My old 500MHz Pentium III just isn't cutting the mustard anymore. I'm working with huge files in Photoshop, and every time I run a filter or make a change to an image, it churns for 15 minutes. Making large, hi-res files for poster-sized prints, for example, is nearly impossible. I am somewhat perturbed.

Of course, with my money situation being what it is, I can't just run out and get a new machine. I'm hoping to save up my nickles and dimes and spring for a machine for under $3000 (without monitor -- my 12" Trinitron is doing just fine) sometime in March or April.

I've been pricing systems at Dell [dell.com] and Alienware [alienware.com], and I've been toying with the notion of building my own. Dell is nice and reliable, but not terribly sexy. Alienware is sweet -- very powerful systems -- but I've heard rumors of shoddy parts and poor customer service, and the machines are said to be thunderously loud, which isn't so good in a studio apartment. The notion of building my own is intriguing, but I simply don't have the time or the knowledge (I'd rather spend my time making new comics than troubleshooting).

In the end, I need an intensely powerful P4 (or equivalent) with at least a gig of high-speed RAM and a blazing video card. Any of you tech-heads have any suggestions as to what I should do?

Sorry, that's a 21" Trinitron (Dyslexic Edition).

Wow, that monitor went from "suck" to "sweet" in less than a minute!

I agree that building it yourself is for a select few. I went that route with some help from my friends, who then dropped out of my life (or got dropped) right before the fireworks started inside the case. It's been a fun little dance ever since.

Now, when it works, I will say that my measly little Athlon 1.2ghz with 512MB of RAM and a 64MB Radeon has been making me one delirious camper. I open Photoshop, Illustrator, Streamline, Dreamweaver, Outlook, and a few Internet Explorers and bounce freely between them all with no crashes. Even at 600 dpi images that are 10" by 15" big, Photoshop moves at a decent clip compared to anything else I've used it on. I wouldn't say lightning fast, but I don't ever get annoyed by it or feel like I can go grab junch from down the road, come back, and find it still thinking.

I've had nothing but great luck dealing with Dell computers, but don't really know much about Alienware equipment. My personal feeling is I don't care what my computer looks like so long as what I can create on it looks sunglasses-at-night good.

- Iain
Darwin's Complex [darwinscomplex.com]

Building your own has the advantage of flexibility and it may be cheaper. But it takes time and you get no warantee. Also a lot of people don't factor in the cost of software. (No problem if you're running Linux; if you decide to plop Windows onto a home-grown system, pass go backwards and give the bank $200 (probably more). (Or cheat, but I clearly cannot advocate that strategy.) On the whole, I've found that I lead a happier life when I buy systems from a single vendor and then kick them in the nuts if it doesn't work right.

My past couple machines have come from Gateway. They do have a tendency to cut corners on peripherals. (From them I've gotten a fairly cheap video card and a sound card without even a game port / MIDI in; and they only sell WinModems anymore, I'm told.) But for the most part I've been happy with what I get from them. I just bought a 1.8GhZ P4 / 512MB RDRAM / 60GB HD in a very nice case. Cost was ~$1300. (I then proceded to spend a couple hundred on KVM and other switches since I now have two machines... grumble...)

Now I gather you mean to buy more power than that, and obviously I don't know all your detailed requirements. But playing around with it, I see a reasonable configuration based on the Gateway 700X with a 2.8GHz processor for ~$2700. (If you want the top-of-the-line, 3.06GHz, you pay a premium. About $350 worth. But hey, in 4 months that probably won't be the top of the line anymore, so the price will probably be better.)

So unless you have an anti-Gateway experience keeping you from doing so, I'd play around with their 700X configurations and see if you can get what you want for the right price.

Given that you view Goats as a business (and I assume will therefore be doing business on this machine), I wouldn't recommend a home-grown system unless you simply cannot find a vendor selling the system you need for an acceptable price. Building a machine is a nice hobby, but I make a point to keep a separate machine for hobbying so that my hobby doesn't disrupt anything important I might be doing.

I built a dual proc Athlon 1800, w/ 2GB RAM, and a NVidia QuadroDCC for my machine at home

For at work I built the same thing but w/ Athlon 2000 and a Quadro4 (1 year later)

In Response to Dynedain (#3391):

Are dual processors worth the extra expense? Are there any mainstream vendors that sell dual-processor machines?

