Laptop & RAM question

[gus]

.

[wxwax]

What will you use the laptop for?

[gus]

.

[StevenV]

640k. Nobody'll ever need more than that.

:D


If you get the smaller, make sure you get it in the largest single stick you can (i.e. if the laptop has two slots, don't let them sell it to you with two 1/2G sticks), to leave room for later expansion... when the laptop starts to feel slow and memory prices have come further down.

fwiw, I edit with CS (not CS2) and play Civ IV on a laptop w/512Mb. Both get slow after a while (especially CivIV when the world gets built up) but it's very workable.

[wxwax]

Editing photos with CS2 & maybe some higher end games.
Ouch. I believe that means you want both more memory and a better video card. Memory for Photoshop and video card for the games. I get by with 1GB memory for PS, but wish I had more.

[gus]

.

[gus]

.

[Mike Lane]

I noticed considerable improvement when I went from 1 gig to 2 gigs on my desktop. Your results may vary depending on the processor or the bus. But if you're getting modern day equipment, you'll be good to go.

[Bob Bell]

Photoshop burns through Ram. The ideal is 4 gigs. I have 2 gigs in my PS machine and I don't have any issues at all, its very fast but that maybe due to the 3 gig dual core CPU.

My old PS machine has 1 gig in it and a 2 gig processor. I was able to edit 2-3 images at the same time like I do now. The difference I found was when I wanted to open a series of 7-10 shots it would really bog down and run very slow. I also would have problems with a single 300 DPI 16 bit tiff in CMYK. 200 meg files take a while but this seemed forever. The new machines opens them a lot faster.

So I think 1 gig will get you by but you will most likely you will be limited in how many images you can look at / edit. 1 body is 6mp and 2 are 8mp. so your results might vary.

The one thing I did find strange on my PC is a x800 128meg runs better than an x800 256 meg. I have no idea why.

Hope this helps.

[ChrisJ]

Note: Certain systems (even laptops) need pairs of RAM modules to perform optimally. So check to see if your laptop uses Dual Channel memory.

It will still work without the pair, you just lose some speed in certain cases.

Also, you will never upgrade your video card on a laptop (unless it's one of those Dells which is designed for it). So buy the best video card you can afford. It's very easy to add memory later.

[dragon300zx]

i once paid $300 for 2 megs of Amega ram :wxwax

:rofl:rofl:rofl:rofl:rofl:rofl:rofl:rofl:rofl:rofl :rofl:rofl:rofl

[Red Bull]

I'm only running 256mb ram...:cry No, I can't do much in CS2. It is so slow.

[Andy]

Im finally going to buy the laptop

i'm not reading anything but i'll give you an answer: when you buy your MacBook, you'll want to get the added ram from a third party - even a box of rocks like you can put it in yourself :lol3

[juliejules]

In general, there's no such thing as too much memory. You will not regret it.

But, ChrisJ's point about the video card is also correct. You can always add memory later, but I've never known anybody to swap out the video card on a laptop. Many high-end video games are particularly sensitive to video cards, so if you have a favorite game, check the pre-reqs.

I have 1.5GB of RAM on my laptop and I can run PS fine. I don't work on many files at once though.

[gus]

.

[gus]

.

[pmconaway]

Ive been looking at prices of both macburgers & pc's. Here is a perfect example of why i wount buy a macburger...to go from 1 gig to 2 gig they want about $700 0z clams...whereas PC's want about $300. This is just for the ram & the privilage of trying to get people to think im an arts student ??? no thanks.

Their stuff is just too dear & now you guys are using our PC chips so whats the point...macburger lost the battle & you cant see that. :1drink

As i so labouriously keep saying....show me how a macburger will improve what i do at a similar cost to PC (mess on the net & take photos) & i will be the 1st in line next monday to buy one & post a shot of me with it in bed right here.

Humungus, from reading your post, I don't expect to ever change your mind regarding Macs. $700 where were you looking for memory? Never buy from the Apple store. I have found that for the most part memory prices Mac/PC are pretty even. Now, I will admit that Macs aren't as cheap usually as PCs. As for improving what you do, I'm not sure I have a good argument for that. What I will say, is that I don't have to worry about Viruses and my Mac hasn't crashed in a year or so. I find that I am more productive with a Mac than a PC.

As for memory, and hard drive space... You can never have enough. Get as much as you can afford.

I hope your happy with which ever laptop you decide to purchase.

[pathfinder]

Hey, GUS!! - take a look at the new Intel powered Mini Macs introduced in just the last few days - they will hold 2 Gb RAM and will use your existing monitor and keyboard, and run about 4 times faster than existing G4 PowerBooks. These look very nice indeed. And you can look like the artiste' you yearn to be then:):

This looks to me like a kick ass way to try a MAC without a great net cost. It comes with iLife 6 also. I'm surprised DavidTO hasn't been jumping up and down and pounding on the deck about this topic. You can read about it here - http://www.apple.com/macmini/

[gus]

.

