What kind of system?

[speedneeds]

What system do most of you run and how much RAM do you have? I know that most of the graphics software is very demanding on RAM. I am currently running a HP system with 2 megs of RAM. It performs slow sometimes if I have Photoshop and Illustrator or Coreldraw. It does fine with only 1 program running. Just curious about an upgrade and what would be a good purchase.

 

[hammered]

Im running a Quad Core AMD on an ASUS MB 3 Raptor in RAID with 2 external drives and 8 gig of DDR2. Im also running a SLi Graphics setup to handle the extra load on the video side. I will admit, I built this system saying I needed it to do the graphics but the truth is, Im a gamer and this thing crushes digital monkeys online.

 

[pacmn]

q6600 Quad Core overclocked to 3.1ghz
8GB RAM
evga 8800gtx 768mb
2 150gb raptors raid 0 4 500GB


i think is Petty descent system it screams in photo shop
I'm currently 32bit but will upgrade to 64 to take advantage of the extra RAM

 

[SignBurst PCs]

I know a great computer company who focuses on wrap and sign design computers.

They really know their stuff! Best in the biz, I hear.

They are even a merchant member on Signs101.com.

j/k.

Let me know if I can help you in any way.

 

[Rooster]

Mac pro with twin dual core xenons @ 3ghz (same as a quad core with more memory bandwidth)
10 gig's of ram
4 - 500GB hard drives as a raid 0+1 set-up
ATI Radeon X1900 with 512 MB of RAM

 

[choucove]

We have a few different setups, depending upon what the computers are being used for. Our general design computers are basically either dual-core Intel Core2Duo or dual-core AMD Opteron systems running 2 GB memory with nVidia Quadro FX570 video cards and single WD Raptor 150 GB 10,000rpm. Those video cards are more than enough to handle any design work you need at a very affordable cost. We also aren't worried about a large storage array on the individual computers as we have a local file server for that. The higher-end design system at one office has two dual-core AMD Opterons on Supermicro server-class motherboard with nVidia Quadro FX1700 with 4 GB memory and WD Raptor 150 GB 10,000rpm. The higher-end RIP system we have at one office has two quad-core AMD Opterons on ASUS workstation motherboard with nVidia Quadro FX570 (found those were just as efficient for our needs for a lot less) and two WD Raptor 150 GB 10,000rpm in RAID 0.

Really, design work doesn't take as much computing horsepower as one may think, depending upon the tasks and programs they are using. Several people in our shop are using Intel Celeron 3.0 Ghz single core systems with 1 GB of memory and integrated video on 4 year old systems running Flexi Pro 8.1, Photoshop CS3, and having no real problems. Of course, throwing in some more RAM is going to make things a little faster of course. But still, it's obvious that you can still use a pretty low-powered machine (in today's standards) to get all your work done in the designing. For doing larger printing, you're going to want more power, but even then you can build an efficient machine for this today for around $700.

 

[SignBurst PCs]

Really, design work doesn't take as much computing horsepower as one may think, depending upon the tasks and programs they are using. Several people in our shop are using Intel Celeron 3.0 Ghz single core systems with 1 GB of memory and integrated video on 4 year old systems running Flexi Pro 8.1, Photoshop CS3, and having no real problems. Of course, throwing in some more RAM is going to make things a little faster of course. But still, it's obvious that you can still use a pretty low-powered machine (in today's standards) to get all your work done in the designing. For doing larger printing, you're going to want more power, but even then you can build an efficient machine for this today for around $700.

I have to strongly disagree here. Celeron 3.0 GHz and 1 GB of ram wouldn't even open some of the design files we work with. We are finding wrap files getting over 6GB in size (Photoshop). It take our systems a while to open them. I can't imagine trying to work with those files on a system like that.

I would have to guess that you are working with relatively small files and have a great deal of patience.

I guess it comes down to how productive you want to be.

 

[cgsigns_jamie]

My three main systems are:

Dell Precision 670: 2 Hyper-threaded 3 GHz Xenon Processors and 2 gigs of Ram, Windows XP x64
Mac Pro: 2 Quad Core 2.8 GHz Xenon Processors, 16 gigs of Ram (Use this one for Wraps)
MacBook Pro: 2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo, 2 gigs of Ram

 

[choucove]

I have to strongly disagree here. Celeron 3.0 GHz and 1 GB of ram wouldn't even open some of the design files we work with. We are finding wrap files getting over 6GB in size (Photoshop). It take our systems a while to open them. I can't imagine trying to work with those files on a system like that.

I would have to guess that you are working with relatively small files and have a great deal of patience.

I guess it comes down to how productive you want to be.

You are correct that it comes down a lot to the type of work and files that they are handling, and most of them are relatively smaller jobs yes. But even with larger files they haven't had much noticeable problems. I am with you, however, in believing that these computers are definitely ready for a replacement and I know it would help to not only speed up work in designing large files, but open the door for working on larger files as well with less headache. Unfortunately, all of the people in that office have a very collective mind that, "If it ain't broken, don't fix it." Well, it's true that it's not broken yet, and while we have the other expenses this year of putting in file servers, a couple new design systems, and a new RIP system, these computers are still CAPABLE of doing all their design work, though far from ideal of course. This is all that I meant really, these computers are CAPABLE of doing what they need, but just barely.

I recall Techman commenting that he did some work still on an older P4 system, if I am correct. I'm just saying that these systems, while not ideal for running FlexiPRO and Illustrator CS3 and Photoshop CS3 all at the same time with ease and comfort, it is still possible to do all you need on these systems.

Some older systems still can do a lot of tough work, more than you would expect. Some of the older computer systems they used here at the School of Engineering at the University of Kansas where I work were based on a single-core Xeon 2.4 Ghz processor with (at best) 1 GB of memory and a 64MB nVidia Quadro NVS560 video card. They still can handle doing autoCAD and complex MathCAD and other intensive applications as needed. Granted, not as well as some of our newer Core2Duo 3.0 Ghz 4 GB memory nVidia Quadro FX570 systems, but still capable.