What's your system?

[Doug Nelson]

I thought there was an old thread here about this very topic, but I couldn't find it. I just thought it would be interesting to see what systems everyone is working on:

1.4ghz P4 runing WinXP Pro (SP2)
768meg RAM
60 gig HD
17" Trinitron-tube monitor (old, off-brand)
4x5 serial Wacom tablet (ancient, but still works)
Epson 1270 printer
Epson 3200 scanner

I have a lot of other stuff, but this is really all that's relevant to retouching.

[G. Couch]

looking to upgrade very soon...but current setup is -

1 Ghz Athlon ...dual boot Linux (Redhat) and Win ME (gag!)
512 ram
2 - 40 gb hard drives
19" Trinitron (Sony)
4x5 Wacom Graphire
Epson 2450 scanner
Epson 2000p printer

...and my stereo hooked up to the soundcard. Yes, that is VERY relevant to my retouching and digital art!

[Doug Nelson]

Sound is very relevant to retouching! I don't have a fine ear, though, so I can get by with a couple of walkmans (one FM radio, one CD) hooked through my Altec Lansing speakers. I also have some of my CDs burned to MP3, but it always seems like I have to reboot in the middle of an album when playing via the OS, whether via MP3, the computer's disc drive, or streaming. It's probably just my imagination, but it seems I can go days without rebooting, until a really good song is playing on my system. That's when a system patch decides to install, or I upgrade some software or something else that requires a reboot (I rarely need to reboot due to system problems).

I forgot to mention my graphics card (although it's certainly nothing to brag about): nVidia Riva TNT2 model 64, 32meg

[G. Couch]

My video card is pretty bad as well...an nVidia Geforce 2 mx (32mb)

You should get an old computer and dedicate it to running your music. Install Linux and bingo!...you have a stable digital jukebox!

Photomauler - The cat seems to really enjoy the Bose system...

[Kevin Connery]

Aging Mac G4/533 dual processor, 1.5 gig RAM
2 19" displays; one Sony Trinitron, one Mitsubishi/NEC Diamondtron. One via a 32MB GeForce2 card, one via 32MB Radeon.
Roughly 400 gig of disk space split across 3 internal and 2 external drives. (A mix of Seagate Cheetahs and Barracudas on a mix of ATA, SCSI RAID, and Firewire.)
2 external drives used as backup, run automatically every night.
Internal and external CD-ROM writers.
Epson 1650 flatbed scanner
Minolta Scan Elite film scanner
Epson 750 printer
Epson 2200 printer

[DannyRaphael]

1.4ghz P4 (Dell) running Windows 2000 SP3
1GB RAM
2-72 GB 10K RPM HDs
21" Sony Trinitron
Zip Drive
Umax Astra 3400 scanner (cheapo)
HP 832C Deskjet Printer

[LactoBeeZor]

AMD 2500+ Barton core
1 gig corsair PC3200 DDR
120 gig Maxtor and 120 gig WD both 8meg cach
Epson 785 EPX
Microtek Scanmaker E6
Windows XP PRO SP1
F2-17EX NANAO monitor
Plextor 48x Burner
Nvidia Geforce4 Ti4200
4x6 Aiptek

By the way Doug where did you get SP2 for XP Pro?

[Doug Nelson]

Lacto: you're right, I'm obviously deranged, there is no SP2

It says "XPsp2", but it must mean something besides Service Pack 2. I'm actually using SP1.

[d_kendal]

At the moment, I'm writing from my Linux server while I get my new system going (it's all build up except for the video card, which I'll be getting within the next week)
anyway, my new system is:

WinXP Home edition (SP1)

Athlon 2500+ (with a good thermaltake HS/F which will allow for overclocking to at least 2800+ specs)

512MB Crucial PC2700 DDR ram

Maxtor 40GB hard drive (plus a second 80 - 120 GB one when I can afford it)

LG 52X CD-RW

Toshiba 16X DVD drive

Gigabyte 7VAXP-A motherboard (this thing is loaded, onboard RAID, sound, Firewire, AGP 8X etc.)

Nice solid 18" silver case with 350W power supply, side window, various case fans, blue LED and neon lighting, rounded IDE cables, front panel with LCD screen for temps. plus fan controllers, usb and firewire.

