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  1. #11
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    Quote Originally Posted by pisquee View Post
    I've switched all our work PCs to older Dell Precision T5500 - think we have 13 of them now. They can be dual Xeon CPUs - our best ones (dedicated to design/printing) have dual 6 core 3GHz processors, and 144GB RAM. The machines for more admin duty are single CPU with more normal levels of RAM!
    Some of them I've built from parts scavenged from Ebay, others I've bought ready built cheap on Ebay.
    There are advantages of having all the machines the same, in terms of repair/servicing/swapping parts etc

    For Windows 11 - They aren't approved CPUs, and don't have TPM 2.0 (only 1.2) but they have MS support through 2025, and I am currently testing Win 11 on 2 of our laptops which I've hacked 11 onto, and they're working fine, so I will be trying one of the 5500 next week.
    This is why I’ve tried to standardise to having Dell systems. All the office PC’s are Optiplex 7xxx systems, but this is my first look into Precision/Workstation systems.

  2. #12
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    Quote Originally Posted by pw66 View Post
    I agree with the parts shortage point.

    I needed a new laptop back in March (when everyone was working from home) - my very old i3 laptop was struggling with the vector software - and neither Dell nor HP had anything between £300 and £1000. My budget was £700 for something with a reasonably fast i7 and mid sized SSD, which should have been more than enough. In the end I had to spend £1300 on a Z Book to get the spec I convinced myself that Iwanted.

    Availability and cost of parts or completed machines might drive your choice either way.
    Unfortunately, the cost of custom built and the cost of the Dell Precision works out within £50 of each other on this occasion. The only difference would be the Dell comes with a 5GB Quadro GPU and I can’t find any reasonably priced GPU’s anywhere for a custom build.

  3. #13
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    I just thought I'd post an update on my decision...

    I declined the quote for the Dell Precision this morning and have decided to build 2 custom pc's instead.

    My reasoning in the end came down to the fact that Dell (and other manufacturers) cut corners in places that I may not even be aware of. The reviews I've seen suggest that the Dell Precisions get incredibly hot and start to thermal throttle, and the power supplies are often proprietary making it difficult to upgrade in the future. I'm not sure about the Precision line up but I know the current home PC's don't even have a 24 pin motherboard connector. Top that with the fact the Xeon CPU was only 6 core vs 8 cores in the i7, it just didn't make sense to get the Xeon.

    In the end, I opted for buying two Quadro RTX 4000's off eBay for £525 each) and will build the two PC's around those. I figured that I'll be able to do the full build for around £1300 with a much better GPU than the Dell would have had.

  4. #14
    Senior Member webtrekker's Avatar
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    In the end, I opted for buying two Quadro RTX 4000's off eBay for £525 each ...
    I'm intrigued as to why you need such high-spec graphics cards for a works computer? I have many PS files over 1Gb and they run fine on much lower spec cards and less RAM.

  5. #15
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    Custom Build vs Pre Built?

    Quote Originally Posted by webtrekker View Post
    I'm intrigued as to why you need such high-spec graphics cards for a works computer? I have many PS files over 1Gb and they run fine on much lower spec cards and less RAM.
    I probably don’t in all fairness, but I’ve already tried increasing ram on my current machine to 64GB and that’s not massively helped with the 1GB+ photoshop files and I still end up with Photoshop crashing. Additionally, ‘consumer’/‘gamer’ graphics cards are wildly overpriced at the moment so didn’t fancy spending £400-500 on a graphics card that would have been £200 a couple of years ago.

    My plan is though that I’ll try a new system with a GTX1660 that I have (that’s in my home PC) and then with the Quadro and see if photoshop is better in one or the other.

    The Quadro cards were at a relatively good price so I shouldn’t have any issues getting my money back if I decide they’re not worth the expense :)

  6. #16
    Senior Member webtrekker's Avatar
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    Which version of Photoshop are you running? Some versions have problems with some machines.

    For instance, I've just upgraded to v23.0 and am having problems with the text tool causing freezes. I've rolled back to the last 22.x.x version which works perfectly for me. My files over 1Gb run fine on a 32Gb, i5 machine with a basic graphics card.

  7. #17
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    Quote Originally Posted by webtrekker View Post
    Which version of Photoshop are you running? Some versions have problems with some machines.

    For instance, I've just upgraded to v23.0 and am having problems with the text tool causing freezes. I've rolled back to the last 22.x.x version which works perfectly for me. My files over 1Gb run fine on a 32Gb, i5 machine with a basic graphics card.
    I’m running photoshop 21.2.12. I use Ctrl+F a lot to search for layers in our photoshop files and they changed the search in photoshop 22.

    Current PC is an i5 10600 (non-K version), 64GB ram and a rubbish GT710 graphics card.

  8. #18
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    Quote Originally Posted by gazfocus View Post
    a rubbish GT710 graphics card.
    We use quite a few GT710/720 (and I think some 610) and they're fine doing their job - the computers having dual Xeons @300GHz and 144GB RAM probably makes up for anything they lack.
    the main issue we have is load/save times as files are help on a NAS
    No issues with PS crashing

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