# Yes another Computer? thread!



## PixelRabbit (Oct 3, 2012)

Ok guys and gals, after working on this sad sad sad laptop with a broken screen for months on end now I'm FINALLY getting the desktop fixed/upgraded! (Snoopy dancin!!)
So there was a time when I was up to date on this and would have happily rebuilt the rig myself but alas I'm no longer up to speed on what is what out there. When I built this system dual cores were JUST coming out lol

This is the email the guy sent after he checked out the desktop we are upgrading.  It would appear everything needs upgrading except our video card.  
The computer was eating hard drives like they were candy!

I looked at the email and my first thought was damn, we can buy a new system for that, is this worth it??
If you could share your thoughts on what he has put together here that would be a HUGE help and reduce my Googling greatly!

Thanks all!



Here are some quotes


1.       I5-3570 3.4Ghz Quad Core (4 Threads)
Asus P8H77-M / CSM micro-atx motherboard
4 GB DDR3-1333 Memory
LG 24x DVDRW
WDC 500 GB Hard Drive
Windows 7 Home Prem x64
Setup and Installation

$ 635.00 plus HST

2.       I7-3770 3.4 GHz Quad Core with Hyper Threading ( 8 Threads)
Asus P8H77-V LE atx motherboard
8 GB DDR3-1600 Memory
LG 24X DVDRW
WDC 1 TB Hard Drive
Windows 7 Home Prem x64
Setup and Installation

$ 795.00 plus HST

Please note, prices include E-Waste Fee.  Motherboard support Raid technologies and multi- video / display support.

If you have any questions, please contact me at 519-621-7138.

Rahim Syed


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## PixelRabbit (Oct 3, 2012)

Just a quick note, the thing that stood out to me was the fact that we told him that I will be using this for editing etc... and he still went with 4gigs of ram on the first one he put together, that seems low to me and threw up a red flag and made me go hmmm...


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## mjhoward (Oct 3, 2012)

I would at LEAST spend the extra $20 on the I7-3770*K* model since it is over-clockable.  They will run stable @ ~4.1GHz-4.2GHz and fairly cool with nothing more than a nice upgraded fan/heatsink on it.  BTW, whoever "he" is, has already told you what parts are compatible so you could just as easily purchase them through Newegg and put it together yourself.  Knowing what is compatible is the hardest part and even THAT is easy.


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## JohnTrav (Oct 3, 2012)

To me that is not worth it at all. I would just go buy new. You can get a deal at best buy and get what you want for those prices. Just check the website weekly and browse their weekly add and you will find something good. 

Brand I usually recommend is Lenovo or Asus. Both have great build quality. 

As far as the ram goes 4gb is sufficient for editing pictures. It's enough to get the job done. I would recommend going for 8gb but it's not a definite necessity. Also upgrading ram is cheap and easy after you buy a computer. Processor wise the guy was doing pretty good with in terms of what you need. 

Definitely look into buying new though. Even if you spend a little bit more it is worth it. I am assuming the guy isn't offering any kind of warranty to fix and upgrade your computer. 

Only time I noticed building a computer is cheaper now a days is when you are building some kind of crazy super gaming computer.


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## nmoody (Oct 3, 2012)

The better value is the second i7 setup. Double memory, double hard drive space and an i7 for $150 more. As long as your video card is semi-recent you will have a nice rig. 

Couple of things you may want to consider:
1. Only 1tb or 500GB of hard drive space is really small for a photographer. You may want to get more or multiple drives internally or external drives.
2. 4GB would be "acceptable" for editing but I wouldn't recommend it. The i5 would be perfectly fine though
3. If you are tech savvy you may want to consider Raid for redundancy.
4. External storage such as a external drive or Carbonite account for added protection of your data is also a excellent idea and is easier to deal with than a raid setup.


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## PixelRabbit (Oct 3, 2012)

Thanks everyone, is it possible for someone to ballpark parts cost and how much labour he is charging? (I'd google the parts but I'm not on the computer, just a ballpark is perfect)


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## mjhoward (Oct 3, 2012)

PixelRabbit said:


> Thanks everyone, is it possible for someone to ballpark parts cost and how much labour he is charging? (I'd google the parts but I'm not on the computer, just a ballpark is perfect)



He's charging about $100 in labor.


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## PixelRabbit (Oct 3, 2012)

Perfect, thanks


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## IByte (Oct 3, 2012)

mjhoward said:
			
		

> He's charging about $100 in labor.



If pixel is not doing the labor that seems reasonable labor cost considering. If there's not much price difference between the i5 or i7 then jump on the i7.  DDR3 is becoming cheaper, so if you can spend 100 on 4gb memory but saving 2-300 then stick with the i5.  Not many people use their CPU to it's full potential.


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## pgriz (Oct 3, 2012)

The second option is definitely better in my opinion, (along with what nmoody already noted), but I would focus some attention on getting a souped up graphics card with at least 1 GB of graphics memory.  Second, I strongly suggest you go with external drives (1 TB) with USB 3.0, firewire, or eSATA connections, and be able to run at least two external drives at the same time.  External drives are reasonably cheap (3 TB for $149 at Costco), and with a fast connection, they work well for work and backup.  I have four external drives which I rotate (1 main, 1 backup, 1 off-computer which I swap with the first backup, and 1 off-site backup, which I synchronize one a month or so.).  This way, all my work is automatically backed up and "if" the computer gets trashed for some reason, all I have to do with my images is move them to a different computer.

Another reason for setting up the external drives, is that you can do a full system backup on a 1 TB drive, and Windows 7 will allow you to restore the system off an external drive.  This is important to me because I have lots of software and customization on my systems, and to restore the system if I had to replace the system drive would probably take me a week or so of reinstalling software, something I've done once and don't want to ever do again.  With the system backup, I can (and have) restore the system to a newly repaired system drive with an overnight restore session.


