New computer, yay!

[jliechty]

This fall I will be going for the first time to college, and according to the specifications of the engineering department, my main computer was not quite good enough (well, it probably would have worked fine, but I needed an excuse, and a 1.47GHz Athlon XP is less than their 2GHz "minimum").

Needless to say, being a computer geek and a photographer sucks for my wallet, but while I'm sure I'll love this thing for MATLAB, I can't get over how great it is for Photoshop right now.

AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+
ASUS A8N-E mainboard
2GB DDR SDRAM
NVidia Geforce 6600 PCI-E video card
Samsung 213T (by DVI)
Western Digital 36GB 10,000RPM "Raptor" hard disk
WD 80GB and Seagate 300GB 7200RPM hard disks
Plextor 52x CD-RW, LG 16x DVD+/-RW/RAM, Zip 100, and floppy drive

I used to envy the guy with dual Opterons, but now I'm reasonably well caught up (except for the 30" Apple LCD, lol) - until he upgrades to dual dual core Opterons.

Anyway, I've got to say, if you're looking for an upgrade and multitasking warm-buttery-smoothness is a priority, you shouldn't be looking at anything less than dual core systems. This is a whole different world in digital photography multitasking performance.

[jpreston]

Congrats, Josh. Nice to need something that can be used for dual purposes ;-}

[rjgleason]

Congratulations, Josh and the very best of luck as you enter into your next level of education......

[Anders Östberg]

Congrats! Doesn't hurt one bit to have some number crunching power for editing!

[Rune]

You mentioned DavidP's rig, and FWIW: It just got easier to duplicate his setup. nVidia's new GeForce 7800GTX reference board features one dual-link DVI and one single-link DVI. I.e. it will be able to drive one 30" Cinema LCD just fine (but not two -- the second monitor will still be limited to about 1600x1200). Plus Dell's 6800Ultra card is supposedly dual-link DVI as well (same specs as Apple's version I'm told).

[nhfirefighter13]

Originally Posted by Rune

You mentioned DavidP's rig, and FWIW: It just got easier to duplicate his setup. nVidia's new GeForce 7800GTX reference board features one dual-link DVI and one single-link DVI. I.e. it will be able to drive one 30" Cinema LCD just fine (but not two -- the second monitor will still be limited to about 1600x1200). Plus Dell's 6800Ultra card is supposedly dual-link DVI as well (same specs as Apple's version I'm told).

TWO 30" screens?! That's insane!




I want two 30" screens.

[jliechty]

I have enough trouble fitting my 21" LCD on my decent-sized desk as it is now... Not to mention that a 30" LCD would be a theft magnet at college... Ok, I admit, I'm just trying to convince myself that I shouldn't feel bad about not being able to afford one.

You mention the Geforce 7800GTX... I got the really cheap 6600 to hold me over until the next generation of cards comes out, that will be fully prepared for Windows "Longhorn." I'm not much of a gamer, so the 6600 isn't a limiting factor at all right now.

[Rune]

Originally Posted by nhfirefighter13

TWO 30" screens?! That's insane!

yes.

I want two 30" screens.

YES!

I'm with you all the way on that one!

Originally Posted by jliechty

You mention the Geforce 7800GTX... I got the really cheap 6600 to hold me over until the next generation of cards comes out

I have a 6600GT myself. The thing about nVidia based cards is that only few models support dual-link DVI. I know of two 6800Ultra based models and one 6600GT that has such support. It is very rare, so it is nice that the reference model of their newest card has atleast one dual-link DVI output (because it means there's more for us to choose from). Oh... There's always the nVidia Quadro cards, but they're in a whole different pricerange!