600 quid to spend on PC used for digital photography and internet

Maniac618 · 26 May 2006 at 19:58

What spec would you buy?

My dad, likes photography as a hobby and is soon to purchase a digital camera (a decent/serious one, not sure which yet).

What PC would you get with 600 quid? What would be the most important parts for a PC used for Photographic editing and word processing and internet browsing?

Thanks for any advice, I sense there are other threads like this one, but started this for it to get up to date technological responses.

Maniac618 · 26 May 2006 at 22:24

Raikiri said:
CP-116-IN Intel Pentium 4 805 Dual Core "LGA775 Smithfield" 2.66GHz (533FSB) - Retail (CP-116-IN)
£71.95 £71.95
MB-116-AS Asus P5ND2 SLi nForce4 SLi (LGA775) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-116-AS)
£59.95 £59.95
CD-001-BQ BenQ DW1650 16x16 DVD RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM (CD-001-BQ)
£22.95 £22.95
MY-000-PA Patriot Signature 1GB (2x512MB) PC5300 667MHz DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (PSD21G667K) (MY-000-PA)
£55.95 £55.95
GX-026-BG BFG 3DFuzion GeForce 7600 GS 256MB DDR2 TV-Out/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-026-BG)
£64.95 £64.95
HD-018-SA Samsung SpinPoint P SP2504C 250GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-018-SA)
£45.95 £45.95
MO-043-SA Samsung SM-920N 19" LCD Monitor - Silver/Black (MO-043-SA)
£154.95 £154.95
CA-052-AN Antec NSK4400 Mini Tower Case - 380W SmartPower PSU (CA-052-AN)
£34.95 £34.95
Subtotal £511.60
VAT £89.53
Total £601.13

Something along these lines, could get a cheaper graphics card to lower the price a bit and try to fit 2gb of RAM into the budget.

yes looks good, might try swapping the graphics for ram indeed.

edit:

anyone able to suggest what graphics card i could lower to without affecting performance when photo editing.

Maniac618 · 26 May 2006 at 23:14

To be honest my dad can barely use a PC and after some thought, he would just get even more confused trying to navigate a MAC i think, even if they are better for this kind of thing.

It'll almost certainly have to be a PC I think.

Does everyone reckon 1GB of RAM is ok for photoshopping then?

Maniac618 · 26 May 2006 at 23:26

ok thanks a lot guys, RAM and hard disk it'll be.

I'll let you know what I went for in the end when I get round to sorting the spec with my dad.

Maniac618 · 27 May 2006 at 00:09

Western Digital Caviar SE16 500GB 5000KS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-075-WD)

is that a good drive, anyone know? it's 500gb at 7,200rpm sata 2

Maniac618 · 27 May 2006 at 14:22

Thanks guys, I think i'll revert back to just getting the 1GB of ram for him then, as he isn't too good with computers anyway and by the time he get good at photoshop he can always wop some more ram in then.

I'll get a samsung or WD drive.

As for graphics ive got a ATI Radeon 9600 or something in an older PC, shall I just steal that for him?

He's told me he's tried the canon eos 350d in a shop and wants it, so i guess he'll get it.

Maniac618 · 27 May 2006 at 14:40

CP-116-IN Intel Pentium 4 805 Dual Core "LGA775 Smithfield" 2.66GHz (533FSB) - Retail (CP-116-IN)
84.54

MB-116-AS Asus P5ND2 SLi nForce4 SLi (LGA775) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-116-AS)
£70.44

CD-001-BQ BenQ DW1650 16x16 DVD RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM (CD-001-BQ)
£26.97

Corsair 2GB DDR2 XMS2-5400 TwinX (2x1GB) (MY-095-CS)
£135.07

Samsung SpinPoint P SP2504C 250GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-018-SA)
£53.99

MO-043-SA Samsung SM-920N 19" LCD Monitor - Silver/Black (MO-043-SA)
£182.07

CA-052-AN Antec NSK4400 Mini Tower Case - 380W SmartPower PSU (CA-052-AN)
£41.07

Free Radeon 9600

Total £594.15

IS that ok then? Will it all work together in harmony or is there a non compatible component in there somewhere? Gonna stay with the 2GB of ram i think, lol cant make my mind up.

Thanks again guys.