[gphoto50]

I built a desktop about 6 years ago and things have changed so much I am lost.
I have on hand:
An assembled mid-tower case
Corsair CX 600 power supply
PNY GeForce 210 - 512MB DDR2 Graphics card
Also a MSI - NX8400GS 512 MB DDR2 Graphics card
Lightscribe DVD Burner
1 Seagate Barracuda 160 gig 7200.10 SATA
1 Seagate Barracuda 250 gig 7200.10 SATA
1 Seagate Barracuda 320 gig 7200.12 SATA

I need a Motherboard and processor I would prefer an Intel ATX motherboard and processor.

Any recomendations?

Questions: Can I run all 3 of my hard drives with 32 bit windows 7? I really don't want to have to buy all new 64 bit software. My most memory eating apps is Photoshop CS2 and plugins.

Are the 7200.10 and 7200.12 drives compatible?

At the moment I am running a Intel ATX Mobo with a Intel Prescot 3.75? extreme hyperthreading processor and 2 gigs of memory. I find myself having to reboot fairly often when processing 12- 16 MB photo files.

Any help would be apreciated
Thanks

[Advertisements]

Gday gphoto50

It looks like your present build lacks enough memory. For photo, video processing, encoding, the more memory you have the better the results.

You need to run a 64bit system to be able to use more than 3,5GB.

What software would you have to buy?

Have a look at this site and let me know if it would be of help to you? Read the latest news page. > http://ppbm5.com/index.html

[iammykyl]

Gday gphoto50

It looks like your present build lacks enough memory. For photo, video processing, encoding, the more memory you have the better the results.

You need to run a 64bit system to be able to use more than 3,5GB.

What software would you have to buy?

Have a look at this site and let me know if it would be of help to you? Read the latest news page. > http://ppbm5.com/index.html

[gphoto50]

Thanks for the reply. My current system is upgradable to 3.5 MB DDR 800 ram but I am running 32 bit Windows XP. I would really like to build a new system and go to Windows 7. I have a builders copy of Win7 32 bit. My Photoshop CS2 is 32 bit. If I went to a 64 bit system wouldn't I have to go to a newer version of Photoshop and all my plugins that is 64 bit? Or would 32 bit Photoshop run on a 64 bit Win 7 based system? Photoshop is quite expensive and I have several hundred dollars of editing plugins. Photoshop CS2 serves me fine for the work I do on photos. I would go to a 64 bit system to get more available memory but I just don't have the money to replace my software.

My Windows XP is getting buggy and I have updated it so many times I can't even do a re-install because I get the warning that the current installed version is newer than the disk and it won't let me install or format. Microsofts way of getting you to buy a new disk I guess. I am sure there is a work around but I am not that tech smart to attempt it.

[iammykyl]

This was just a quick search.
"

If you run the 32-bit version of Photoshop (or other 32-bit application that support Photoshop plug-ins) under a 64-bit Windows operating system, 32-bit Photoshop as well as 32-bit Photoshop plug-ins have access up to 4 GB of RAM, provided that your computer has that much RAM. At least 6 GB of RAM is recommended, because the operating system also needs of it. There is another advantage of running 32-bit Photoshop under an 64-bit operating system (MacOS X as well as Windows). Photoshop can use the memory above 4 GB as a scratch disk. This improves performance when working with a lot of layer or history/undo steps, because memory is much faster than any hard drive." Full article and more about plug-ins, > http://thepluginsite.com/knowhow/tutorials/introduction/introduction.htm

Memory allocation, > http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/320/320005.html

optimise your hardware setup, CS5, CS6, but think it will apply to CS2, > http://kb2.adobe.com...4/kb404439.html

To get the best performance you will need to install W7 64bit, OEM will do but before attempting a build I think you should post your question about running the application in here, http://www.geekstogo...2-applications/ give a link in this topic, so I can learn as well and then get back to Us.

[gphoto50]

Thank you... that is interesting. I will look into it.
Back to one of my questions.. will Seagate 7200.10 and 7200.12 hard drives run on the same system? I know I could go to external HD's for storage of photos but I already own 730 gigs of internal hard drives which will store all the photos I want for some time to come.

[gphoto50]

@ iammykyl... I just did a quick read through of the links you posted and bookmarked them for future refrence. I understand now that I should have no problems migrating my photoshop CS2 32 bit to a 64 bit system and with proper setting up of a scratch disk I will actually have more memory to allocate to the application. I already knew about manually allocating memory to PS2 and am running 70% of memory allocated to CS2 now with no other applications running except just windows XP.

Really excelent info Thanks.

[iammykyl]

will Seagate 7200.10 and 7200.12 hard drives run on the same system?

Yes they would.

Best performance for your would would be.

2 new drives (preferable Raptor) in RAID 0 for the OS and applications.
Your existing 3 drives in RAID 5 for storage.

Your slowest drives the 160GB and the 250GB, 7200 10 would downgrade the 320GB 7200 12 to the same performance but would not matter at all for storage.

I suggest you set up a small partition at the end of the 320GB drive to use for an image of the OS drive + backups.

[iammykyl]

Gday.

Would be interested to have an update on how things are going.

[gphoto50]

My old system is just plain gone. Can't recover it. So I am on to the new build. I have decided to go with a 64 bit system with 8 gigs of ram. Just waiting for Friday... lol. Using my old Thinkpad in the meantime.

Thanks for the follow up.

Greg

[iammykyl]

Please let us know what the specs end up at and results of the build

[iammykyl]

Hi.

How did everything turn out?

[gphoto50]

Since I was in a hurry to get something up and running and was on a limited budget and already had some parts... this is what I have come up with.

Clear acrylic case (mid tower 3x fans)
Corsair CX600... 600 watt power supply
MSI 785GT E63 MoBo
4 gigs 667 DDR2 memory
AMD Phenom 2x4 3.2 gig Processor
Corsair direct contact heatpipe cooler 120mm fan
Seagate 7200.10 500 gig HD
Liteon DVD R/RW
Nvidia GeForce 210 Vid card

I am up and running with Win7 32bit. It is not much faster than my system that died but I will upgrade to a new 64 bit MOBO + DDR3 Memory +HD +vid card soon and change over to Win7 64bit.

I had no problems at boot up just set the boot order and installed the operating system. All seems very stable as I have had no crashes yet after more than a month of operation. I have not tried overclocking even though the MOBO has an overclock switch on it... no need to even go into the BIOS. With slow memory and slow HD I doubt I would experience a great increase in speed and there is always the possible downside to consider.

Thanks for your assistance.
Greg

[iammykyl]

Hi Greg.
thanks for the update. Sorry for the delay, had to go to the UK in a hurry.

When you decide to upgrade, let us know if we can help.