Nice Config

I need a new PC for my high school girl. She needs to work on Photoshop and 3D animation projects (say, on Maya). Will the following configuration works, economically, up t date and no stupid config? Update me if there's any.

1. Not choosing a notebook because of performance and upgradability.
2. Not choosing Windows Vista because many software still prefer Windows XP Professional; Wacom Graphic Tablets can't work on it; 2GB RAM on XP works better than 3GB on Vista.
3. Reluctant to use nVidia GeForce GF8600GT, though it supports DirectX 10, but it doesn't support VGA as 2nd display, and performance is 15% slower than GF7600GT, right?
4. Reluctant to use DDR3, and it's expensive


My draft configuration is:

Motherboard: Gigabyte P35-DQ6 (instead of P35-S3L)
CPU: Intel Core 2 Dual E6420 (I need something at least 50% faster than a Pentium 4 3.00 GHz)
Video Card: nVidia GeForce GF7600GT 256MB
DVD Burner: LG DVD+-RW SATA (why not IDE?)
Wireless Card: 54MHz WEP/WPA, stay compatible with my wireless router, and 2/3 cheaper than a 108 MHz card.
Harddisk: 250GB Seagate Barracuda 16MB buffer SATA2 (why not PATA? or IDE?)
Tower Case: ATX based. Can I use mini case?
Windows XP Pro: Really should I go backward? Another choose is Vista Home Premium, then some applications must be running in XP Pro Compatible mode.
Wide Screen LCD: Asus MW221u, with 2ms and 700:1 and speakers. Do I have a better choice at similar price (5% up or down)?

 

To address your points...

1. If the computer doesn't have to mobile, there's no reason to get a laptop.

2. No wrong answer here. I recently bought a Dell laptop for my daughter, wiped Vista from it, paid $90 for XP Home and put it on her laptop. Here's a link to a list of software that works/doesn't work under Vista. I'd say XP would be the "safer" bet.

3. I'm not sure what you mean by "VGA ". Most video cards that I know of have two DVI outputs. Older ones may have one analog and one DVI. Performance metrics between cards refer to gaming performance, not performance in Photoshop and Maya. A good amount of system RAM would be good to accomplish the tasks your daughter will be doing.

4. DDR3 is par for the course for the "next" generation of memory. It's VERY expensive and provides no performance boost over the last generation. Evaluate it as part of the whole system, i.e. if you want everything to be bleeding-edge, you may have to go with DDR3.

To address your questions about PATA vs. SATA, since you're building from scratch and are going to buy a brand new hard drive and optical drives, you might as well buy newer technology, i.e. SATA. Even though SATA has no tangible advantages, buying PATA would be like choosing last year's model off the lot when this year's costs about the same amount. Your new mainboard might very well only have one PATA connector for a maximum of two devices...i.e. "the writing is on the wall. "

Going with a micro-ATX case severely limits your selection of mainboards.

Why go with a 2ms response time LCD? Will the system be used for gaming?

 

The vendor has insisited another configuration for me.
Here're the changes:

Motherboard
Gigabyte P35-DQ6 --> Intel BOXDP35DPM, LGA775

CPU
Intel Core 2 Dual E6420 2.13GHz, LGA775

Memory
2GB DDR2 (800/1066) --> DDR2 667 2 x 1G (He said I didn't need 800 and double the price.)

Video Card
GeForce nVidia GF7600GT 256 MB --> Asus GF8600GT

DVD Burner
LG DVD+-RW SATA --> Liteon IDE

My questions are:
1. motherboard is cheaper but it's using LGA775. Is it a good and current technology?
2. It specified "LGA775" with Core 2 Dual, is it a different CPU?
3. Will DDR2 667 too slow and pull the performance backward?
4. Is Asus GF8600GT same as GeForce GF8600GT?
5. Is DVD Burner on IDE outdating? Should I choose SATA for DVD Burner?

 

Having swayed to the AMD family myself, this looks like a comparable setup, yet could likely be pushed well beyond the Intel capability.

