Looking for a new computer

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Smokedaddy
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Looking for a new computer

Post by Smokedaddy »

Just thought some of you in the know would chime in on this subject. Naturally, the computer would be used for stacking but also Rhino, photoshop, Fusion etc. I went to this site but their lead time is 7 weeks.

https://www.pugetsystems.com/solutions/index.php

-JW:

chris_ma
Posts: 570
Joined: Fri Mar 22, 2019 2:23 pm
Location: Germany

Re: Looking for a new computer

Post by chris_ma »

Problem is that GPU are selling at insane prices atm, so any processing which relies on GPU is difficult.

Personally I feel that for normal computing Apple hit a home run with their M1 ARM based chip, and I imagine that windows systems will soon try to follow to remain competitive.

We‘ve edited a split screen 4K film with four 4K camera footage and the cheapest M1 macmini didnt break a sweat. Our best workstation which cost 4ttimes as much, has 4times the RAM and burns 8 times as much energy on the other hand stuttered and crashed.

But who knows, maybe intel gets their act together or at least AMD keeps up
chris

Smokedaddy
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Re: Looking for a new computer

Post by Smokedaddy »

Thanks for the posting. I'm looking for a Windows computer and Intel chip.

klevin
Posts: 129
Joined: Fri Dec 14, 2012 5:28 pm
Location: SW New Hampshire, USA

Re: Looking for a new computer

Post by klevin »

Puget Systems, a photo computer integrator, has some great info on their website. https://www.pugetsystems.com/

IIRC, few photo apps make much use of a GPU, so for the time being, you might be best off using an integrated GPU, until GPU prices drop back to sane levels. You might need to wait a bit longer for some operations, but does it matter that much? For instance, say you're importing a few hundred raw pictures into LR, set to render full size previews. Does it matter if it takes 30 minutes, or even longer? Your machine is not locked up. You could check your email or get coffee. Of course, if you were a pro, you'd want faster, but if you were a pro, you wouldn't be asking here, would you?

Video is different, but also depends on the app/program. For instance, free Resolve doesn't use the GPU. You need the paid version.

Anyway, the usual advice for a photo editing machine is:
- a mid/upper range processor, either intel or AMD. They're all multicore, and Puget Systems can help you figure out which apps make use of multi cores.
- 32 GB memory. I was doing a photo book today, and used 17GB while it was rendering to upload to Blurb, so 16GB would have slowed things down a lot.
- SSDs for storage. PCIe 4.0 NVMe if your system supports it, will give you super fast storage, good for the OS, not very critical for photo storage, but optimization of cache, temp storage, program files and such gets complicated.

Hope this helps.

Smokedaddy
Posts: 1951
Joined: Sat Oct 07, 2006 10:16 am
Location: Bigfork, Montana
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Re: Looking for a new computer

Post by Smokedaddy »

I've never owned an AMD computer, always an Intel chipset. Everything at work was Intel based, using AutoCAD, Revit etc., so that's what I always stuck to. Puget Systems suggested these based on my software and needs (Microscopy/stacking, Rhinoff3d, Blender, Photoshop etc.).

https://www.pugetsystems.com/nav/ryzen/ ... customize/

https://www.pugetsystems.com/nav/thread ... customize/

-JW:

JohnDownie
Posts: 115
Joined: Tue Oct 18, 2011 6:57 am

Re: Looking for a new computer

Post by JohnDownie »

I based by computer specs on Puget's advice, plus a deep dive into motherboards for AMD CPUs.

I gathered the parts on my own and paid a local fellow who advertised on Craigslist and who had great feedback. He came over, (pre-COVID), built it, and away he went. I went with premium parts, Noctua fans and CPU cooler, etc., and am very happy.

It is my first fast machine in a long time, so I can't comment on relative performance.

Unfortunate time to be buying computer parts. Try buying a nice lawn tractor....

Smokedaddy
Posts: 1951
Joined: Sat Oct 07, 2006 10:16 am
Location: Bigfork, Montana
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Re: Looking for a new computer

Post by Smokedaddy »

... tell me about it. I went to buy a new Kubota tractor and a Kubota ridding lawn mower. Things are nuts. Plus there was a 12 week backlog.

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