Quote:
Originally Posted by troypiggo
No offense intended to Baz, but did you read his post? If he's asking what a processor is, do you think he's up to building something like that and overclocking it etc?
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Fair enough.
Baz whats your budget ? Sounds like you want a desktop. For a processing solution. I think this is best way to go as you can upgrade them as CPU's change, hard disks change, Graphics cards change much cheaper than a laptop.
If you dont have capability to buy parts and build your own then there are plenty of places that sell pre built systems for varying budgets
Here are a few in price/performance order:
These below are hard core gaming machines and unless you game you dont need all the money on dual video cards in the high end machines
$3999
http://www.scorptec.com.au/computer/...ornado-i7-s2v2
$3099
http://www.scorptec.com.au/system/147
$2599
http://www.scorptec.com.au/computer/...rg-storm-2500i
$2389
http://www.scorptec.com.au/system/166
Some full systems:
$2699
http://www.umart.com.au/pro/products...id=7&sid=75936
$1349
http://www.umart.com.au/newindex2.phtml?bid=7
The show off desktop system if money is no object and you dont have skills to build your own:
http://www.dell.com/au/p/alienware-area51-alx/pd
The next step up from here is dedicated workstation hardware. The sort used in engineering or 3D rendering business. These are typically Dual CPU's like Xeon X5690. These have 6 cores and can run 12 threads each. Not sure how much astro processing software can make use of 24 threads though ? Be interesting to find answer to this. This kind of server would set you back around 9 - 10 k
disclaimer: I have no affiliation with any companies listed above.
There is plenty to choose from. budget is one factor as is decision on laptop vs desktop.
64 bit OS is a MUST for serious data crunching. Also more cores in cpu = better if the software eg photoshop can use them.
$ for $ in terms of price for performance nothing touches intel i5 Sandybridge cpu's right now. AMD are rumoured to bring something out soon but who knows when. You also cant go wrong with i7 based CPU. 2 more cores than i5 can speed things up but an overclocked i5 at 2/3'r price vs i7 at stock speed I will be putting my money on i5 for most of the software we run.