MOBO
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131013

CPU
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103860

Heatsink/Fan
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835106102

Memory
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820211188

Video
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121095

 

My nightmare with AMD a few years ago hasn't gone yet. So, in the next two years I'll not consider AMD again, I told myself.

But, can you eloborate in more specific about "beyond Intel capabilities "?

 

Hi Ivan,
Most of your first post comments are, of course, personal decisions, but I must take you up on the subject of Vista.
I stuck with XP only on one computer but installed Vista as a dual boot with XP on another from the initial betas. I have now dumped XP altogether because Vista has proved to be fast and stable, even to the point where I have not had a single problem with MS updates, and that was often a problem with XP.
Running a laptop, and a desktop, with Vista, Photoshop, and Lightroom, speed is excellent with AMD dual core processors and 2GB DDR2 on each machine, and the additional security measures in Vista are reassuring. My Wacom tablet works perfectly with Vista!!
I have had no problems with any software and Vista compatability for months, but that may be just good luck. Don't knock Vista just on other people's say-so, it's the immediate future.

Roger

 

Hi, R.Leale,

Thanks for your counter-mainstream comments. The most valuable news to me is the Wacom / Vista compatibility. But I even can't get an assurance from Wacom. They just asked me to turn to Bamboo tablet. Which model are you using?

My notebook is Vista Home Premium, which I think one day when I can't tolerate it, I'll upgrade it to Vista Ultimate, or downgrade it back to XP Pro SP2. After 2 months of repeatedly re-installation and tuning, it's quite stable during the last four months that I must say. But I remember that I only used 2 months from Windows 98 to Windows XP, and less than a week from XP to XP SP2. However, my Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 Business Contact Manager is still on shelf because it cannot run on Windows Vista. Microsoft support centre eventually didn't reply me on it anymore.

For Vista, I really wanna try dual boot but I don't want to pay double on license fee. I used to have MS Office 2000 and MS Office 2003 on the same machine, then I re-installed MS Office 2000 on another machine but for some reasons I was not aware that not every componets of it had been un-installed. Then after two years till last, I faced many difficulties in updating my legitimate MS software, including XP Pro, MS Office Pro 2003 and I was refused to update Defender. Just because I couldn't uninstall completely the Office 2000.

Besides the useless Areo interface (to me), the best thing is the Windows Performance Index, with which I can check which ready-made machine to buy or not. And eventually, I opt for DIY.

When I buy something, I want to own it, not license it. When I own it, I can treat it as assets, for as long as I want to use it. When I license it, I can only keep possession for as long as the vendor wants, or the vendor to discard it and ask me to license and pay for another one, normally within three years.

The least Microsoft can do is to provide dual license for each machine. Or just get rid of the intentional incompatibility product strategy for Vista to play down XP.

I still have a few Pocket PC 2002, which Windows Vista refused to provide the ActiveSync or any other connection. Do I have to discard them all just because of the useless Areo to me? What about the Motorola V6 Maxx that I got four months ago, it can only run on XP or prior versions, and not Vista. How many mobile phones support Vista? I doubt!

 

What do you want the machine to do?

Asking if X is better than Y depends on what you expect from the machine.

If you want a good gaming machine, put more into the graphics.

A "Quad" or higher CPU will do more tasks in various programs. Gaming is/was singular in it requirements.

What are RAM requirements of the programs you wish to run? Do you want to start up more than one RAM intensive program?

Put your budget towards areas that you are expecting to run. Try to think of what you might expect the machine to do in the future.

A good motherboard will get things moving quickly into and out of the CPU. If you are interested in games, a good graphics card is required, but, the motherboard works in between the CPU and graphics and it still needs to be loaded into RAM.

If you are interested in video or audio editing, concentrate on the drive system.

You can select a great "all round" machine, or you can get it to "concentrate" on the areas you are most interested in. As I said, "What do you want the machine to do? "

Whatever area you are interested in covering, put the model number and "review" into a websearch. Even on the dedicated hardware forums, you will find it hard for anyone but the "testers" to compare (if they have covered that hardware). It may also come down to manufacturers of the hardware, not just the chipsets they are using.

