PC - Is this good enough?

[rhommel]

so my current pc (2 yrs old) can't handle me anymore (can't edit 1 FULL RAW file), so i ended up ordering a new machine this morning from DELL (acted on impulse). Since I moved to web development, I am not really savvy with hardware stuff anymore. So I want to know if this is a good buy or not... It has not shipped yet, so I can still cancel

http://www.dell.com/ca/p/xps-8300/pd...el_id=xps-8300

For $999

Key features:

Processors	Intel® Core™ i7-2600 processor (8MB Cache, 3.4GHz)
Memory	12GB Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM at 1333MHz - 4 DIMMs
Keyboard	Dell USB Entry Keyboard English
Monitor	Dell ST2320L 23-inch Full HD Widescreen Monitor
Video Card	ATI Radeon™ HD 6450 1GB DDR3
Hard Drive	1TB - 7200RPM, SATA 3.0Gb/s, 16MB Cache
Mouse	Dell Laser Mouse

I figured since it comes with a 23" monitor, that it's a good buy?
is this enough to power CS5/6 and bridge/lightroom editing 1000s of full RAW images?

[Toolz]

so my current pc (2 yrs old) can't handle me anymore (can't edit 1 FULL RAW file), so i ended up ordering a new machine this morning from DELL (acted on impulse). Since I moved to web development, I am not really savvy with hardware stuff anymore. So I want to know if this is a good buy or not... It has not shipped yet, so I can still cancel

http://www.dell.com/ca/p/xps-8300/pd...el_id=xps-8300

I figured since it comes with a 23" monitor, that it's a good buy?
is this enough to power CS5/6 and bridge/lightroom editing 1000s of full RAW images?

Ask a gamer, and you shall receive. Dude, this will run a graphic intense game (ie: Modern Warfare 3) at 50 - 60fps . It will do well with video editing too. That said, the rig is an excellent buy with the specs. Your memory is pretty high that you won't have problems with application loads.

The only thing I would suggest if you have the extra cash, is maybe upgrade the hard drive to an SSD drive so that your OS and apps load much faster. Use the 1TB drive for data storage.

As for branding...well...I'm not sure where Dell gets their stuff. Not saying they're not good. They're decent. By my experience, I've really had no issues with Dell PC's. I have 1 at home that serves as my gaming rig and I have home made photo editing rig. The only thing I hate about Dell is the customer/tech support. Most of it...terribad. If you're tech savvy, you'll be able to avoid talking to them.

Edit: I have a Dell Gaming rig, and it's a laptop. Only reason I went with it is because I wanted to be mobile with some of my buddies. (LAN Parties!!!) Other than that, I'd have specc'ed and built my own gaming rig.

[chopper]

that computer kicks my computer's ass! LOL

It should be fine, assuming you aren't doing some heavy video editing to go along with it at the same time.
Just make sure you have plenty of other hard drives around.

[Koala]

That 6450 is good for casual gaming, and should be more than adequate for photo editing.
I agree with Toolz, you will see a signifigant improvement in speed should you upgrade to a Solid State Drive.
However, that is more luxury, and not necessarily needed.

In terms of whether it is a good deal... lets see.
case - 50$
i7 2600 - 300$
PSU - 60$
Keyboard + Mouse - 20$
video card - 75
23' monitor - 225$
12 Gb ram - 100$
1TB 7200 rpm - 150$

So roughly - $980, + taxes...... if you were to build it yourself.
If it comes with a legit version of windows, than I would say the deal is pretty good

[rhommel]

thanks guys, the machine will be purely for Photo Editing work and it does come with Windows 7 Home Premium

ok, that makes me feel better... lol

[rhommel]

The only thing I would suggest if you have the extra cash, is maybe upgrade the hard drive to an SSD drive so that your OS and apps load much faster. Use the 1TB drive for data storage.

how much do they go for? and how much do you charge to install it on my machine?

[chopper]

how much do they go for? and how much do you charge to install it on my machine?

They are pricey still. Check canadacomputer prices for current good rates. And installing them is soooo easy. Just like a normal hard drive.

[Toolz]

how much do they go for? and how much do you charge to install it on my machine?

This may give you an idea on pricing: http://canadacomputers.com/product_i...item_id=043594

As Chopper said, it's as easy as installing a regular drive. The only thing you have to worry about is voiding your warranty as you are installing a 3rd party hardware into your system. Aaaaaand, you have to boot off the SSD rather than the drive they spec you with which means, we'll need to somehow migrate the boot files off the HDD to the SSD. Yeah...there's always a price to pay for convenience. In this case the work. :P

I noticed on Dell's page, they have an option to upgrade to a Raid 0 with 2 hard drives. Raid zero provides no fault tolerance or redundancy. Just a slight increase in speed. Think of it as treating 2 of your HDD's as a single hard drive but allows to write/spread the data in 2 drives. Faster to "funnel" something into 2 containers rather than trying to jampack something into one.

[rhommel]

I think i'll skip the ssd for now.

I'll probably just get something to calibrate my monitor lol

[Dimitris]

The PC itself is fine, my only comment would be that I believe the monitor is a TN (Twisted Nematic) screen which isn't the best for colour reproduction and viewing angles. The higher end U series monitors are IPS monitors and have great viewing angles and colour reproduction (you don't get colour shift when you change the angle of view). You can pick them up fairly cheap on Dell days but the ST2320L will always be cheaper.

Problem is the rest of the stuff would be hard to match as Dell does sell fairly close to the margins on their hardware and due to their volumes they get stuff a lot cheaper than the mom-pop stores.

Oh ya, the SSD I added to my homebrew (i5 2500k, 16GB Ram and 80GB SSD) makes life a hell of lot nicer. It's pricey but great. As for SSD's, I've read horror stories on most of them except for the Intel ones so I payed $10 more for an Intel one vs the OCZ and their ilk.