shiva

ok better search term is

"pc build for photo editing"

http://www.pcworld.com/article/25929...ographers.html

http://www.dabs.com/blog/index.php/b...g-pc-part-one/
http://www.dabs.com/blog/index.php/b...g-pc-part-two/
http://www.dabs.com/blog/index.php/b...ing-pc-part-3/

http://www.reddit.com/r/BuildaPC
http://www.reddit.com/r/buildapcforme

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/ overclockers is a amazing source once you've deciphered all the jargon

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/sho...php?t=18046396

http://www.reddit.com/r/buildapc/com..._2003_my_goal/
http://www.reddit.com/r/buildapc/com..._gaming_image/

ukfb

Agree - if you can fit a SSD drive this will increase the performance for image editing far more than adding more ram.

Fitted a 256 GB SSD to my wife's macbook after she dropped it...bought in the computer plaza, Dubai for about 700 AED and it was a big improvement - plus she can drop it as many times as she likes now...

The unit I bought came with an external case to which you could connect your old hard drive to transfer any data over.

Happy to help if needed.

Autonomy

Update

First off - many thanks for all the great replies - really useful and much more than what I bargained for!

Shiva - I think I will go down the self build route in the near future, just not today! The links are great and I'll be starting to make a build plan...

In my usual impetuous way I had some time yesterday morning and just went out to Computer Plaza and bought 2 x 8GB DDR3 (Kingston - priced 245 AED each, took some advice from Irishbeekeeper (thanks!) and told the guy 210 dhs is the going rate, which he accepted).

By the time I got back I saw several messages saying basically it looks like 8GB is actually your max for the DV6 series.

Buggeration...

Did some more searches and yes - HP seemed to indicate 8GB max

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/d...01_title_r0001

Sigh...

Considered selling the RAM on dubizzle...

Searched again, found this

http://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Noteboo...x/td-p/1840675

Basically the poster was saying "The product specs page is incorrect.

You can install 2 x 8 GB of PC3-12800 (DDR3-1600) memory.

See chapter 1, page 4 of the service manual at the link below."

And yes, there in the HP service guide it clearly says 16GB max upgrade if using the correct Windows 7 version...

Why HP says 8GB on data sheets, but in their own manual they say 16GB - I don't know...

So - 30 mins ago ripped open the guts of the beast and inserted the 2 x 8GB.

And guess what - 16GB is accepted and visible and being used.

Result.

Now - to test if it has actually solved my initial problem!

Really - thanks all.

shiva

nice find about the ram. it will definitely speed things up but by how much is the question

Irishbeekeeper

glad to be of help mate
and good find about the max ram but shiva's question stands, is the upgrade noticeable? as mentioned before in this thread, an SSD upgrade also works wonders

Autonomy

So far - yes.

I have been processing with very large multiple photoshop files open, with lightroom going through 100s of RAW shots plus usual chrome, spotify, outlook etc and it's been handling much better. Very responsive.

Happy with that improvement alone.

I have not had to try to export / writing part as yet - will have 2 large jobs this weekend that will require that part to be tested and will let you know.

I suspect the writing / exporting may not see such improvement as that will be down to data transfer / hard drive RPMs etc. And SSD would help there.

Let's see!

mikewot

New place just opened looks like it could be OK (unless you guys know better!) http://gear-up.me/