PC Hardware Equipment

[Sticky]

I've known for a while that I need to upgrade my machine. The usual issues are starting to creep up slow running, scratch disks filling up etc. I've started researching (PC) hardware equipment e.g graph cards, processors, ram that as a Graphic Designer I really should have. I'm guessing that the equipment will be quite pricey but I'm guessing there will be some of you running fairly lower spec (cheeper) machines quite happily. I'm interested to know about both levels of cost set ups.

Can you post the spec of your machines that you do your graphic work on please? As well as any other comments about hardware or.................................If a thread already exsits point me there!

Cheers

[CkretAjint]

Ultimate MacBook (white)...

2.16GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
1GB 667 DDR2 SDRAM - 2x512MB
160GB Serial ATA @ 5400 rpm
SuperDrive 8x (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
Keyboard/Mac OS - U.S. English
AirPort Extreme Card & Bluetooth
AppleCare Protection Plan (APP)

$1,6xx.xx (last August) never one problem, or lack of speed or memory so far....

[John G]

If you don't want to upgrade, or your computer was fine for what you need to do and still would be... Try cleaning out your hard drive. Save what you don't really use anymore to CD's/DVD's or another hard drive and defrag.

Every few years if you know how, it doesn't hurt to back up everything to a seperate machine (or disks, what have you) and do a complete format and re-install. Windows likes to accumulate crap it seems and every few years a muligan seems to work wonders (the Macs I worked on seemed like they could use it too to be fair).

Dual core is in (I like AMD's personally, the AM2 socket is "the new thing"). I'd get 2 gigs of Ram at least (cheapie value ram.. always works for me).
Most motherboards take PCIe video cards now (I've always used ASUS boards with no problems). You don't really want to run SLI, so unless you just want to get that second video card (SLI capable board doesn't mean you need 2 cards), don't bother, your stuff will run fine with 1 card (unless you have like a thousand monitors).
And unless your doing 3d pretty much any PCIe card will be plenty. Something equivalent to a 7000 series nVidea card (I believe Macs come with ~7300's).

Currently running:
MB: Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe (939 socket)
Ram: 4x sticks 512mb 400mhz (for dual channel)
Proc: ~4700 dual core
Vid: EVGA 7800GT (I don't recommend EVGA, so far I've had to RMA 3 times.. I used to have a second 7800.. it's being RMA'd.. again)
600w PSU (500 would probably be more than enough now w/o SLI and you aren't running as many hard drives as you can).

[Sticky]

Woah thank you John G,

I just had a quick google for the motherboard and graph card and was absolutely shocked at how cheap those bits are. I was honestly expecting replies of £800+. Obviously there are high end systems that can be put together for thousands, but I’m just a one man designer who’s starting out so that seems perfect.

It seems like if I were to put together a similar machine to yours it would be quite a bit cheaper than I thought. I guess my train of thought was If I wanna do my GD properly I must have a top, top top of the range setup. Not the case! For now at least.

Ok, so you’re saying with that setup the usual progs i.e Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Quark etc run fine?

If I were to do some small scale video editing could the card handle it or would I need the two graph card setup you were talking about earlier?

In your opinion, as a designer who is getting back into "the game" from scratch but also looking for a machine that will stand up to the next few years. What type of price range do you think I should be looking at? I ask this because the budget is kinda tight and I don’t want to feel I have to get the latest in everything when I would do just as fine with a system on tighter budget.

Cheers Ckretajint

Thx Sticky

[Ned]

Yeah, I'm too embarassed to post my hardware...

[hewligan]

Yeah, I'm too embarassed to post my hardware...

Meh. Long gone are the days when you really needed top of the line hardware for graphic design work. Take your typical, budget model computer and slap a bit more RAM in it and you'll be fine.

Flashy graphics cards are for gamers, and I'd rather save my money for beer.

[D-Frag]

built my PC for under $400, and it will run as fast as most current macs.

newegg.com
tpi-us.com

[Ned]

Flashy graphics cards are for gamers, and I'd rather save my money for beer.


...or video editors. Though even for that, RAM is still more important than video memory.

[hewligan]

...or video editors. Though even for that, RAM is still more important than video memory.

It also very much depends on what sort of video editting you're doing.

Final renders never touch the graphics card, but it is used to produce the on-screen preview. That can make a graphics card work a bit.

(And some of the other staff around here, with older graphics cards, seem to have trouble even playing high res videos in Windows Media Player. Still, you definitely don't need an expensive graphics card to run MS Word.)

Outside of gaming, there are actually very few things that will give a modern graphics card much of a workout.

[Ned]

Outside of gaming, there are actually very few things that will give a modern graphics card much of a workout.

I use mine to power a small electric moped. That gives it a good workout. :D

[hewligan]

I use mine to power a small electric moped. That gives it a good workout. :D

You could probably use one to heat a small house. That would be a good workout. Powering your moped, they barely break a sweat :D

[PrintDriver]

Macs like to be clobbered once in a while too. And believe it or not they do become fragmented too. I always take a new kittycat upgrade as an excuse to wipe and diap my machine. PITA as it blows a usually sunny Saturday, but seems to keep things hummin.

[Navian]

Flashy graphics cards are for gamers, and I'd rather save my money for beer.

What are games? Most of the new games are 3D realms that require intense calculation, and rendering processes.

Without a decent graphics card it will take your computer longer to "show you" what that 3D looks like.

