Time for a new box.

[Coelus]

Wanted: Your thoughts on what I'm doing about an upgrade.

My current system is a dual core Pentium system that will be three years old in a month. 32bit, runs on XP pro, 3gig DDR2 memory, and a graphics card that maxes out on DirectX9 with 256m onboard. I do a lot of photo editing, no video yet, and a little gaming; none of which is online or frame rate dependent. Since moving to CS5 and LR3 I've noticed a slowdown in RAW processing speeds, large images rendering for HDR stuff, and problems if I try to open too many things at one time. I know adding some memory would help, but XP is limited to 4gig and the processor only supports 32bit.

The Upgrade is going to be a DIY system. Two reasons: I can get what I want, installed how I want, without any fluff software or hardware shortcuts; and I can get better components for a lower overall price than if I went with a turnkey system from one of the usual suspects. I've built my own box before so I'm not too concerned about that part. The Upgrade will be a AMD Phenom II quad core, 8gig DDR3 memory, on board graphics card on the Gigabyte motherboard is pretty beefy already and better than what I have now- the motherboard does support SLI dual cards if I ever think I'll need it in the future, 64bit Win7 ultimate since the processor will support it, and a high transfer speed hard drive for a system drive. The motherboard also supports RAID already so I'll be switching to an on board RAID backup for my photo drive when I find a deal on some more 1.5TB to 2TB drives. I have a backup system already, but it's over USB and takes up desk space. I'm reusing a case and cooling fans from my first build few years ago that's still in good shape and a DVD drive, other than that it's all new components. One addition I did make is to use water cooling for the processor. I'm not overclocking it or anything radical like that, it's just that the water systems run much quieter than the regular air systems.

Total cost for processor, motherboard, memory, power supply, 640GB high speed drive, 500GB drive(to be swapped into current system for the 1.5TB storage drive), and Windows 7 Ultimate: $845.62. Plus I still have the old computer to use for all the daily stuff, and the family doesn't have to wait to use it.

[Jake]

Not sure what your "640gb high speed drive" is, but if I was building myself I would use a SSD drive as my system drive.

[Rson]

640 Highspeed is still slow. Maybe 6gb/s?

SSD is the way to run on PS and your OS drive. Then 6gb/s drives are the next.

Save your money on a water cooled system....it still has a fan to cool the radiator.

[Coelus]

It's all put together and running now. Thanks for the advice though. I had wanted to install an SSD but it wasn't in the budget right now. It's on the list as an upgrade down the road though. I ended up also adding a 2tb storage drive since I had less space available than I realized. Took my old 500gb drive used a big chunk of it as scratch disk space.

Yes, the system drive is a 6gb/s. It may not be the best, but it's still better than I had and is noticeably faster than what I was using. I still installed the water cooler since it was already shipping.

Moving to a 64bit system is an amazing difference to me though. When I added a lightroom catalog with 60000 images I figured I would have time to go eat lunch before it was done, not hardly. Rendering HDR images used to be worth a trip to the kitchen too. Being able to do that alone is worth it to me.

Now if I could just get rid of my slow, buggy, and expensive satellite internet I can keep up with the modern world.

[Marburg]

If you haven't already bought the Phenom II and the Giagbyte please do some research first. Look at user reviews. I wish I had before I built mine. Phenom II quad has a host of issues with Gigabyte and Asus boards. If I'd know that ahead of time I wouldn't have put together that combination.
Marburg

Originally Posted by Coelus

Wanted: Your thoughts on what I'm doing about an upgrade.

My current system is a dual core Pentium system that will be three years old in a month. 32bit, runs on XP pro, 3gig DDR2 memory, and a graphics card that maxes out on DirectX9 with 256m onboard. I do a lot of photo editing, no video yet, and a little gaming; none of which is online or frame rate dependent. Since moving to CS5 and LR3 I've noticed a slowdown in RAW processing speeds, large images rendering for HDR stuff, and problems if I try to open too many things at one time. I know adding some memory would help, but XP is limited to 4gig and the processor only supports 32bit.

