New desktop tower

[george013]

Sam,
thanks for the answer.

Sorry to interrupt, but Windows 7 Home can handle quote more than only 16GB, it's a hardware Limitation because of your Mainboard, for instance, their is only one MB which can handle 64GB RAM. Mostly are limited of 16GB due Chipset/CPU Limitation.

I build my rigs all by myself since i am 12, a complete PC....is bad, it doesnt matter which brand, or if you've spent 500 or 5000 bucks for it, some part, component is always crap, in terms of bad bios, too little options, too less expansion slots, PCIe slots, cheap memory, slow HDDs, slow graphics card, bad build quality in terms of design, cheap towers, and so on...etc.

It's always cheaper to build a good PC by your own, comparing prices for all components, and choose them carefully, always a good one or best into a specific price range. It's the same with pre-installed PCs, the windows there usually is for the trashcan,
bloated, dozens of tools nobody needs or wants, 100's of trial versions of this & that, and so on...it's always the same.

When you do have Windows 10, please use O&O ShutUp (Freeware Tool) to disable most of the concerning phone home and other data like telemetry, etc. whats being sent to M$.

http://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10 Freeware, no install, no nags, no crap at all.
I still go with my Win7 as my CS6 Launchbox.

Anyway, current PS-Plugins do need some CPU & GPU Power, for instance, the Nik Plugins Suite, it was way fast ages ago onto my self-build rig when it was new...and now it's hella slow onto my old Quadcore Setup, therefore
i'd assemblage myself a new PC into 2016, because i can't bear the long waiting times for this & that anymore, and i upgraded my PC twice since i've had built it.

If you don't play any video games like myself, 16 GB RAM is plenty for Photoshop, even for the biggest projects. I've never encountered an "out-of-memory" error, and i've had big TIF files with dozens processing steps history into CS6 opened.

If you don't have to install that oo program, is it just a help to manipulate some existing windows settings?

Beside that, if my pc starts running slower, I don't believe it's due to the hardware. I believe it's software that sneeking in.

George

[doomed forever]

If you don't have to install that oo program, is it just a help to manipulate some existing windows settings?

Beside that, if my pc starts running slower, I don't believe it's due to the hardware. I believe it's software that sneeking in.

George

Hi George,

It's a way handy tool to set various settings that correlate to the registry, otherwise very hard to find, and you can anytime step-back, no need to install that app, it's also no installer, or possible to install, just one .exe file, for details please check their homepage, the link above i've posted here. I do trust O&O, because i do use their famous O&O Defrag since the late 90's.

Marc

PS: Do you use a conventional HDD, or SSD? HDDs need to be defragmented under Windows,
otherwise they became slower, well, not technically, but Windows & Programs running way slower, due to fragmentation. In case you're not familar with that topic, here a link from Wkipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defragmentation

I defragment my HDDs since MS DOS 5.0.

[tao2]

http://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10 Freeware

That software does nothing that even a semi-computer illiterate couldn't do from Control panel. It is very easy in Win 10 tae simply switch off anything ye don't want.

But then it is illogical, in the extreme, tae rant on Facebook/Twitter etc. about how big brother Microsoft/Windows is invading yer privacy. If ye want the modern features Win10 offers, then ye must decide what information yer willing tae part with and it's much less than social media takes (without asking).

Of course, having picked up yer mobile phone with GPS, locations, maps, FaceTwit and a score and more other apps, yer privacy and security is much more severely compromised than it is with Win10. Plus Microsoft has not (as yet ), unlike social media, told their billions of subscribers that once ye sign up - everything ye type, upload or publish, is now FaceTwit's as well as yours...and...they can do with it what they will...and YOU agreed ! But I digress...

[Black Pearl]

Hi George,


PS: Do you use a conventional HDD, or SSD? HDDs need to be defragmented under Windows,
otherwise they became slower, well, not technically, but Windows & Programs running way slower, due to fragmentation. In case you're not familar with that topic, here a link from Wkipedia:

I defragment my HDDs since MS DOS 5.0.

From Win7 this is done automatically on a weekly basis so you don't need any user input nor do you need any third party software anymore - just forget about it and let the OS sort it.