I challenge you (and anyone else who says different) to use the following programs: 3DStudio Max, Maya, Rhino3D, Solidworks, Pro-E, and 3D in: AutoCAD, Microstation, ect.. with a cheap graphics card on a project, while you have an intense 3D scene, in a rendering process at a high level resolution, then tell me it a cheap graphics card is okay to use.

I personally don't work with just graphic design software, m'friend. I've worked with all of those programs I've listed (except Pro-E, but its no different than Solidworks) above, aswell as an most of the Adobe software. I would hate to have a cheap graphics card while I'm waiting for the display to show a rendered project.

[John G]

caveat: I always get confused on what people actually mean by renders.

3d cards only render your OpenGL preview. They don't have anything to do with the actual render (i.e. hit F9 and wait a while thing, or rendering your video clip).

The only time an uber powerful graphics card will really help you is when you've actually got OpenGL preview turned on, have loads of polygons and all of your preview lights turned on. In which case if you have a crappy video card, you could just switch to wireframe and do just as well (worked way back with ye old zillion polly + PCI video cards). And if you have a great need for OpenGL rendering (rendering the preview, not the final image) you don't want a flashy gamer card, you want something like a Quadro that's build for OpenGL rendering (rendering the preview, not the final image) (gamer cards use mainly DirectX).

Anyways, Sticky for SLI the current drawback is that if you want them both "working together" speeding up your preview, you can only use 1 monitor. Sounds very backwards, but that's how it works at the moment. Supposedly they're working to fix that, but they were also trying to fix that over a year ago. You should do just dandy with pretty much any video card you choose, you don't really have a use for a Quadro though imo (they're pretty expensive). Again I think a ~7k or 8k series nVidea (or ATI equiv. no idea what that would be though) will do just fine for what you need.

Depending on if you need a case, PSU, harddrive, disk drives, I'd say anywhere from $300-$1000 (well you can always go up) would get you a nice enough system.

[John G]

oh god,
and don't use Vista.

Even if you have to bootleg a copy of XP.

[hewligan]

What are games? Most of the new games are 3D realms that require intense calculation, and rendering processes.

Without a decent graphics card it will take your computer longer to "show you" what that 3D looks like.

I challenge you (and anyone else who says different) to use the following programs: 3DStudio Max, Maya, Rhino3D, Solidworks, Pro-E, and 3D in: AutoCAD, Microstation, ect.. with a cheap graphics card on a project, while you have an intense 3D scene, in a rendering process at a high level resolution, then tell me it a cheap graphics card is okay to use.

I personally don't work with just graphic design software, m'friend. I've worked with all of those programs I've listed (except Pro-E, but its no different than Solidworks) above, aswell as an most of the Adobe software. I would hate to have a cheap graphics card while I'm waiting for the display to show a rendered project.

As John G explained, that graphics card has nothing to do with final renders whatsoever - although it does help with preview modes.

I'm not a big 3D guy, but I have used some of those programs. To be honest, their preview modes don't tax the graphics card nearly as much as most modern games, and I've found preview performance to be good enough on relatively low-end graphics cards.

In fact, if you look at most of the "pro" graphics cards, they actually tend to have slower processors and less RAM than many of the consumer cards that are targetted at gaming. The difference is that the pro cards focus more on rendering accuracy than speed.

[Ned]

All I know is that when I got bored and decided I would try "gaming", most of the system requirements include an external video card with its own memory.

I do some motion graphics and video work, and for the most part the previews are RAM dependent. The more RAM you have, the better the preview length.

[hewligan]

All I know is that when I got bored and decided I would try "gaming", most of the system requirements include an external video card with its own memory.

I do some motion graphics and video work, and for the most part the previews are RAM dependent. The more RAM you have, the better the preview length.
I do a bit of video work, and our IT guy just recently upgraded my graphics card. Can't say it made much difference.

Fortunately, I've never explained to him how little the graphics cards matters to what I do.

Now, the fact that the new card's got dual DVI out - that makes a noticeable difference (previous card had one DVI, one VGA). And you can usually only get dual DVI on more expensive cards. If you're working with two LCDs, I'd say that's totally worth the money.

[Ned]

Fortunately, I've never explained to him how little the graphics cards matters to what I do.
Oh, nice ploy. Make him think you need it for video and graphics, when really you just want to play games on your coffee break. :D

Reminds me of the other week when I was playing a massive multi-player online game, and I was complaining to my partner about my slow graphics rendering on my computer. She said, "What!? And you're a Graphic Designer?!" Then I had to explain to her how unecessary it is for print graphics, and how it really only hits home when playing games.

A good monitor, on the other hand... That's a must. :)

[Navian]

For me, having decent graphis card with AutoCAD (is a big must) makes a big difference. Quadro or not, I've use used both in the same applications, improving your graphics card does helps alot with the refresh rate on your display.

But what ever, I dont know what I'm talking about. :rolleyes:

[Ned]

improving your graphics card does helps alot with the refresh rate on your display.

Exactly. So you can see when the baddies are damaging your game character. :D

[hewligan]

Exactly. So you can see when the baddies are damaging your game character. :D

That only really helps if you can also improve the refresh rate on your eyes :D

[Navian]

Oy.

[jlknauff]

Hmmm...

AMD Atholon 64 2.4Ghz 3800+
4GB ram
256MB video card
700GB storage