Another new toy....

[Furgus]

I am getting a new Toy in the next week or so....it is coming from Dell

Inspiron 530,Intel Core2 Duo processor E8200 (2.66GHz,1333FSB) w/Dual Core Technology and 6MB cache

3GB DDR2 SDRAM at 800MHz
320GB Serial ATA 2 Hard Drive (7200RPM)
Dell 19-in-1 Media Card Reader
Microsoft Windows XP Professional,Service Pack 2, English (YEAH NO VISTA!)
16X DVD+/-RW Drive

Dell UltraSharp 2408WFP,Wide Flat Panel

GeForce 8600 GT 512 MB DDR2 PCI Express Graphics Card

My 700m laptop just can't deal with my photoshopping anymore. So this one will be much better. I went with a dual core because all of the research that I saw said you get no gain out of PS with a quad core, and in some cases you see a performance boost with a higher clocked Dual Core.
The 24" Monitor will be a lotter better then the 12" laptop screen I work on now too Will post some setup pics when I get it.

 

[handicap18]

sweet. That 3GB RAM is going to make a huge difference. I got my new computer back at the beginning of Feb (similar spec's as your's). Makes photo work a breeze. I have a 22" wide screen and love it as well.

 

[DVC Jen]

very nice! I got my first Dell in December. 4gb ram, 400 hard drive, duel core processor (i think this is all correct - hubster is the techie and picked most of it)- XPS - it is lightening fast and I love it.

Hope you are just as happy with yours.

 

[orchjoe]

I just got a new one in march. I had a coupon so I saved like 400 bucks and managed to spend about $1100 after tax.

Intel Core 2 Quad Processor Q6600
4GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 800MHz
24 inch E248WFP
nVidia GeForce 8600GT-DDR3 256MB
320GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM)
Integrated Sound Blaster®Audigy™ HD Software Edition

 

[Furgus]

I was going to get 4 gb memory, but then one of my very computer hardware savvy friend of mine said if I wasn't running Windows 64 bit, then I would see no increased performance. Anyone here that also?

 

[DVC Jen]

I was going to get 4 gb memory, but then one of my very computer hardware savvy friend of mine said if I wasn't running Windows 64 bit, then I would see no increased performance. Anyone here that also?

the hubster did some research with mine and he found out that as long as you don't go OVER 4gig you do not need to worry about the 64 bit.

I know my machine flies which is a good thing because I am not the most patient person in the world.

 

[Groucho]

XP doesn't really recognize memory over 3 gigs. (There is a 64-bit version of XP but it's very rarely used for various reasons.) It's slightly more complicated than that, but by and large - if you want to make use of 4 gigs, you should be running 64-bit Vista. (Or unix, but that's another discussion.)

Get your XP while you can - June 30th is the last day that MS will sell XP!

And you'll probably have good luck with your PC since it's a desktop, but don't get me started on Dell laptops.

 

[boBQuincy]

It's gonna' be so fast your images will be processed before you get home! That's some serious hardware!

I'm going the other route, Asus Eee at under 2 lb. I don't think I will put PS CS3 on it...

 

[Groucho]

It's gonna' be so fast your images will be processed before you get home! That's some serious hardware!

I'm going the other route, Asus Eee at under 2 lb. I don't think I will put PS CS3 on it...

How are you liking that Asus? Those things look pretty cool, and our local wholesale club has one near the entrance by the other laptops and my eye is always drawn to it - but I just don't think I'd use it enough to justify getting one, but they do look fun.

(For those who haven't seen this laptop, it's tiny and doesn't even have a hard drive, it just uses flash memory for storage!)

 

[boBQuincy]

I have a Sony SRX-87 and it is probably the previous smallest real PC available at just under 3 lb. With a 10.4" screen and little power it is obviously very limited but when you need to see a real web site or do some computing there is really nothing else that works.

The Asus Eee 900 (9" screen) goes on sale sometime in May and I expect it will go with me on any trips. It may not run PS but it sure will run a RAW viewer!

 

[DVC Jen]

XP doesn't really recognize memory over 3 gigs. (There is a 64-bit version of XP but it's very rarely used for various reasons.) It's slightly more complicated than that, but by and large - if you want to make use of 4 gigs, you should be running 64-bit Vista. (Or unix, but that's another discussion.)

Get your XP while you can - June 30th is the last day that MS will sell XP!

And you'll probably have good luck with your PC since it's a desktop, but don't get me started on Dell laptops.

Hey Groucho - I just talked to Ian again and he said he didn't order me the "standard" version of XP but the "multi-media" version. Does that handle the 4gig better??

 

[Groucho]

The Asus Eee 900 (9" screen) goes on sale sometime in May and I expect it will go with me on any trips. It may not run PS but it sure will run a RAW viewer!

9" screen sounds almost too big.

I was actually playing with more internet apps on the wife's PSP yesterday - for a little game system, it's pretty neat - certainly able to surf the web reasonably well, and there's a really cool app called PSP Maps that basically is like a shrunk-down version of Google Earth, only it can pull map data from Google, Virtual Earth, and Yahoo Maps. Really neat. Not as full-featured as the Asus but not shabby for a pretty cheap game system.

Hey Groucho - I just talked to Ian again and he said he didn't order me the "standard" version of XP but the "multi-media" version. Does that handle the 4gig better??

Nope. What he probably got was XP Media Center Edition (XP MCE for short), which includes a front-end that's designed for use on a television, with DVR functionality, media playback, etc. Other than that, it's regular old XP. You need 64-bit to get full use of the extra memory.

But at least there are diminishing returns with the larger memory - going from 2 gigs to 4 gigs won't be as much of a speed boost as going from 1 gig to 2 gigs (or 512 to 1 gig, etc.) XP also doesn't use as much memory as Vista so it can usually give more responsive performance than Vista on an identical PC.

 

[boBQuincy]

One of the plus points for the ultra micro PCs is they fit in the safes in DVC and cruise ship rooms!

 

[Furgus]

Got the monitor today. PC comes tomorrow, keyboard and mouse, and graphics card will be here by next Thurs....I hope.

This monitor ROCKS!

 

[Furgus]

Got the PC today and took me about 4 hours to get it the way I want it. PS and LR are blazing on this....

Just wonder what most PS users put there performance setting at?