[doomed forever]

@Tao2
That's a lie - it's not completely into that form avialable...for Horses for Courses, and to each his own. Nothing about a rant. I might be older than you, using PCs since 81, and build my rigs since 87 my own always. I have Windows since 3.0 back since 1990...and about 140-150 PCs built by myself since back in time. I hate FB for privacy concerns, i am also not using twitter. I find posting such a joke comic strip is way childish. You cannot switch everything off that's in ShutUp10 from Control Panel.

@Black Pearl
The build-in Windows Defragmenter since introduced into Windows 2000 and newer iterations is always inferior, too less features, too slow, etc.

Have Fun.

[george013]

Marc,
Can you tell me something about video on board and a graph CPU. I try to build one myself.
George

[mknittle]

Good advice, Sam...In the good olde days I used to build my own desktop. I used to be an active member of the Melbourne PC User Group. I learned a lot from the Hardware SIG on building my own, so that will be a plus all I have to remember how to and it will not be hard. Thank you.

Now days they almost assemble themselves.

[lunaticitizen]

For Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit, the maximum RAM that can be installed is 16GB^(*). The
amount is not a hardware limitation, but an arbitrary limitation set by Microsoft to differentiate
the various editions of Windows 7.

I'm wondering about the comment on the Windows Defragmenter tool. What is inferior about it?
I designed a simple defragmenter for another operating system, and matching the functionality
of the Windows Defragmenter tool was near impossible even for experienced programmers. For
individuals, the tool is already a very powerful instrument, and from Windows Vista and above
it runs automatically without any need for user intervention. The tool is one of the (many) things
Microsoft did superbly.

Back to the topic, I use Adobe Lightroom on a MacBook Air^(*); yes it chokes once in a while ,
for example if I try to do image-stitching but for simple tasks it serves me well, so I think the
computer from BestBuy would also do just fine.

[Manfred M]

@Tao2
That's a lie - it's not completely into that form avialable...for Horses for Courses, and to each his own. Nothing about a rant. I might be older than you, using PCs since 81, and build my rigs since 87 my own always. I have Windows since 3.0 back since 1990...and about 140-150 PCs built by myself since back in time. I hate FB for privacy concerns, i am also not using twitter. I find posting such a joke comic strip is way childish. You cannot switch everything off that's in ShutUp10 from Control Panel.

@Black Pearl
The build-in Windows Defragmenter since introduced into Windows 2000 and newer iterations is always inferior, too less features, too slow, etc.

Have Fun.

Marc - I built my first computer in around 1978 (pre-PC, a SWTPC Motorola 6800 based unit - I had to solder the discrete components onto a PC board ) and have been building them ever since. I suspect I built my first Intel based PC a year or two before you built your first one and actually ran Windows 1.0 which almost no one remembers (it was essentially an overlay that ran on top of the MS-DOS platform). I can't recall how many PCs I've built, but my units have always evolved as bits and pieces were upgraded as technology advanced. I've coded in C, C++, VB and other programming languages and built some fairly early image manipulation software that captured and analysed images from my Logitech Fotoman camera (1992), that produced 8-bit B&W 376x240 pixel images.

Your comments on defrag might be correct (I have used 3rd party defragmentation software in the past), but the MS scheduler ensures that it runs automatically at night when I don't use my computer, so I've paid for it and it is good enough and I have not had any technical problems with it, through its various incarnations over the past 15 years.

I suspect much of the world disagrees with your opinions on social media, but then, they, just like you are entitled those opinions. Windows 10 - it can be locked down reasonably well (but not perfectly), so long as you know what you are doing. I've tested it and had to roll back to Window 7 / Windows 8.1 because it is incompatible with some software and drivers that I use. When I buy or build a new machine, I suspect I will go there just because I have to as some newer software is not going to run on the older OSes, although I expect I will end up with the Pro version so that I can control the updates.

