# Desktop or Laptop?



## bigheadkyle2 (Aug 1, 2011)

My current laptop is about to bite the dust so I'm looking into getting a new computer. My question is should I go with a desktop or a laptop. I know the main advantages of laptops is really just the portability issue and that's about it right? Also I know that it's hard to get an accurate representation on a laptop screen due to the angle you are viewing it and such. From the little research I have done you can get a desktop with the same specs(give or take a little) as a laptop for considerably less. I'm going to be running Photoshop CS5 and Lightroom 3 on it for photo editing and I do a little designing with Photoshop too which slows my current computer down a lot. So the question is desktop(lower price and just better all around) or laptop(portability)? Also any info on what I should look for as far as a processor and the such goes would be good. I have heard that an i7 processor is the best way to go.


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## frisii (Aug 1, 2011)

I use a netbook, internet dongle, desktop monitor and a mouse tablet.


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## bigheadkyle2 (Aug 1, 2011)

I'm thinking about the Dell XPS 8300. Anyone know anything about this machine?

Some of the specs I have selected on it-
Dell ST2420L 24"W Full HD Monitor
Dell ST2220L 21.5" Wide Screen Monitor(for Photoshop brush and tool panels and the like)
12GB Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM at 1333MHz- 4 DIMMs
http://configure.us.dell.com/dellst...bab99cff&ecomm=ecomm.dell.com&c=us&l=en&cs=192Tb - 7200RPM, SATA 3.0GB/s, 64MB cache
Single AMD Radeon HD 6870
Intel Core i7 - 2600 processor(8MB Cache, 3.4GHz)


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## nickzou (Aug 1, 2011)

Seems like a beast. How much?


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## bigheadkyle2 (Aug 1, 2011)

It's just a little over $2100.


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## chaosrealm93 (Aug 1, 2011)

i heard dells are trash, unreliable, batteries catch on fire, overheat etc..


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## red__zed (Aug 1, 2011)

chaosrealm93 said:


> i heard dells are trash, unreliable, batteries catch on fire, overheat etc..


 
Some of the cheap models are...well...cheap. The higher end stuff is pretty solid. I'm going on 6 years of constant travel with my d series and it is still in great shape. 


Sent from my iPhone


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## bigheadkyle2 (Aug 1, 2011)

My brother has had a Dell laptop for almost 5 years that still works fine and has a Dell desktop that he has had for almost 2 years that works perfectly so I'm not sure about that. A computer is like a car. If you take care of it you can get more than enough use out of it but if you don't take care of it, whether it be a Kia or a Ferrari, it's not going to last.


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## analog.universe (Aug 1, 2011)

Whichever direction you go, use half your budget for a nice monitor...  doesn't matter how powerful your machine is if you can't see what you're editing.  Also, yes i7's are very nice and will serve you fine.  In my experience Dell has been plenty reliable, and offers upgraded warranties that might be worth it if you're worried about that sort of thing.  Get lots of RAM.  It's really cheap, so look for 8GB+, makes all the difference.  Even if you have to buy a machine stock with 4 and then upgrade.


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## Virtuosos (Aug 1, 2011)

Gaming computers, custom gaming computers, gaming pc, custom gaming pc


Or if you know anything about desktops, you can buy individual pieces off .... i can't remember the website, but its great pieces for cheap.....and build it yourself.

Anyways, i've shopped with DSO for years...the customer service is fantastic and the products themselves are good (especially for gaming). I don't trust dell as there have been too many issues with them for me, but thats not to say they don't make good products for fairly cheap. I personally game at times and love the benefits of having a gaming computer so -shrug-.


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## red__zed (Aug 1, 2011)

Virtuosos said:


> Gaming computers, custom gaming computers, gaming pc, custom gaming pc
> 
> 
> Or if you know anything about desktops, you can buy individual pieces off .... i can't remember the website, but its great pieces for cheap.....and build it yourself.


 
Newegg?


Sent from my iPhone


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## analog.universe (Aug 1, 2011)

Newegg is great for building your own systems, I used to do that for all of my computers.  So easy to get a refurbished Dell these days though, about the same price as if I built it myself.


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## Offhand (Aug 1, 2011)

Seems pretty pricey for the config you list. Laptops are portable and that's pretty much about it. A big plus for anybody that needs full powered mobile. Desktops are better in every other way. They're cheaper, more expandable and faster and better machines. Easier to type, easier to read, last longer, cheaper to fix. But you need to get a decent monitor and the ones you listed look like cheap TN monitors. Dell's Ultrasharp series are pretty well regarded IPS monitors. I'm sure you can swap the ones you have out.


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## bigheadkyle2 (Aug 1, 2011)

Well what do you suggest if that is too pricey? And I'm not really sure about what to look for in the monitor. The 24" one is what it comes with and says full HD so if that's not good enough what should I look for?


