ANNI BITES THE BULLET !!!

Well, sports fans and computer geeks .... I did it!
I just ordered a new computer system from Monarch Computers in Atlanta.
They let you customize your setup and they put it all together and test it for
you.
I tried a few other companies online, but their choices were much more limited.

Anyways, here's what about $2400 will get ya these days:

Case: Antec Performance Plus Case (I considered one of those psychadelic
models with
the neon lights and the plexiglass, but I don't expect many people to see it
under my desk.
Motherboard: Asus P4C800-E Deluxe (8 USB 2.0 ports, Firewire, etc.)
Processors: Intel P4 Prescott 3.2 GHz 800 FSB 1M (HT)
Memory: DDR (400) 3200 REG ECC - 2 GB (I considered adding an extra 2GB, but
didn't wanna blow another $675. I can always add it later.)
Hard Drives: 3 Western Digital 120 GB drives (2 SATA, 1 IDE)
DVD-ROM: Sony DDU1621 16X DVD 40X CD-ROM
CD/DVD ReWriters: Sony DRU530A 4x/2x-DVD+-RW/8X/4x
Floppy Drive: Mitsumi 7-in-1 USB Card-Reader/Smart-Media/CF/Floppy
Sound Card: Creative Audigy 2 ZS
Video Card: Matrox Millennium P650 64MB DDR/8x-AGP/Dual VGA/Dual DVI
Video Capture: Pinnacle PCTV Pro (Why not? Just another $78 and loads of fun
watching and recording TV on the puter.)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows XP Professional

In my haste, I forgot to order a keyboard and a mouse, but I've already got a
few of them anyway, including a Wacom tablet.
Now I'll get to add all my peripherals which I already have which include:

Lacie Electron Blue 19" Monitor (also a NEC 4FG 15" monitor for dual monitor
setup)
Cambridge Soundworks Speakers & Subwoofer
Epson 2200 Printer
Minolta Scan Elite 5400 Film Scanner
Epson 1200P Flatbed Scanner
Canopus DV-REX Digital Video Capture Card
Medea 13GB RAID HD (a huge drive back in the day)
Sandisk CF card reader

Now I just need to order Photoshop CS and I'll be all set. I see I can get it
for about $555.
The only other software I'm Jonesin for is Capture One and Silverfast.

Here's a Q: If I set up my old Win98 puter to network with my new one, will I
need to load XP on it as well?
What all is involved in networking two computers?
I've got a Linksys Wireless Router sitting here that I've never even tried to
use. Maybe a wireless network, huh?

Anyway, I go a long time between upgrades so hopefully this setup will last me
7 years like my current one.

WHO RULES?

 

Your mother.

Be a good boy and say thank you.

David J. Littleboy
Tokyo, Japan

 

NOT YOU!

A 19" monitor??? Why not to go for a color balanced 21"
flat Eizo with 1600x1220 dots? Less Megaherz, more color
fidelity?

Some of these components appear very arbitrary anyway.
Matrox is good choice though. Has the best image processor
for TV watching, you will love it. It is almost like HDTV.

 

Anni,
You can get Photoshop CS for $299.....legit, from Adobe. I did. You
see your Minolta 5400 came with Photoshop LE. Adobe has an upgrade from
LE to CS for $299. They do not advertise it, but here is the link....

http://www.adobe.com/store/products/special.jhtml?id=catMicrotek&sourceco
de=112300

All you need is a valid Photoshop LE S/N.....

JR

 

Umm... the photographer who only needs to spend $5.49 for another roll of
slide film to continue practicing his hobby...? <sly grin>

Ken

 

Hey Bret, I hope you live in a relatively cold (geographically speaking)
location because Intel recently sent out warning notices to their GID
network, stating quite clearly that these chips run a lot hotter than the
older Northwood CPUs do. The Heat sink Intel supply has a copper core to
help dissipate the heat.

The real dainty part about all this is the warning internal case
temperatures must be maintained below 38 degrees Celsius. If you experience
30C days and have no air-conditioning, you might fry your new CPU only to
find out there is no warranty on overheated chips... Just a thought from
your Aussie mate Douglas. Get yourself some extra fans!!

 

Shoulda waited a few months. New radical stuff coming this summer to a geek
outlet near you.

Plus, you'll need central air to keep that CPU cool. Other than that, it
sounds cool (hot).

 

You won't fry your Intel chip. It will automatically clock itself down if
it overheats. Fans just add to noise.

 

Nah. You can always wait.

There is nothing that revolutionary coming in the pipe. A CMP?
(chip-multiprocessor)? If you wanted that, then just get a 2-CPU
motherboard.

 

Wicked system, but what on earth will you use 2GB of memory for?!

Reminds me of a company I used to work for. They would buy these expensive
Sun boxes, with 32GB of memory and 8 processors, just to run some silly app
(HP OpenView) that would work just as well on a fast desktop.

Also...make your IDE the OS drive, and configure the other 2 drives as
RAID-1 (mirroring). This should be a software option in WinXP.

--Mike

 

Congratulations! You should enjoy it for years to come! Like, five years!
;-)

 

Good luck. When does the 1D arrive? ;-)

 

Several good items in there. 2 GB is a hell of a lot of memory.
Unfortunatley, Photoshop does not take advantage of a large memory very
well (in my experience anyway).

With all that disk space will you be doing backups to DVD now? Even
that would be tedious as the disks fill up... will they be mirrored or
striped?

XP-pro is just a waste of cash for the home user, IMO.

Leave the old machine as Win98.
The cleanest way is to get a a single "crossover" ethernet cable and
directly connect the two computer via ethernet.

If you're not sure about the cable, then a cheap little router in
between will work just as well. Once it's all plugged together go into
the Control Panel -> network connections to set each computer and
appropriate permissions.

