Computer upgrade question?

[choucove]

Just keep in mind if you do plan to do anything with SSD drives, not all SSDs are equal! There are several that really shine out, and even certain models that are industry leading, and to make them perform the best and last at optimal speed for years does take a little research and set up. I've been using first generation OCZ Vertex SSDs in my main computer for two years now, originally as a RAID 0 array but just recently separated them out and haven't noticed any performance decrease since doing so.

 

[landdesigns]

I got on Dells website and came up with this scenerio-

Studio XPS 9100

PROCESSOR - Intel® Core™i7-960 processor(8MB L2 Cache, 3.20GHz)

Operating system-Windows® 7 Professional, 64bit, English

Memory- 24GB Tri Channel DDR3 SDRAM at 1333MHz - 6 DIMMs

Hard Drive-1TB Performance RAID 0 (2 x 500GB SATA 3Gb/s 7200 RPM HDDs)

Video card-ATI Radeon HD 5870 1GB GDDR5


2 year ltd hardware warranty

$2569.00

Good or Bad?

 

[SightLine]

Not sure on pricing as I've not reasearced it at all but the Studios are a home user line of machines. Therefore if you need support you will deal with the home user support.

I'd go with a business system like the Precision workstations. Also many are not aware but you can also grab some great deals at Dell Outlet. Just have to be patient and know the machine and specs you are looking for. The "refurb" machines from Dell Outlet have the same full warranty and support. I own several from there and have never had a problem with them.

 

[choucove]

As sightline stated above, for anything dealing with any kind of design work, I would go ONLY with the Dell Precision line on their business side. Higher quality for the same price plus better support hands down.

Again, I would HIGHLY recommend keeping away from any additional upgrade options on their site wherever possible. This means try to keep away from their ungodly high memory upgrade price by sticking with 6 GB or 12 GB (the lowest amount) and order the ram separately from Newegg.com you will save a ton. If you want to go with a full 24 GB of RAM I'd highly recommend the following from Corsair, it's some of the best RAM I have ever seen or tested, and just get two sets. It's probably still cheaper than the upgrade options available through Dell directly for that much RAM.

Corsair Vengeance 12 GB (3 X 4 GB) DDR3 1600

The same can be said about any video card upgrade, as usually they will charge you twice what the card actually costs to upgrade it from the base configuration.

Now this is just my opinion, but if I were selecting a Dell system for any kind of design work, this is what I would do:

Dell Precision T1500
Core i7-860 2.6Ghz 8MB Cache Socket 1156
Windows 7 Professional 64-bit
(2 GB DDR3 1333 non-ECC memory)
3 Year Next Business Day Warranty
nVidia Quadro FX 580 PCI-e graphics card
Firewire card
500 GB SATA 7,200rpm with 16MB Cache hard drive
16X DVD-Burner
TOTAL: $1,140

Add to that 16 GB of DDR3 Corsair Vengeance RAM with 4 sticks at $60 each and a second 320GB SATA 7,200rpm hard drive at $45 to create your RAID 0 array if needed.

GRAND TOTAL: $1,425

That's a a lot of savings compared to the cost of what your previous configuration was with very near similar performance. As an example, if you tried to configure the same options directly through Dell's site (with the full 16 GB of RAM and two 500GB hard drives in RAID 0) you're looking at a total of nearly $3,200!!!! That's HUGE savings by getting those parts yourself.

In fact, with the savings you could purchase two SSD drives in RAID 0 and have close to triple the hard drive performance as the original configuration of two 500GB SATA hard drives in RAID 0. Then use the standard 500GB hard drive as extra storage for data files if needed.

2 X Vertex 2 120GB SATAII SSD drives in RAID 0 at $230 each

GRAND TOTAL: $1,840

Benefits of the above configuration over the previous configuration:

- nVidia Quadro graphics card specifically manufactured for high performance design and content creation tasks.
- 2 SSD drives in RAID 0 offers up to three times the performance of 2 standard speed SATA platter hard drives
- 3 year next business day warranty
- About $800 savings and very similar performance.

 

[landdesigns]

I think im going with the Dell Precision T1500 and adding more Memory myself.

Going with

500GB SATA 3.0Gb/s,7200 RPM Hard Drive with 16MB DataBurst Cache , Non Raid for one Hard drive.

Video Card 512MB NVIDIA® Quadro® FX 580, DUAL MON, 2 DP & 1 DVI.

Quad Core Processor Core i7-860,2.8GHz,8MB

Genuine Windows® 7 Professional, No Media, 64-bit, English

16 GB of DDR3 Corsair Vengeance RAM from Newegg.com

I think im close to what will be good for me and what is a affordable price.

Any more suggestions will be appreciated!!!
Thanks Todd

 

[signswi]

Make your HD an SSD, massive performance increase. Quadro series cards aren't great ROI for me, I just buy consumer gaming cards. Otherwise, nice.