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## PixelRabbit (Oct 3, 2012)

Thanks so much everyone for your replies, it has helped me a ton.

Here is where I'm at, I looked up barebones systems with the i7 and similar specs on the rest and found they tend to run about $900, I'm sure with some digging I could get a deal (but I'm getting pretty impatient to be honest and just want to get this done asap) .

The video card that is being kept is a Radeon HD 4890 1gig.

I have 3 external drives, 1TB and two 500GB that I'm using.

I agree, $100 in labour to save me having to do it is worth it.

I'm leaning towards the i7 setup.


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## PixelRabbit (Oct 3, 2012)

Option 2, the i7 it is! It will be ready next Wednesday or Thursday, this is going to be a very long week, I will finally be able to use big girl software instead of only DPP! Woohoo!
Thanks for your help guys  
This is what is being replaced, I've been plotting how I will put this thing out of its misery for a while now, might even make a thread taking suggestions lol


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## nmoody (Oct 3, 2012)

Screens can be replaced. Might want to try and sell it for parts. Maybe even your computer guy will buy it off you, or take some money off the price.


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## PixelRabbit (Oct 3, 2012)

This thing is on it's last legs, it is an Acer Aspire 5252, it was the first laptop we bought for one of our teenagers, it was great for the price point and was great for her needs but it was used hard (obviously lol) and it is very very tired. 

 It led a very useful life and has valiantly stuck it out with me over the past months, but it's time. I'm hoping to give it a dramatic and heroic end to a very useful and appreciated life (despite the harsh words that has passed between us over the past while).


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## mjhoward (Oct 3, 2012)

Um, if it isn't too late, I would make a tweak to Option 2.

I would change the motherboard to the ASUS P8*Z*77-V LK, which is only an additional $20
and I would change the processor to the i7-3770*K*, which is only an additional $20

These two changes will allow you to overclock the CPU to ~3.9GHz+ and still run cool on the stock fan/heatsink (REALLY easy, a lot of motherboards have preset options to select in the BIOS such as "Turbo" or something).  The motherboard and processor they have spec'd out are not overclockable.

EDIT:  Since you've got 2TB of external drives already, I might also suggest getting a SSD instead of the 1TB magnetic drive.  You will notice a very big difference in speed with the SSD.  You could get something like the 120GB Mushkin MKNSSDCR120GB and the price would be a wash against what is already spec'd.


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## jamesbjenkins (Oct 3, 2012)

For editing, all other things being equal, the most important item on the speed and ease in editing is your memory.

I just purchased an iMac, and the memory from Amazon to equip it with the maximum 32GB (Apple only advertises 16GB max, but that's been disproved repeatedly.) IDK what you're using for editing, but Photoshop is a RAM whore. I'd highly recommend equipping your computer with the absolutely maximum memory your motherboard is able to support.


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## KenC (Oct 4, 2012)

That depends a lot on the type of editing you do.  I have a two-year old iMac with 4 GB.  I use multiple layers in PS CS5 (a few adjustment layers and up to 2 or 3 full layers), although after the raw conversion I work in 8-bit, so I have file sizes up to about 100-150 MB, and I have no noticeable delays at any time (and I'm usually playing music and have Canon DPP and sometimes Firefox open at the same time).  If you're going to do 16-bit and/or lots of large layers, then you may need more RAM.


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## PixelRabbit (Oct 5, 2012)

**sigh**
Thanks guys, unfortunately I now have more time to decide so making those minor changes to the setup is definitely possible.  Mr. Rabbit ordered this then carried on to work, where he was laid off again, ugh.  Had to call the shop and put the brakes on until ...


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## PixelRabbit (Oct 7, 2012)

Update, well the layoff was a blindside for us and while Mr. Rabbit is back to work already (he is a Millwright and works through the union) I just can't justify investing this much in the desktop BUT I needed something.  The plan was to do the desktop first and eventually get me another laptop for portability etc so we just flipped it and I picked this up yesterday:

Gateway NV52L Series Notebook | Laptops - English | Ratings & Reviews | TheSource.ca

Just getting it set up now and it will do


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## rexbobcat (Oct 7, 2012)

PixelRabbit said:
			
		

> Update, well the layoff was a blindside for us and while Mr. Rabbit is back to work already (he is a Millwright and works through the union) I just can't justify investing this much in the desktop BUT I needed something.  The plan was to do the desktop first and eventually get me another laptop for portability etc so we just flipped it and I picked this up yesterday:
> 
> Gateway NV52L Series Notebook | Laptops - English | Ratings & Reviews | TheSource.ca
> 
> Just getting it set up now and it will do



Just out of curiosity...Why did you decide to buy a Gateway instead of another brand?


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## PixelRabbit (Oct 7, 2012)

In a nutshell, price, availability in my rural area, price, most ram for my buck.

I had $400 to spend, I considered used but decided to go with new partly because of the 1 year manufacturers warranty. 

The other options in my price range were 4gigs of ram and either 250 or 500 gig hd but some better names.


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## PixelRabbit (Nov 9, 2012)

Happy ending!

Picked up the i7 yesterday  :thumbup:

2.       I7-3770 3.4 GHz Quad Core with Hyper Threading ( 8 Threads)
Asus P8H77-V LE atx motherboard
8 GB DDR3-1600 Memory
LG 24X DVDRW
WDC 1 TB Hard Drive
Windows 7 Home Prem x64
Setup and Installation


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## nmoody (Nov 9, 2012)

Looks good!


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