[gus]

.

[DavidTO]

Gus,

You're a hard one to figure out. You don't seem to care about performance all that much, yet you ask about RAM. 2gb RAM should increase your performance in PS, since it will reduce how much the app has to read/write to your disk. But if you don't care about performance, save the money and/or spend it on glass or accessories for your camera.

PF,

On the Mac Mini, I'm actually disappointed with the price point. The price went up $100 from the previous model. Yeah, it's faster and better, but they need something down in the sub-$500 range. OK, so it was only $1 under, but still!!!



Oh, and Gus, about you and RAM prices. Apple is not the best place to get your RAM. But then again, Australia seems to be the wrong place to get just about anything except for bitten by things we can only imagine over here. They don't call it down under for nothing. The outback is way out back. And you've got the prices on tech equipment to show for it.

[gus]

.

[W.W. Webster]

I dont want a maclappy !
I want to buy the right computer.
:scratch

[gus]

.

[StevenV]

my recommendation for memory... no matter what flavor box you buy... crucial (http://crucial.com).

[ChrisJ]

Whats this mean on a toshiba M65 ..

" Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 900 with up to 128MB dynamically allocated RAM "

Sounds dodgy to me...is it a vid card or some new way of saying it will steal that much ram :scratch

Agreed... this is "shared" memory with the system. You want to look for a video card with "dedicated" memory.

[NHBubba]

Gus, FWIW, I find I'm in the same boat on the Mac vs Wintel debate.. and I don't even live in Australia! At the end of the day I can get more performance for my dollar when working in my budget by sticking w/ a winbox, even if I drop the mac to it's lowest RAM config and buy the RAM elsewhere.

That said, I don't think spending money on a laptop to play high-end games is money well spent. Laptops are inherently non-upgradeable. This makes them a lousy choice in my opinion for gaming boxes. Were I you I'd cheap out on the graphics card on the laptop and keep a separate desktop unit for games.

[Mike Lane]

Gus get a laptop with a core duo and as much RAM as you can afford. Do not get the highest performing core duo, get the 2nd or the 3rd one down. I'm not sure how intensely you are into gaming. If you're a serious gamer opt for the best possible graphics card. If you like to play a game or two now and again, just keep in mind that a graphics card won't help your photo editing and will cost you a bunch.

Also, get the best possible screen. Key letters to look for in your screen are WUXGA or WXGA. Higher contrast ratio is better, viewing angles are important, etc etc. Crappy screens on laptops are a pain in the butt. My personal preference is that a 15" screen or a 14" widescreen is perfect (they are essentially the same size just a different aspect ratio). A 17" laptop is massive. You may want the hugeness though.

Oh yeah, also make sure you get a 7200 RPM harddrive at least (more if you can find it). Your harddrive speed will affect your speed as much as your RAM in some cases.

I'll be getting a laptop eventually. I'm waiting for Windows Vista to get released later this year before I get it though. If you can, I suggest waiting for Vista to come out too. It's so much less painful to have an operating system pre-installed, plus once vista is out there will surely be apps and hardware designed to make the best use of it along with it.

[gus]

.

[gus]

.

[gus]

.

[gus]

.

[Mike Lane]

What are you calling core duo ? Processor ? Also mike is a SATA hard dive worth the extra ?

http://www.intel.com/products/processor/coreduo/home.htm

You can probably find more at www.engadget.com or www.cnet.com but yes, The Core Duo is Intel's next gen processor. Even Mac heads have to like it since that is the processor that is going into the Macs now. The Core Duo is a dual processor and the Core Solo is a single processor version of the Duo, hence the name - and hence the Duo recommendation. It is substantially faster and easier on batteries (and cooler I think) than the Pentium IV or Pentium M processors. The other advantage is that with the new processor you get a new, faster BUS and faster RAM to boot.

Yes, IMHO, SATA would be worth the money. Where ever you can prevent bottlenecks, you can cause noticeable improvements in speed. Bottlenecks happen if you don't have enough RAM, if you don't have a fast enough BUS, if you have a slow harddrive, and if your graphics card can't handle what you're throwing at it (and photoshop doesn't throw much at the graphics card).

[gus]

.

[gus]

.

[gus]

.

[wxwax]

Slow hard drive, innit?

[Mike Lane]

Slow hard drive, innit?

:agree

put a 7200 rpm and you'll definitely be much happier.

[gus]

.

[wxwax]

Is your wireless LAN an 802.11g? The 'g" part is important, I understand it's the fastest, if you want to use wireless internet. Which you do.

[gus]

.

[Mike Lane]

ok waxy/mike...is that it ? Old mate at the shop said that until the new software was up to speed then the core duo wasnt a big deal. He had them but said for photo editing i shouldnt be too concerned.

The guy's nutty. The dual core will definitely be faster for photoshop. That said, you'll have a pretty nice system going on there, so it won't be a big deal. BUT... you will notice a difference for the Core Duo particularly with photoshop which is one of those programs that is optimized for multiple processors.

