if i wanted to. windows 7 is really nice. way better than vista... i dual boot with linux but prefer windows for the first time in my life.
for processor i def recommend intel, you can get an i3 for half the price of an i5 and its a pretty good deal
64 bit , dual / quad core / fat ram. you can get these cheap now adays, and suprisingly enough emachine and acer and very decent computers for being so cheap , but i have an expensive toshiba right now, i didnt buy it tho.
If your spending over a grand on any computer thats not a mac, your wasting your money. I used to work with this IT guy who was smart as fuck and he told me to just buy cheap computers, Not cheap like crap but cheap like 400-500 bucks from like walmart or some other distributor, run it into the ground and get another in 4-5 years. The parts are not built to perfection in PC's i guess, thats why macs withstand the test of time in most cases.
I grabbed a HP from walmart for like 400 bucks, has windows 7, 2 gigs of ram, 64 bit and who cares about the speed, its usually good now a days anyway. Im i have CS3, 4 and 5 on it, 5 is 64 bit and it runs nicely, even with flash and illustrator open at the same time. I would do better to have 4 gigs of ram but i have an old mac with 4 gigs of ram and use that for the more intense stuff like after effects and 3d programs.
Get yourself a nice 500 computer, shoot for 64 bit definitly, if you find one with dual or quad core, go for it, make sure it has a good video card for Max and photoshop. Cant have enough usb ports for audio interfaces and dongles n shit. Make sure the operating system you get is compatible with the software you already own/bootlegged. I cant get this mpd 16 to work on windows 7, but it works on my mac. Keep an eye on the compatibility, thats always an issue. And make sure you got a nice amount of hard drive space, id say 200 gigs is sufficient. They are selling computers with a terabyte in em. Useless because the dumbest thing you can do is not back your shit up. I got about 200 gigs and most of it is taken up my bootlegged movies and seasons, Absolutely everything else gets backed up on an external 1Tb drive for like 100 bucks. Live and learn, lost everything once believing in my hard drive which has so much access on a daily basis, it has to crash at some point, viruses and all. Back shit up and keep the external unattached when its not needed.
Dam, didnt mean to drop a novel but i love talking computers.
Hope all these words help.
thanx for the words and the advices
i think i will not spend more than 600€.
just some questions:
-some men on the shops told me that 4giga nd 6 or 7 giga ram is not that different (for what i want to do with)...
-is it that hard to install win xp instead of keeping win 7?
Ella, I'm system engineer and I work as an IT manager/Network administrator for a couple companies, what springwater said is so true, I always recommend to people do not spend more than 400-500 bucks on their PCs/laptops reason is because if you spend $1K+ for the latest and newest PC on the market in a couple months your PC is going to cost the half of what you paid, and in another couple months the half of the half... so you just buy what's looks like a good deal at the moment, use it until your system is really old and then replace for another "good moment deal"
About RAM, since you said that you run Photoshop, Autocad, etc etc... go BIG on RAM... RAM (Random Access Memory) it is where your PC "saves" all the information/software that you are running at the moment, this memory is super fast (at least compared with your Hard drive) so if you are running several programs at the same time you need enough RAM to save all those programs, if not... then you PC needs to save the information in the HD, which is much more slower and you are going to experience those hickups everytime that you switch from program to program...
Win 7 is awesome, Win XP was great but it is 2002 technology so you are not going to find to much recent software compatible with XP anymore, go further and stay with 7, try Professional or Ultimate if you can afford it, Win 7 is 2009 technology, much more secure and stable, it has a lot of cool and very handy tools, also system is very stable...
What tech said to you about 4, 6, 7 it is not true if you are running those softwares that you want to run... def more is better (because the reason that I already explain to you) so go BIG on RAM...
You need to make sure that you are buying a 64 bit equipment/software, why? well... 32 bits only can recognize up to 4 GB or RAM so if you have a motherboard/processor that can handle more than 4GB but you are running Win 7 32 bits you PC is only going to recognize up to 4GB (or less) if you are planing to install more than 4GB you NEED 64bits... I can go further and explain this more deep (nerdy style) but thats not the point right now...
