Maybe I'm speaking from ignorance here, since I have a Polaroid Sprintscan. My
assumption is that it's processing requirements would be similar to that of
the Coolscan. I use it with a relatively ancient 75Mhz Macintosh 6218, clearly
more limited and slower than the cheapest PC you could buy today. It has 64Mb
RAM (it's maximum) and a 6GB hard drive.
In terms of simply aquiring images from slides and negs, I've not found this
underpowered computer to be limiting in any way. I think that actual scan
times are determined by the scanner itself, not the computer (under a minute
for a full frame at 2700 DPI). True, when a scan it completed, there is a bit
of a lag before it appears in a Photoshop screen (30 secs or), but I don't
find this particularly annoying. Once you start manipulating your scans,
however, things can get a bit slow. The rule of thumb in PS is that you should
ideally have 3-5 times the file size in physical RAM. As a full frame 35mm
slide or neg at 2700 dpi produces a file of in the 30 MB range, ideally you
should have 90-150 MB of RAM available for PS to run in. As I often am forced
to run in virtual memory, I've found that the amount of free space on my hard
drive affects overall processing speed more than anything.
In other words, in my experience you don't need a high-powered CPU with gobs
of RAM to do the actual scanning. However, if you plan to do a lot of tweaking
and manipulation of high resolution scans in a RAM hungry program like PS, you
may end up wishing you had a top of the line setup.
BTW, the Epson Photo is a great printer. If you use it with high quality
paper, you'll find that your scans will output with quality that's almost as
good as a traditional print (well, unless you look real close!). Combined with
a Coolscan, it would make a a great proofing tool. (If you might need 11x17
output, though, consider the Photo EX).
Hope this helps.
Michael
