Digital BW, The Print

Just my suggestion

go to your local computer store which builds custom made computers and
specify what you need/want

presuming you want a PC then, (within your budget) which you are going to
blow anyway! :-)

get the fastest processor - AMD or INTEL -
I went for the AMD 2200+ as it was the fastest at the time and a main board
to suit ASUS A7V8X
there are some boards that can take 4 DIMMS (that is RAM) since 1Gb Ram
sticks are very expensive you could add 4x 512MB to an EPOX that I have
seen, unfortunately my ASUS only takes 3x 512mb hence I only have
1.5Gigabytes of DDR ram (which is one of the fastest atm)

then it is time to look at your main object the graphics card - Darkroom is
a 2D environment, so you don't need one of those GeForce 3D games cards - if
that is what you need then get a PlayStation, However if it is image quality
you are looking for there is only one place to look IMHO - www.matrox.com
for the new Parhelia 512 or the G550 both have great image quality if not
the best in their field. Furthermore Matrox offer very good support for
multiple monitors which is great for this sort of work the G550 supports 2
independent monitors and the Parhelia does 3 monitors - I had the 550 and
have just gotten the new Parhelia and it rocks (I can't wait till I get a
third monitor!) and an even bigger desk :-))

Now we need some a place to store our images - harddrives, yes hard
Drive(s)(plur) more then one that is for sure, it doesn't matter if you can
get a 300 Gigabyte disk - 3 x 100 Gigabyte disks are better and faster or 3
x 300 Gigabyte is even better.
 SCSI hard drives are the fastest! Period!!! there is no doubt about that -
but they come with a pricetag to match so...your second best option is IDE
harddrives - get some fast Western Digital JB drives with 8mb cache, I think
80-120 Gigabyte, possible bigger. There is various ways of setting up the
hard drives, but one thing Photoshop likes is to have its SCRATCH file on a
separate disk, separate from windoze's swap file - AND NO, you can't put it
on another partition on the same harddrive! There a marginal difference (few
%) by separateing them, but it is all this marginal %'s that in the end
makes a difference.

I have SIX 80 Gigabyte hard drives - one boot disk + 4 x disk in a RAID 10
(Stripe and mirror)and one for scratch disk (and other loose stuff) - boot
disk is on onboard controller and the RAID is on an Adaptec 2400A Raid Cache
Controller and the last is on a cheapo raid card there is room for one more
disk and the whole setup is still efficient

You NEED BACKUP - DVD-backup device DVD+/-R /RW or DVDRAM - I went for
DVDRAM, but it is not as fast, there are now newer and faster drives out
there

Floppy disk, CD-RW, network cards,modem and wireless connection to your
notebook etc... are all things you can add on

last but not the least you need to get yourself a nice big case to house all
this gear, with a good airflow through it at least if you are living in a
hot climate like I do (Western Australia) I went for a Lian Li PC-70 case
but that was only because I could not fit the RAID card in a normal case and
don;'t forget a super Power Supply.

Just to sum it all up

ASUStec A7V8x main board
AMD 2200+ Athlon processor - there is not much gained for a dual processor
(I have had 3 of them!) at least it is only few things in PS that takes
advantage of it - I could be wrong so please correct me!)

3 x 512mb DDR Ram PC-2700 or faster or bigger, but at least a total of 1
Gigabyte

Matrox graphics card G-550 or Parhelia

3 x hard drives (I recommend WDC800JB) or greater

DVD-xxx backup

A good Case with a great power supply

Floppy, CD, NIC and modem, Firewire and/or USB2 - just the standard stuff
and perhaps a sound card so you can relax while working :-) no that is
already on the mainboard

to that you add your 2-3x 21" Sony Triniton monitors and your color
calibrator (e.g. spyder) and you are just about there

I may have missed a few things along the way, but I am sure there are others
on the list that will pick up on some of my mistakes

just as a guide - my own box was AUD$5k ~ US$2500 without monitors! just the
box!!

Good luck


Henrik


-----Original Message-----
From: gannet@... [mailto:gannet@...]
Sent: Monday, 21 October 2002 1:31 AM
To: DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [Digital BW] Digital Darkroom Computer Builders?


I'll apologize right up front for the cross-posting, in case you see
this same question elsewhere.  My excuse is that I'm not doing this
because I'm lazy or in a hurry.  Rather, I've been poking at this
question for a while in various places and I'm getting zero answers or
leads.  I also think this question may be of interest to many besides
myself.

The question is: does anyone know of any PC builders who are offering
machines specifically tailored for the digital darkroom (DD)?

You can get specialty gaming machines, digital audio workstations, 3D
graphics workstations, digital video workstations, etc., etc., but I'm
not seeing any PCs optimized for DD work.

Yes, I can certainly spec out my own machine from a custom builder,
and in fact I'm looking around at various builders to do just that.
The problem is that there is a dearth of machines and options
applicable to DD work.  For example, massive RAM and massive storage
are a given.  Data redundancy and dual processors are highly
desirable.  Absolute max CPU speed is nice but not really that
important, and 3D graphics speed is not important.  The usual "custom
machine starting points" you see on websites simply aren't geared for
this.  Server class boxes are usually the only ones that come close,
and they often have other unneeded features.

As an editorial comment, I think these vendors are missing out on a
market.  Why is it that we have lots of people lined up to pay
multi-4-figure and 5-figure amounts for digital SLR systems, and yet
these same folks are expected to limp along with an inadequate
computer or else learn to be a hardware guru themselves and put one
together?  I think there's money laying on this table.

Maybe I'm all wrong and these vendors are out there.  If so, please
point me to them.

TIA

Gannet
St. Petersburg, Florida


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