"Future Proofing" on a budget? (long post)

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VikingCrown

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Hello everyone, I've been cruising around these boards and people seem to be very helpful here, so I figured i'd hit you with my Digital Imaging/Future Proofed (sorta)/Budget PC.

I have a budget somewhere in the range of $ 600-700. The machine I'm looking for will primarily be for photoshop and Microsoft's Digital Image Suite, My wife is heavy into Digital Scrapbooking, so we're talking about 120mb layouts. I am also an engineer, so I will be doing some CAD from home, but not too much. The only game that the machine would be used for maybe is The Sims 2. Ideally I would like to get as many parts for this system that will be upgradable in 2 years or so, so that I don't have to build a whole new system (kinda like what's happening now).

I can Cannibalize from my current maching. CD burner, monitor, keyboard, mouse, printer, scanner, sound card, and even video card i guess. i have a radeon 9000 128mb card. I have an OS so i'm set there too. Something else to consider, I am not building this until after christmas (so that i'm not the only one footing the bill )

From what I've gathered, PCI-e is the next big thing, so I'd like to have that. I don't really have a preference in Intel Vs. AMD, But I thought I read somewhere that for applications like photoshop Intel is the way to go. I don't have a problem going with onboard video and audio to start, unless it would really adversley effect the processing of the digital images.

Well, now that I have rambled on, I'll leave it to the pro's. Thank you in advance, I appreciate everyone's input.

Thanks in advance,
Brian
 
stick with amd, get a 64bit processor with a mobo that supports pci e, then the rest is your call, i would go with at least pc3200 ram, sounds like youll need at least either a one gig chip or two 512mb chips with a mobo that supports dual channel to reduce the swap times, maybe a raptor hd wouldnt hurt either, sounds like you have most of what you need already, if you got the money to burn just grab a nice new case/psu and go from there...
 
if im not mistaken there is no such thing as an AMD pcie board..

as for performance in the apps you will be using go intel definitely there is no doubt that with hypertreading it will give you the best results in photoshop and CAD.

however if you are worried about upgrading then you may want to stick with AMD 939 socket cpu board, and hope for it to support dual-core cpu's later... this would give massive performance in the apps you want and give you some solid performance now too, especially considering you are waiting til after christmas and dont need a lot of peripherals.
 
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