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## Fox_Racing_Guy (Aug 1, 2011)

bigheadkyle2 said:


> I'm thinking about the Dell XPS 8300. Anyone know anything about this machine?
> 
> Some of the specs I have selected on it-
> Dell ST2420L 24"W Full HD Monitor
> ...



Dell makes nice monitors so I can't diss anything about those.
Who makes 3G sticks of RAM? did you mean 4 sticks of 4G of RAM for a total of 16G?
Hard drive looks good, I like the Western Digital brand myself. 
AMD Radeon HD 6870. I'm going to assume you are a PC gamer as well? This is way overkill for running CS5 and is made especially for PC gaming and will offer zero advantages for PS. You can get by with much less. 
Intel Core i7 2600. Another overkill product unless you are doing video editing/rendering as well. The i5 2500K would be just as fast for PS plus it's extremely easy to overclock it to around 5GHz. The non "K" models can not be overclocked. 
You could build the tower yourself for around $1,000 easily and have money left over for a SSD as well. Building computers at home is much simpler now then it was 10 years ago.


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## Virtuosos (Aug 1, 2011)

Yeah, newegg


A 24 inch monitor is great, thats a fairly standard size monitor. You'd be hard-pressed to find a monitor these days that don't function well as everything has entered into the HD/Plasma/1080i/Superawesomeamazing thing.... I know alot of people who use a 24inch wide hd-LCD monitor and they are quite beautiful. Remember, a strong video-card is nearly as important as a good monitor. Hand-in-hand type thing.



And btw...you will never be able to tell the difference between i5 and i7, nor between 8gb and 12gb of ram. 

If you Google the Internet, you will find it hard to show a single benchmark with a speed difference between 4GB and 8GB.

Multi-tasking CAN improve very slightly between 4GB and 8GB but it's very low and basically can only be seen under benchmarks (and even then we're talking mainly about the STARTUP of some games being faster because the system doesn't need to temporarily reclaim some RAM so maybe startup is 45 seconds versus 57 seconds after which there's no in-game difference.


Review - Is More Memory Better? | bit-tech.net


And I'd suggest googling the differences between i5 and i7...hell even add in i3. 

The most expensive item isn't always the thing you need. If you want to save money, then I would not buy more than 8gb of ram, hell I use 4 and I have never seen a single issue nor had a desire for more ram. I'd also go with the i5 and not waste money on an i7....it get to the point where are you either going to wait 2 seconds for something to open or you are going to wait 1.5 seconds.


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## bigheadkyle2 (Aug 1, 2011)

So you think that if I have say a 9 shot HDR or a huge 14-15 image pano shot an i5 and 8gb of ram will be plenty? I'm also starting to get into the digital painting side of things in Photoshop and if I was to have say a 36in x 24in image it would be enough to go with the i5? I'd much rather have the i7 and it be too much than get the i5 just to find out it isn't enough. I plan on only having Photoshop, Lightroom, and iTunes on the computer(plus whatever comes on it) so I won't be loaded with a bunch of other programs that'll slow down the machine.


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## analog.universe (Aug 1, 2011)

The main reason I recommend lots of ram is because of disk caching.  The OS keeps copies of recently accessed files in RAM so they don't have to be pulled off the HDD each time.  This process occurs in whatever RAM is available once the programs have taken their share for actual operating memory.  So, the more RAM you have, the less you need to read off your hard drive, which tends to be the slowest component in any system (even with SSD).  Think if you dump a 16GB card from your camera to your hard disk... if you have 16GB of RAM free at the time, those files stay cached, and you never need to wait for them to come off the disk if you're going to be editing them right away.  Your thumbnailer program won't need to read the disk to do it's business etc...  Anything less than 16GB free, and you only get the speed boost on the files that fit.


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## Offhand (Aug 1, 2011)

Check these out. They're all IPS monitors. They can be color calibrated and represent colors far better than a TN monitor. Makes a big difference. How hands on are you with your computer? Can you swap out ram? Cards? Drives? Power supply? You might be better served getting a refurbed quad core system and adding your own upgrades. Newegg has nice deals. Get the monitor new.

Also, a nicer graphics card does make a difference when driving two big monitors. Especially at max resolution and color. One thing I've noticed about Dells is that they've been cheaping out on the hardware. They used to stock their machines with nice stuff but they've been cost cutting over the past few years, which is why it's probably better to get a basic system and stock it yourself with more choice parts. 

Dell UltraSharp





Offhand said:


> Seems pretty pricey for the config you list. Laptops are portable and that's pretty much about it. A big plus for anybody that needs full powered mobile. Desktops are better in every other way. They're cheaper, more expandable and faster and better machines. Easier to type, easier to read, last longer, cheaper to fix. But you need to get a decent monitor and the ones you listed look like cheap TN monitors. Dell's Ultrasharp series are pretty well regarded IPS monitors. I'm sure you can swap the ones you have out.


