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Now or later?

A

asyork

2[H]4U
Joined
Jan 3, 2002
Messages
2,059
I need a new computer. The only things I plan to carry over from my old one are the HDDs, Blu ray drive, monitor, and OS.

In about a week or so, I will have access to a Micro Center. If I build then, I can spend about $1k.

If I wait until Black Friday to build, I can probably spend $2k+, and I might be able to make it back to Micro Center on Black Friday.

I need a semi-portable computer I can travel with. I'll be moving it about 3 times a month, and driving long distances. I am looking for a mid tower case that preferably has way to be able to lock it to a desk in a hotel.

For work I will need to be able to batch process very large quantities (potentially ~1,000,000, but hopefully only 100k at a time in the future) of images. This will include renaming, rotating, cropping, raw conversion, etc.

For after work, I want to be able to game @ 1080p with close to max settings. I'd like to leave room for the resolution to increase if it becomes a hindrance to do the image editing at 1080p.

I will be using Photoshop for most of the editing, and probably Lightroom for the raw conversion.

I will be getting a mechanical keyboard if I can find one I like (I decided on cherry red tenkeyless, but haven't looked for one yet) for ~$100 or so.

I plan to get a current gen SSD of at least 120GB. I might raid two 120GBs together. I also want a eSATA port on it because that is likely how I will be accessing the files for work. I can live with an adapter for that as long as I have USB 3.0.

I definitely want 16 GB of ram and an I7.

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Right now I am just looking for advice on waiting a month or not. The 2700k is supposed to be around the corner, and so is 2011. I don't think 2011 would be worth it for me without a decent bump on my price range. Another option is to build now, but use onboard video until Black Friday.

I'm behind on everything except i7 news, so if there's supposed to be something really awesome in a few months, I'll just fix my current desktop and use that for a while. That would leave me with the largest budget as I'd be getting a PSU, video card, keyboard, and maybe SSD now, and the rest of the comp later.
 
How badly do you need a new system now? If you can wait, you should do so; $2000 gives you more options to work with than $1000, especially if you want a Core i7 processor, an SSD, and a high-end video card.

Given your travel requirements, have you thought about going with a micro ATX or a mini ITX system?
 
I originally wanted a smaller system, but I don't know if I'd be able to comfortably fit a good video card in one. If it is reasonable to do it, then I'd much prefer that.

How badly I need it depends on how much I think about it... With my main desktop down due to the PSU killing the GPU, I'm on the 15" MacBook in my sig. It's pretty terrible.

If there's nothing new on the video card horizon for the next couple months, I'll probably get a video card, PSU, and SSD next week, and wait on the rest. Who knows, maybe the jump from this POS back to that will keep me happy until I can make an informed decision on LGA 2011.

I need to check up on video card rumors though. If prices are expected to drop, or something with less heat/power is due to be released, then I will lean toward grabbing a 2600k + board when I can get to Micro Center.
 
New video card architecture coming early 2012, to quote the reps, 'soon'. If you are ok with waiting it's probably the best thing to do.
 
asyork said:
I originally wanted a smaller system, but I don't know if I'd be able to comfortably fit a good video card in one. If it is reasonable to do it, then I'd much prefer that.
Click to expand...
Its doable but a little costly.
asyork said:
I need to check up on video card rumors though. If prices are expected to drop, or something with less heat/power is due to be released, then I will lean toward grabbing a 2600k + board when I can get to Micro Center.
Click to expand...
Well Nvidia isn't due to release their new GPUs till like Q1 or Q2 2012. As for AMD, recent rumors puts AMD releasing new GPUs sometime in Q4 2011:
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-HD-7900-XDR2-Rambus-Memory,13408.html#xtor=RSS-181
 
Thanks for the info. I'm still not sure what I'm going to do, but at least my decision will be more informed.
 
Lugging around a midtower isn't fun, in my experience. I used to lug one around (heck, even a full tower for my 1st year) for work, too. By my 3rd year, I finally built a microATX system, which made it much easier to bring my comp everywhere. My friend didn't like it either, so he got a shuttle XPC (I wasn't as rich as him, though). With mini ITX, you can basically build your own shuttle now. :p
 
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