New computer recommendation needed

I have a W7 machine and a bunch of accessories and programs that won’t run on W10. Replacing everything is beyond my budget. However, there may be a solution.

I plan to set up a LAN sharing the W7 PC with a W10 machine. The problem is the i5 and i7 field is crowded. Any recommendations for a new machine?

I’m a hobbyist. My interests are not commercial, only to make good photos a little better. My expenses are not deductible so cost is important.

Every new pc has win10 so determin budget search for fastest motherboard an cpu with reasonable good videocard. 4k supported?
Memory 8 16gb and ssd around 300-500gb OS drive , second normal 2TB hd for data.
Within this budget.

Buy a body which can be used for 5 til 7 years as workhorse. You will leave that win7 machine eating dust when the new pc is outrun that older win7 pc.
If budget is over run, cheaper videocard, still?, start with only ssd 500gb. Stil? Buy one 8gb memorybank and add later the other.

Peter,

Here’s the problem: I have W7 computer with all photo files on an EHD, a printer, Wacom pad, scanner and several editing programs (including Printshop, Picasa, CS3, PSE9 and PL) that work only in W7.

Solution #1: Replace everything; $$$$$$$$.
Solution #2: All the photo files are on an EHD. So, I plan to network the W7 machine, the EHD and a new W10 machine.

If I’m correct (I’m not too computer savvy), I should be able to edit in PL3 on the W10, export the file to the EHD, then open that file in one of the W7 programs and continue to edit.

It may be a little awkward, but I’m a retired hobbyist; I don’t have deadlines and I enjoy this.

I have found most hardware like printers etc that run on Win 7 will run on Win 10. The manufacturer may not support it (they want to sell you another one after all!) but they often still work…
Sometimes, if there is an issue, install the driver for Vista and that usually works.

You can run usually run Win 7 programs in compatibility mode on a Win 10 machine, though again, I would be surprised if they didn’t work anyway.

(Spent 16 years teaching IT hardware up to 2nd year undergrad and we often had to make old equipment ‘work’ due to budgets).

Thank you for sharing your invaluable experience.

it isn’t awkward, only the PL3 and RAW files need a strong/fast pc. So if you buy a desktop. laptops are less powerfull due heat issues and clocked down , get a fast motherboard and cpu. all the rest can be upgraded in time.
i7 9 gen. some ram memory and a ssd (faster then a HD.) (start with a default graphic card.)

Create a network and use shared folders instead of swapping a EHD from one pc to an other.
Edit on the w10 and send it towards the w7 hd for further processing and storing.
only “problem” is both need to be active when transfering files from one pc to the other.

Have I missed an announcement…when is PL3 due then?

Sorry, it’s a typo. I meant 2.3. I’m typing on a Kindle and the keypad is small.

Should be announced this fall

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For pl2.3 is the same proccesing power needed.

I don’t understand what your problem is. Up till a couple of months ago my main PC was a machine I built Jan 2010. It was still running the original i7 920 CPU overclocked to 4GHz. It did have a memory upgrade from 6 to 12GB and a couple of graphics card upgrades. Lack of processor performance increase and a loathing of Windows 10 (needed for the most recent processor generations) is why I put off upgrading for so long.

I built a new PC using a Ryzen 3900x (one of the fastest processors available) and it isn’t that much faster than the old machine. Single thread it is mostly not quite twice as fast. Having 3 times as many cores makes it about 5 times faster while using all cores (which isn’t very often). That isn’t a huge performance increase, on a budget I would have carried on with the old machine.

You haven’t said what or how slow your current machine is. On a budget I might consider something used that will still run Win 7 or maybe a used motherboard/CPU upgrade. A moderately powerful graphics card will help with PL and an SSD for the OS drive will help generally (a lot if you don’t already have one).

Perhaps not so easy if you are not very PC hardware savvy. Have you a local and friendly and cheap shop?

I’m about to order a W10 machine: 1T HD, 16 gig RAM, 16 gig SSD and an i7 chip. That should do the job.

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160Gb? ssd, i think that’s a bit limited, enough mine is filled for 122GB/230Gb, but at least 270Gb so you have no space issue in the future. moneywise it isn’t a big gab.

A after coffee translation,:grinning: :slight_smile:
160gb ssd is bare minimum as OS disk. Mine win10 years filled with apps is around 122gb of the total 230Gb on C/.
I would choose a 240gb til 480gb ssd so you don’t have slowdown performens by space issue’s in the future.
Crucial bx500 ssd data iii 240 gb is 37euro, the 120gb is 27, and 480gb is 62euro
Most choise (dutch site) you have in the 240 -256gb range.

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Goog catch! I must have misread the specs. I’ll double check.

Peter,

How does this sound? i7, 32 GB RAM, 1T HDD, 512 GB SSD. Thanks for pointing out my error. You’ve saved me a lot of trouble.

2 Likes

Hello,

:+1:

That’s what I’m running.

Mark

Your welcome.

This setup can run for 5 to 7 years without problems.
One tiny thing, graphic card? 1gb or 2gb?
1gb is enough(i run a 1gb) but rather old spec a faster one can help out an add speed in video and photo development.

The next versions of Photoshop & Lightroom will require 2GB graphics cards, who knows what DxO will require but I’d go by the Adobe requirements as a baseline at the very least

Sounds good.

Mine is older and lower spec (16GB ram and an i5 gen 4) and does the job nicely.

If funds are tight, start with a cheaper graphics card (mine is a bottom end 1GB VGA/HDMI/Display and runs 2 monitors and an Intuos display graphics tablet with few problems) for now and then upgrade that when funds allow as you have the core of something that is up to job as others have said