Tom_ZeCat
04-27-2010, 09:09 PM
The motherboard in my home-built PC went belly up, and its time to rebuild. The computer was showing its age anyway. I built it in 2006, salvaging an AMD Athlon 3700 single core processor that originally came in an HP Pavilion from 2004. The PC had 1 1/2 gigs of RAM and a 250 gig hard drive. I was noticing certain Photoshop plug-ins (like Portraiture) were running somewhat slow. Same deal with the lighting effects in Paint Shop Pro.
So, it's upgrade time. The most important things to make zip along speedily are those Photoshop plug-ins and other image editing tools like Paint Shop Pro, Lightroom, and other programs. It would also be nice if the PC could handle video editing well, though that's of secondary importance.
I also intend to install both Windows 7 Professional and Ubuntu Linux 9.04 on it. For the first time, I'm going to use one of the tools to be able to jump back and forth between Win 7 and Ubuntu at will.
Other things I'll use the PC for are the basics that almost any PC will do well such as word processing, financial software, and Internet.
I'm going to reuse my Antec case, 530 watt power supply, heat sync, and the DVD drive. The other stuff gets replaced -- the motherboard, the processor, the memory, etc.
I'm not as up on processors as I once was. At New Egg.com I found a Intel Core i7-980X Extreme Edition 3.33GHz Six-Core Desktop Processor for 1,049.00.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
That one's out of my budget. I want to keep the processor below $200. There's an Intel Core i5-650 3.2GHz (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115220) for $185. That's in my budget, but NewEgg's customer choice one, the AMD Phenom II X4 Quad-Core Processor (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103674), is only $160. However, there's a more affordable Intel, a Core 2 Quad Q8300 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115207) for $148.
On the other hand, there's a much more affordable AMD, a Phenom X3 Triple-Core Processor (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103252) for just $74. I've been getting by doing my image editing with a single core processor from 2004. Maybe this triple core one is more than sufficient. I'm not out to overspend, and I do have other components like the motherboard to buy.
So what do you think? Go for the $74 processor or, for what I'm doing, is it worth going with one of the three more expensive ones?
Oh, and memory. I'm going to start out with 4 gig and upgrade to 8 later. If you want more details on the processors, I've linked to them in this post (except for the Core i7-980X -- you're on your own with that one, LOL).
So, it's upgrade time. The most important things to make zip along speedily are those Photoshop plug-ins and other image editing tools like Paint Shop Pro, Lightroom, and other programs. It would also be nice if the PC could handle video editing well, though that's of secondary importance.
I also intend to install both Windows 7 Professional and Ubuntu Linux 9.04 on it. For the first time, I'm going to use one of the tools to be able to jump back and forth between Win 7 and Ubuntu at will.
Other things I'll use the PC for are the basics that almost any PC will do well such as word processing, financial software, and Internet.
I'm going to reuse my Antec case, 530 watt power supply, heat sync, and the DVD drive. The other stuff gets replaced -- the motherboard, the processor, the memory, etc.
I'm not as up on processors as I once was. At New Egg.com I found a Intel Core i7-980X Extreme Edition 3.33GHz Six-Core Desktop Processor for 1,049.00.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
That one's out of my budget. I want to keep the processor below $200. There's an Intel Core i5-650 3.2GHz (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115220) for $185. That's in my budget, but NewEgg's customer choice one, the AMD Phenom II X4 Quad-Core Processor (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103674), is only $160. However, there's a more affordable Intel, a Core 2 Quad Q8300 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115207) for $148.
On the other hand, there's a much more affordable AMD, a Phenom X3 Triple-Core Processor (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103252) for just $74. I've been getting by doing my image editing with a single core processor from 2004. Maybe this triple core one is more than sufficient. I'm not out to overspend, and I do have other components like the motherboard to buy.
So what do you think? Go for the $74 processor or, for what I'm doing, is it worth going with one of the three more expensive ones?
Oh, and memory. I'm going to start out with 4 gig and upgrade to 8 later. If you want more details on the processors, I've linked to them in this post (except for the Core i7-980X -- you're on your own with that one, LOL).