Best Computer for designing??

https://signburst.com/

 

My goto is always a Mac Pro. Used or refurb 5.1s are great though the newest batch are also excellent...and priced too damn high. I can handle 1+ GB PSD files without issue.

 

We use Dell Precision workstations. I'm on a Precision 5820.

 

We have big fricking HP's. We had a smaller Dell and then a smaller HP and neither one of those had the power. The point to these is to have a lot of memory so it doesn't crash. The smaller ones crashed.
I got an 8 terabyte cloud to save the files on.

 

I build my own. Right now using a Ryzen 7 3700X with 32GB of RAM. SSD is 1TB and the server has 2 TB.

 

When you say "big" and "smaller", do you mean the case size? Because that has zero to do with the power or capability of a PC.

 

If you know any techy friends they can set you up with custom PC with more power and usually cheaper than OEMs.
New 5900x Ryzen, 32/64gb of memory, basic GPU and some SSD storage. You will go far with that.

 

When it comes to computers, I prefer actual workstations, ones with Xeon processors and ECC RAM, while some may think that's overkill and/or that's just for the server space, well, a lot of the little memory issues that cause crashes on consumer products tend to not even cause a blip on this equipment (plus the error checking is offloaded to the CPU now, so the RAM hit on the checking isn't like what it used to be as well).

I also tend to use a real time kernel (low latency), but that's not going to be something that you are going to get with Windows. Haven't followed that much on Macs, but given their BSD roots, they have a better chance of better optimization then Windows (although I do have my concerns with them otherwise, but I digress).

If you stay the course with Windows rigs, I would suggest trying to remove any unnecessary process that is running while trying to do intensive work. That was a little trick that helped out with the Vista days. I don't know if they would allow turning off the eye candy with Win10, but I would do that as well.


As to the physical size of the case, I wouldn't go so far as to say that it has zero to do with power/capability as cases do in a way determine what hardware that you are able to put in there (as in physically fit and if it has poor cooling due to a poorly constructed case, that does dampen the power), but even if it's a big case, it could be filled with anemic components and therefor not as powerful compared to it's size.

Personally, I'm all for custom builds, if you are unable or unwilling or whatever the reason may be, to do it yourself, that I would suggest Signburst as well. Someone that you could tell your specific needs and they are more familiar with this industry. I wouldn't just suggest a techie friend due to the fact that the friend may steer you more to a gaming rig (or not a rig meant for signage as they may be more of a general techie and not as knowledgeable in the niche signage needs) compared to one for heavy graphics use. Although some people will say to just get a souped up gaming rig, gaming rigs, if powerful enough, will be able to get the work done to an extent (just depends on how demanding your usage is) that route may not be the most efficient route to go.

 

Didn't I qualify it with the next statement? we have big screens because we are old and can't see. we have big computers because the graphics are big files.

 

dell xps systems, I got mine used on ebay and both still running awesome. been using same comp for 10 years

 

www.Newegg.com

This is where I get all my computer stuff for gaming. I would suggest making sure you can have a lot of RAM and a good processor at the least, these are usually the things that bog down graphics programs. You can also look at getting an SSD for faster program startups with an extra HDD in for file storage.

Something like this is ok, although the CPU speed is a bit slow. Normally I look for a CPU speed of 3.4 - 4.0

https://www.newegg.com/lenovo-v530/p/1VK-0003-1D2X9?Item=9SIAA0SC5E4740

 

SSD storage is so cheap today that you might as well forget HDD or use it just as backup.
You can get a good 2TB SSD for ~$200.

 

That is exactly what I do. SSD for all my programs and HDD for saved files, especially since you can get a reasonably priced 2-3 TB HDD's.

 

No it's the opposite of what I said. I said forget HDDs and go all in on SSDs. HDD only for backup, not for daily use.

 

Build your own. Anything else is just a waste of money. This is one PC I built years ago and it's still extremely fast. This is just missing a video card which does not need to be fancy. This same build today would cost even less.
The PC I'm on now I recently built with an i7-10700 and it's only marginally faster than the three pcs that use the attached build.

 

I would actually use HDDs for saved files (and Reds for backup) and use SSDs for OS and programs. But I also use a server for all working files and the computer is just for various OSs (use VMs alot) and programs.

SSDs still haven't done that well with things just "sitting there". It's getting better, but still not quite on par.

One thing that I don't like about SSDs is when they fail, they fail, no warning. HDDs, typically there are signs and have a longer time to migrate (on average, not all the time).

If the OP is upgrade the system, I would also look into a true backup solution (made no mention if they have one already) and I would only consider 3rd party cloud storage as a redundant measure of backup, not the main one (and in my mind not even the secondary one, but tertiary at best).

With everything being more rolling release in nature (from the OS to the individual programs for Windows users and programs on Mac), being able to rollback to an early snapshot will save a whole lotta pain. And that's not even factoring in the saved pain with malware/ransomeware/hardware failures etc.

 

Just finished building one. Right now some parts are hard to come by if you build one. It took me a couple of months to get the GPU I wanted without paying the scalper prices on ebay. All in all I've got one hell of a computer for $2500 and it wasn't that hard to build (first one) if you've got common sense, do some research, watch youtube videos and use a website like pcpartpicker to make sure stuff is compatible.

 

Just so long as it isn't the Verge's PC Build video. I remember that one got epic roasting by other utubers at the time. Think that was 2-3 yrs ago, something like that.

I think even Amazon has a rudimentary part checker system. Never really done a deep dive on it, but I do think they have something now.

That new Nvidia card had a pretty bad launch a few months back. My dad was able to snag one, but it was luck.

All of these new launches of products, both consoles and pc equipment have had some pretty bad launches (in terms of dropping the ball).

 

With covid supply issues you can't really Fault low inventory issues. Most of this stuff is made in heavily locked down countries right now.

Ontop of that... Stuff like the 5950x have such a low perfection Margin that most of.the chips are knocked down to 5800.


I'm still waiting on my gpu I pre ordered 4 months ago. But it is what it is!


Unless you do video editing, you dont need that good of a gpu for a print / design station. A fast cpu + fast ram(not just amount of Ram) + fast ssd are what you should focus on.