Design me a system!
primesuspect
Beepin n' BoopinDetroit, MI Icrontian
I love these threads. I know I could spend 2 hours doing this myself, but I love having the benefit of a collective community of brains ensuring that I get the best of the best for my exact needs 
I need a system that is geared towards pre-press and graphic design. Here are my key criteria:
dual core
at least 2gb of ram (maybe 4gb)
dual dvi output
fast hard drives
Basically, this system needs a lot of ram because at any given time, several high powered apps are running - notably the entire adobe creative suite as well as an oversize poster-printer RIP, and a color management app for a high speed color laser printer. This is a production-grade workstation. Places where I can sacrifice are in 3D video performance - there is no need for 3D video performance on this, and in hard drive storage space. There is a huge fileserver and files aren't kept on this workstation - only current working projects. A small, fast HD is preferable to a large, slow one.
The client is a notorious spendthrift, so go easy on the wallet. The monitors are already bought, so I need just the workstation.
Also: form factor - the smaller the better. And quiet would be nice. This needs to fit in a relatively small area.
Thanks!
I need a system that is geared towards pre-press and graphic design. Here are my key criteria:
dual core
at least 2gb of ram (maybe 4gb)
dual dvi output
fast hard drives
Basically, this system needs a lot of ram because at any given time, several high powered apps are running - notably the entire adobe creative suite as well as an oversize poster-printer RIP, and a color management app for a high speed color laser printer. This is a production-grade workstation. Places where I can sacrifice are in 3D video performance - there is no need for 3D video performance on this, and in hard drive storage space. There is a huge fileserver and files aren't kept on this workstation - only current working projects. A small, fast HD is preferable to a large, slow one.
The client is a notorious spendthrift, so go easy on the wallet. The monitors are already bought, so I need just the workstation.
Also: form factor - the smaller the better. And quiet would be nice. This needs to fit in a relatively small area.
Thanks!
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I'm designing out a C2D system here, Brian.
mobo - Asus P5B - $139.95
Processor - e6300 retail - $180.00
ram - G. Skill 2 X 1024 DDR2 800, model #F2-6400CL5D-2GBNQ - $229.99
hard drive - Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 - 250 gig - $74.99
case - Antec PERFORMANCE TX640B (comes w/400 watt psu) - $109.99
DVD burner - LiteOn Black 16X, model #SHW-160P6S-04 - $30.99
vid card - Leadtech PX7600GS (256 MB memory) - $99.99
KB & Mouse - M$ model #CA9-00001S, black - $15.99
OS - M$ WinXP Pro oem - $139.99
Shipping - $32.80
Grand Total: $1054.72
I didn't include a floppy drive or card reader in this build. I don't know if either is necessary. The ram requirement really hurts on pricing this out and I imagine it will also hurt a DDR2 AMD system also. That Antec case looks to be a followon to the SX600 series that I have. They are fairly small as far as height goes.