new computer help please?

[RayRosher]

Hi Dan
If you using some of the older signage products 99% of them were never designed for 64bt
I take it that your thinking of win7 64bt, Bare in mind that a lot of well know products are still not supported properly and many are still in beta testing with their drivers,

Some of the lesser know products will never be supported by win7 as it’s up to the company that make the cutter printer etc to develop the 64bt software… And most don’t bother for an older machine!

I would maybe hold off on the 64bt side as the lack of compatibility out weighs the performance gains,
In-fact check to make sure that whatever software your using is supported,
No good buying a spanking new system! Only to find out that none of your programs will run on it,
Also I have had over the years many many systems amd intel mac
I would always go for the Mac every-time!

However a lot of the programs I use today are not available for the mac.
I would stay well clear of the Amd and always go for Intel

I know someone on here’s going to have a go at me for this, But to be honest if Amd was as good as they make out!
Amd chips would be flying the space shuttle instead of Intel,

Spec looks ok
But I would lose the Amd and go for Intel
The ssd maybe a good investment, but at the moment your paying a premium for it

You may find that a good 500gb sata H/d could leave it standing, However as you don’t list any access times that remains to be seen.

Asus are very good boards although I’m not familiar with this one, os their should be no problems their,
As for your 2nd h/d good idea to have a big drive, But eggs in one basket springs to mind, make sure that you have at the very least one of two other backups, one off site if possible Gott a go running out of time Ray:)

[Roger Clements]

Hi Dan….I just had my SP 300V installed with VW and SignLab8 for Versaworks. All the software is running fine on Vista Home 64bit. Apparently VW says it doesn’t work on Vista Home 64bit but the chap who installed my machine said this is not the case and got it installed and running with no problems. As for computer spec…well I’m no ‘geek’ so I would say got for the biggest HD and RAM along with the fastest chipset/processor you can afford. That way you are going someway towards ‘future proofing’.

Oh and as a ‘heads up’….the chap who installed my machine/software said to steer clear of Windows 7 in any form for the time being as it is so very new and might not support other software packages you might want to run. Also being so new it is having ‘teething problems’.

[Dan Osterbery]

thanks for your responses guys! I will probably stick with xp professional as my operating system! that’s what i really wanted to check, that we are not paying for new spec that wont be any use if its running on xp! we have three other computers that can run the old cutters etc, but what i really want is the best spec i can afford for the graphics computer!
cheers

Dan

[Alan Wharton]

on win7 theres a feature that allows you to run apps in older modes 95/98/2000/vista etc.
my vinyl master pro wont run on win7 unless i run it in win xp mode then works fine although a lot slower than on my other pc that runs on xp, useable but slower.

[David Rowland]

tbh, as much as I would have said stick to XP in the last few years, I would say no. Win7 as its got a faster design and future proof. XP should be discontinued by now.

I haven’t looked at that spec closely nor the AMD processors, but its all about how fast the processor is, as far as I know the Intel i7 Extreme’s hold the speed crown, but I not looked at the AMD ranges at present.

My advice for a RIP PC is just that, a PC with plenty of memory, fast processor and just stick it in the corner and design on something else.

[Dan Osterbery]

thanks guys! Dave i have four pc’s running on an xp network, if i add a win 7 pc will it all still run smoothly? Quite happy to do as you suggest, use the new pc for ripping, and design on another!

Ray, i might be wrong, but the ssd hardrive i think is just to run the programs, the other hd is to be used as storage!

thanks guys

Dan

[Alan Wharton]

you can network the 2 operating systems together ok, heres a link with step by step pics to show you how its all done.
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-7/share-files-and-printers-between-windows-7-and-xp/

[Dan Osterbery]

Thanks alan! That’s a useful link!

Regards

Dan

[RayRosher]

Win7 is the way forward as of last June xp is no longer actively supported by Microsoft

When I say actively supported what I mean is that they will do a fix for anything that puts the system at risk!

but will no longer support it with regards to new products coming out,

Vista was a bad o/s in as such as they released it with far to many problems,
However Win7 is Vista Fixed!
I was one of the lucky ones and was offered win7 in it’s Alpha testing stage and was lucky enough to be given a blue badge as a developer for Microsoft
I was in at the ground floor with win7 and have to say that even in the early stages it was far better than vista or even Xp in it’s hay-day!
so yes! If your programs will run on it without going into compatibility mode then go for win7 Pro ultimate,

This will allow you to tweak the system a good bit if you have to use compatibility mode or customize your computer in any way,

As for your ssd bare in mind that a really good 500gb sata H/D should only cost you £40 at most the ssd will be costing you the guts of £120 £130
And this is at best only the second generation of ssd drives,
I would stick the spare £90 in my pocket and invest it in an Intel chip,
don’t forget that with file swapping your 100GB ssd will only be 98GB and then take away at least one third for various windows activates that and the fact that you should leave that amount of your drive clear anyway., Your left with at best 60GB for your programs not a lot if your using a couple of biggish programs, Don’t forget these programs will take up a fair bit of ssd drive when their running, you could pretty quickly hit some VM problems and windows really doesn’t like them,
If you wanted to upgrade to ssd say this time next year when prices have dropped and their a bit better say 4th 5th generation it shouldn’t be a problem to image your C:\ Drive and install it onto a ssd drive

As for networking your system shouldn’t be a problem with win7
If this is all a bit off putting you could just stick good old WinXP in it
At least you know that it works,
Sorry if this is all the more confusing for you!