The Upgrade is going to be a DIY system. Two reasons: I can get what I want, installed how I want, without any fluff software or hardware shortcuts; and I can get better components for a lower overall price than if I went with a turnkey system from one of the usual suspects. I've built my own box before so I'm not too concerned about that part. The Upgrade will be a AMD Phenom II quad core, 8gig DDR3 memory, on board graphics card on the Gigabyte motherboard is pretty beefy already and better than what I have now- the motherboard does support SLI dual cards if I ever think I'll need it in the future, 64bit Win7 ultimate since the processor will support it, and a high transfer speed hard drive for a system drive. The motherboard also supports RAID already so I'll be switching to an on board RAID backup for my photo drive when I find a deal on some more 1.5TB to 2TB drives. I have a backup system already, but it's over USB and takes up desk space. I'm reusing a case and cooling fans from my first build few years ago that's still in good shape and a DVD drive, other than that it's all new components. One addition I did make is to use water cooling for the processor. I'm not overclocking it or anything radical like that, it's just that the water systems run much quieter than the regular air systems.

Total cost for processor, motherboard, memory, power supply, 640GB high speed drive, 500GB drive(to be swapped into current system for the 1.5TB storage drive), and Windows 7 Ultimate: $845.62. Plus I still have the old computer to use for all the daily stuff, and the family doesn't have to wait to use it.

[Coelus]

Originally Posted by Marburg

If you haven't already bought the Phenom II and the Giagbyte please do some research first. Look at user reviews. I wish I had before I built mine. Phenom II quad has a host of issues with Gigabyte and Asus boards. If I'd know that ahead of time I wouldn't have put together that combination.
Marburg

I haven't had any problems with it yet. Where did you find the reviews? I'm curious about what I may be in for.

[Marburg]

I did a google on both the processor and the boards. The 2 boards that reported the most problems were Gigabyte and Asus. I then went to each site (AMD, Gigabyte and Asus) and checked their user forums. I did eventually find a work around (I had to adjust the fans in CMOS and in the AMD Power app). The majority of the problems had to do with 1) not being able to restart the pc if you had just shut it down, 2) inproper shutdown (as in the system suddenly shut down with no virus or malware issues), and 3) cpu heat. In my case the problems started about 4-6 weeks after it was built. There is also a Microsoft patch that is not entirely compatible and it took me days to find it and uninstall it.

[Rson]

Originally Posted by Marburg

If you haven't already bought the Phenom II and the Giagbyte please do some research first. Look at user reviews. I wish I had before I built mine. Phenom II quad has a host of issues with Gigabyte and Asus boards. If I'd know that ahead of time I wouldn't have put together that combination.
Marburg

THat is a broad statement. AM2+ or AM3? What chipsets (there are at least 10)?

I looked at my board I just bought....193 reviews with 4 star rating....no mobo one has 5. I do know that some are Ram brand sensitive....stick to what you know works Ramwise.

Do you have specific links in mind?

[Marburg]

AM3 was a gigabyte GA-MA770T-UD3P the other was Asus AM3 greenboard with Crosshair 2. The processor was Phenom 2 quad.

I took the processor out and put into an MSI board of similar quality and it worked fine. Put it back into either the gigabyte or the Asus board and had problems. I checked everything including RAM, and went back and forth between AMD and the 2 mobo mfg. before I was able to find a workaround. Now it works just fine.

Originally Posted by Rson

THat is a broad statement. AM2+ or AM3? What chipsets (there are at least 10)?

I looked at my board I just bought....193 reviews with 4 star rating....no mobo one has 5. I do know that some are Ram brand sensitive....stick to what you know works Ramwise.

Do you have specific links in mind?

[Coelus]

PhenomIIx4 965 AM3 on a GA 890GPA UD3H board. 2x 4GB gskill memory

[Marburg]

Okay! My guess is you'll be fine. If memory serves me correctly that was not one of mobos having the issue I described above.

[Rson]

Originally Posted by Coelus

PhenomIIx4 965 AM3 on a GA 890GPA UD3H board. 2x 4GB gskill memory

I have same.....the Newegg.com - GIGABYTE GA-770T-USB3 AM3 AMD 770 USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard

Has comparable ratings with every other board. 4 stars w/63 ratings

[Rson]

What patch do you speak of?

[Marburg]

That's the rub. When I finally found the offending Microsoft security patch and wrote it down, someone trying to be helpful straightened up my desk and threw away all my little sticky notes (I write down notes on things I find for software I test). So, without going through and reapplying every patch I can't tell what one was the culprit.

Originally Posted by Rson

What patch do you speak of?