Buy a Mac.

No, really.

Well, okay, I know. You can't afford new software. That's the *only* reason I'll let you slide.

That said, single vs. multi-processor depends rather a bit on the OS you're running. You said 'Photoshop' and 'Pentium', so I'm assuming some version of Windows. Hopefully NOT NT or ME or (ugh) 95/98. 2000 or XP will do handily with multiple processors. It can make performance differences with things like Photoshop, so if you can swing it, do so.

The big key with Photoshop is Memory, Memory, Memory. And memory. And a fast I/O system as much if not more than a fast video card. You'll do better by getting a slightly slower processor and a faster motherboard bus-speed and disk controller than you will getting the fastest processor on the market.

I would skip Dell entirely. And Gateway. And HP/Compaq. I'd lean towards Acer, IBM or Sony.

In Response to zamphir (#3394):

Why Acer, IBM or Sony?

In Response to jon (#3396):

My wife likes her Acer laptop. Their prices tend to be good for the features you get.

IBM makes servers that don't suck too bad. (all hardware sucks).

I haven't heard bad things about Sony, although they tend to be on the high end of the price curve.

Oh? Sound, logical, good reasons? Don't have any. Mac guy, you see.

In Response to zamphir (#3397):

I have a Sony, and my last machine was a Sony too. Its definatley better than Compaq or Dell. I used to love HP, but they are pretty pricy and skimp on stuff such as RAM. So, if I had to but my 2 cents in, I would say Sony is a great brand.

Of course, I like no computer better than a homebuilt.

I'd have to say Dell, Acer, IBM all seem to be pretty good systems. I've worked with all of them, and have never had much trouble. On the plus side, since I'm poor and use a computer until it's not even worth the case it's in anymore, these systems tend to use genericly fitted parts, so if you did have to replace something that breaks, you can generally fix it with any generic store part. As for Gateways, Compaqs, HP's (HP & Compaq have merged btw.), and some other companies, if a small internal part breaks somewhere, i've found that you often have to go back to them to get it fixed, costing you time, and extra money. I have never dealt with sony computers before, but I know most of their other products are great, so I can only imagine that their computers would be as well.
I have also never used a MAC before, but from what I understand, if you're doing anything graphics related, MAC is the way to go. I understand the MAC G4 is one hell of a machine.

I'm running a self built at home right now, and I have to say that sometimes it's more trouble than it's worth. It was nice when I was in school, and I could upgrade it fairly cheaply every few months. Now that I have some super fast machines at work, I rarely turn on my home machine; because it'll take me longer to fix the bugs than to do the tasks I set out to accomplish. Not to mention it hasn't been upgraded in about 1.5 years, so it's deathly slow (pretty much the same specs as the machine you're using now.)

I run huge computer simulations at work, so we have to have the fastest and most current hardware available, and new machines come in weekly. Hands down, you can't beat a Dell machine. We've got a lot of different systems running, and Dell is by far the best, and they're nearly bulletproof - even after adding SCSI, large mem chips, and other aftermarket peripherals that typically don’t have the best service record where plug-n-play is concerned. I’ll admit they’re not as sexy as the alienware machines, but they always work. I can always count on mine to still be running on Monday if I start a simulation running on Friday afternoon.

IBM and Sony both make machines of the same quality, but there is the price and upgrading issues. Compaq, Gateway and Acer are pretty much cheap consumer machines that aren’t really designed for high-end users or upgrades. They also have spotty records for cheap components, and our IT guy spends a lot of time working out the bugs on peoples personal machines that come from them. Our HP machines are total garbage. We’ve got 2 with dual 2.0G processors (their top of the line workstations) and they crash like clockwork if you add more than 2G of ram. There’s other issues with them, but that’s the biggest one.

Oh, and multiple processors do help quite a bit (if I can get the damn HP’s running) for the programs that I use. For something like Photoshop that is more memory intensive, the benefit might not be as noticeable, unless you’re running multiple programs at once.

So, if I am ever to upgrade my home machine, I’m just going to call Dell. It may be a little pricier than home built, but for all the aggravation it can save, I think it’s well worth the cost. Anyway, hope that helps.