Once there, you might consider setting up the old machine as a firewall
to the intenet... eg: it has the modem and firewall s/w and the main
machine accesses via the old. You could even make the old machine your
e-mail station to further protect the new machine from viruses.

No mention of highspeed internet (Cable or DSL) in your post... is this
available where you are ... eg: escape from AOL is possible...?

That too.

You don't. I'm not sure what you started with, but I believe you just
spent your way out of a nice lens. For much less, you likely could have
had just as much performance. Hopefully you will get at least 7 years
out of this new computer with minor upgrades in a few years.

 

No way. I completely disagree and wouldn't even think of using XP-home.
Its networking capabilities are crippled and you lose many features like
software RAID (i think).

You do have broadband, right? Why get a great computer without cable or
DSL?!!! Use that Linksys router and get wireless cards in your machines.
And make sure to use an encryption key so that your neighbors don't use your
internet connection to look at child porn.

 

Thats going an aweful long time between upgrades....especially for someone
into digital photography. When the TOTALLY DIGITAL D6000 comes out in 2009,
with its 16 megapixel sensor, your computer will probably crawl.

I buy $500-700 computers every 3 years. A $500 computer I buy 2 years from
now will likely be faster than your $2000 rig is. Then again, I don't have a
use for 2Gb of memory because I don't manipulate 6megapixel raw files

 

I routinely scan to 200MB TIFF files off of film. No big deal, although
photoshop does a poor job of utilizing the 1 GB of memory.

 

How does it do a poor job of utilizing memory? Is it slow or does it simply
not allocate up to 1GB?

If it is slow, then Photoshop probably isn't optimizing for cache accesses--
which is very hard.

The gap between processing speed and memory is becoming huge. If you are
operating on a 200MB file, and your P4 processor has the typical 512kb
cache, then if Photoshop isn't doing a good job with exploiting locality, it
is potentially missing on every access. A cache miss will probably take
over 100 nanoseconds to fill from memory (after it crosses the chip, bus
arbitration, memory controller, etc). At 3GHz with the P4 potentially
retiring 3 instructions/cycle, each memory access takes the time to execute
nearly 1000 instructions! Hip hip horray for 3GHz when it sits there
twiddling its thumbs waiting for memory. This is the motivation for
multi-threading (either via hyperthreading or having 2 cores). While
waiting for memory, the processor can make progress on the other thread.

Most stuff will largely execute out of cache meaning it is very fast. Image
processing on huge files, with it potentially makes large strided memory
accesses, can perform poorly due to cache misses. Buying an AMD Athlon64 is
a win here because the memory controller is on-chip. Intel still uses the
NorthBridge. Then again, hyperthreading is a win here too. But not much of
a win when you can't do anything else with the other thread.

 

I'd have got a Lian-Li, but that's just aesthetic preference. I have to
admit 120mm fan mounts are nice (FYI, 120mm fans mean fewer fans, and hence
a quieter system).

Fair enough

Again, i'd have gone for AMD 64 Bit- in fact I believe AMD processors in
general fare better in image editing, at least according to some benchmarks
i've seen.

You don't need more.

Why 1 IDE? Why not two 250Gb SATA?

Good choice, but why buy two drives? (Just out of curiosity- I have two
myself, but could certainly get by with only one)

*Excellent* choice, I want one of these myself

Overkill! Your mobo has all the sound capabilities most people need... not
sure about the specific model, but there are mobos around with SPDIF output
too.

Hey, whatever floats your boat. Hope you don't play games.

I'd have got an ATI 9800 Pro All-In-Wonder.

Didn't know Lacie made monitors, but I detest their external storage
products...

I have a Cambridge DVD player which isn't bad (but not great either). My
speakers are 7 years old and rock the house (literally). A pair of ancient
amplified Labtecs that don't need the added bass of a sub unless I want
people on your side of the pond to hear them.

Aiiieeeee! Unless I see a great deal of evidence to convince me otherwise, I
shaln't be buying any Epsons soon.

You can afford to bin most of that now, surely? If the drive is fast enough
could it be a good RAM disk?

Nope. Easier, though. Bear in mind that for legal purposes you'd need to buy
a second XP license.

Ah, AFAIK a wireless network between two computers requires two wireless
network cards.

Any idea what PSU you got? Only a no-brand one won't put out as much power
as the label states, which could lead to problems with all the high-drain
crap you've got in there. Especially with six drives. Also extra cooling
might help.

I probably do, I just need the money to prove it.

 

Er... FYI, this is r.p.e.35mm

You spent $2400(!) on a computer?! And you seem _proud_ of it....??!!

Apart from any film scanner issues, why should a 35mm film group give a
rat's ***?

XP will talk to 98 just fine.

It's a 10 min process.
In short: Install NICs and connect computers. Install NIC drivers.
Install NetBEUI protocol, bind it to the Nic. Install File Sharing
service, bind it to NetBEUI. In explorer, right click on drives, enable
sharing. Map net drive(s) to a local drive letter if desired. (eg.
local drive G: is an alias for C:\ on the other computer.)

It depends on how much data you want to move. If you're shuffling
multi-meg images, wireless will be a slow PITA. Your new MB probably
has a network adaptor built in (maybe even gigabit). Get some cable and
a switch and build a wired system.

LOL more like 2-3.

Oh, dear.
Your ego is all wrapped up in this material crap; you really do think it
makes you a better person, don't you?! I guess the billions spent
on advertising have produced the desired result.

-Greg

 

Why are you being so hard on the guy? Jealous? You know nothing about
his line of work. You don't know anything his hardware requirements.

And I suppose you've never posted a gloat before?