Please build me a computer (NOT GETTING A MAC UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES)

[Jumbie]

Originally Posted by username79

Why would you ever turn your computer off?

Heat.

Cost of electricity.

Prolong life of components.

Noise.

You don't need it on at night because you're not downloading, folding, rendering, converting, etc.

Pick one.

 

[wj2009]

I recently ordered a HP 8710W for a ridiculously low price and it runs fairly fast and has a beautiful 1920x1200 17" screen. With HP's 3-year warranty, I intend to run to pretty much around the clock, just I run my desktops.

 

[Rambo]

WTF do you need 8GB's of RAM for? You can't even utilize all that under Windoze.

 

[Jumbie]

Originally Posted by Rambo

WTF do you need 8GB's of RAM for? You can't even utilize all that under Windoze.

If they sold him a system with 8 GB then I'm pretty damned sure they also sold him Win64.

 

[dfagdfsh]

he wants a computer to browse the internet, type **** up and watch videos. he does not need a $5000 work station lol

 

[SField]

Originally Posted by Teger

he wants a computer to browse the internet, type **** up and watch videos. he does not need a $5000 work station lol

Keep in mind that I use Reason and Pro Tools (not as much anymore)... if you're running a lot of filters things can get bulky pretty fast.

 

[Night Owl]

You spent 2k? Sounds like a turtle, I mean Corei7 975 is 1k and 12GB of DDR3 2000 is another 1k

 

[SField]

Originally Posted by Night Owl

You spent 2k? Sounds like a turtle, I mean Corei7 975 is 1k and 12GB of DDR3 2000 is another 1k

The largest expenses were the processor and the memory.

I don't recall getting much more with the hardrive. I have 200gb now and I think that's enormous... with the new one I think it's like a terabyte which I'll never use. Everything else was pretty much a small upgrade or standard included. Again, the price doesn't include any peripherals, including monitor.

 

[Night Owl]

I'm just messing with you, system is probably fine

Are you going to run multiple displays? I love my triple monitor setup

 

[SField]

Originally Posted by Night Owl

I'm just messing with you, system is probably fine

Are you going to run multiple displays? I love my triple monitor setup

I don't have much of a need for that, although when I was doing music production that would have been extremely useful.

 

[montyharding]

Originally Posted by SField

So XPS is actually ****? Someone here said it's like their high performance line? If it isn't as good I have someone who can use it and I'll just get something better. I am not going to tolerate waiting for anything. EDIT: I just looked at the machines you linked to, and the XPS one I ordered seems to have a lot more power than any of those. I ordered 8 GB of ram and a faster processor. I didn't buy a monitor from dell nor any accessories whatsoever so I guess that's why the price was low. Or wait, are the duo core only for XPS? It looks like this one is a quadrouple one and i don't remember the XPS one saying Xeon. So is this really better?
It's the consumer performance line. Unless you ordered the top spec of the XPS 730H2C, there's nothing in the Dell desktop inventory that comes close to the Precision series - but that's not $2K. The 730 is probably the only XPS machine I can recommend as I've had zero issues with it (and the 720, 710 and the 700 I had before it), and the chassis actually shares a lot in common with the Precision T7x00. Well - I don't like waiting around for any more than necessary and I'm not short of cash. Which is why almost all of my laptops have standard or aftermarket SSD storage, and my desktop boot drives on many of my Precisions have been retrofitted to SSD RAID0, as well as processors appropriate for the task at hand. There's two types of waiting - there's waiting for stuff to finish processing, and there's waiting for stuff to load/save. First obviously lies in the processor / memory and the general speed of the computer as a while, but the second lies in the speed of storage. Obviously you have to address both types of waiting if you want not to wait at all. SSD's dramatically speed up the latter. True, SSD's depreciate savagely at the moment due to the doubling in same-price capacity every 18 months or so - but this is something you don't have to consider until it comes for time to sell, if you ever do that. If you've already bought the machine, I'd say buy Acronis, one of these and one of these, as well as an external USB drive which you can use as a backup drive later. Put the SSD into the drive cage adapter and a) boot the computer, install Acronis and use it to backup the complete OS image that came with the computer onto the USB drive (so All Partitions), and burn an Acronis boot CD. Move the drive into the second drive slot on the Dell, and install the SSD in drive space 1. Now, boot using the Acronis CD and restore the image from the drive you backed up onto the SSD drive. This gives you an original backup as well as allowing you to transition the disks. b) install the SSD into the second drive slot, boot computer, install / run Acronis and do a drive -> drive copy then swap the disks around. Quicker but no separate backup of the original installation should things go wrong. You should now be booting from the SSD. Once you're satisfied, format the original drive and stick your Appreciation on it.

 

[IB240996]

Originally Posted by Rambo

WTF do you need 8GB's of RAM for? You can't even utilize all that under Windoze.

Sure you can. 64 bit OS, for example. I need it for VM.

 

[IB240996]

Originally Posted by SField

I don't have much of a need for that, although when I was doing music production that would have been extremely useful.

You can never have enough monitors.

I'm running dual 24" right now and want to sell them to get dual 27". Like I said, never enough.

 

[montyharding]

My regular setups - 30+30 or 23/4+30+23/4 are big enough. The problem with really big desktops is that you start losing track of the mouse, and it also starts to become a major chore to 'scrub' from one location to another if you're actually using the real estate in multitasking. When I first set up my refreshed home office a while back, I started with four 30-inch Cinema displays on my primary Crapple Pro for the 'world domination console look'... but it proved totally unusable from one machine.

Two 24"s is very productive and I'd recommend it to anyone whatever they're doing. Two 30's more so but beyond that... not for me right now until we get eye-tracking or giant easeltouchscreens. I use 4 x 24 in certain situations but not in an everyday aspect.

Aren't all 27"s the same resolution as 24"s? I'm on a 27" right now as I type and I like it for gaming purposes - you get a bigger screen for better immersiveness at monitor distances while still pushing 1920 x 1200 - but I wouldn't really consider it a big upgrade in terms of productivity over a 24".

 

[username79]

Originally Posted by Rambo

WTF do you need 8GB's of RAM for? You can't even utilize all that under Windoze.
Oh really?? Desktop: