Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

He was referring to HDD thermal emissions not SSDs.
Different levels thermal emissions......

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

I remember both of those.

I think the second laptop I had was a pretty good machine with a keyboard that fit my hand pretty well but the letters on the keys wore off. Good thing I had taken typing in High School so I don't have to see the keyboard to type.

My father had an old manual typewriter. When I got a new job in '82 I took it to work. One day there was a power outage and I was in great demand since all the secretaries had electric typewriters and were a long way from being able to run a manual. Fortunately the power outage didn't last long. That typewriter got donated to the local historical society for their museum. So far I have avoided that fate personally.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

I (being a Component Test Engineer) was SO familiar with the guts of the CoCo I upgraded the memory from 16K to 64K, the limit at the time. Had to fly and daisy-chain an address lead on the eight chips. I DID eventually get the disk controller cartridge and a pair of 8" floppy drives.
(There were a couple of us that were Computer Geeks WELL before the phrase was coined. Now I don't care what's on the mother board...... I buy OTS computers, and use them.)

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

I had an ASR33 so I built an 8080 machine into it. Didn't do much but it was a nice exercise. Same here. I buy computers and sometimes add stuff to them, although haven't done that for a while. My Win10 machine is getting pretty old. A laptop and the battery is dead. Runs on the charger. If I unplug it, the battery runs out in about 3 seconds. I think it's from 2015. Replaced the battery once and put a larger HDD in a while back. Still running, more or less. Not worth doing anything more to it at this point.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

joecichjr Loc: Chicago S. Suburbs, Illinois, USA

Beautiful setup 😍😍😍😍

niteman3d Loc: South Central Pennsylvania, USA

I've had several refurb/scratch & dent Dells over the years. They include a same as new warranty and will save you some money. My current (well over five years old) XPS has 64gig of RAM, i7 processor, fast GPU, one SDD and one HDD. Replaced the power supply once... no other problems, but it's Win 10 and won't run Win 11, so I'm thinking of a replacement in the next few years. I'll go here:

https://outlet.us.dell.com/ARBOnlineSales/Online/InventorySearch.aspx?brandId=2215&c=us&cs=28&l=en&s=dfb&ref=cpcl_lp-us-outlet-tab-desktop-xps0_cta_link_shopxps

Good luck!

Desert Gecko Loc: desert southwest, USA

You can add an external optical drive with a USB connection. They start at around twenty bucks and are fine for occasional or light use, but I'd never build a PC without an internal optical workhorse.


~Sigh.~ Oh Jerry, now I get it. Now I see how you cause yourself so much grief.

Desert Gecko Loc: desert southwest, USA

Laptop CPUs and GPUs aren't as good as those on a desktop. The good stuff uses too much power and generates too much heat.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

Desktops are usually faster because of the "good stuff".

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

Desktops are mis-named anyway. All the desktop computers I've owned sat on the floor under or beside the desk. I never had enough room on the desktop to put a desktop.

Desert Gecko Loc: desert southwest, USA

Intel CPUs still outperform AMD CPUs overall with Adobe photo apps, according to Puget Systems. I urge you to peruse the Puget Systems website for articles and benchmarks. They're easy to find, and you'll get plain, easy-to-read scientific data rather than anecdotal recommendations (like mine).

I'd probably go with a 13th-gen Intel, such as the i7-13700k. Intel's 12th-gen chips are power hogs. Also, Intel's 14th-gen will use the same socket, so there is an upgrade path later on.

I'd go with DDR5 RAM (the aforementioned Intel chips support both DDR4 and DDR5). DDR5 has finally come way down in price, and performance is, as one would expect, better. I'm happy with 32GB of RAM for now, but if in doubt, 64GB isn't unreasonable. It really depends on what you do while running your Adobe apps. Specs you read on how much RAM you need tell you for Adobe apps only -- not those apps plus all the other apps you have open.

For storage, I'd get at least one m.2 NVMe PCIe 4.0 for the OS. My current machine has three m.2 sockets, and my next will have at least four. This is because these drives are only now becoming reasonably priced in larger capacities. The sweet spot is still 2TB, but 4TB drives are coming down. If you need more than 8-10TB of storage, you'll be glad for the extra sockets for an easy storage upgrade. For starters, a 2TB PCIe 4.0 for Windows and another 2TB (even if it's the slower PCIe 3.0) for data might do. I currently have three 2TB NVMe drives plus a 6TB snail on a SATA hookup.

Finally, I'd consult Puget and also Adobe regarding a GPU (video card) to make sure I get one that works well now and will for a few years, while also making sure I don't needlessly overspend. You don't need a $1,000 card (nor even a $500 card). I've read (on Puget, I think) that after a certain level of GPU, any performance gains are incremental. And that was a surprisingly budget GPU -- but that might have changed a bit by now.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

True...

MrBob Loc: lookout Mtn. NE Alabama

My wife's new iMac 24 is a true desktop.... Only a screen on a stand and a lot of engineering for that M1 to operate...

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

Yea, a couple of companies make them that way.