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## Virtuosos (Aug 1, 2011)

I use i5. I just opened a 3872x2592, 2.48mb photo with photoshop cs5 in rougly 5 seconds (including the time to load cs5).

Like I said, your video card will play alot into how fast / smoothly it will run...more so than your processor. H

Here is a quick search about the differences between i5 and i7. 


Currently, the Core i5 processor brand 
makes up most of Intel's Sandy Bridge processor line. The prices of these 
processors range from $177 to $216 with base clock speeds between 2.8 GHz and 
3.3 GHz. Intel only offers two Core i7 products, the Core i7-2600 and Core 
i7-2600K, both of which have a 3.4 GHz base clock speed. The i7-2600 has a price 
tag of $294.

As you may have guessed, paying about $80 
more for the 100 MHz clock speed increase between the fastest i5 and the i7 
isn't a great deal. The main reason to pay this additional cash for a i7 is 
hyper-threading, but this advantage will only be evident if you frequently use 
programs that can actually make use of 8 threads.

For most users, the i5 is clearly the 
better deal. The i5-2500 makes the most sense in my opinion, as it offers an 
extremely quick base clock speed of 3.3 GHz for about $200. Of course, the value 
of this is subject to change in the future as Intel fleshes out its product line 
with new models


Read more: Core i5 vs. Core i7: Differences Between Intel&#39;s i5 and i7 Processors​


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## Virtuosos (Aug 1, 2011)

Regardless, this comes down to how much you want to pay. If you want to buy 16gb and i7, then go for it. Personally, I wouldn't...but if you have the money and you want it, then go for it. It won't hurt you, but I dont believe it is going to truly help you either.


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## analog.universe (Aug 1, 2011)

Virtuosos said:


> I use i5. I just opened a 3872x2592, 2.48mb photo with photoshop cs5 in rougly 5 seconds (including the time to load cs5).



A test like this is actually a measurement of disk performance, not processor performance.  Unless of course CS5 was cached, as I mentioned in my earlier post, then it's a test of memory bandwidth... but 5 seconds sounds uncached to me.

To compare processor performance, running things like unsharp mask, or a high radius gaussian blur, etc... will be more accurate, as they are compute intensive, but not high bandwidth.  Opening a piece of software, or an image is bandwidth intensive, but easy on the processor.

I do agree though, the i5 is a great chip, and it would be hard to justify the additional cost of an i7 on a photo machine.


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## Fox_Racing_Guy (Aug 1, 2011)

That memory article vituosos posted is 3 years old and totally irrelevant in 2011. 4GB of RAM would be fine for a 32bit system and your editing cell phone pics. I would recommend 16GB of RAM, it's pretty cheap now at $110 for 16GB  Newegg.com - CORSAIR XMS3 16GB (4 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 Desktop Memory Model CMX16GX3M4A1333C9 

A 5770 graphics cards would still be way overkill for a Photo editing machine and is much cheaper than your 
original choice.  
Newegg.com - SAPPHIRE 100283-3L Radeon HD 5770 1GB 128-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card


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## Virtuosos (Aug 1, 2011)

analog.universe said:


> Virtuosos said:
> 
> 
> > I use i5. I just opened a 3872x2592, 2.48mb photo with photoshop cs5 in rougly 5 seconds (including the time to load cs5).
> ...



Touche'  

8gb vs 16gb? - Overclock.net - Overclocking.net

There's a more recent debate for ya, and I will still stand by 8gb of ram rather than 16.


Thank god you can buy an 8gb stick, then buy another one if and when you need it.


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## bigheadkyle2 (Aug 1, 2011)

I guess what I was really worried about was it not being enough but that doesn't seem to be an issue does it? I can deal with it being overkill.


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## analog.universe (Aug 1, 2011)

Are you definitely going for a laptop?

If it was my purchase, I'd go for Refurbished Dell Precision desktop.  Here's one that came up in a quick search:

Precision T3500


Processor: Intel Xeon Processor W3530(8M Cache, 2.80 GHz, 4.80 GT/s)
Genuine Windows 7 Professional
Precision Workstation T3500 Tower Standard Power Supply
500 GB SATA Hard Drive 3.5in (7200 RPM)
12 GB Memory (6x2GB), 1333MHz Dual Ranked UDIMMs
16X DVD ROM Drive
1 GB nVIDIA Quadro 2000,Dual Monitor,2DP & 1DVI,
for $1209

The Xeon is Intel's pro series processor.  They're thermally spec'd higher than the Core i series, so they essentially run cooler at a given clock speed, ensuring reliability.  The Quadro video card is again a pro product, optimized for graphics applications, and not gaming, as all the other cards mentioned in this thread were.

I'd suggest poking around outlet.dell.com, they even make precision series workstation laptops.  If I was spending this much on a system I'd go for something workstation class.  It's like buying L glass  , built to last you know?

Then you still have $800 or $1000 or whatever for a monitor.


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