In Response to jon (#3392):

A dual proc costs significantly more when purchased through a mainstream vendor. Overall system performance will seem snappier, especially when running multiple applications simultaneously because of the load balancing. The real power of dual-proc though is when chugging along in multi-threaded applications. If you use software that spends a lot of time chewing away on something (like a rendering from 3D Studio, or Premiere) then dual proc will definately be a great help. First off, your application can take up all the resources of one of the procs, leaving the other one free for system operations and minesweeper (or bejeweled). Furthermore, most applications that are designed for long processing times have multi-threading support. Meaning they can break up parts of the task accross multiple processors. Video/Audio compression in Premiere/After Effects/Combustion/etc and Raytracing/Shadowmapping in 3D Studio are common applications for dual proc.

In short dual-proc is better and faster, but pretty much only worth the extra price if you are doing stuff that thorougly takes advantage of them.

Both Dell and Gateway have dual-proc machines (look in the business section) and I believe Alienware does as well. However, they will cost you an arm and a leg, the price difference between building your own and purchasing is significantly more (in proportion) for a dual-proc than a single. The manufacturer's profit margin on them is huge. If I built my machine as a single proc, it would have cost me about $2000...an equivalent machine from Dell would have been about $2700-$3000. My machine as a dual-proc cost me about $3000 (keep in mind we're talking absolutely top of the line cutting edge workstation), the best machine I could get prebuilt (and not even up to spec with what I built) would have cost about $6500 from Dell, or $7800 from IBM.

In Response to jettaboy20 (#3402):

The key to homebuilt (I've done quite a few, including the one on my desk at work) is not using economy parts.

If you are building an economy machine, you can really cut and scrimp and possibly build something for less than Dell's $700 machine (but not when you include the cost of Windows). But it will be a piece of crap and unreliable as all hell. When building your machine, check google for people's experiences with each component you plan to buy. Pick the name-brand stuff over the generic. Pick quality components over the cheap stuff.

I carefully researched the components I was putting in my machine(s), building a $6500 machine from Dell for $3000. And I haven't had a single problem because I opted for quality over cost. I could have built a similar machine for probably about $1700-$2000, but there would have been all kinds of compatibility issues, random crashes, heat and power problems, etc.

In Response to jettaboy20 (#3402):

Oh, and regarding the 2GB RAM limit.....thats a common problem for all vendors/models. There are Win2K and XP patches for it, and you have to make sure to use ECC RAM (significantly more expensive, but much more stable). Generic RAM is very bad in 2GB+ installations.

In Response to jon (#3392):

It has been my experience that two processors at X GHz is still not as good as a processor at 2*X GHz. In some situations you may get snappier UI response with the dual-proc, but generally I've found that the main reason to buy a dual is if the fastest single-proc you can get your hands on isn't fast enough. If you want 3GHz worth of performance, then I think you're probably better off buying a single-proc 3GHz machine. If you need 5GHz of performance, then you need to look at a dual 2.5GHz machine.

So, for your given cost constraints, I don't think you're going to be able to buy more total power than you can get in a single-proc, and so I would recommend not bothering with a dual.

In Response to Dynedain (#3412):

Your reasons for a homebuilt over a dell is why I built my own (and several of my friends’) computers. I got a $6000+ machine (what dell was charging) for around $3200 (initially.) The real problem is that I don't have time to keep it up to date, so some of the top quality components that I bought are showing their age and incompatibility with other parts of my system that have been upgraded. For the first year I had it, there were no problems at all, but then I started upgrading certain things while letting others go. So, what started out as a screamin’ super computer is now an archaic piece-meal dinosaur. That isn’t necessarily the fault of being home built, and can happen to any system. What I really meant was that I would probably build another system again if I had the time or energy to research it, build it, and keep it updated properly. But now I’m leaning towards the convenience of picking up a system and then customizing it as needed. I guess now that I’m not a starving student, I’m indulging in the excesses of an actual cash inflow. Even though it was great to build it myself and have an intimate working knowledge of every pice of the machine.

