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      05-03-2016, 01:08 PM   #25
Banana Hammock
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Quote:
Originally Posted by P1et View Post
Treated myself to a new PC after having had my trust Dell OptiPlex for close to a decade. Thing was solid; ran 24/7 for ten year and never skipped a beat, apart from having to replace the power supply once.

Fast forward to last week, when I took delivery of a new XPS 8900. Dell had a good deal on it, and it came with most of the stuff I was after, including the new i7-6700 processor. It also came with 8GB of memory, and the GeForce GT 730. Few questions:

1) Would it make sense to bump up the memory to 16GB, or even 32GB? I don't play any games, or at least not much. It's more for my SightHound software, along with photo and video editing software.

2) If I don't play games, is putting in an SSD drive worth it?

3) How about bumping up the video card to a GT 960? I think I can run it without upgrading my power supply. Ultimately, I'd like to use an HDMI out to replicate my security cameras on all TVs in my house, using an HDMI extended over Cat 6e.

Thanks!
1) Having more RAM is never a bad idea but sometimes a manufacturer will charge you an arm and a leg for RAM upgrades. 16GB should be more than enough unless you're doing some serious multi-tasking. Photo and video editing software are usually CPU intensive so the i7-6700 will be great for your use case. IIRC, the new Adobe CC recently added some hardware acceleration done by the graphics card but I've read that it's not so great.

2) Absolutely. An SSD is the best bang for the buck upgrade you can do for a PC. I would suggest a good size SSD (about 250gb - 500gb) for applications and a large HDD for your files (photos, videos, and RAW files).

3) Wattage wise, your PSU should be enough since a 450Watt should be enough to power an i7 with a GTX970. The only obstacle you'll run into is whether or not the PSU will have the necessary 6 or 8 pin PCI-E power cables that the card will require. If needed, you could buy a 4-pin molex to 6 or 8 pin adapter to make the card work.

Quote:
Originally Posted by P1et View Post
So the new Western Digital 2TB hard drive works great as my main drive, but it's very noisy when it's working. I put it inside a small form factor Dell I had lying around, and it was quiet. Why would it be loud in my new Dell but quiet in my old one???
SATA III is backwards compatible with SATA II so it shouldn't cause any issues. What kind of noise is it making? Hard Disk Drives do make a bit of noise, especially when they're spinning up to perform a read or write operation. Lack of sound or vibration dampening in the computer case can make this noise more audible. If it's a clicking noise, that's bad news as it's a sign that the drive is starting to die.
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