[tao2]

@Tao2
That's a lie - it's not completely into that form avialable...for Horses for Courses, and to each his own. Nothing about a rant. I might be older than you, using PCs since 81, and build my rigs since 87 my own always. I have Windows since 3.0 back since 1990...and about 140-150 PCs built by myself since back in time. I hate FB for privacy concerns, i am also not using twitter. I find posting such a joke comic strip is way childish. You cannot switch everything off that's in ShutUp10 from Control Panel.

@Black Pearl
The build-in Windows Defragmenter since introduced into Windows 2000 and newer iterations is always inferior, too less features, too slow, etc.

Have Fun.

Hi Marc,

Ah don't tell lies, no need to. Obviously my post was lost in translation; it was not a personal attack on you. Ah was speaking ironically, of folk, in general, willing tae rant on social media about Win10 stealing their privacy, often using mobile phones for posting, without them realising that they'd given away a vast amount more freedom than Windows will require - offering similar services tae PC users.

Control Panel gives all this...





Anything not there should be on the desktop

Me? Ah use ...GOD MODE!!! Access tae all the OS's control panels in one folder...

Ah think the cartoon is a telling reminder and a warning, but, as ye say each tae his/her own. Cut my PC teeth, on ZX Spectrum, Acorn Electronic and BBC Micro.

PS Ye needed tae build 150 computers in 30 years...yer not very good at it, are ye? That's why ah use emoticons...

[george013]

What concerns the max memory question https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/lib...=vs.85%29.aspx

Still waiting for somebody that could give me some info about the relation between the CPU and a onboard video card.

George

[John 2]

George, not entirely sure what questions you are asking but maybe this helps.

Maximum memory is governed by two factors. The first is clearly the amount of memory you can physically mount on your motherboard but the second is your operating system or more precisely, the version of your operating system. I can only speak for Windows but lets take Windows 7 as the example from your link. If you are using the 32bit version of Windows 7 Home Premium, the maximum amount of memory it can use is 4GB even if more than this is mounted on your motherboard. In fact because the system uses some of this, the amount available to you is less than 4GB. If you use the 64 bit edition of Windows 7 Home premium on the other hand, it will use up to 16GB provided that you have that much mounted on the mother board.

The relationship between the CPU and a third party graphics card is that most motherboards these days come with built in graphics processing capability and don't necessarily need a separate graphics card. There is no problem with quality and for normal office work, this is perfectly OK. The problems arise when you want to use software that makes heavy use of processing power (e.g. gaming or Photoshop) because the graphics capability built in to the motherboard shares the CPU and the motherboard memory with the operating system. This can severely slow down the computer. The solution is to add a third party graphics card because the card will have it's own graphics processor (GPU) and its own memory. Once mounted on your motherboard, it will automatically switch off the MB graphics and no longer make demands on the CPU processing power and installed memory that was being shared. For photographic work, the added card does not need to be high end. A card with a 1GHz GPU and 2GB of memory will handle all you need to in my experience and my recommendation is to use a passively cooled type because it eliminates added fan noise.. Hope this helps.

[george013]

George, not entirely sure what questions you are asking but maybe this helps.

Maximum memory is governed by two factors. The first is clearly the amount of memory you can physically mount on your motherboard but the second is your operating system or more precisely, the version of your operating system. I can only speak for Windows but lets take Windows 7 as the example from your link. If you are using the 32bit version of Windows 7 Home Premium, the maximum amount of memory it can use is 4GB even if more than this is mounted on your motherboard. In fact because the system uses some of this, the amount available to you is less than 4GB. If you use the 64 bit edition of Windows 7 Home premium on the other hand, it will use up to 16GB provided that you have that much mounted on the mother board.

The relationship between the CPU and a third party graphics card is that most motherboards these days come with built in graphics processing capability and don't necessarily need a separate graphics card. There is no problem with quality and for normal office work, this is perfectly OK. The problems arise when you want to use software that makes heavy use of processing power (e.g. gaming or Photoshop) because the graphics capability built in to the motherboard shares the CPU and the motherboard memory with the operating system. This can severely slow down the computer. The solution is to add a third party graphics card because the card will have it's own graphics processor (GPU) and its own memory. Once mounted on your motherboard, it will automatically switch off the MB graphics and no longer make demands on the CPU processing power and installed memory that was being shared. For photographic work, the added card does not need to be high end. A card with a 1GHz GPU and 2GB of memory will handle all you need to in my experience. Hope this helps.

