July 7th, 2013, 16:41
(This post was last modified: July 8th, 2013, 04:34 by KingOfPain.)
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I am in the market for a new computer but not in a hurry, meaning I can wait if the next generation (the next big thing) of video cards, CPUs are due to come out in the next few months, or if there's rumor of a price drop. My current Dell Demension 9200 Quad-Core Q6600 that's 6-7 years old still serves me well except it can use a lot more memory and a tad more speed. I need it to run Photoshop CS5 comfortably. (Off Topic: Not going to get into this latest Adobe Cloud scam)
I am not looking for the latest bestest set up but something in the ~$1,000 cdn range (what I paid for the 9200). I have been buying Dell for more than a decade. They are not the cheapest best deal around but it is a name I trust. I have not have to call Dell once. Seems I have no tolerance to fiddle with soft/hardware anymore, I've somehow ungeeked myself.
The model I am looking at is XPS 8700 @ $1,199.991
The next one @1699 seems a bit pricey (+$500) for 16 GB more ram and an extra TB storage.
Also for sale by Dell is Alienware X51 @ $1,199.991 (the one with the Student Offer). A quick glance says it is a dumped down version of the Dell XPS 8700 in a very cool looking box. Did I miss something?
Are there better compromises out there, worthy upgrades?
KoP
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I guess wait for one of those 30% off back to school coupons to pop up on slickdeals.
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July 9th, 2013, 00:47
(This post was last modified: July 9th, 2013, 00:53 by KingOfPain.)
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Looks like $100 off the entire XPS 8700 lineup. The one I linked and aim at getting is at $899 vs $1199 but it houses the entry level gforce GTX 645 instead of GTX 660 - $200 upgrade from dell. Still, $100 saving, offer good til this Friday 
At least the i7 4770 is fresh on the market so it will last a year or two more.
KoP
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It'll probably you 5+ years these days like your Q6600.
In Soviet Russia, Civilization Micros You!
"Right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must."
“I have never understood why it is "greed" to want to keep the money you have earned but not greed to want to take somebody else's money.”
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Now is an excellent time to buy - the new Haswell i5/i7 processors are just a month old, nVidia has released their new GPU lineup (though Dell hasn't included it in the systems you linked to), and there's nothing crazy/disruptive on the desktop side that's around the corner (like 802.11ac wireless might be on the mobile space).
The i7 with 16gigs of memory in the XPS you linked to will be a rocket. I don't do any Photoshop stuff myself, but on the CPU side you should be in great shape. I'd personally rather have a larger SSD and separate (or even external) HDD but the included HDD+SSD cache combo should still work well. Is the work you do in Photoshop GPU accelerated? And do you play demanding games on your PC? If not you may want to give some thought to whether spending that much of your budget on graphics makes sense.
I'm of the opinion that for a full system build (and not an upgrade) the CPU cycle is still the more important factor, so I'd say buying now is the third best sweet-spot since mid-2006.
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(July 9th, 2013, 12:10)sunrise089 Wrote: I'd personally rather have a larger SSD and separate (or even external) HDD
+1
I installed 2 SSDs in my new laptop and I could never go back to basic HDs. A dedicated SSD at least for the OS and most often used software will speed up any PC in terms of everday use more than any other component.
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Newegg has sales on now if you want to price up the PC again.
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I would buy old tech right now. Haswell doesn't do anything interesting on desktop.
In Soviet Russia, Civilization Micros You!
"Right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must."
“I have never understood why it is "greed" to want to keep the money you have earned but not greed to want to take somebody else's money.”
Posts: 3,006
Threads: 264
Joined: Mar 2004
Quote:I would buy old tech right now. Haswell doesn't do anything interesting on desktop.
I am not really into gaming mode of late and I haven't felt the need for getting the latest bestest setup for years - since I dabbled in 3D, I guess. So most of the time, even if a person does reasonable amount of not-super-hi-res photoshop, the computer sits idle and waits for the user. What is important is the best display I can get, to get the best match to print. I used spend as much on a monitor as I would on a desktop.
The reason I would prefer to not buy older tech is that I figure a setup would usually last 1-2 video card upgrade, so I get a better chance (the slots) to be compatible to later models down the road.
Oh, thanks for the reminder on SSD. That's one department that would help a lot if I run low on memory. Photoshop can make heavy demands of virtue memory. Is what's offer with my setup what they call a hybrid drive? Since a straight upgrade to SSD is not available, I would just put one in later, when the price drops a little. I haven't been watching the price on SSD so I am only assuming the price is dropping fast. Whew, ~$1.00 per gig is bit tough on the budget as storage for data.
Haha, I am complaining while I remember the time (1992?) when the first high capacity drive came out and I gladly paid thousands for that 2 (yes TWO) gb drive, and thought it was godsend that huge storage was finally available. Yup, Gig was the new word we liked to throw around. 
KoP
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