What do I need to run Flexi 12 well?

[aka Mich]

So here's the situation, boss is buying a new digital printer. Without consulting me at all they decided they need Flexi 12 to run it. So printer and Flexi 12 are purchased. We still have Windows XP computers running Flexi 8, nobody asked and just assumed our computers ran Windows 7 at least and they'd be fine so now he has to invest in two new computers for us.

He wants to buy cheapo desktops from our outside IT company because they're only $430/each, run Windows 7, have core i-5 processors (they either don't know or won't tell him the generation), 8gb ram, and 250gb hard drives.

I suggested we get new motherboards to upgrade our current computers and found a package for $1035 total that would have Intel Core i7-6700k processors, 16gb ram, and we could reuse the 500gb hd's we currently have.

He thinks that costs too much (still have to get 2 copies of Windows 7), I'm worried the cheapo computer will be underpowered.

Any thoughts to turn around this frustrating morning or at least alleviate my concerns about him cheaping out on our computers?

 

[ColoPrinthead]

I'm running 12 along with Illustrator on an I3 3.3ghz with 4gb ram, I have to be careful about sending too many long 200 inch runs to RIP at the same time. I am replacing this machine with an I7 with 8 gigs, but have asked for more RAM, so we will see if the company spend the extra money for it.

 

[aka Mich]

Does your computer get bogged down at all during layout and design?

At the moment my biggest concerns are A ) will it bog down my computer and frustrate the hell out of me doing basic layout tasks and B ) please PLEASE don't crash if I send something to the printer and then something to one of our graphtec plotters.

 

[bannertime]

I run an i7-4790, 8gb of RAM, with an Nvida GT 720. These aren't exactly high spec parts either. I currently have Flexi, PM, AI, PS, EstiMate, Outlook, Thunderbird, and Chrome all open. Ran a batch resize on some pictures in Photoshop earlier while making adjustments to a file in Flexi. I had no issues at all. Caveat, when I start to RIP or print anything larger than a few megs, I typically close one of the Adobe products.

 

[ColoPrinthead]

It does run slow between applications, it would be a lot worse if I dealt with more raster graphics and not mostly vectors. Illustrator slows down on me a lot and I have to restart the machine mid-day sometimes. If I was suing Photoshop on this machine it would be a deal breaker. I don't like having to wait to send files to rip after earlier runs are almost complete.

 

[eahicks]

I wouldn't worry too much about super powerful pc to run Flexi. It's PS, AI, etc that need power. We have 2 people here running Flexi on laptops with no real issues. You just don't wanna RIP files or anything with them.