Expert Help and Advice Needed Quick!

[shanemar2000]

hi, i'm purchasing a dell computer for professional photography, and dell is my only option for many business reasons. Photoshop, Capture One Pro, AcDsee Pro, are some of the applications, also networking is a big part as this will be hooked up to many external hard drives. Here are the specs...



Dell Precision Workstation 490 Desktop - 64bit:
Dual Core Intel® Xeon® Processor 5160 (3.00GHz, 4MB L2,1333MHz),


Windows® XP Professional, x64 Edition SP2, with Media,


4GB, DDR2 SDRAM FBD Memory, 667MHz, ECC (4 DIMMS)

Graphic Cards:

256MB PCIe x16 ATI FireGL V7200, Dual VGA or DVI + VGA Capable

Hard Drive Configuration:
C6 All SAS drives, Non-RAID, 2 drive total configuration
Boot Hard Drive:
300GB SAS Hard Drive 1 inch (10,000 rpm)
2nd Hard Drive:
300GB SAS Hard Drive 1 inch (10,000 rpm)



the system needs to be fast, and the main questions are,

for the 4gb or ram is 4 dimms or 8 dimms better?

is a quad processor any benefit if added?

and will two 146gb drives at 15k rpm give me a big boost in performance, or is it not worth the 50% loss in hard drive capacity?

thank you in advance!

 

[Mondoman]

...

Dell Precision Workstation 490 Desktop - 64bit:
Dual Core Intel® Xeon® Processor 5160 (3.00GHz, 4MB L2,1333MHz),


Windows® XP Professional, x64 Edition SP2, with Media,


4GB, DDR2 SDRAM FBD Memory, 667MHz, ECC (4 DIMMS)

Since you're not running a server, stick with the Core2Duo (or quad) CPUs, as you will get more power and less heat for less money than with the Xeons. Intel has a substantial price drop scheduled for July 22nd, so if you can wait 3 weeks before ordering, you can save hundreds of dollars on a quad-core CPU, or get one of the new 1333MHz FSB CPUs. Bargain CPU: Q6600 (1066MHz FSB); Max performance CPU: QX6850 (1333MHz FSB).
By using a "normal" CPU instead of a Xeon, you will be able to use cheap (but reliable) non-ECC unbuffered memory. Get 2x 2GB DDR2-800 DIMMs (4GB RAM total) to start with; later you can add more.
Windows XP Pro x64 is fine, but you may find more programs (and certainly new programs/hardware) work with the new 64-bit Vista. Check the details for the specific hardware and software you will be using. In particular, make sure the system's motherboard supports "memory remapping" in the BIOS, otherwise you will be limited to just over 3GB of usable memory in Windows, even the 64-bit version.

...
and will two 146gb drives at 15k rpm give me a big boost in performance, or is it not worth the 50% loss in hard drive capacity?

For what you do (constantly loading and saving very large files), yes it should make a noticeable difference; running a pair of such drives as a single RAID 0 array will double read throughput (but be sure to make arrangements for backup!).