Computer PSU Problem (Part II)

[Scrums]

Thanks for all your posts guys on the aforementioned. I'm quite expecting when I put the psu in to find something else has been fried.

The question is this then: given that I hopefully have some still working bits.....CD drives, Hard drives, maybe sound and video cards/Network card etc that I could put into a new computer, what minimum spec' would you suggest I/Someone build it to ?

Used for:
Basic wordprocessing; Adobe photoshop for digital images; SketchUp and Kerkythea. Also a small amount of FTP to a website.

And are dual core/dual processors any use to anyone yet ? - given that a lot of existing code within programs doesn't support them.

Chris.

 

[LyNx]

not much help but you won't want a dual processor set-up for what you need, a bit overkill and you could spend the money on other upgrades.

btw, i have dual core dual xeons and the only program to dislike this is photoshop CS2.

 

[OLD]

Photoshop needs a fast processor lots of disc space and ram but the video card does not need to be fast, this is of cause if you use its capability and store lots of images.
here is a link to a computer forum with lots of info.
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/index.php?

 

[ByronBlack]

Chris.

A good solid Penitum 4 should do the trick for what you need. Just remember ot maximise the RAM - this is the one thing that really makes the difference. Espeically Photoshop.

I'm a photoshop specialist (did some training a couple of years or so ago) and got to use a 'pro' workstation, photoshop was so fast, and do you know what was under the hood? A pentium 3 1ghz. BUT it had over 2Gig of RAM - photoshop and the like rely heavily on a 'scratch' area, and the more ram you have for this, the better the performance, its not tied completely to processor power unless you are working with massive images and running lots of filters.

Even sketchup would greatly benefit from a ton of RAM.

FTP - you can do that on a mobile phone, so no requirements there really.

If you build it youself, then remember to by a good brand of memory and components, it doesn't matter if they aren't the newest most fastest components on the market, as long as they're reputable then you'll get good solid performance.

Too many people these days get suckered into upgrading to newer and faster processors when it's not needed. Most programs such as MS Office run fine on anything from an old Pentium 2 to a Core Duo aslong as there is sufficient RAM and a decent hard-drive.

Also a lot of people get stuck on 'benchmarking' - well, so what if you get 5fps more in a game, or a certain program does something 5 seconds faster - it's not that important as long as the program has enough ram not to use the hd as virtual memory.

 

[RogerS]

Scrums

If when you put in your new PSU your Pc doesn't work then IMHO you really need to ask yourself the question...

'Do I really want to mess around trying lots and lots of different combinations of components in trying to get it to work?"

So maybe the mother board is duff. So you buy a new one. But maybe the processor is fried? The RAM? The graphics card? The hard disk drive? I could go on but you get my drift. You might be better of buying a new PC and save the pain. Not perhaps what you want to hear and maybe your new PSU will do the trick. I hope so.

 

[Shultzy]

Scrums, The best bit of advice I can give you is this - Buy the biggest ,fastest, most expensive machine / components you can afford; because tomorrow they won't be!

Seriously, buy 3GHz or above, lots of ram, min 2Gb - large hard disk 500Gb (even larger if you want to download woodworking videos) + and a decent graphics card, something like a NVIDIA GeForce 68000 and a min 19" screen.

You can add a sound card if you want.

If you want a second TV set, £60 will buy you a digital card which will allow you to watch and record to the hard disk.