what would be best...

Ashfield

Ashfield

Ashfield

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Joined
25 Jun 2008
Posts
315
Hello there,

Used to be really into this stuff but im very out of touch with regards to the new hardware and whats best etc.

Looking at upgrading from an old Athlon X2 with ddr1 ram and have a few queries as im bit unsure regarding intel stuff, be grateful if anyone could point me in the right direction.

The machine is going to be mainly used for design software so needs to be powerful and maybe the odd game here and there (got 24" display so high res). Not too concerned on the graphics card right now so its mainly where I go with the motherboard/memory/cpu

Cant afford the extreme versions of either the Core 2 or i7 cpus so what would I be best looking at:

1. a Core 2 with 4/8gig ddr2
2. an i7 with 6gig ddr3

Dont have a clue regarding motherboards either, seems a lot of choice and do they make much of a difference and if so which are the best to go for?

Not going to be overclocking as want this to be solid as a rock for work purposes.

Pondering whats best for the HD also, currently have 2 x 74gig raptors in my current PC which would be moved over and will prob buy a 1tb one for storage. Would it be worth getting a SSD or a Velociraptor for my boot drive?

Many thanks :)
Ash
 
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I really don't think it's worth spending masses on an extreme or an I7. CS just doesn't justify it. Gaming is more likely to be the greatest test of the system.

If you want to spend lots, go for something like:

Q9550 or Q9300 (or even the Q6600).
Asus P5Q board of your choice (depends on features you want)
4+ GB of DDR2 8500 RAM - although if not OCing 6400 would be fine (it might be worth spending your money here - not on speed, but on quantity)
A 4870 or GTX260
Decent PSU (Corsair 620w modular or 650w - maybe the 750w to allow for a few HDDs and second CPU someday)
Case depends on personal preference, but Antec 300 should be fine.
Tuniq Tower cooler
HDD of your choice, but the Samsung F1 640Gb are good and good value per GB at the moment.
Vista 64

You could spend more, but I really doubt that you need to. You could probably get away with spending much less and not be able to tell the difference.
 
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thanks mate, actually meant to type "cant" afford extremes haha!

Is the i7/ddr3 really not that much quicker than core2/ddr2 then? I will be doing some gaming and at high res but im ok for gfx, I know whats decent with that.

Its really just cpu/board/mem im not so well up on these days. Dont want to not make the jump to ddr3 and regret it basically as I wont be upgrading for some time after. Wont spend money on something that I wont see a benefit in though unless doing benchmarks.
 
Ashfield said:
Is the i7/ddr3 really not that much quicker than core2/ddr2 then?
Click to expand...

I think the point is not whether they're faster or not, but whether you'll see any benefit from the speed. And for what you want to do, the answer is probably not much, if at all.

But, the I7 is due to hit the shelves any day now - so it might be interesting to see where it comes in price wise and whether there is any effect on pricing of the socket 775 chips. I suspect it will be 'early adopters only' pricing for a while and a few months before prices drop and maybe force the C2D and C2Q prices lower.
 
GM2 said:
I think the point is not whether they're faster or not, but whether you'll see any benefit from the speed. And for what you want to do, the answer is probably not much, if at all.

But, the I7 is due to hit the shelves any day now - so it might be interesting to see where it comes in price wise and whether there is any effect on pricing of the socket 775 chips. I suspect it will be 'early adopters only' pricing for a while and a few months before prices drop and maybe force the C2D and C2Q prices lower.
Click to expand...

thats precisely what im thinking.

could only afford the low end i7 with 6gb ram, but could potentially go highish end core 2 with 8gb ram. its knowing which would be best. im leaning towards the latter
 
Ashfield said:
thats precisely what im thinking.

could only afford the low end i7 with 6gb ram, but could potentially go highish end core 2 with 8gb ram. its knowing which would be best. im leaning towards the latter
Click to expand...

If your not in a desperate rush, wait and see what the I7 prices are like, but I suspect they'll be high to start with. Quite probably more than the difference between 6GB and 8GB of RAM...

But even if they're not - do you really need to be buying such high spec kit? For CS4, the answer is not really, unless your doing some really complicated filtering etc on huge photo files, or something similar which takes a bit of grunt on a very regular basis. Even then the reality is a Q6600, P5Q, 4850/4870, 4GB 6400 and Vista 64 will be more than enough. Anything else is really luxury - or to cope with highly demanding games!
 
I'll tell u now all them ppl who upgraded and don't want u to get a better system than them.....guess what post negative against i7.

them who say hang on to your cash for a tinsy winsy r correct. and , however GM2 has a point . best neutral post
 
I guess it's a bit like buying a car to travel on the motorway to work in rush-hour.....

If you buy a 1.2 litre something (ford fiesta etc), it will get you there, but will be a bit slow. [Old computer]

If you buy a good spec 2.0 litre (Audi A4), it will get you there in comfort, as fast as the traffic will allow. [Q6600 etc]

If you buy something a bit special (BMW M5), it probably won't get you there any quicker, but it will be a bit easier and sometimes you can accelerate quickly, but you won't get there any noticably quicker, because the traffic is just the same. [Q9550]

If you buy a sports car [Ferrari F430] you'll feel great and have a fantastic bit of kit, but on the motorway going to work in the morning, you still won't get there any quicker. [bottom level I7].

Only if you take your new car to a race track [= super intensive Photoshop processing of huge files or latest games, run on high settings on a big screen] are you likely to notice any difference.

The truth is that most reasonably specified modern machines are cable of running almost all software as fast as it needs to be run. The only stuff that 99.9% of us use that really challenges the hardware, is highly demanding gaming set ups.

So, if money is no object and you fancy a 'Ferrari', buy an I7. Otherwise, look very closely at what you really need and perhaps go for something less fancy, which will actually do the job of getting you from A-B just as well. ;)
 
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