The time has come to upgrade... make that renew, my pc and I've been out of the loop for 2 years so need some help/advice here.
Primary function: CS3
Motherboard:
I've always preferred ASUS. I need room for at least 6 HDD's.
CPU:
Intel Core 2 Duo for above mobo.
Video Card:
Currently using Matrox Parhelia but it's AGP - Get the PCIe version or swap out for different card? Now on CS3 seeing stuttering previews (sometimes, ie: as the 'blocks' are appearing onscreen they load like tiff's on a dialup connection).
Your comments and particularly your experience with newer pc's would be greatly appreciated even if it doesn't jibe with my ideas above (but I will not buy a Dell or any pre-fab pc now or ever!).
as far as the cpu goes, you cant go wrong with the Q660. Im currently using it (upgraded from my E6600) and have loved it. Photoshop loves quad-core, its also more 'future-proof' than the C2D's are. If your interested in overclocking at all, you can EASILY get the Q6600 to run @ 3ghz with very little effort. So that saves you $800 over buying intels top of the line quad.
load it up with lots of ram and get a 64bit OS. I just cant believe ram is so cheap personally running 6GB and its fast.
One thing with ASUS motherboards is that the support of RAID they offer. I bought the P5KC and it has the most lame ass raid support. For me to setup a raid 0, i need one sata cable hooked up to the raid port on the motherboard then another cable hooked to the external sata connection of the motherboard then enable it through BIOS. At the moment gigabyte motherboards are very good.
I mentioned 64bit OS and some people would tell you about driver issues that's just false. I have not had a single driver issue and I'm running Server 2003 x64 just waiting for vista 64bit to come.
Consider the Abit IP35. Very nice motherboard... 1333FSB support with 6 SATA ports. And although th Q6600 is an awesome CPU, for many tasks you get a little more speed and less power used with the dual core E6850. (3 ghz 1333fsb, versus 2.4ghz 1000fsb). But BenV is right... the Q6600 overclocks like crazy if your into that... and the Abit board is a nice overclocking motherboard.
And get a card with DirectX10 at least. ATI 2600PRO or Nvidia8600GT or something along those lines. For $70-100 you can find a nice cool, quiter card with dual DVI outputs. Spend a little more if you like to play the occasional game!