 

[choucove]

There can be some impressive performance increases when using a SSD for your primary hard drive. However, there are some drawbacks in Todd's case:

1) If going with a Dell Precision pre-built configuration, then purchasing a SSD and transferring over the operating system and then re-configuring the operating system to work most efficiently on a SSD is tricky and time consuming.
2) Depending upon what type of files you save on your computer, a design system could need a pretty good size SSD for the operating system, required programs and design suites, and scratch disk space. And of course, large capacity SSDs are very expensive!
3) Adding a completely different drive in to use as the primary hard drive might terminate the standard warranty from Dell.

If you know what you are doing - knowing how to configure Windows 7 for an SSD including reinstalling all of Windows 7 onto that new drive - and aren't too worried about the possibilities of early termination of the standard warranty on your Dell, then it's possible to upgrade it for some additional performance, but on a pre-built system like this, I don't know if I could recommend it.

 

[landdesigns]

If i install the 16 GB of DDR3 Corsair Vengeance RAM on the Dell T1500, do I have to change anything on the computer setting? I see the Dell Memory runs 1333MHz and the CORSAIR Vengence runs at 1600 MHZ, does it make a difference?

CORSAIR Vengeance 16GB (4 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory
or
CORSAIR DOMINATOR 16GB (4 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 Desktop Memory Model

Thanks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[mark galoob]

$2000 Performance PC Component Prices ​

Motherboard​

Gigabyte X58A-UD3R LGA-1366
Intel X58 Express, ICH10R
$210

Processor​

Intel Core i7-950 3.06 GHz Quad-Core
$295

Memory​

Mushkin 998586 6 GB, DDR3-1333 Triple-Channel Kit
$80

Graphics​

2 x EVGA 012-P3-1470-AR, 1.25 GB GeForce GTX 470
$520

System Drive​

2 x A-Data S599 64 GB, SATA 3Gb/s SSD
$220

Storage Drive​

Samsung F3 HD103SJ 1 TB, 7200 RPM HDD
$70

Optical​

Lite-On iHBS112 Blu-ray Drive: 12x BD-R, 16x DVD±R
$120

Case​

SilverStone Fortress FT02B
$250

Power​

SilverStone ST85F-P 850 W Modular
$150

Heat Sink​

Prolimatech Megahalems Rev.B
$62

CPU Fan​

Delta AFC1212D-PWM 3400 RPM, 120 mm
$23

​

Total Cost
$2,000


this is what my local computer guru is quoting plus 200.00 for install. this will be a main design computer to last 5 yrs.

any thoughts...? to much or too little

mark galoob

 

[choucove]

Mark I sent you a PM regarding your question

 

[petesign]

I am running an i5-750 with 8gigs of ram, and it's plenty fast... thought I would throw that out there. If you want to fork out the extra $$ for the i7, I don't blame you, but I think you would be pleasantly surprised with the i5.

By the way, unless you plan on playing tons of games, you don't need the biggest and baddest graphics card out there either. I am running 2 1gig previous generation video cards in sli, and it renders 2d graphics smoking fast... acceleration in photoshop turned on and everything.

I can't imagine buying a new computer every year. This one should last me another 2. When it gets replaced, I will turn it into a rip server, and my rip server will become a cash register/server for files.

 

[choucove]

When it comes to graphics cards, you don't need much at all to do 2D graphics designing. It's more CPU intensive. Sure, the newer versions of Adobe Photoshop take advantage of some GPU acceleration, but you will not see much difference between a $200 graphics card and a $1000 combination of cards in SLI in your daily work routine. Take that huge amount of cash and put it into either 1) a high quality power supply for better system stability and longevity, 2) a higher clocked or more powerful CPU, or 3) more RAM!

Unless you are doing 3D design or playing games on your system, I wouldn't recommend buying anything more than a GT 450 graphics card. That alone will be more than powerful enough while offering plenty of GPU acceleration in the newest versions of Photoshop but also won't break the bank. I guarantee you will not see the returns in speed by spending $500 on a video card system compared to dumping half that into your RAM or better yet, on a solid SSD system!

I have had a small chance to play with the 2nd generation Core i7 processors recently, that is until the massive recall by Intel on all H67 and P67 chipset motherboards. I actually went ahead and purchased the top-of-the-line i7-2600k processor, and it's literally one of the fastest on the market. Just to give you an example, my overclocked Phenom II X4 955 processor, which is still a very decent workhorse processor, ranks a 7.3 out of 7.9 in the Windows Experience benchmarking tool. That's pretty decent! But this new Core i7-2600k ranks 7.9 without an overclock at all. That's the max score, so who knows how much more powerful it is really! I say if you can wait until after April, it's worth it to see what comes about with these processors then. They really seem to work great, and there are a lot of technology advances incorporated with them.

 

[visual800]

these are the machines I use
http://compreviews.about.com/od/maindesk/gr/DellXPS410.htm

odd about this review one of the cons about this machine was it didnt come with much preloaded software. WOW , thats a con???!!!