New desktop computer question

You are not going to see a big difference between onboard graphics and a standalone card with Logos 4. t is not a graphics intensive application in spite of its huge size and number of resources. I recently upgtraded my system to a stand alone card from the onboard graphics and the difference was not noticeable. Logos 3 and 4 are both CPU and memory intensive applications. Buy the best processor and most memory for the money. I would definitely go for Windows 7 64 bit version so you can address all of the available memory.

However, if you also plan to use your sysem for graphics intensive applications such as video editing or gaming then you will definitaely need the stand alone card.There are some excellent cards available for around $100.00 (even less as of last week) that will blow onboard graphics out of the water.

So you really need to evaluate your needs for the system and go from there. You are not going to save any money by custom building your system but you can fine tune it to suit your specific needs. And you won't get stuck with all of the bloatware that the manufacturers load on off the shelf systems. Cleaning all of that junk off takes a while and can be a very frustrating process.

Personally I would go with an I5 or better processor with a minimum of 4 gig of mamory (8 would be even better) and all of the hard drive space you can get. Add an ATI 4650 or better graphics card and you have an excellent all around system that should meet your needs for some time to come.

Good luck in your search.

Pastor Bob Schlessman

Palmyra Christian Church

Rosie Perera said:

Actually, some people have noted improvements in performance from using a faster graphics card with more memory. Even though Logos 4 isn't "graphics intensive" in the way that a 3D game is say, it uses Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) -- part of .NET Framework 3.0 -- instead of the old GDI (which Logos 3 used) to do its display rendering. WPF is slower and more of a memory hog than GDI was. See this thread for more info: Better Video Cards Do Make a Difference

 

Interesting info on the difference in the way Logos 4 handles display rendering Rosie. However, I stand by my original statements based on my personal experience. Are there given functions and specific actions that will show some performance improvement? Absolutely. But I haven't seen a noticeable difference in overall performance in Logos 4 or Logos 3 after adding a standalone mid-priced video card with 1 gig of video memory. Granted, what onboard GPU is being replaced may make a difference. But in my experience the change has been negligible.

Hi Rosie,

That all makes sense. I know my Dell with integrated graphics at the church building is much more sluggish than my custom built home computer which has the standalone card. I had assumed it was just the difference betweeen CPUs (3.0 Ghz Pentium 4 vs E7200 Core 2 Duo). The cpu plays a role but given what you told me I suspect now that the graphics adaptor effects the Dell as well.. Since I saw negligible difference when I upgraded the  home computer to a standalone card I assumed the graphics adaptor wasn't an issue. The frustrating thing is the Dell doesn't have a way to upgrade since it has only 3 PCI slots and 1 PCI Express x 1 slot that are all currently occupied by other cards. It's LGA 775 so I could upgrade the CPU to a Core 2 Duo and double the memory from 2 gig to 4 gig which would help considerably but I don't think it is worth the expense.

Anyhow, I digress. It sounds like the bottom line if we want optimal performance in all circumstances then a stand-alone card is the best way to go. Didn't mean to come off sounding so defensive. Thank you for the info and clarification. It has been an educational experience for me.

Regards,

Bob

"I can also highly recommend two displays"

I have a couple of questions. First not disputing your recomendation but I dont understand how I would benifit with two displays. I have heard others say this as well and I'm ignorant in this department and dont understand. could you explain?

I'm on the hunt for a new desktop PC so I logged on to the forums looking around for some advice. The system I have now is one of those off the shelf Acer models that seemed very powerful at the time; but the more I get into the study of God's Word with Logos the more I see I really need a new system. I made some adjustment that were recommended here on this forum and it did help but this is some heavy duty computing and I would like to get a lot more done in less time (wouldn't we all) Logos 4 is a great program and the results are a blessing and well worth the cost of an upgrade. I have budgeted around $1500.00 besides it would be nice if all my other applications ran better anyway. I do some web site building also with yahoo "SiteBuilder" software which really slows down my present PC. My contract with Yahoo is about to run out and I am thinking of switching to "squarespace" they are recommended by "twit". But you guys know Logos software and that is my main objective for a more powerful PC so I hope you can point me in the right direction for one that will be the best for running Logos 4. I have never had a custom PC built since the first one I bought about 14 years ago. I had a local computer place build it, didn't have a clue what I was doing just took their advice. I told them I wanted a "big one" :-) LOL later I added memory and another CD drive and another hard drive. It started out with having a whopping 250 "Meg" of memory I think, and an 8 Gig hard drive. I gave over a $1000 back then for it... since then I have bought several off the shelf desktops and laptops.  Getting off track here with all this retro stuff. 

here are the specs for my present desktop which is too slow:

Acer Aspire T690 4.00
GB RAM 64-bit operating system 2

Processor  Genuine
Intel(R) CPU 2140 @ 1.60GHz

Memory (RAM) 4.00 GB

Graphics ATI Radeon HD 4300/4500 Series 2431 MB 1024
MB 0 MB 1407 MB 8.812.0.0 1360x768 DirectX 10

Gaming graphics 2431 MB Total available
graphics memory

Primary hard disk 437 GB 42 GB
Free (144 GB Total) 126 GB Free (149 GB Total) 133 GB Free (144 GB Total)

Windows
7 Home Premium

Base score 4.0

Any suggestions for a good Desktop PC for around $1500.00? And where to buy it?

I have been looking at Tiger Direct's Systemax Sytems that are built to order and at Dell customizing one for me.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks and God Bless,

Dennis

I've got another question. This one about Windows. Would I benefit from upgrading to Windows 7 Professional over Windows
7 Home Premium using Logos 4 ?

Thanks for the link, after looking it over I cant see how Windows 7 Professional would be of any benifit with Logos 4. I dont think I have any software that would run better in XP mode.

Peace,