I'm trying to put together a full system on roughly $800 "budget." We already have the graphic card to use -- I'm giving them my wife's old Radeon 9500 Pro.
We need the rest of the system, though, including monitor.
This system will be used for a combination of Photoshop / imaging work plus a "standard" home PC for web browsing, chatting, Office, etc. Also there *may* be a little bit of programming (C compiling and VB development) but I'm not sure if or even how much (will probably be very light, though). It will also be used to play games, but they aren't really wanting too much emphasis on that end of it. Probably geared to 60% Photoshop (and etc), 10% "general use", and 30% gaming.
Since I've been "out of the loop" for so long and really don't have the time to research it all any more, I'm hoping that someone could offer me some friendly advice.
Right now I'm thinking it's a tossup between P4 2.8C and AMD64 2800 or 3000. I've considered dual modded Athlon XPs but I think the single CPU solutions would be better. I know that the P4's HT should probably help out a lot with Photoshop and will help out for the gaming portion of it. However on the flip side I'm trying to look at future and "upgradeability" for 64-bit platform for them, since they only get a new PC about once evey 5+ years (they are still using a P3 700MHz right now that was acctually "top of the line" when it came out).
Right now the "bear essentials" of what I'd like them to have are:
CPU/Mobo dependent on this decision
1GB RAM
At least 80GB HD
Radeon 9500 Pro (again we already have this)
DVD-RW (probably just get that good 8x NEC one)
DVD-ROM
Case + PS (looking at Antec SLK2600 right now)
Mouse+KB
good quality monitor (I'll probably just try to find a Hot Deal or slightly used good quality 19" or 21" AG CRT hopefully in the $150ish range)
speakers (don't know if they want surround or just stereo at this point, so until I find out I'm just going to assume they will use their existing 2.1 speakers and mobo audio).
So which would provide more performance in Photoshop? I would think the P4 with HT ??
Someone toss out some ideas!
Thanks!
We need the rest of the system, though, including monitor.
This system will be used for a combination of Photoshop / imaging work plus a "standard" home PC for web browsing, chatting, Office, etc. Also there *may* be a little bit of programming (C compiling and VB development) but I'm not sure if or even how much (will probably be very light, though). It will also be used to play games, but they aren't really wanting too much emphasis on that end of it. Probably geared to 60% Photoshop (and etc), 10% "general use", and 30% gaming.
Since I've been "out of the loop" for so long and really don't have the time to research it all any more, I'm hoping that someone could offer me some friendly advice.
Right now I'm thinking it's a tossup between P4 2.8C and AMD64 2800 or 3000. I've considered dual modded Athlon XPs but I think the single CPU solutions would be better. I know that the P4's HT should probably help out a lot with Photoshop and will help out for the gaming portion of it. However on the flip side I'm trying to look at future and "upgradeability" for 64-bit platform for them, since they only get a new PC about once evey 5+ years (they are still using a P3 700MHz right now that was acctually "top of the line" when it came out).
Right now the "bear essentials" of what I'd like them to have are:
CPU/Mobo dependent on this decision
1GB RAM
At least 80GB HD
Radeon 9500 Pro (again we already have this)
DVD-RW (probably just get that good 8x NEC one)
DVD-ROM
Case + PS (looking at Antec SLK2600 right now)
Mouse+KB
good quality monitor (I'll probably just try to find a Hot Deal or slightly used good quality 19" or 21" AG CRT hopefully in the $150ish range)
speakers (don't know if they want surround or just stereo at this point, so until I find out I'm just going to assume they will use their existing 2.1 speakers and mobo audio).
So which would provide more performance in Photoshop? I would think the P4 with HT ??
Someone toss out some ideas!
Thanks!