New Computer

[Kayaker72]

My next photographic upgrade is probablya newcomputer. I have been using a HP from 2004 with a 2.2 GHz AMD Athlonprocesser, 512 MBmemory, 200 GB hard driveand windows XP.My photos are stored on a 1 TB external hard drive. Working inDPP can be very slow andconverting RAW to jpeg is slow enoughthat I typically get it going overnight or during the day when I am off to work.I try to get as much out of something as I can, but the computer is acting slow enough it is starting to drive even my wife a little nutty. I have heard that I could "rebuild" the software, and that may improve it's performance. But I am thinking it is probably past time for an upgrade. Anyone have thoughts on how to upgrade my current computer or if it is even worth upgrading? If I get a new computer, given that photography and the internet are the most intensive uses (no gaming) any recommendations on the specs I should be looking for?


As always, thanks in advance.


Brant

[Daniel Browning]

First, if that one external hard drive contains your *only* copy of the images, then you must run, don

[Dr Croubie]

my first rule of computing (after the triple hdd backup, of course), is that i never buy brand-name pre-built. But then i

[Kayaker72]

Daniel and DrCroubie....thanks...just what I was looking for [Y]


[] I do have two back upsor three copies. I back everything up onto an external hard drive that I keep offsite, and then I back the jpegs onto the computer hard drive. I used to burn DVDs with photos for backups, but now that I am shooting in RAW, I'd need a DVD everytime I took the camera out of the bag.

[Richard Lane]

I would go with a new computer too.., anything over 5-6 years old is just not worth upgrading.

[Bill W]

Brant....I was in the same boat couple of years ago w/pretty close to the same type of computer use.


I agree w/Daniel & Dr Croubie. I built a new one to my photography specs (after lots of research). But what I did a little differently was to put 2 hard drives in the box; C drive is a 150 gig 10k spin rate and an E drive w/750 gig and, if I remember correctly, a 5800 spin rate.


The C drive 10k allows Photoshop to be very quick (as well as other functions) and the memory allows 6 months worth of pic folders. I keep a years worth of pix on the E drive and back both drives up w/500 gig, 1TB and 2TB EHDs. BTW, my filing system doesn

[Rocco]

Brant,


What kind of a budget are you working with? I second the notion that buying an OEM machine just isn

[Kayaker72]

Thanks for all the suggestions everyone, they have definitely been very helpful. [] I think we are targeting the $500 to $1000range.While it does look like I can get a PC that meets the above specs and had Office/etc for that range, I am curious about building it.So I'll try to take a look at newegg.


Thanks again.


Brant

[Kayaker72]

I have had a little time to research and watch videos. On Tuesday night I had found a HP tower at Best Buy for $480. It has an AMD Athlon II 3.1 Ghz Quad-Core, 1 TB 7200 rpm hard drive, 6 GB of memory, and Windows 7 x64. No SSD that I am aware of, but overall it seems like a big step up from what I have now.


But I am curious about building my own and I

[bob williams]

Well, I can