But the local PC shop wont have your best interests at heart!
They will try to sell you the best system that will give them the biggest profit.

Sorry should have mentioned that anything I’ve bought PC parts wise I have got from this mob http://www.Aria.co.uk look out for their deal 4 the day

[Dan Osterbery]

hi guys,
had a rethink and further talks with computer guys and this is what they have come up with!

Intel i7 2.66 (processor)

Asus p6t4 (motherboard)

Ocz 4gb ddr3 2000mhz (ram)

WD 150gb 10000 rpm 16mb cache (hard drive, times 2)

WD 1.5tb 54000 rpm 64md cache (storage drive, times 2)

Corsair 1000 watt psu (power supply)

Noctua nh-u12p (processor cooling)

Samsung dvd rw (can you guess??)

Sata cables

Arctic silver heat sink

we have the option to upgrade the processor, but i think this should be fast enough?

cheers

Dan

[Alan Drury]

Looks good, I run i5 – 2.67 with 3gig ram on a W7 32bit system and that is plenty fast enough for the work I do. I felt it could be easy to spend alot of extra money on higher spec. machine and the gains would be quite modest.
Alan D

[David Rogers]

Just a thought.

That MOBO will handle 24Gb of 3 channel RAM…W7 SHOULD utilise all of that too.

I’d be sorely tempted to drop the small high speed drives in favour of a standard (larger) drive for the OS & programs and bump the RAM levels up way beyond 4Gb.

I have (with a LOAD of RAM installed) turned off the swap file / scratch disk …as let’s face it – nobody works with files bigger than a couple of Gb..do they?

Silly fast speed as near zero disk access.

[Dan Osterbery]

Hi David,
i am not sure if we will put W7 on her, we are toying with sticking with xp! Then i beieve xp can only access a certain amount of ram?? (this is all a bit above my head really) hence asking for advice! Do you think that W7 will make a massive difference?

Alan, thanks thats what i have been advised, i can put faster processors but the gain will not be as dramatic as the increase in costs!

cheers guys

Dan

[Alan Drury]

Definitely go with W7. I chose 32 bit as I couldn’t be doing with the hassle with drivers. I have a 64 bit W7 machine for eldest boy and wireless card was a problem.
32 bit will not use ram above 4 gig – 64 bit will but I’m not sure of performance gain unless you were doing video editing or something that intensive. for vinyl and typesetting (my use) super high spec not really a massive advantage.
Alan D

[Jon Marshall]

I’d like to get a Win7 64bit machine with loads of RAM for doing large format images but I still need the machine to run Flexisign and a Mimaki cutter and I’m pretty sure there aren’t drivers for the cutter.

It seems a shame that we have to sit here watching technologly move forward but be stuck on 32bit XP machines.

[RayRosher]

quote David Rogers:

Just a thought.

That MOBO will handle 24Gb of 3 channel RAM…W7 SHOULD utilise all of that too.

I’d be sorely tempted to drop the small high speed drives in favour of a standard (larger) drive for the OS & programs and bump the RAM levels up way beyond 4Gb.

I have (with a LOAD of RAM installed) turned off the swap file / scratch disk …as let’s face it – nobody works with files bigger than a couple of Gb..do they?

Silly fast speed as near zero disk access.

Hi David
Yes! your correct win7 will handle any amount of Ram,
But only in 64bt…
32bt win7 as per vista and late editions of xp will only use the guts of 4Gb regardless of how much Ram you actually have installed.

I’m actually running 32Gb of Ram on Win7 32bt, But here’s the trick I know what I’m doing and know how to bypass certain windows restrictions and utilize The Ram to hold programs in permanent memory,
For instance Adobe ills. Flexisign. and all the other programs I’m using are fully loaded and ready to go, As fast as i can click the mouse button..
As for swap files, Well a partitioned folder in it’s own drive makes things even faster I recently had a file 120Gb Nightmare to deal. But they do happen ,

Win7 64Bt I would think for the next couple of years is out of the question, Unless all of the programs and drivers are already supported,

My Instinct is still to go with
Win7 32Bt would be my suggestion,
But here’s the thing Check with the software company’s whose programs you use and find out if they support Win7 if they do, Go for it
If not weigh up the advantages and disadvantages of going to win7
You know you have XP to fall back on

[Dan Osterbery]

hi guys,
pc has finally failed, just been to ask someones elses opinion who can build one fast, this is what he has come up with and i must say the price is a lot cheaper so i presume the spec is a lot worse but will this be good enough??

cheers

Dan

New i7 PC to substitute Xeon: Gigabyte X58A-UDR3 motherboard, Intel CPU i7-930, 2,8Ghz 8MB Cache, 4GB Ram DDR3 PC1600 Kingston, Gigabyte GZ-X1 tower case (known for being quite cool temperature), 420W Power supply (we would swap this for the new mega one just installed in the Xeon), SVGA XFX GT-240/550M 1GB DDR3 graphics card, 2x Western Digital 1Tb Sata 64Mb Cache Hard drives, Sata 20x DVDRW LG, labour, callout etc. 1280€