Originally Posted by
potkettleblack
Have always upgraded the pc myself but have to say that I have lost track over the past few years of the progress on processors. Dual core was about as fast as things got when I last upgraded my pc.
We are moving to a new house which is going to be run for Cat 5, gigabit switch, NAS, TV's with DLNA etc etc. I am looking to rip a whole bunch of kids dvd's onto the NAS and the thought of sitting there for 3-4 hours to do just 1 dvd is putting me off to say the least. From other websites I see that the geeks can get a dvd rip down to about 15 minutes or so.
Other things I use the pc for are editing raw photos from my DSLR and then the usual home office stuff. No gaming at all.
So any recommendations for what I will need in terms of processor, RAM, mobo and possibly a new dvd burner plus anything else I have forgotten.
Cheers.
Run the house for Cat5E or fibre, not Cat5 (and probably pointless for Cat6).
Best (fastest) processors at present are the Intel i7 range, although the i5 is pretty fast too.
Windows 7 in 64bit if you don't have any programs/drivers that are going to barf in 64bit (most won't but it's best to check first if you've got something crucial to run) - that should give you the ability to fill your PC with more than 4Gb RAM and address it properly (also Office 2010 is available in 64bit now too and flies!)
Also, you might want to buy a Blu-Ray reader/burner rather than a DVD burner, since you might want to take advantage of that in future?