Help for new PC

[penghai]

Hi, I still could not decide to get a quad core Mac Pro or a i7 Windows 7 system. So I decided to get a quote from a local store today. Here is what I got:

1. Intel i7 Quad 920 2.66GHz
2. Asus P6T Intel X58 Core i7 LGA 1366 DDR3 ATX mother board.
3. OCZ Obsidian 12GB (2Gx6) DDR3 1600 CL9 memory
4. Cooler Master RC-922M-KKN1-GP HAF Mini 922 case
5. Western Digital WD-5001AALS 500 GB Sata2 3GB 32MB 7200 RPM harddisk
6. Sappire ATI Radeon HD4350 512 MB DDR2 DVI PCI-E graphic card
Sales said that this card has no fan so the system will be very quiet.
7. Liteon DL DVD+/-RW DVD drive
8. Cosair CMPSU-550VX 550W Power Supply
9. Windows 7 Pro 64-bit ($145)
They told me that there is no such thing as "Windows 7 Home Ultimate 64-bit" which is very strange as I read it in this forum so often.

Total for about US$1560. This system will mainly run Photoshop/Adobe Lightroom plus hosting one or two VMs based on VMWare.

How do you think about the spec?

How do you think about the price?

Other than local store, is there other online places that you recommend to purchase similar PCs?

Also, how do you think this will compare to a single quad core Mac Pro (2009 model)?

Thanks very much,

Eric.

[E.J. Peiker]

There are two versions of Win 7 - 64. One is Called Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit edition. The other is called Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit edition. There is no work Home in the Ultimate and wasn't with Vista either. That is because that version has all versions (home and Business) rolled into one plus a few more extras.

The system is very nice and will serve you well. The bottleneck in this system will be the 500GB drive which is a relatively slow drive for a system like this. The system performance would be significantly better if you went with a Western Digital Velociraptor 300GB or 150GB drive for the system drive or an SSD and then used the 500GB drive or even a 1TB drive for the data drive. I still don't understand your noise fear with the graphics card. It simply is a non issue with all the other fans that are in the system which create most of the noise.

As for comparison to a quad core MacPro with similar speed processor, the performance of your system will be a little better because you have faster memory than what Apple offers plus you have the option of overclocking if you want to go that route which you can't do on a MacPro. Finally, if you are using Photoshop, you will have a large advantage over a MacPro because Photoshop is a 64 bit application for the PC while it is only a 32 bit application for Mac. Which means you can use about 9-10GB of memory and rarely have to go to the swap file where a Mac, regardless of how much memory is installed can only use about 3.5GB of RAM for Photoshop and hit the swapfile all the time. Not to mention all of your Photoshop computations are done in 64 bit mode while a Macs are done in 32 bit mode. Once CS5 i out, this will change but in the current state of affairs, for image processing using Photoshop, the PC has a sizable advantage. BTW, I own both Macs and PC's so I have o bias here.

[penghai]

E.J.,

Thanks very much. I checked Microsoft site, Windows 7 has 3 versions:
Windows 7 Home Premium, Windows 7 Professional, Windows 7 Ultimate

I'm also quite surprised to notice that MS wants to charge customers extra $50 (from Professional edition) to Ultimate edition if they need the multi-language pack (like myself that want to use English and Chinese). The only difference between Windows 7 Professional edition vs Ultimate is BitLocker and the multi-language pack. The multi-language is standard and free in Windows XP Home and Professional editions. This led me to wonder what else MS did to improve Windows 7, other than make it 64 bits as they seems to run out of execuses to charge customers. Is there anything at all ? I think the performance gain in user interface of Windows 7 could all come from hardware upgrade. Do you have any obervation of new features ?

Is Professional edition good enough for PS CS4 ?

Thanks for your comparison for Mac Pro.

Also thanks very much to bring up the Western Digital Velociraptor drive. I will likely to get a 150GB one for the system drive regardless whether I'll end up with a Mac or PC.

Eric

[E.J. Peiker]

CS4 will run the same on all versions of Win 7 given the same hardware. The only real reason to go to ultimate is if you want to address more than 16GB of memory. Snce you are going with 12GB, there will be zero difference as far as system performance is concerned.

Given the same hardware, Win 7 is faster than Vista and has a significantly smaller memory usage footprint. I would not stay with Vista and just throw more hardware at it to make Vista run better. Win 7 is just much better - it is Vista version 2.

[penghai]

E.J.,

Thanks very much again.

Eric

[bikinchris]

Logging thread for future reference. I don't think I will buy another Dell next time.

[philw]

... Win 7 is faster than Vista and has a significantly smaller memory usage footprint. I would not stay with Vista and just throw more hardware at it to make Vista run better. Win 7 is just much better - it is Vista version 2.

Yeah, it's basically Vista SP3 in my view. I really liked Vista (principally because of the seccurity architecture), but Win 7 is the obvious maintenance upgrade. So far it's good but less different from Vista than Vista was from XP.

The 64-bit versions work with just about everything, which is good, but the rest looks to me like tweaks and tuning. I don't notice much difference as a user, which is slightly odd as the journos seem to think it's a vastly different thing. One amusing thing for me at least is that the slightly dubious "performance index" thing actually is higher for a system I upgraded.

[penghai]

[quote="bikinchris"]Logging thread for future reference. I don't think I will buy another Dell next time.[/quote]

My past experiences do suggest getting my own configuration, pick better components, and let local shop assemble it will give you a much better (than Dell or otehr brand names) and long lasting syetem. My current system is already more tha n5 years old. Still doing fine. The problem I have is over the time, the Windows XP system, including the registry and possibly other palces, get so messed up and together with the more vicious viruses this days that I don't know when it will break. Actually most of my Windows systems ended up this way and they started getting slower and slower.

Eric.

[foxbat]

I would ditch the case with its gimmicky 200mm fans because they are mounted against a huge cutout in the case wall that just serves to let all the internal noise escape. Much better to have something like the AcoustiCase 340 and some 120mm fans running through a front-mounted Zalman MFC controller. Your ears will thank you in the long run!

[penghai]

I got a great deal for intel i7-920 CPU for $190 ($200 plus 5% off) yesterday and ordered my Windows 7 this morning.

For those who are interested in configure your own, Micro Center has the i7-920 on sale for around $200 right now.

Eric.