Recommend me a computer.

[Bluepete]

Could I pease ask for the collective knowledge of the .org to assist me.

I'm after a new computer for the family. Our current machine is not up to the task and can barely run Lightroom. The camera I use produces files that take the machine a aaaaaages to open.

I started looking at an iMac, mostly because they have the reputation of being good at image processing and being long lasting, but they are expensive. I do get a discount which takes the mid speed processor small screen 'mac (21.5-inch: 2.7GHz) to about £950.

I've done load of reading and I'm now aware that a windows system may be at least as good.

So, if I were to stick with a windows system, and had a budget of around £650, what would be a good company/machine to buy?

I need a really good screen (plus to iMac) for my photos, a fast processor to handle the large images and a reputable build quality, I'm not a tinkerer with computers so I don't want to be buildjng/fixing a machine.

Aethetics are not a concern.

Pete ;)

[maviczap]

Its a pity that you don't want to build it yourself Pete, its not difficult and you can build it to your spec. Ive done a few myself.

id just go to someone like Ebuyer, Dabs or Aria and look at the high end desktop machines in your budget, and get a new monitor.

most machines should have HDMI output these day.

my current machine was based on a Dell case and motherboard, i chose the processor and other parts, including a blu ray drive. I got this from Aria.

i use it for basic video editing and burning dvd's and its not too bad given its age. Its a dual core processor.

Id ask Brettus or Ritchie for the specs on their machines, as the use the photo editing software you want to use.

i would have thought a modern desktop machine would be able to handle you needs.

see what Lightroom needs as a minimum to work RAM and procesor wise and aim above that.

[Bibio]

i'm running an AMD fx4390 4.2 x 4 core, 16gig ram, a cheep £80 graphics card and windows 7 pro 64 using 2 sata3 64gig SS drives configured in raid0 along with ermm a few sata3 4TB spinning drives as backup. from clicking a 2.6meg file to opening PSP8 and displaying the pic its around 2 secs. (using adobe will slow this right down and you will be looking at around 10-15 secs but once adobe is open the photos will flash up in a blink. booting up the machine from cold is around 20 secs.

in a way its not all about power its about housekeeping like turning off things in the startup and not installing every 'free pc enhancement' programs that take your fancy. the more you run at startup the slower the pc will be overall as each one of those programs eats into your available ram.

Mac's are over priced piles of dog poo.

[DJ123]

Could I pease ask for the collective knowledge of the .org to assist me.

I'm after a new computer for the family. Our current machine is not up to the task and can barely run Lightroom. The camera I use produces files that take the machine a aaaaaages to open.

I started looking at an iMac, mostly because they have the reputation of being good at image processing and being long lasting, but they are expensive. I do get a discount which takes the mid speed processor small screen 'mac to about £950.

I've done load of reading and I'm now aware that a windows system may be at least as good.

So, if I were to stick with a windows system, and had a budget of around £650, what would be a good company/machine to buy?

I need a really good screen (plus to iMac) for my photos, a fast processor to handle the large images and a reputable build quality, I'm not a tinkerer with computers so I don't want to be buildjng/fixing a machine.

Aethetics are not a concern.

Pete ;)



Lightroom recommends:
Any recent CPU, I'd go for an i5
8GB memory
1TB HDD
W7 or 8


The rest of it is up to you. You will struggle to find a Windows 7 Home PC as it is officially EOL, however W7 pro is still readily available (and you also get W8 too!)


Just a quick shop on Ebuyer and these spring to mind, PC + extra memory & a good monitor for £584.00
http://www.ebuyer.com/660216-lenovo-thinkcentre-e73-twr-desktop-10dr001euk
£350


http://www.ebuyer.com/393341-kingston-4gb-1600mhz-ddr3-module-single-rank-dell-desktop-ktd-xps730cs-4g
£27.00


http://www.ebuyer.com/616180-lg-25um65-p-25-led-ips-dvi-hdmi-monitor-25um65-p
£195.00


http://www.ebuyer.com/287016-startech-com-2m-displayport-cable-with-latches-m-m-1m-dp-cable-displ2m
£12

[maviczap]

Adding a 128gb SSD was one of the later uprgades i made, boot up times are quicker and touch wood a very stable system

[DJ123]

Adding a 128gb SSD was one of the later uprgades i made, boot up times are quicker and touch wood a very stable system

The big down side to an SSD is that you lose all data if it corrupts or goes wrong. Even if a HDD goes down you can easily recover it. I'd always recommend running a mirror RAID set up with an SSD

[maviczap]

True, although only the operating system runs on mine, my data storage is on other drives, and ive another 2tb drive for my back up.

[Bibio]

just for you Pete i downloaded a demo of lightroom. from clicking a file (from an old usb pen drive) and lightroom opening its 3secs playing with the filters and stuff its instantaneous (real time) on this pc. i built this pc for around £750 but i bought a fancy case and water cooling.

the pic was 5.6meg in size

[nickrh]

If SSD or HDD corruption is an issue why not look for cloud storage, I have many of my treasured pics in photobucket and onedrive.

[Amadeus]

I think for your requirements (family, photos) I'd recommend a Mac. I think in the long term it'd save you a lot of pain.

[Bluepete]

I decided to get an HP desktop thingumy. It's an i5, 8 gb RAM, 2 TB disk, etc etc. Takes five seconds to open Lightroom! That's awesome, especially as the previews work in "real time" now, rather than 30 second waiting times.

