Sorry for the long post, it's just trying to google my questions has ended up in irrelevant information overload. Hi, I've just bought a new computer (specs below), and I want be able to use it to it's full capacity for work. I'm fairly computer literate, though most of my experience is by working on two separate desktops, one cheap cube computer from about 2007, and an old dell stock office, senile, old machine, with two monitors flicking between with input director. So I'm quite lost about the extent of the multi-tasking prowess of my new desktop. I'll be running windows seven 64 bit, and will be hoping to; multi-task multiple open source software for business work, college work, music and gaming. Bear in mind I will obviously have certain propertory software e.g. adobe PDF etc. I'll be running two dual monitors, and on them: A couple of google chrome web browsers with about 6 tabs each vlc media player notepad ++ Codeblocks (a code editor and compiler) Occasionally a game One or two open office office application Virus scans (I'll ask in a minute how often I should scan and how much resources it'll drain) Gimp image editor Firstly, how many and how smoothly will I be able to multi-task these programs. Secondly with Norton internet security how often will I need to scan, will I need to set-up spybot search and destroy, or other computer security software. Thirdly what are some real basic important bits of other maintenance should I perform. Finally with the wide variety of programs I need to install, any tips on how to keep it organised... is their a logical way to placing program and file directories. Specs Case COOLERMASTER ELITE 430 BLACK CASE Processor (CPU) AMD PHENOM II X4 970 (3.50GHz/8MB CACHE/AM3) - BLACK EDITION Motherboard ASUS® M4A78LT-M: mATX MAINBOARD, DDR3, USB 2.0, SATA 3.0Gb/s Memory (RAM) 4GB SAMSUNG DDR3 DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (2 X 2GB) Graphics Card 1GB ATI RADEON™ HD5450 - DVI,HDMI,VGA - DirectX® 11 Memory - 1st Hard Disk 500GB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD5002AALX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 32MB CACHE (7200rpm) 1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive 24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM Power Supply 450W Quiet 80 PLUS Dual Rail PSU + 120mm Case Fan Processor Cooling SUPER QUIET 22dBA TRIPLE COPPER HEATPIPE CPU COOLER Sound Card Sound Blaster® Audigy™ SE Operating System Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit Anti-Virus NORTON ANTI-VIRUS 2011 - 1 Year Licence for 1 P Thanks a lot.
Norton?! Really?! You only use Norton when you need to cut in half the performance of your computer, as you feel the computer too fast for you Please use a way better solution, Microsoft Security Essential. It's also free, and in 64-bit. It scans for malware, spyware, and viruses of all kind. It's non-intuitive, super well optimized (doesn't slow down your computer to a crawl, doesn't slow down Windows booting, and you seriously feel like you don't have an anti-virus*. It's THAT good). http://www.microsoft.com/security_essentials/ * For programming, it will, like any anti-virus reduce compiling time, I suggest to add your project(s) as exceptions with Microsoft Security Essential. You can do this easily with the program. Now to answer your question: What you just said is really not pushing your system. It will run smoothly on my old 2005 computer (assuming the game is not running on the back): - AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ 2.2GHz Socket 939 (dual core 64-bit CPU, before the Core 2 Duo from Intel was even out) - 3GB of RAM DDR1 400MHz - Windows 7 64-bit SP1 - Geforce GTX 260 - Nvidia nForce 4 32XSLI - 250GB Western Digital SATA-II HDD 8MB of Cache - Corsair HX620 - 620W - Creative X-Fi XtremeMusic So I would not worry one bit, even if you have a game running on the back, with your setup.
The organisation question, I suggest you make use of the virtual machines capability, create a vm & use that for your dev tools & projects. Keep a backup of that separate to your main machine.
The simple answer to your question is "Try it and see". Seriously, how many apps can I open at once? Everything you need, the days of "Shut down this browser tab to speed up word processing" are long gone. You'll be fine, just ditch Norton, it's a big pile of stinking dog poo and you can quote me on that.