The link to microsoft is only meant as a help for the memory discussion before.

As far I understood about onboard video is that there're 2 possibilities: an integrated video card in the motherboard working as such and a videocard integrated in the CPU. Then the motherboard should have ports for the monitor, but no onboard video?

George

[Manfred M]

Sorry to interrupt, but Windows 7 Home can handle quote more than only 16GB, it's a hardware Limitation because of your Mainboard, for instance, their is only one MB which can handle 64GB RAM. Mostly are limited of 16GB due Chipset/CPU Limitation.

Sorry to disagree with you, but please check your facts before you start telling people that they are wrong. You lose credibility quite quickly that way.

Microsoft Windows Home Premium 64-bit is restricted to a maximum of 16 GB of RAM. Try doing a quick search an you will find that my response was correct. http://www.zdnet.com/article/max-mem...bit-windows-7/

There are a host of reasons why this is so and motherboard RAM capacity is only one of several factors. The O/S has always been a factor. The ability to address more RAM drove larger and larger bit depth (at least the bit depth of the addressing bus did). Intel's original 4004 CPU was 4-bit, the 8086 which powered the original IBM PC was 16-bit and now we are running 64-bit machines.

I build my rigs all by myself since i am 12, a complete PC....is bad, it doesnt matter which brand, or if you've spent 500 or 5000 bucks for it, some part, component is always crap, in terms of bad bios, too little options, too less expansion slots, PCIe slots, cheap memory, slow HDDs, slow graphics card, bad build quality in terms of design, cheap towers, and so on...etc.

Crap? Well it depends on your definitions. I would suggest that someone that surfs the net, does a bit of word processing can get away with what you refer to as crap. I would suggest that exclusively doing these types of activities on a top-end gaming machine would be wasteful as the user would never ever come close to using the resources.

I build my own desktop machines as well and upgrade them as required. As I said in a previous post, I have been at it longer than you have. I build them based on their intended use as putting in an over spec'ed component into a machine is just a waste of money. Photo editing is not particularly resource intensive, so a single core CPU with a with a fairly basic graphics support will do for most work. On the other hand, I do a lot of video editing and compositing, so a multi-core / multi-threaded CPU has a major advantage, so my machine uses i7 4-core / 8-thread processors. Likewise, the software I use can take advantage of GPU acceleration, so video cards that support OpenGL2 and CUDA cut down the rendering time quite significantly. Frankly for this type of work 16 GB is really the lower limit.

It's always cheaper to build a good PC by your own, comparing prices for all components, and choose them carefully, always a good one or best into a specific price range. It's the same with pre-installed PCs, the windows there usually is for the trashcan,
bloated, dozens of tools nobody needs or wants, 100's of trial versions of this & that, and so on...it's always the same.

While I agree that the big name PC makers add a lot of bloatware to the machine, I won't agree that a homebuilt is always less expensive. There are low end machines on the market that are far less expensive than I could build them for. The large manufacturers buy components for far less money than you and I can and the price of offshore labour is quite low, so these mass-produced machines can be built quite inexpensively with components you and I can't buy anywhere..

On the other hand, I will agree that by cherry-picking the components, I will be able to come up with a machine that has been fine tuned to my needs and for a lower cost than I could find a comparable commercially built machine. That being said, not everyone has the skills or inclination to built their own machine. With all the cuts I get from the sheet metal on the computer cases, I sometimes question why I am poking around in the machine.

When you do have Windows 10, please use O&O ShutUp (Freeware Tool) to disable most of the concerning phone home and other data like telemetry, etc. whats being sent to M$.

http://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10 Freeware, no install, no nags, no crap at all.
I still go with my Win7 as my CS6 Launchbox.

As others have said, you don't need third party software to do this. You can shut down most of this stuff in the control panel. If you know what you are doing, the registry editor (regedit) is a powerful tool and on non-home versions, the group policy editor (gpedit) give you a lot of control as well. But one has to know what one is doing to use these tools and one can do serious damage to the OS if one does not.

