Buying a new PC

[Karl Shikles]

My five-year old HP laptop is having quite a bit of trouble keeping up with ecabinetsystems lately (SURPRISE!). I'm about to just take the plunge and buy a new desktop system. I'm leaning towards this one: http://www.costco.com/HP-Pavilion-h8xt- ... 36542.html. I like the HP brand and have had good luck with customer support, etc. I plan to get another 8 gb's of RAM fairly soon, too. I thought I'd see if any of you guys/gals have an opinion. Thanks in advance.

[Rick Deskins]

I would not recommend the Intel HD graphics. eCabinets runs a lot better with a dedicated video card from ATI or NVidia.

[Neville Bastian]

Hi Rick,
This may be better on the lounge section but you sound like the custom computer self assembly type of guy.
If you were say working on a $3000.00 budget where would you throw your money to make Ecabinets sing?
The best graphics card and maybe a SSD? Would you go windows 8 or save money on a older windows edition? Would cut back on the proceesor and go for i5 or use a server processor? Just curious Rick as you know what the software demands and what best meets those needs.
Regards

Neville

[jason galbraith]

Sorry to highjack but I build systems, so at the moment, I'd look at Win 7 ultimate - a high end core i7 - 8-16 gig min ram with highest latency - an SSD - and a high end Quadro video card available. Also, 2 x 22-24 inch monitors. Very similar to what I'm running at the moment minus the SSD. 3 grand would be overkill unless you want to get into watercooling and other nonsense. Don't go for the very top end CPU or graphics card, because they will always be super expensive, and not generally worth the price premium/bang for buck over the model below it.

[Neville Bastian]

While Rick sleeps the mouse roars....

[Rick Deskins]

3 grand on a system is definitely overkill. The processor and video card is where most of your money will be spent. I would go with something like:

core i7 or Xeon E3 processor 3.0GHZ or higher
8gb or more RAM
SSD (nice but could be added later)
Win7 64-bit
Quadro K4000, Quadro 4000, or Quadro 2000 video card

This is just my opinion. The main point I was trying to get across is staying away from integrated video cards like Intel HD graphics. It is great for surfing the web and office, not so great for eCabinets.

[Will Williamson]

At the encouragement of my tech support ,3 months ago I bought a used 3 year old Dell Precision Laptop on craigs list for $200 dollars duo core Win 7 64 bit good grafix card It works fantastic. I bought it for a backup it is my second one I bought like that.

[BenRatt]

Rick, what do you think about a Dell Precision M4700 laptop running 3rd Gen Intel Core i7 3740QM at 2.7Ghz running windows 7 pro with 8GM Ram, and Quadro K1000M with 2GB? Know anything about the AMD Firepro M4000 mobility pro with 1GB? It's about $200 less than the Quadro.