What Machine Do You Run?

[roberthilley]

I am a webdesigner and seo who needs a new machine bad ... hoping that I could learn what some of you are using and any feedback like positive or negative, etc.

I often have the following running and my current machine, which is a bottom of the line dell is not cutting it!

MS Outlook, MS Word, FTP Program, Dreamweaver, Fireworks, three different IM applications, a large Java based chat program and 5 IE or FF Browsers ... plus more :-)

As you can see, I need a new machine BAD! Any suggestions?

[roberthilley]

Also ... I would eventually like to run 2-3 monitors at once ... so I assume that I need something with two video cards?

[kaled]

Any modern CPU and 1Gig of memory should be sufficient with a big hard disk and a dual-monitor video card.

You could probably get all that in a desktop for $500 (inc a basic monitor) and in a laptop for $750 with little difficulty.

Of course, you could spend more but that will cover your needs as listed.

Kaled.

[jtara]

Because of your need for multiple monitors, the best approach may be to build your own system. (Or have a system custom-built for you.)

You can easily get two monitors from a single card. All graphics card lines have cards with two outputs. You have to be careful with connectors - some of the cheaper ones may have two VGA outputs or one DVI and one VGA. I would recommend two DVI outputs. (You can still connect a VGA cable with an adapter.)

There are a few cards with 3 outputs, and well as speciality cards with 4 or even 8 outputs. However, there aren't many of the 3-output cards, and I don't recommend the 4 or 8-output cards, because they aren't mainstream cards - driver development tends to lag, etc.

Why build your own? Because you can use one of the motherboard that has two X16 PCI-e slots. You're unlikely to find this kind of motherboard in a pre-built system - expect perhaps a high-end "gamer" system, that may have other features that are more than you need.

(Sometimes two "X16" slots with actually operate at X8, which is fine - there is no video card made today that actually needs X16 to acheive it's highest performance.)

These motherboards are marketed for use with "SLI" graphics cards - where two cards work in tandem to provide faster graphics. But you don't have to run them in SLI mode, so with two cards, you can get 4 outputs.

I'd strong recommend one of the new dual-core CPU chips. I have an AMD dual-core chip in one of my systems. The new Intel "Core 2" chips have gotten excellent reviews, and it seems they are faster and use less power than similar AMD chips. (But only "Core 2", which has just been released - I'd avoid Pentium D or "Core Duo" chips.) The only negative with Core 2 is it is VERY new, and so the motherboards might take some time to work out the bugs. (Just like buying a car in the first model year.)