Anyway, current PS-Plugins do need some CPU & GPU Power, for instance, the Nik Plugins Suite, it was way fast ages ago onto my self-build rig when it was new...and now it's hella slow onto my old Quadcore Setup, therefore
i'd assemblage myself a new PC into 2016, because i can't bear the long waiting times for this & that anymore, and i upgraded my PC twice since i've had built it.

Enjoy your new build. Any software requires CPU power, but most do not take advantage of mult-core / multi-thread capabilities. As for Nik, its hardware requirements are not particularly stringent and it runs fine on older hardware.

If you don't play any video games like myself, 16 GB RAM is plenty for Photoshop, even for the biggest projects. I've never encountered an "out-of-memory" error, and i've had big TIF files with dozens processing steps history into CS6 opened.

I'm afraid I will have to disagree. If you create large. multi-layer files, the 16-GB RAM is definitely a limitation. I have a 16 GB machine and run out of RAM and start swapping out to the HDD often enough.

[doomed forever]

Marc,
Can you tell me something about video on board and a graph CPU. I try to build one myself.
George

I do have currently a Xeon Quadcore, 3.20 GHz, and want to get a better Graphics Card, because in my main PC is currently
a Low Power ATi HD6450, because i don't play games >10 Years, and use it only for Photoshop, but that Card with its 64bit
Memorybus only is very slow these days. How much do you want to spend for your PC`? Because with a given price limit
one can look for the best components then. Only for Photoshop, that means Picture Edit & Co?

[Manfred M]

The link to microsoft is only meant as a help for the memory discussion before.

As far I understood about onboard video is that there're 2 possibilities: an integrated video card in the motherboard working as such and a videocard integrated in the CPU. Then the motherboard should have ports for the monitor, but no onboard video?

George

George - the video output / graphics card capabilities have a number of factors associated with them. At a high level, the built-in graphics capability are done for cost reasons. Putting a chip on a motherboard is less expensive than installing a discrete graphics card. The on-board graphics chips often use / share the computer's RAM with the CPU, so this reduces the costs even more, but of course means one has less RAM for memory intensive operations.

The AMD chips have taken this a step further and have integrated the graphics capability into the same chip as the CPU. Again, this cuts down on costs and in the case of laptops, power requirements for longer battery life. Some laptops have dual built in graphics chips - on my laptop I have both an Intel graphics chipset for low power ongoing performance and a separate nVidia graphics chip that is used to higher performance graphics requirements.

Getting back to desktop graphics cards (although this also hold true for laptops), the most graphics intense requirements for home uses tends to be video gaming. When it comes to professional use workstations engineering / architecture ant the CAD / CAM / CAE (Computer Assisted Design / Computer Assisted Manufacturing / Computer Assisted Engineering) and 3-D graphics (amimation / compositing / game design) are also extremely GPU intensive. Look up the AMD Firepro and nVidia Quadro video cards for the pro graphics markets.

In other words, smooth motion, flicker free, high frame rate/ high speed graphics is where this technology excels. Instead of just a few general purpose cores like those in a CPU, discrete graphics card can have dozens of discrete processors that are highly specialized and work in parallel. High speed (often DDR5) dedicated memory is installed on the graphics card and not shared with the CPU. The cards are also very good at calculating some basic physics parameters (how light behaves, basic motion, etc). Have a look at the Havok website to have a look at some of these capabilities.

http://www.havok.com/

The downside of course can be expense; higher end dedicated graphics cards, especially the professional lines, are VERY expensive and are often quite power hungry, so need large, noisy cooling solutions.

When it comes to image editing, Photoshop makes some limited use of the graphics cards, especially when it comes to specialty filter renderings and 3-D work, although a slower software based solution is available too. The minimum specs are listed on the Adobe website.

https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/sy...uirements.html

This technology really shines when used in conjunction with other parts of the Creative Suite; Premiere Pro (non-linear video editing) and After Effects (compositing) make use of multi-core / multi-thread CPU and GPU in your computer to really speed up these operations.

