Considering new rig

[Niege]

I have an older Acer, Athlon x2 3800, 4GB, and Radeon 3650 for dual monitors, XP XP3. I'm thinking of a newer, faster rig with W7 64 bit.

Right now it takes almost 6 minutes to boot up; granted I have a ton of stuff including a MagicJack. The rig is used mainly for photo editing and office apps; no gaming. Mainly I use Nikon ViewNX, CaptureNX2, and Photoshop CS4 along with M$ Office 2003 and BOINC (TeAm Anandtech). If I have all three photo programs running at once I'm in the swap file in no time. NX2 sometimes takes 10 seconds sometimes 90-120 seconds to save a NEF. Sometimes even 60 seconds to save a jpg.

I'm also looking to have USB 3.0, SATA III, and at least two eSATA ports. I could reuse my graphics card and my 1TB Spinrite F3 (and my two 1TB external drives). Might look into a SSD for OS and apps. Or is there a better dual DVI card our there?

Does anyone know of a pre-built configuration that will give me 8-12GB of RAM and a fast processor, and expandability in terms of PCI-E slots for around $1200-1400? Or do I have to build it myself? My last build was almost seven years ago (with a lot of help from here) and I'm not sure I have the current know how, manual dexterity, or energy to attempt another one.

I'm pretty agnostic on Intel vs. AMD, just want to get the best bang for the buck. I'd like to make a move on this in the next few weeks.

Thanks

 

[mfenn]

For a pre-built, the Dell Studio XPS 7100 is a great value. You can get a 1055T hexa-core with a 5670 and 8GB of RAM for $960. It only has 1 eSATA port and no USB 3.0 though. If you want those you'll have to build or buy some expansion cards.

 

[Slugbait]

Right now it takes almost 6 minutes to boot up; granted I have a ton of stuff including a MagicJack.

Yeah, 6 minutes isn't all the crap loading up that you know about...it's probably all the crap loading up that you don't know about. 6 minutes is a pretty clear indication that something is wrong. The first thing I would do is run HijackTHIS and SUPERAntiSpyware, you may have some clean-up to do. Download Autoruns from Sysinternals, and use that instead of msconfig to kill off processes that are unnecessary at boot time. Last, make sure the primary hard drive is listed first on the Boot menu of your BIOS.

Do you use WL Messenger? Did you install Patchou's Messenger Plus, and select to "support" the author by installing an advertising program? That would mean you're running LOP, which is notorious for sucking the life out of a CPU. Don't let anti-malware remove LOP, or you're hosed...just re-run the Plus installer and select to NOT give Patchou your "support", and the installer will remove LOP properly.

The rig is used mainly for photo editing and office apps; no gaming...If I have all three photo programs running at once I'm in the swap file in no time. NX2 sometimes takes 10 seconds sometimes 90-120 seconds to save a NEF. Sometimes even 60 seconds to save a jpg.

Two-pronged approach here:
1) Get another F3 drive: first thing to do after formatting it is to move your scratch discs over to it.
2) Tweak your pagefile: best option is to go permanent and split it between the drives, and Windows will utilize the paging on whichever drive is getting the least work at that given time. There was a benchie I read a couple of years ago that advocated 2x pagefile for certain scenarios, as opposed to the old 1.5x approach...I think your usage applies to 2x. So create a permanent pagefile of 3.1G on each drive.

Nothing beats a clean install, and since you'll essentially be doing that with your new machine, consider doing it before buying an all-new rig...you might be surprised.

 

[Niege]

Thanks, mfenn, I'll take a look at that.

You, too, Slugbait. I don't have WL Messenger, thank Beelzebub. I have already split the pagefile between two physical drives, they're each about 3G.(I have a 500G (Seagate) and a 400G (WS) internal in addition to the F3. btw the PS is only 250W). I also have my PS scratch drives and Nikon cache one of the other physical drives. I just checked with Malwarebytes and no detection of any malware. You're right about the clean install, though. It's been a very long time.

I got this system in 2006. It's beyond the time when Acer will provide W7 drivers for the Foxconn mobo, chipset, and sound. RAM is maxed out so I'm kind of in a corner as far as upgrading goes. I'm ambivalent about spending two or three days on a clean install (with all the crap I have) for what might turn out to be just a small improvement; and then have to to it all over again with the new rig.