And the 2.0G + ram problem is actually a motherboard issue (again with the cheap components) that HP has no fix for, and will not replace with a quality motherboard. Their thing is that they never had any warrantee or made any claims for over 1.0G that the machine came with. So that was my beef with them, because when it comes to the companies dime, we spare no expense on the hardware (all our chips are ECC RAM) so that we don’t have these kinds of issues.

Apparently, you should buy now [cnn.com] instead of waiting until March or April.

Why is it that so many Americans have trouble with consumer debt?

In Response to jon (#3388):

In agreement with a few previous comments. Mac would be a good choice. Even tho you have the software cost offsetting you, still, you'll end up better with mac. I'm not saying that PC's are horrible, there's no bashing here, but these are my reasons for recommending mac to you.

Speed. Macs work faster. Looking at mHz comparisons, it may seem that PC's are FAR past the ability of a mac. That is true, they are capable of more clock cycles. But moving faster doesn't mean they do work faster. that doesn't seem to make sense, but let me explain a bit. PC's complete differently than macs for each cycle. Imagine that the line of data going into the processor is a assembly line for pizza. When a crust comes in, the cook (processor) sees that it needs sauce (cycle 1), they get the can of sauce (cycle 2), the can is opened (cycle 3), the sauce is spread (cycle 4), the pizza moves to the next person (cycle 5), and so on. Now, if that were a mac, it would process like thus: crust comes in (cycle 1), crust goes out (cycle 2), that's it... within the cycle, the processor knows that when this happens, it needs to get the sauce, open it, spread it, and go on.... it doesn't require a cycle for each step. so a mac running at 400mHz is really doing the same stuff as a PC at 800mHz approximately... that just an estimate, but it's in the ballpark.

Some of the problems with high clock speeds like that are that the more cycles you have, the more heat you have. Heat in a computer creates all kinds of bad stuff. One, you have to have more fans to move the heat out, and that requires more power for the fan and more noise from moving parts. Heat also creates instability in computers if it gets too high.

Mac OS X is a Unix based operating system which allows better memory management (Windows is just really bad at that) and is an incredibly stable operating system. It supports dual processors and the processors are G4's and thus they are 128bit processors.... you're dealing with the ability to process 2 times as much data per cycle than the 64bit pentium. And photoshop is able to take advantage of that processing power.

The best way to compare your systems against each other, especially in photoshop, is to look at the standard benchmarks. instead of measuring by mHz, you can measure how long it took each system to process a specific task. That will give you better information on speed.

As to RAM, macintosh supports 1.5GB natively. There are rumors of a new IBM processor chip for mac that will support 4 terabytes of RAM. It's said to be a possibility in a year.

Oooh... shivers....

In Response to AsphaltBuffet (#3606):

bullshit bullshit bullshit

Check out this article [robgalbraith.com] that is especially focused on benchmarking photoshop.

1) Macs used to be faster than PCs...there is some truth to the MHz myth - look at AMD/Intel comparisons for example. However, a 1Ghz proc doesn't stand a chance agains a 2-3Ghz proc. And studies have shown, that P3s and G4s are comporable, meaning an 800Mhz G4 runs aproximately the same as a 800Mhz P3.

2) Windows 95/98/ME is really bad at memory management...Windows 2k/XP is actually excellent at memormy management. That and Win2k/XP is just as stable as UNIX (my machines at work, which are maxed out every moment of the day, normally have uptimes of at least a month (my max is 5 months).

3) G4s are not 128bit processors. They are 32bit processors with a 128bit 'Velocity Engine', a small set of accelerated subroutines, similar to MMX on Intel chips. Oh, btw, there are only 2 things that take advantage of the Velocity Engine, filters in Photoshop, and Aqua when doing things like scaling icons in the dock, resizing windows, etc.

4) A 128bit processor does not handle 2 times as much data as a 64 bit. I'm not even going to explain why chip architecture isn't just a multiplication of data between bit-steppings (there are many many many other factors), because you dont even understand binary. A 128bit number is 2 to the power of 128, whereas a 64bit number is 2 to the power of 64. Thats a hell of a lot more than multiplying by 2. That, and in order for a 64bit processor to work, it needs 64bit programs....of which there are only a few custom apps currently. In order for a 64bit proc to run a 32bit app (which every modern commercial app is - PC or Mac) it needs to run in an emulation mode. The Itanium sucks at this and runs slower than a 32bit proc. The Opteron from AMD has a very good emulation mode that will keep it backwards compatible.

