Upgrade Dim8300 for Adobe CS3 Design Premium?

Question

I just ordered CS3 Design Premium (Photoshop, Illustrator, Acrobat, Dreamweaver, Flash, InDesign) and am considering upgrading my Dimensions 8300's RAM. Additionally, I would like to upgrade from XP Pro to Vista. I currently run Office 2003, DreamweaverMX, Illustrator 10 and Photoshop 8 on this system without issue. My system profile is as follows:   Pentium 4 CPU 3.00GHz 2.99 GHz, 1GB RAM   QUESTIONS:   1) What benefits or problems can I expect moving from XP to Vista? 1.1) Which Vista should I upgrade to? 2) Does my system require more RAM to run the Vista you recommend? 3) Should I get more RAM for the design suite? 4) Will Office 2003 run fine on the Vista you recommend? 5) Will I need to reinstall all software if I install Vista? 6) If you think I could use a better/faster processor, what do you recommend, and is installation do-it-yourself? 7) What would dual processors do for heavy graphic design performance?   I'm quite novice. Your expertise will be greatly appreciated. Thanks. ******************************************************************************************************************************** Marketeer

discostu668 · Answer

and concerning your other questions:

1. problems with upgrading to vista could be hardware may not be compatible, but most hardware (video cards, sound cards, network adapters, etc...) have vista drivers available on the manufacturer's website. i'm currently running a beta version of vista to try it out and see if it's worth buying and i upgraded my video card (it was only the radeon x600 pro 256mb) just to make sure and i had to get a new network adapter, but other than that everything else had the proper drivers available to download. you can also go to the microsoft website and download a vista upgrade advisor.

if you upgrade to vista, go with home premium. don't do the upgrade, either get an OEM version (which is a full version, but with some EULA limitations) or the retail version.

as mentioned before, you will have to add at least 1gb of ram just to run vista as it stands now with your current system.

i see no reason why office 2003 wouldn't run on any version of vista, but i don't know for sure.

i think you will have to reinstall all of your software once vista is installed since you will be required to do a fresh install unless you get the upgrade version, which i would steer clear of as i have heard that once you register the upgrade version of vista, it assumes your XP product key and renders your copy of XP useless (meaning if you don't like vista and want to go back, you'll have to buy a new copy of XP in order to run it on XP again).

you can get a new processor if your system will allow an upgrade, but you probably don't need to do that. it's easy enough to do it on your own, but i would only do it with someone who knows how to do it properly (if you have a computer-savvy friend).

dual processors just make your computer run faster and allows you to run multiple applications quicker and easier. someone can correct me if i'm wrong on that, though.

hope this has been at all useful to you.

Message Edited by discostu668 on 10-27-2007 04:31 PM

discostu668 · Answer

i would upgrade to 3gb of ram. i just upgrade from 3 to 4 the other day and when i had 3gb (2 x 1gb @ 667mhz + 2 x 512 @ 533mhz), my CS3 web premium ran absolutely fine. and because i had both 667 and 533 mhz ram installed, my 667 ram only clocked at the lower 533mhz rate, which again worked just fine.

CS3 still runs with 1gb of ram on XP, but it would be very, very slow and take a while to load up. with vista it's always good to have at least 2 or 3gb of memory available (3 obviously being better).

and i'm not sure, but your system might not be able to handle ram that's higher than 667mhz anyway.

Message Edited by discostu668 on 10-27-2007 04:10 PM

Marketeer · Answer

Thank you! I've gone ahead and ordered Vista Home Premium, 2GB more of RAM and 500GB of external storage for the switch. Looking forward to having a screamin' machine.

discostu668 · Answer

hey, no problem.  glad i could help, but i am far from being intelligent!   it helps to have gone through the exact same type of upgrades.  CS3 was the reason why i went from 1GB to 3GB of ram to begin with and the rest was in preparation of upgrading to vista.  my video card upgrade was only because i didn't want one that ran just above the minimum requirements and my network adapter was an older netgear wireless card to which the manufacturer hadn't developed a *single* vista driver for (which is very, very poor on the part of netgear).      hope everything works out for you! dell also has a vista compatibility program, but with micorsoft's and dell's, any noted 'incompatibilities' are usually only a driver issue and the assessments are based entirely on your system's XP configuration.

Marketeer · Answer

I'm waiting for a reply from Dell tech support regarding the most robust graphics card my system will take. I'm currently running dual monitors on a 128kbs Radeon. I think the max I can go is 256kbs, which I believe is the minimum for Vista. This I learned (somewhat) from the support person I spoke with, although I couldn't locate what I thought he called a Radeon 360 card. Thus, I emailed him and am now awaiting clarification.   I'm psyched about the upgrades. I even ordered a wireless keyboard and thumb ball mouse. I am assuming that both Logitech products will work with one RF reciever.   Your feedback has been very intelligent. Again, thanks!

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Upgrade Dim8300 for Adobe CS3 Design Premium?

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