Buying a New computer

I am contemplating buying a new computer. I will use it for photo editing, making slide shows, with music, cards, posters, and coping music to make my own CDs. I will not be playing games or editing movies.

I would like to know which version of Vista would be the best for me and whether I need a high end graphics or video card. I know I will need a lot of memory and a large hard drive, but I don’t want to buy other things that I don’t need. Thank you in advance.

 

Do you have a budget to work towards?

Otherwise,

Vista Home premium
Dual or Quad core processor (for multitasking)
200gb+ harddrive
2gb memory
128MB/256MB graphics card

To be honest you really dont need a big graphics card, but for the work your doing I assume you may also buy a decent sized monitor, and a larger graphics card will help with that

 

Thank you for your information. I hadn't thought about the graphics card for the large monitor. I presently have a 19" old Samsung, but I thought I would splurge and get a new 22" flat screen. Thanks again.

 

I am revising my comment! 2GB RAM would be fine but check the cost of getting either 3 or 4 aswell. It may be relatively cheap and it tends to make the computer a little more 'future proof'

Good luck, and let me know how you get on

 

If you watch high def videos, you need a capable card like Geforce 8600GT. If you do that on integrated graphics, the playback may be choppy. However, intergrated gpu is fine for 2D - like those tasks you described. A motherboard with onboard video costs about the same as those without. So it may save you money.

Yep, get 4 gigs of ram as they're dirt cheap. If you wait, DDR2 will be obsolete and more expensive in the end. Look at DDR prices. Vista runs best with 2+ gigs.