5) Photoshop does not take advantage of dual processors, on either PC or Mac.

6) OSX is actually slower than OS9, and OS9 had incredibly horrible memory management and processor load balancing.

7) P4/Athlon currently have 4GB RAM support. The theoretical limit for the platform is in the TB range as well. That 4TB limit is theoretical. The IBM PowerPC 970 will not be the next 'G5', but some of the features it is based on will be incorporated if Apple has IBM start making them chips (which they need to do since Motorola has stopped basically all work on PPC chips - which is why Macs have been slipping so much the last 2-3 years).

8) The short pipeline of a Mac compared to an Intel is a false analysis of 'work done' and was purely a marketing ploy by Jobs. I read the quotes directly, what a bunch of bull. It is true that the Mac has to do less steps per cycle(thats what a shorter pipeline means), but, on a shorter pipeline each step has to do more, and as such takes longer.

Anyways...before you blast me for not knowing what I'm talking about, consider this:

I work at a professional multimedia firm that does extensive work in 2D Photoshop/Illustrator/etc, 3D rendering and animation, video/sound editing, and web development. Not only am I one of the digital artists, I am also the tech guru in charge of research new technologies so we can stay on top of our market. We used to be entirely Mac, but over the last 4-5 years we've been moving to PCs, we still use both PC and Mac. The PCs toast the Macs in everything we do (and we are the supposed ideal market for Apple). On my desk I have a WinXP box, and an OSX box. I do a lot of command-line work in OSX, and at home I have a Linux box.

In short, your arguments for a Mac are simply repeating Apple marketing FUD, and not even getting the real story, just their intended misinterpretations.

In Response to AsphaltBuffet (#3606):

I've used Macs a lot in the past, especially when I was in school. My fiancee has one, running OSX, right next to mine. They're nice machines. But for some reason, I feel more comfortable working on a PC now. I know how to take one apart and put it back together. I know how the OS works and where everything goes. I never need to worry about whether some peripheral or piece of software will run on my system.

And, most importantly, my 4-year old system running Win2K is significantly more stable than Amy's year-old G4 running OSX Jaguar.

Don't tell me that OSX is better at memory management, because it surely ain't. I see side-by-side comparison tests every day as my machine continues to run crash-free for weeks and Amy's cursing as Quark (which doesn't even run natively yet) and Photoshop quit on her and destroy hours of work. Sometimes files even get corrupted on save. No thanks. OSX is simply not ready for primetime. It has a lot of potential and a lot of innovative features, but it's still not reliable.

Now that she's worked on both platforms, she's said on occasion that she regrets getting her Mac.

I'm not saying that everyone has these problems, but I'm comfortable with the platform I'm using and I have no intention of switching.

In Response to jon (#3612):

Quark has always been an overpriced unstable whacked out piece of shite. It won the 'layout' wars because they clued in to the idea of 'plug-ins' sooner than Aldous. The fact that it still only runs under OS9 should be a big clue to it's stability.

If Amy is *also* running Photoshop under Classic, I'm not surprised she's having stability/corruption problems there either.

I'm not going completely out on a limb to say that OS X is ready for prime time yet. What I am saying is that Amy's problems may be the *apps* and not the OS.

Macs are still cooler, too. Windows, even 2000, is still 'clunky' to my sense of feel.

In Response to zamphir (#3614):

The surprising bit is that I laid out $150 to buy her the upgrade to the new OSX-native version of Photoshop, and it still performs rather crappily.

And if the apps don't run properly, the OS is of little use, no matter how cool it may be.

In Response to jon (#3617):

If app performance/stability/useability had anything to do with OS useability, Windows would have died a long time ago because of Office.

That said, I'm not disagreeing with you that OS X (even Jaguar) may not be the most stable platform there is. I'm currently suffering from a dead hard drive thanks to OS X - boot blocks? what boot blocks? you didn't need those, did you?

On the other hand, Adobe apps are always more stable at the .1 release than the .0 release - like most other apps. So I'm not surprised that the "new" OS X native Photoshop is less stable than the OS9 version she was running.