I'm currently using an Intel Core 2 Quad, 8GB RAM, Win 7 Ultimate 64 bits, I never experience bad things or delays... anyways if you want to use the latest shit out there go and buy one of those Solid state drives (SSD) are incredible FAST!!! but expensive as fuck... I have a small one (30GB) installed on my laptop and I paid $80 (when for $50 you can buy a regular 500GB laptop Hard drive) but those SSD are up to 5 times faster than the HDD, besides not mobile parts, not discs inside, etc etc etc etc... I installed one of those on my work PC and performance improved in 200%, windows load time is just a snap (I need to mention that my netbook shut down in just 3 seconds using those SSD)
So recommendations for you:
Intel Core i3 or i5 (do not but i7, too expensive and they are going to come with something new in a couple months so your i7 is going to be a piece of shit)
64 bits Win 7
at leats 4GB of ram (I would suggest 8GB if you plan to run all the software that you listed)
you can buy something like that in the US for around $500-600
I almost forgot! about XP you are not going to be able to find drivers for your equipment and XP, so keep on 7, In case you find drivers are not going to be the right ones or they are not going to give you support so you are going to experience lots of issues... besides like I already explain there's no reason to downgrade to XP when 7 it is much better
ya windows 7 is pretty good and you should be OK with drivers and all. I ran into some issues but you work around them. As long as its affordable, ITS A COMPUTER, they advance so quick you be lucky enough to get the latest technology if you were trying. Something newer would come out before you even got home and hooked it up. Oh yeah, if you aint rocking CS5 you should and that definitely 64-bit. Very stable too. Alot of adobe's newer versions suck ass but they got it right with CS5. Fuck CS4. Fuck it up their ass. CS4 blows dogs for quaters.
-Rant complete.
Good luck on the computer search.
locotesmjr wrote:
Win 7 is awesome, Win XP was great but it is 2002 technology so you are not going to find to much recent software compatible with XP anymore, go further and stay with 7, try Professional or Ultimate if you can afford it, Win 7 is 2009 technology, much more secure and stable, it has a lot of cool and very handy tools, also system is very stable...
well the reason why i want to keep win xp is just that i got many softs on that system (Live6/8 lite, Acid 2.0-!!!-soundforge6, cubase 2.2 etc)...i don't know if they will work on win 7
locotesmjr wrote:
What tech said to you about 4, 6, 7 it is not true if you are running those softwares that you want to run... def more is better (because the reason that I already explain to you) so go BIG on RAM...
...well, fuck those shop techniciens!!! i will go no BIG RAM!!!!!!!
locotesmjr wrote:
You need to make sure that you are buying a 64 bit equipment/software, why? well... 32 bits only can recognize up to 4 GB or RAM so if you have a motherboard/processor that can handle more than 4GB but you are running Win 7 32 bits you PC is only going to recognize up to 4GB (or less) if you are planing to install more than 4GB you NEED 64bits... I can go further and explain this more deep (nerdy style) but thats not the point right now...
sorry for the nerd question: what 64bit equipment corresponds to? the processor?
Guys up there are totally right. Dont spend too much money on the PC - thats #1. Loco's parts list is aight, you can look it up surely.
You can consider buying used parts on eBay, which gonna let you save about 50+% of the cash for the certain parts ( I always do this with processor, RAM, graphics, Cpu cooler, DVD-ROM, LCD Monitor and the pc-Case - never had ANY problems ). You definitely should go with the new motherboard and power supply though - those are the key things.
if you wanna do music on your pc, I'd consider getting mac (~stability). Of course in europe getting one is just ridiculous because of sky-high prices, but if you choose the right parts for your desktop pc ( or you wanna go with a laptop?) - you can run Mac OS on the regular desktop PC, which gonna cost you <400 eur ( not including the LCD ).
There is an option to do a dualboot from the same Hard drive too, so you can have both Mac and Win7/XP on the same PC.
( let me know if you're interested or have any further questions, I recently bought new shit for music and autocad (PC running a Mac) so Im really up to date )
elhuana wrote:
( let me know if you're interested or have any further questions, I recently bought new shit for music and autocad (PC running a Mac) so Im really up to date )
do you use the autocad shiiiittttttt???!!!???
cool, i'm not alnoe!
Ella, Win 7 is fully compatible with previous Win versions so you should not have any issues running your old programs on 7, actually 7 has a XP compatibility mode (Microsoft went right on this because most people still trusting on XP more than newer versions of Windows)
I'm still running several applications that I used to use on XP without problems... anyways I would like to recommend you and check your software websites for compatibility with 7.
64 bits correspond to basically everything since you are buying a processor which is 64bit compatible, you should get a compatible motherboard also, etc etc... so don't worry, just make sure you are buying a 64bit equipment (if you see that your PC or laptop comes with 7 64 bits then your processor/ram/motherboard, etc are 64 bits too...
Asus k52jt-sx488
-core i5480
-4 gb ram
-radeon 6370 630€
Asus k72jt-ty153v
-core i5480m
-4gb ram
-radeon 6370 730€
some vendor confirmed me what some of you said before: between august and september there will be models with i7 at a lower price
personally i need one new pc before august, due to some concert/performances in august...
dedicated memory on video cards means that they have their own RAM, they do not borrow RAM from your system... let's say that you have a laptop with 4GB or RAM and your video card use 1GB (but shared not dedicated) then your system only have 3GB available to work... same case but dedicated RAM on video card mean that your video card have their own 1GB and your system has 4GB available...
that's what's up!
i have an intel i5 and got 6gb ram- when i run photoshop, music, internet and premier all at once there are no hiccups and i'm pretty sure i can push it further if i wanted to. windows 7 is really nice. way better than vista... i dual boot with linux but prefer windows for the first time in my life.