About the wireless lan. I'm sure it's 802.11g, but really, you won't notice a difference unless you're sharing files from computers on your home network. Your broadband connection is what, 5mbps tops? 802.11b (the slower version) goes at 11 mbps so you've got a lot of room there.

[gus]

.

[luke_church]

The guy's nutty. The dual core will definitely be faster for photoshop.

Agreed. The guy does have a point that badly written software developed by chimps who can't do multi-threaded programming won't be much better, and the code will speed up as the optimisation people get more used to the new CPU, but of all 'normal' applications that would run faster Photoshop would be a prime example.

Note however, that you will not get 2x speed up from having a dual core processor, not even close....

you will notice a difference for the Core Duo particularly with photoshop which is one of those programs that is optimized for multiple processors.

Or running multiple applications at the same time, as long as they don't chatter to memory too much.

About the wireless lan. I'm sure it's 802.11g, but really, you won't notice a difference unless you're sharing files from computers on your home network. Your broadband connection is what, 5mbps tops? 802.11b (the slower version) goes at 11 mbps so you've got a lot of room there.

I would incline towards 802.11g. An 11Mbps connection achieves more like 2Mbps in typical perfromance. OK, so if broadband is all you want wireless for you might be all right, but you'll really notice the difference if you talk between computers.

Luke

[luke_church]

how in gods name do you put up with doing this for a living.

That's a very good question ;)

I guess we do it out of hope....

Luke

[NHBubba]

badly written software developed by chimps who can't do multi-threaded programming won't be much betterYeah, 'badly written' software like just about every DirectX based game. (And one of my company's main products, I might add!) Very few games these days will take advantage of multiple processors (or cores). I would agree that for a gaming setup, an uber fast single core/processor IS still the way to go. However if you are less concerned w/ gaming, and more concerned w/ multi-threaded apps then a multiple core or multiple processor is just the ticket. As has been said, Photoshop is one such app.

This is part of why I don't think gaming and heavy photoshop lifting don't necessarily mix.

If you are concerned w/ photoshop performance, I would definitely shoot for a multiple core or multiple processor setup. Besides, multi-core/processor systems are the next big thing. In the past decade we've all been overly concerned w/ Mhz count. In the next decade we are going to be more concerned w/ processing core count.

[gus]

.

[Mike Lane]

k k k k

Dell 9400
Intel core duo 72500 2GHz 2MB cache 667 MHz FBS
Xp (cause i like it..no networking so home is fine)
3 year warranty parts/labor & accidental
17" WUXGA 1920 x 1200
2 gig ram 667 MHz DDR2
256 MB Nvidia GeForce Go 7800
100 gig H/drive 7200 rpm
8x DVD burner
9 cell battery (extra $40 for a spare 9 cell)
blue tooth (what ever that is)

How'd i do this time ?

The guys in the shops about the place bagged Dell out real bad but most of the people i know in IT always say they can be good value as they tend to be stable & have good warrantys for dummys....is this true ?
You're going to shed a tear just starting up that system and seeing how fast it is. I think it's an excellent (albeit huge) choice. :thumb

Oh and bluetooth can be really cool. It is a means of getting a wireless connection to things. It's very short range and doesn't take much power so things like bluetooth mice, headsets, keyboards, PDAs, printers, etc all exist and can make it so you never have to plug anything in. Very, very handy.

[ChrisJ]

The guys in the shops about the place bagged Dell out real bad but most of the people i know in IT always say they can be good value as they tend to be stable & have good warrantys for dummys....is this true ?
Looks good to me! Monster of a "lap"top at 17".

Dells give very good value for money (at least in the US). Sometimes the physical hardware isn't quite as durable as an IBM/Lenovo, but their service is decent if you get the onsite warranty. You get problems/horror stories with any big manufacturer...

My office right now is almost entirely Dell... despite the fact that I've encouraged people to try IBM/Lenovos. People like their Dells, and order new ones to replace old ones.

[gus]

.

[gus]

.

[Mike Lane]

So i made the mistake of walking into SonyCentral today :wxwax You see...i have ..for some unknown reason...got a real bad thing-a-me-bob for Sony VAIO's.

I threw the spec for dell on the counter & told them i was an hour from ordering it & wanted to know what they would give me for my dosh. They cheated & told me a same spec machine as the Dell i was looking at will arrive next week only its 15.1" (really more sensible for the backpack) & aparently its about half the thickness of the dell.

The plot thickens...glad im not in a hurry so will see what next week brings when it arrives.

Hey David...i actually went & played with the new intel mac lappy for an hour or so..pity it does not have a higher res screen. Man they know what strings to pul with the toys...like that cool mouse etc. Their stuff is really cool design.

When you get more info on the new Vaio, let us know about it would you?

[wxwax]

I don't see wireless LAN on the Dell 9400. Does it have it?

[gus]

.