The old machine has been formatted and is now munching it's way through my DVD collection in the living room. I'm using Media Browser through Media Centre. Ripped using WinX platinum at the same audio and image quality as the original dvd.

Happy!

Pete ;)

[maviczap]

Good use for an old PC Pete. Winx is great for ripping to the hard drive.

I found DVD's with multiple episodes a bit annoying & time consuming to get each episode ripped.

So all I do is rip a complete image of the disc as an ISO file. Takes up a bit more drive space than a ripped version of the disc.

To play this image, I use a virtual DVD drive & mount the disc image on that to play it like a normal DVD.

It means you can select the episode from the menu, as you would on a normal DVD.

I've got a wireless keyboard, with a mouse wheel built in to use with my media centre

[Bluepete]

The platinum edition allows the entire film to be ripped as is, with the 5.1 Dolby (or whatever) sound as is. So far (16 movies done) each worksperfectly. Luckily, a mate is a wiz at this shizzle, he's set me up and shown me how to do it all.

The media doodad is very clever, metadata, cast lists, actor search, and so on. All very clever.

Pete ;)

[maviczap]

Films is easy :p

TV series like Father Ted with lots of episodes are easier to rip & play as a disc image.

Think I have about 400+ on my centre, although a lot of these I bought on a hard drive on Ebay, already ripped.

[keith_d]

I'm in the PC camp too.

Quad core AMD (a current generation i5 is faster)
8Gb of memory
256Gb SSD for OS and software
Mirrored 2Tb drives for storing photos
My old 60Gb for work in progress
An old PC in the garage with another 2Tb to store backups

Memory is becoming cheap enough that I'll probably upgrade to 16Gb, just for those occasions when I've got a lot of images open at the same time.

Keith.

[Luckypants]

I decided to get an HP desktop thingumy. It's an i5, 8 gb RAM, 2 TB disk, etc etc. Takes five seconds to open Lightroom! That's awesome, especially as the previews work in "real time" now, rather than 30 second waiting times.

The old machine has been formatted and is now munching it's way through my DVD collection in the living room. I'm using Media Browser through Media Centre. Ripped using WinX platinum at the same audio and image quality as the original dvd.

Happy!

Pete ;)

Pete

Do you mind saying how much and where from? I'm after a new desktop for use as home computer and working from home (4-days a week). I need to upgrade (pref. Windows 7 for compatibility with work) as my trusty old XP-Pro Dell is running out of software that will run on it. It is not really up to the job of running Win 7 and latest MS Office versions, so upgrade of this not on the table.

[Bluepete]

Not at all Mike. It's an HP from ebuyer.com. I've just checked the link and it's discontinued, but here are the details anyway. I paid £440 for it.

http://m.ebuyer.com/699662

I chose that one for the processor, RAM, memory and that it had HDMI to connect to the cinema system which it does perfectly. I suppose a similar spec machine would be as fast, this thing runs like greased lightning compared to the old one.

Pete ;)

[Luckypants]

Thanks man, I like the look of HP now. Decided mine needs a card reader and thats the only extra. :D

[Bluepete]

I thought I'd need one, but even though it's not mentioned in the specs, it does have an SD reader built in.

Pete ;)

[Luckypants]

Cool. Seems to be good spec for what I want. What are the graphics like?

[Bluepete]

I don't know! It's not been used for games yet, runs dvd's fine and hooks up to the HD projector fine. There's plenty of space inside for upgrades by the look of it.

Pete ;)

[Luckypants]

Anyone want to recommend a new monitor for me? Thinking a 20+ inch one, my current Dell TFT is 19" and starting to look a bit dull.

[andrewsmith]

Samsung led TV smart 5
Means it's a man cave machine

[Heorot]

My pc has a vga and a hd video output (can't remember the correct type) and I run 2 19 inch monitors. Different program showing on each screen. I highly recommend running two screens if you have the money and the room. I wouldn't go back to a single monitor now.

[pookie]

I'm going for one of these when my current one is retired (lg 34 ultrawide)
http://static.scan.co.uk/images/products/super/2522798-l-a.jpg

[keith_d]

I've recently bought one of these:

http://www.digitalversus.com/lcd-monitor/benq-bl3200pt-p20769/test.html

It replaced my two 22" monitors, but I had to upgrade my graphics card too. My previous ones didn't support 2560x1440.

If you're planning to use your system for work or video editing I'd definitely recommend getting two monitors unless you want to splash out on a monster like mine.

[Luckypants]

Wow, both of those are rather OTT for me. Almost all my work is text based, leisure use is browsing / emails / Youtube - I don't game. I may consider a second 19" monitor as this would allow me to have virtual sessions displayed. There isn't really anything wrong with my monitor, just thought a bigger one may be better. Maybe two is the way forward!

Do I need two video cards for two monitors?

[Corny Gizmo]

No, just a video card with more than one output

[7755matt]

I was gutted when my Hansspree 28" monitor dies recently. The Benq 27' i replaced it with is nowhere near as good.

I might have to get it repaired :-(

two monitors are good, but I loved my old 28" - You can have two windows open which is similar to two monitors and doesn't need two outputs

[pookie]

this popped up on hotukdeals http://www.amazon.co.uk/Acer-CB280HK-inch-Monitor-100M/dp/B00LX2J79Y
28in 4k montior :) Reviews are mixed for ghosting in games :(