New workstation...

For most of this year my main workstation has been crashing and locking up without warning. I figure that after 3 years of overclocking this hardware to the very edge of sanity it finally has developed some flakiness..

So I've been dealing with it.. but things got harder when I started working with the 21MP files from the new camera. I just don't have enough memory to handle all the plug ins and etc that are a part of my work flow. Photoshop CS5 is a total memory pig as well.. as compared to the slightly less piggy CS4. All this means that it locks up more often, usually after I just finished painfully creating a layer mask and was just about to save...

Sooo.. I finally broke down and ordered parts for a new machine. Instead of overhauling the watercooled pimped up monster that I currently use I decided to build a simple yet powerful one from scratch. It will have an I7 3Ghz quad core CPU, 8GB RAM, and an SSD for a system drive. I also solved my storage issue by getting a 2TB data drive (no more RAID mirror.. just my standard external backups). So in short (for the non computer-geeks) this thing should handle anything I throw at it.

Of course there will be some complexities.. for one I am moving to full 64Bit Windows 7 (from the 32bit version). Some of my plug ins that I have grown to love do not currently work under 64bit.. so I will be flipping back and forth from 32bit Photoshop and the 64bit version.. Hopefully in a few months that will all be resolved with some updates.