Comp. Techies.. give me some help here.

[Preacher]

I think you all are right about memory. I decided to keep my task manager running to watch the CUP speed and the memory usage. I have a single gig of memory right now, and I am not coming CLOSE to using it all up .

However, I have a dual core 2. something laptop from Dell, and I am topping out at 60 percent computing speed just for simple searches in my software. When I try to use a second app while it is searching... I surge to 100 %.

Yep... I think I need to bump up the processer and front bus speed more than worry about ram.

Does that sound about right to you all?

If that is true, the I7 is a better math processor, though the quad core runs frame rates better from what I have researched. Does that mean I should give the I7 another look?

[SteelersinCA]

In a single GPU system, the quad core is on par with the i7. The other thing you might want to look into is some sort of RAID setup. It might help you search faster with a RAID 1 setup, I think it's 1, might be 0.

It looks like you have several things going on, Preach. You need some oomph for video editing, which would be CPU and GPU. Then you have a large program that is a bear to search. You can certainly get a velociraptor (10K RPM HDD) or 2 for a RAID set up, you can try a cheaper alternative of buying a 10k HDD for the OS and a 1TB HDD or above for your Data.

Most systems top out at 6gig of RAM being useful now, even the top of the line i7's. There are obvious exceptions for graphic intense programs, but it sounds like your Logos program is what's hogging your system. You might also want to consider that your HDD in the laptop is compromised, how old is it? My laptop HDD is going bad and it is slower than molasses even though I reformatted it.

I'd give everything a good look over again and again!

[X-Terminator]

I have to agree with SteelersinCA here - for what you want to do, skim a bit on the RAM and spend the extra cash on the video cards with at least 512MB of RAM on each card, though I'd recommend 1GB on each if you can afford it. And yes, give the i7 another look. You really can't go wrong with it or the core 2 quad. It really depends on how much you're willing to plunk down.

[Steelman16]

IMO, RAM really only comes into major play when you're choosing your OS. Vista is a hog, and I wouldn't recommend it. XP Pro is the way to go.

Vista needs about 4GB's of RAM to run properly and at its intended level.

But, first things first.

From what I've read and heard, the i7's are fantastic processors.

As far as GFX cards, I recently bought an EVGA nVidia 9500 GT series 1GB GFX card, and am really impressed with it. All told, I spend about $80 on newegg. (including S&H) If I had the money, I would have bought two so I could run a dual system.

[SteelersinCA]

I run Vista on my system and find it superior to XP. It's all about what you want to do. If you have the budget to put 4 gig of RAM in get vista, if you don't, don't get it. Windows 7 is coming out soon anyway.

[X-Terminator]

Originally Posted by Steelman16

IMO, RAM really only comes into major play when you're choosing your OS. Vista is a hog, and I wouldn't recommend it. XP Pro is the way to go.

Vista needs about 4GB's of RAM to run properly and at its intended level.

But, first things first.

From what I've read and heard, the i7's are fantastic processors.

As far as GFX cards, I recently bought an EVGA nVidia 9500 GT series 1GB GFX card, and am really impressed with it. All told, I spend about $80 on newegg. (including S&H) If I had the money, I would have bought two so I could run a dual system.

Vista doesn't necessarily need 4GB of RAM to run properly - you can also increase the size of your page file and create other page files on other drives (if available) to take some of the work off the processor. My desktop PC at home has 2GB of RAM, but I have a total of 16GB in page files on my 4 HDDs, and Vista runs nice and smooth. I still want to upgrade to at least 4GB so I can reclaim some of that HD space, though.

BTW, thanks for the heads-up on video cards - I'm currently using the onboard video (Radeon HD2100, which isn't too bad for onboard video), but would rather have a separate card so I can use the full amount of RAM.

[SteelersinCA]

Yeah, X you can get a great video card for cheap. You will notice an incredible difference with a stand alone GPU.

[Steelman16]

Originally Posted by SteelersinCA

I run Vista on my system and find it superior to XP. It's all about what you want to do. If you have the budget to put 4 gig of RAM in get vista, if you don't, don't get it. Windows 7 is coming out soon anyway.

I'm Vista's biggest hater, so I'm probably not the best to talk to.

I am looking forward to W7 though, hopefully it does a good job of combing XP with Vista.

One of my main reasons at the time for sticking with XP was that I have a lot of older software that works great and is perfect for what I do, but wouldn't be compatible with Vista. However, I've recently heard that you can change certain settings in Vista to make things compatible.

Originally Posted by SteelersinCA

Yeah, X you can get a great video card for cheap. You will notice an incredible difference with a stand alone GPU.

Totally agree. I was surprised about how inexpensive GFX cards have become...for 80 bucks, it's probably one of the better parts in my machine...that cost me $1350 three years ago.

[X-Terminator]

Originally Posted by Steelman16

Totally agree. I was surprised about how inexpensive GFX cards have become...for 80 bucks, it's probably one of the better parts in my machine...that cost me $1350 three years ago.

http://www.pricewatch.com/video_cards/pci_1gb-0.htm

I swear, just a few months ago a 1GB video card cost well over $300. Now I can pick one up for less than 70 bucks. Unbelievable!

[SteelersinCA]

DDR3 is the new GPU hotness so DDR2 is going to come down. Just splurge on the $500 and get a 295!!!