I haven't decided for sure, but I'm most likely going with the radeon 9600 pro for a video card. (or the much better Radeon 9700 if I can afford it)

I haven't bought these yet either (gotta wait for my pay check at the end of the week!) but I'll be getting Logitech Z-560 4.1 speakers (400 watts total, THX certified, these things are going to pound! luckily I don't live in an apartment so I won't have to worry about noise complaints - except from the parents that is...)

Samsung 950p 19" monitor (I love my monitor!)

Acer wireless keyboard

Wacom Graphire 2 tablet

Epson Perfection 1260 Photo Scanner

I just sold my old multifunction printer (lexmark) so I'm also looking around for a printer right now, I'll probably just get something fairly cheap like the canon i450 or the Epson C82.

Pay day is thursday so I'll be running out to get all my new parts, I can't wait to get my new system running!

- David

[KevinBE]

Well as of yesterday I am running a new setup. I think the next time I get a hairbrained idea to upgrade I should be locked away somewhere. Murphy cought me at a weak moment and it took me all day to get this setup working. Guess that's what I get for wanting the newest hardware. Anyway my main editing PC has:

I'm running XP Pro with
an Asus A7N8X Deluxe motherboard
an AMD Athlon XP 2500 "Barton" processor with a Thermaltake SK-6 heatsink with a thermaltake 80mm HSF.
1 Gig of matched pc2700 512 Meg Ram Dimms
A pair of WD 80 gig drives running mirrored
An IBM 60 Gig drive
An Nvidia G-Force 4 Ti-4200 video board
and the usual CD CDRW combination.
A Thermaltake Xaser II case with
5 case fans and a 400 watt PS with 2 fans.
a ViewSonic A90f monitor
an Epson 2200 printer
an Epon 870 printer
and an Epson 2450 scanner.

I have other PC's but this one is my primary editing machine.

[d_kendal]

nice setup Kevin! I wanted to get the Xaser case, love the look of them, but I just couldn't justify the cost, so I went with one quite a bit cheaper (but I got the Thermaltake Hardcano 10 with the front panel, so I have at least a part of the xaser!) Nice Mobo too, I've heard that the onboard sound (nVidia Soundstorm) of nForce 2 board rivals the quality of an audigy 2 board, very impressive for onboard sound.

- David

[KevinBE]

Hi David. I bought the steel Xaser II case it was much cheaper than the alumnium version. I bought it because of the good air flow design and I like the way it looks too. That hardcano is nice also, I can run the processor fan on medium speed most of the time, and turn it to high speed when I'm pushing it too hard.

I almost made a door mat out of that motherboard. I had to flash the bios to support the barton processor. During the flash process the flash program went out to lunch. I waited 30 minutes to see if it would finish normally. Finally I had to power cycle the PC to continue. Luckily the flash process had completed. Boy that was a close one!

That was just one of the many things that went wrong on that install. I was sure glad to see the system finally up and going after many hours.

[d_kendal]

wow, that really is lucky! flashing a BIOS has to be one of the most nerve wracking PC installation/maintenance operations.. sitting there crossing you're fingers that nothing's going to happen while it's in the process! one of the reasons I went with the Gigabyte board is it has a proprietary feature which is the dual BIOS, so if you kill one of them, or it gets hit by a virus, the second one will automatically take over. they've also got something called @bios or something which is a windows program which will let you download a bios update directly from they're servers then apply it from the program and reboot, both these features greatly reduce the chance of having a dead bios from a failed flashing..

- David

[Hankster65]

Interesting thread. Certainly proves there is no set formula for getting the job done. For me...

- 2.4ghz Pentium
- 512MB RAM
- 80GB and 120GB drives (you should see my closets!)
- ATI 9500PRO graphics card
- Intuos 2 4X6 tablet (still practicing with this rascal)
- Canon I850 printer (which I LOVE!)
- Epson 3200 Photo scanner
- Samsung 17" LCD monitor (model 174V).
- Altec Lansing speakers with a subwoofer (let there be music!)

Just acquired the Samsung LCD yesterday and what a HUGE difference it makes after suffering with a very, very ancient 17" CRT. The downside...I now see huge defects in stuff I've done that I thought was just grand. Ah, well.

[boingo82]

At work, aging Mac G4 with 512 mb ram.
At home, 2.8ghz P4 w/ 512 mb ddr ram (somehow, 512 is a LOT more on the PC than on the Mac!?!) and 120mb hd and ATI Radeon 9000 128 mb graphics card...and 2.4x DVD burner and 44x CD burner. It's still only about 2 mo's old and spoils me ROTTEN.