Matt

 

Hi Ivan,

Counter-mainstream!!! I think that you are forgetting that only people having problems complain about Vista, driver availability, etc, but I don't believe that they are the mainstream where Vista is concerned. In April Arstechnica reported that MS had already sold 20 million copies of Vista, and Paul Kedrosky recently said that PC's are selling worldwide at 21 million per month. I wonder how many of those are on XP! I also recall the problems I had during my first couple of months with XP, when my favourite tools were System Restore and True Image. Running a 32 bit Vista Home Premium I have had to restore an image only once since the release to users, and that was because of a problem with a beta program.

As for the Wacom question, drivers are available for both 32 and 64 bit Vista, for all the pro level tablets by download from Wacom.

The graphics card does not have a great influence on programs like Photoshop or Maya, both my machines have nVidia 7300's and with 2 GB DDR2 they fly.

Roger

 

Maybe if people had a choice as to which OS to buy like I did not, the numbers wouldn't be so rosy. Also, makes you wonder why in the upcoming Olympics, only XP will be used on mission-critical machines. Vista will be running on the PCs in the lounge for those who wish to surf the net. As it stands, no corporations (at least those in their right mind) will be switching to Vista for quite some time. And IMHO, home users should at least wait for the first service pack to come out.

I spoke with some other IT people and their impression is that Vista will be another ME, just a quick flash in the pan to swell M$' bank accounts who are already developing the successor to Vista.

 

Hi Christer,

I'm certainly no hardware expert, but looking at that FX-62 makes my mouth water. I think these comments from reviews were the real kicker for me.

The comments RE: running cool with good heatsink/fan are impressive too.

 

My experience, though limited, is that the included heatsink/fan is at best, adequate. Push the limits a bit, even without overclocking and it's often less than adequate. Problem is, I've yet to see any specs on the fan when buying a cpu/heatsink/fan package, so I never know what I'm getting. I like lots of available cfm, and low db ratings. The one I linked above can push 86.5 cfm in a range of 16-24 db ..... that's alot of quiet air. Being adjustable is a big plus too. The added cfm can be a big plus when ambient temps are a concern. I think mattman, Chiles or Rockster could address the wattage issues much better than I could even attempt to, even if I did a full week of research on it first

Ivan, I think you'd be hard pressed to get the same performance from that Intel proc vs the AMD, right out of the box, and with a good cpu fan, maintain cooler temps and better stability with the AMD.

 

Hi Roger,

Give it a sense of humour! The main-stream accepts a yet-to-be-ready Windows as norm, and anti-main-stream believes a responsible provider should deliver a ready and trouble-free software. It's nothing about comparing XP or Vista functionality. It's about comparing readiness when they launch. And 20 million copies means the customers have no choice. However, the recent MS announcement for continue selling XP is a proof that customers are no longer tolerating the irresponsible acts of MS. In Australia, many independent computer retailing put "no Vista until it's ready" in their shops' advertisement. For goodness, MS should not repeat the failure of its WFW, millenium and ME releases on Vista.

People are not just complaining Vista about its availability on drivers. Just think how much time you need to boot up a PC, or a browser, or MS Office, from Windows 98, XP and Vista. In the last ten years, did you spend more or less time to maintain your PC? What're the ultimate performance indices that you want to measure productivity? People got training, retraining, and retraining on new softwarre, but what additional productivity they contribute to the economy? Everybody is keeping themselves for updating, and maintaining productivity. If there is no stop-licensing and supporting issues, many companies can stay alive without wasting money on hardware and software upgrades. Staff can have a quiet personal life after work.

It's great to hear Wacom eventually have their drivers written up. It also tells a difference between the good old day's Microsoft and the nowadays Microsoft. In the good old days, a three-tier system existed: Microsoft - software developers - users. So Microsoft handshook wht software developers and ensured software upgrades for new Windows wes ready when a new Windows launched. For Vista, the software developers (or even the hardware manufacturers) complained that they received the new Windows at the same time as users. It's so helpless and embarrasing for the software developers.

I want a green IT industry. I want the software can be used as long as the hardware life. Natural selection is okay. New and better software are always welcome. The evil is the licensing machanism. Under licensing, customers have no choice at all.