Need advice on hardware? Ask questions and share your opinions here.
#65102 by arizonasand
Wed Oct 22, 2014 12:12 pm
Well I am running version 14 and am very pleased. My old computer is slowly having problems and I was thinking of buying a new one and also upgrading to version 17. The system that I have now is a 64bit processor and 4 gigs of ram with a external 1 terabyte HD. I was thinking of getting a 64 bit system again but with 8 gigs and I was thinking about a solid state drive. Does anyone have any thoughts on this and also what size of ssd should I get? I also will still be using the 1 terabyte HD. Thinking of adding a separate graphics card instead of onboard. Any thoughts on a good card for my dual monitors?

Let me know
Thanks
Paul :)
#65114 by Roger D
Thu Oct 23, 2014 1:53 pm
my system has 64 bit, 16.0 ram, 8 core 3.6Hz Processor, 225GB SSD for programs, 2nd 750GB drive for Data files, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 550 Video card supports 2 screens.

Seems to work, was fast the 1st day until I got use to it.
#65119 by Neil Blanchard
Thu Oct 23, 2014 3:44 pm
Hi Paul,

The two video outputs need to be compatible with your two monitors. If your monitors are both able to use DVI inputs, then you will need to specify a video card with two DVI outputs. If they both use HDMI inputs (and they don't have DVI) then you will need a video car with two HDMI outputs. VGA (analog) connections would only be needed if both monitors have those inputs only.

8GB RAM would be a minimum for a new system. 12-16GB would be much better.

SSD is really only useful for the boot drive, and only if you value faster boot / load times. How much are you using on your current system? If you have more than 500GB of files, then you may want to get 2TB or bigger. Keep in mind that we now have up to 6TB hard drives.

Definitely get a 64bit CPU - this is required for more than 3GB of RAM; and I would get a quad core (or better). An Intel i5 is a decent minimum, and an i7 would be better.
#65120 by David A. Giesselman
Thu Oct 23, 2014 3:48 pm
Neil Blanchard wrote:The two video outputs need to be compatible with your two monitors. If your monitors are both able to use DVI inputs, then you will need to specify a video card with two DVI outputs. If they both use HDMI inputs (and they don't have DVI) then you will need a video car with two HDMI outputs.

Also keep in mind that there are HDMI --> DVI-D (and vice-versa) adapters, so this becomes less of an issue.

Dave

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