To answer your last question, your motherboard will have graphics output ports if the board has integrated graphics. If you add a dedicated video card, you use the ports on the video card itself.

[george013]

George - the video output / graphics card capabilities have a number of factors associated with them. At a high level, the built-in graphics capability are done for cost reasons. Putting a chip on a motherboard is less expensive than installing a discrete graphics card. The on-board graphics chips often use / share the computer's RAM with the CPU, so this reduces the costs even more, but of course means one has less RAM for memory intensive operations.

The AMD chips have taken this a step further and have integrated the graphics capability into the same chip as the CPU. Again, this cuts down on costs and in the case of laptops, power requirements for longer battery life. Some laptops have dual built in graphics chips - on my laptop I have both an Intel graphics chipset for low power ongoing performance and a separate nVidia graphics chip that is used to higher performance graphics requirements.

Getting back to desktop graphics cards (although this also hold true for laptops), the most graphics intense requirements for home uses tends to be video gaming. When it comes to professional use workstations engineering / architecture ant the CAD / CAM / CAE (Computer Assisted Design / Computer Assisted Manufacturing / Computer Assisted Engineering) and 3-D graphics (amimation / compositing / game design) are also extremely GPU intensive. Look up the AMD Firepro and nVidia Quadro video cards for the pro graphics markets.

In other words, smooth motion, flicker free, high frame rate/ high speed graphics is where this technology excels. Instead of just a few general purpose cores like those in a CPU, discrete graphics card can have dozens of discrete processors that are highly specialized and work in parallel. High speed (often DDR5) dedicated memory is installed on the graphics card and not shared with the CPU. The cards are also very good at calculating some basic physics parameters (how light behaves, basic motion, etc). Have a look at the Havok website to have a look at some of these capabilities.

http://www.havok.com/

The downside of course can be expense; higher end dedicated graphics cards, especially the professional lines, are VERY expensive and are often quite power hungry, so need large, noisy cooling solutions.

When it comes to image editing, Photoshop makes some limited use of the graphics cards, especially when it comes to specialty filter renderings and 3-D work, although a slower software based solution is available too. The minimum specs are listed on the Adobe website.

https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/sy...uirements.html

This technology really shines when used in conjunction with other parts of the Creative Suite; Premiere Pro (non-linear video editing) and After Effects (compositing) make use of multi-core / multi-thread CPU and GPU in your computer to really speed up these operations.

To answer your last question, your motherboard will have graphics output ports if the board has integrated graphics. If you add a dedicated video card, you use the ports on the video card itself.

I get confused seeing CPU's with a graphical component. I think it's far easier just to buy a videocard. For my use they are not that expensive.

The spec's Adobe demands are not that spectacular. I don't use Adobe.

Gaming I don't do. Maybe you remember one of the first graphic games: Wolfenstein. Was distributed on a 360kB floppy.

My interests are just basic things, administration,internet, photo's, youtube or something like that, sometime the radio.


George

[lunaticitizen]

I get confused seeing CPU's with a graphical component. I think it's far easier just to buy a videocard. For my use they are not that expensive.

The spec's Adobe demands are not that spectacular. I don't use Adobe.

Gaming I don't do. Maybe you remember one of the first graphic games: Wolfenstein. Was distributed on a 360kB floppy.

My interests are just basic things, administration,internet, photo's, youtube or something like that, sometime the radio.


George

Why isn't it even easier to buy a CPU with integrated graphics capability? One less component, one less step to build a computer. In the end, one less thing to worry about.

[george013]

Why isn't it even easier to buy a CPU with integrated graphics capability? One less component, one less step to build a computer. In the end, one less thing to worry about.

Specs given for the diffreent CPU and motherboards are sometime inconsequent, especial of the CPU's.
I don't think it's only a matter of a graphical CPU only. A CPU doesn't have connections for the devices. So it comes back to the motherboard. What combination?

George

[royphot]

Hi, There are Motherboards without built in graphics cards which do have connections for external monitors. These boards are designed to use the CPU graphics. My current machine is using one of these boards, and so far, I have not found it to be slow. I do not play games, and it will cope quite smoothly with large image files and lots of layers.