[Advice]Pc Fit for uni (For Sept 2004)

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didjerama

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Oct 11, 2002
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hey guys

im after some advice. im looking to start a very good pc for uni in sept. As im going (hopefully) graphic design/web design or games design, i was thinking that my current rig will not be able to do the job as well as it could. So what do you all advise? Do i get a dual rig? Dual displays? how much ram, hard drives, etc.

spec, XP1800+ @ 2.3Ghz, Thermaltake Volcano 9 Coolmod, MSI K7N2 Delta, 512Mb DDR333 Generic (ebuyer) ram, NEC A1300 DVD rw -/+, 60Gb IBM Diskstar 120XP, and the usual.
 
for the size of a dorm room, i would get a quiter hsf like the zalman 6000.

also you could get a dual mb and one chip right now, and upgrade to a second chip later one with out any problems, i have done it many time.

you will need atleast 512 or ram i gig would be better, and i would get a second HD (like say a raptor) and have the os and the swap file on the faster drive, and use the deathstar for storage only.
 
Dual Opteron 246 would be a nice start

1GB of RAM at least

Lots of hard drive space
 
cheers, well i'll be living at home, so i'll have loads of space. :D

Im thinking to get xeons (maybe) as they might be better for media work. As im doing graphic design and media. Also im thinking of getting 2 twin head graphics cards and having 4 17" monitors :eek:

if i have enough i might go for a scsi boot drive.
 
The Opterons should/will give you better memory performance theirfor would be better for video and graphics.
 
Most of your classes freshman and sophomore year probably won't be too demanding, and most will be "generic" classes (i.e. History or English or Math). So if you're patient you might want to wait a year or two before dropping a load of cash on a really nice system/upgrade. That might be better than getting something that is awesome now but that is lame and in need of upgrading when you finally need its power.

Btw, noting my sig: I'm a 5th year senior set to graduate soon, and have had some good internships ($$$), hence the phatty Dual 3GHz :)
 
didjerama:

Man, you're asking the question a little prematurely, aren't you... I don't mean you're not going to go university, that's not what I mean... We're 8 months away from the time you need your rig and 8 months is still a long time in the PC industry and all kinds of crazy things can happen between now and September. The comments you're getting here are 'as of today or the next month or two' and nothing more. To a certain extent, I'd imagine a better question to ask is: "Looking into your crystal balls, what do you think are the technologies that will be available in September 2004 that will give me the best bang per buck?" :)

I'm encouraged by the fact that you're looking to build yourself a duallie... Very nice and if you choose carefully it should serve you well throughout your entire time in university (assuming you're looking at a course that last 3 years). If you were buying right now, I can give you a shopping list and I'm sure you can built yourself a rig of your dreams. However, I don't know your budget and I don't what you intend to use your rig for, so I'm not going to say anything... :(

I think I've gotten a hint of what you want to do - 4 screens and SCSI boot drive... That's a good start and I think these are areas I can make some recommendations (or ask you more immediate questions about).

First of all, if you're thinking of using CRTs, quad screens will be a royal pain in the butt! The thinest bezel I've seen on a CRT is about 1", which means that there's 2" between each physical display area... 4 screens will mean you lose at least 6" of desk width... Personally, if I were to have more than 2 monitors, I'd go for LCDs. Many of them have nice thin bezels and they are far better for putting next to one an other. Also, some LCDs have a rotating feature that will allow the screen to be rotated 90 degree and utilize features like nView Rotate (?) which will give you a more 'normal' desktop configuration...

In terms of storage, I'd recommend you to consider S-ATA... It's cheaper than SCSI and more up-to-date than P-ATA.
 
Stat saving now and dual Opteron 246's might actually be reasonable come September (or later).

There's nothing you'll encounter at uni that needs a dual processor. Nothing.
 
Originally posted by Mark Larson
There's nothing you'll encounter at uni that needs a dual processor. Nothing.
Click to expand...

he said he's hopefully going into game design and graphic design. if he's going to be using photoshop, maya, and programming a lot he's most definitely going to get use of a dually.

as for the question at hand, i think spikegifted is right. too soon to ask. today's monster will be a bucket of bolts come september.
 
Originally posted by Mark Larson
There's nothing you'll encounter at uni that needs a dual processor. Nothing.
Click to expand...

One thing I like to do is watch TV with DScaler (robs 100% CPU time, very finnicky) and still do other things like IM, e-mail, or even work on programs in Visual Studio .NET 2003. Having a pair of processors is a godsend with this.

Dual CPUs do help for just about everything even if just a little bit. However, for the typical student who only uses Internet Explorer, Word, and Messenger ... a dual CPU will not show enough of a benefit to warrant the cash. But we're not talking about someone like that!
 
while i dont need the dual in my machines for uni, my bud that works on cad and 3-d modling does. He can get his homework done in ~65% of the time just if you compare rendering time, when he uses my dual 2100+ vs his 2500+ (non barton). so some people need it, i just love it :D
 
Heh yeah I can't say that I need it, but I do love it. Having had a phat-cash paying internship last summer, I went all out on my current computer. It was very much worth it.
 
Originally posted by big daddy fatsacks
he said he's hopefully going into game design and graphic design. if he's going to be using photoshop, maya, and programming a lot he's most definitely going to get use of a dually.
Click to expand...
I don't think any of those needs a dual processor. Sure, its nice to have one, but IMO a dual processor machine isn't needed - its wanted. Opinions may differ.
Originally posted by rolo
One thing I like to do is watch TV with DScaler (robs 100% CPU time, very finnicky) and still do other things like IM, e-mail, or even work on programs in Visual Studio .NET 2003. Having a pair of processors is a godsend with this.

Dual CPUs do help for just about everything even if just a little bit. However, for the typical student who only uses Internet Explorer, Word, and Messenger ... a dual CPU will not show enough of a benefit to warrant the cash. But we're not talking about someone like that!
Click to expand...
Hobbies are one thing, but people justifying expensive machines (many not paid by their own money) because of "uni" gets my goat. I still think he'll get by fine with a single-processor machine.

(Why did i just type that in the SMP forum? I need to go to sleep)
 
cheers for all the pointers. I have a xp1800 running at 2.3GHz at the mo, and its ok, but just lags behing when i wanna do photoshop, dreamweaver, and flash all at the same time. Not to mantion alway as internet explorer, msn, and winamp. Lol. I have read alot of good things about have a daul rig and i think this will be the yr when i switch over to going dual. Would having PCI (X) scsi card been worth having as for a scatch disk for photoshop aswell as beening the main hard drive? as i plan to have SATA drives for data in raid 0.
 
I'd say just get another Raptor and use that as a scratch disk. Do yoiu work with 500MB+ files?
 
Originally posted by didjerama
yer. I work at A4, A3 and A2 at 300DPI.
Click to expand...
Then I'd recommend getting plenty of RAM... I don't care how fast your HDDs are, once your rig using the pagefile, your performance will be hit. :( Keep it all in RAM. I work with rather large images also (up to 10k x 8k) and I struggle even with 1.5GB of RAM... especially when I have to copy and paste large sections!
 
Originally posted by Mark Larson
I don't think any of those needs a dual processor. Sure, its nice to have one, but IMO a dual processor machine isn't needed - its wanted. Opinions may differ.
Click to expand...

true.
 
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