Custom built photo editing PC

Poncke

Hey there,

Looking to buy a custom PC, or maybe built my own.

I found custompc.ie and pczone.ie but read here that they are rip offs. The desktop specs I am looking for cost around 1400-1600 euro there.

Processor CPU: Intel i7 4790 3.50Ghz Quad Core
CPU Cooling: Intel Original Heatsink & Fan
Memory: 16GB DDR3 1600Mhz Crucial [8GBx2]
Motherboard: Asus B85 USB 3.0
Hard Disk 1: 2 Terabyte 3.5" Sata HD
Optical Drive: BluRay DVD Combo
Video Card: Nvidia GeForce 2GB GTX 750
Sound Card: ALC887-VD2 8-Channel High Definition Audio
Wireless: TP LINK 300 MBPS Wifi PCI-e
Power Supply: 600 Watt A/PFC 80+ Certified

What site or shop would be best for price? Or should I buy parts to get best value for money?

Is building a PC difficult? I am tech and IT savvy.

Thanks

yoyo

Moved from Comp & Tech

Poncke

Nice one. Thank you

Digital Solitude

Poncke wrote: »

Hey there,

Looking to buy a custom PC, or maybe built my own.

I found custompc.ie and pczone.ie but read here that they are rip offs. The desktop specs I am looking for cost around 1400-1600 euro there.

Processor CPU: Intel i7 4790 3.50Ghz Quad Core
CPU Cooling: Intel Original Heatsink & Fan
Memory: 16GB DDR3 1600Mhz Crucial [8GBx2]
Motherboard: Asus B85 USB 3.0
Hard Disk 1: 2 Terabyte 3.5" Sata HD
Optical Drive: BluRay DVD Combo
Video Card: Nvidia GeForce 2GB GTX 750
Sound Card: ALC887-VD2 8-Channel High Definition Audio
Wireless: TP LINK 300 MBPS Wifi PCI-e
Power Supply: 600 Watt A/PFC 80+ Certified

What site or shop would be best for price? Or should I buy parts to get best value for money?

Is building a PC difficult? I am tech and IT savvy.

Thanks

Building a PC is easy, it's like expensive lego. Look up a few build tutorials on youtube.

You could build that machine (or a better one) for about €850-900

grindle

Sorry, had to delete and edit as Unified Remote threw a spaz!

Poncke wrote: »

Is building a PC difficult? I am tech and IT savvy.

Not difficult at all, especially if you have a basic grasp.

Poncke wrote: »

What site or shop would be best for price? Or should I buy parts to get best value for money?

Mindfactory.de for the inner components, Amazon (UK/de/etc) for the case.

Poncke wrote: »

Processor CPU: Intel i7 4790 3.50Ghz Quad Core
CPU Cooling: Intel Original Heatsink & Fan
Memory: 16GB DDR3 1600Mhz Crucial [8GBx2]
Motherboard: Asus B85 USB 3.0
Hard Disk 1: 2 Terabyte 3.5" Sata HD
Optical Drive: BluRay DVD Combo
Video Card: Nvidia GeForce 2GB GTX 750
Sound Card: ALC887-VD2 8-Channel High Definition Audio
Wireless: TP LINK 300 MBPS Wifi PCI-e
Power Supply: 600 Watt A/PFC 80+ Certified

A PC with those exact specs would cost about €800-850 to build, and that's using some nicer components which I'd doubt they'd use.

For €1600 you could build:

Gigabyte GA-Z170X-UD3 Intel Z170
Intel Core i7 6700K 4x 4.00GHz
Noctua NH-U9S Cooler
32GB G.Skill RipJaws 4 schwarz DDR4-2800
512GB Samsung 950 Pro M.2 SSD (for OS, programs, etc)
128GB Samsung SM951-NVMe M.2 SSD (as a scratch disk)
2000GB WD Red X 2 (one for archiving, another to backup the archive)
2048MB Gigabyte GeForce GTX 750 Ti OC Aktiv (presuming you don't need a card anything but light gaming)
650 Watt XFX TS Series
Fractal Define R5

Poncke

Grindle, thanks a lot.

Could you do that specs thing again, but then for a budget of 800-900 euro? My programs take up a total space of 100GB so 250 GB SSD would be ok.

And 1 x 2TB HDD is ok too, because I am looking to get a 2TBx2 NAS (Synology)

Cheers

vandriver

Are you editing 4k footage or using Photoshop?
Because your very nicely specced PC build seems like enormous overkill for editing photos!

Poncke

vandriver wrote: »

Are you editing 4k footage or using Photoshop?
Because your very nicely specced PC build seems like enormous overkill for editing photos!

I am using Lightroom, Photoshop, PowerDirector and Photomatix Pro. My RAW files are 25mb each and I edit a lot of large panoramas. 10-15 RAW shots. Output TIFF is often around 1GB. PS + LR always take up 6GB of memory. I am also editing HD video, but I want the PC to be future proof for at least a few years. So over-speccing seems like a good approach.

Wabbit Ears

An i7 a ssd main drive and ssD scratch drive.16 gig of ram and whatever storage disks is the basics of a photo pc.

A dedicated graphics card is not that important for static images but invest in a good pro monitor and a spyder calibrator. If you don't have these then everything else makes things faster, but not better.

Poncke

Wabbit Ears wrote: »

An i7 a ssd main drive and ssD scratch drive.16 gig of ram and whatever storage disks is the basics of a photo pc.

A dedicated graphics card is not that important for static images but invest in a good pro monitor and a spyder calibrator. If you don't have these then everything else makes things faster, but not better.

Makes sense, thanks, already have an AOC 24" monitor.

I guess I can reduce price by getting a normal 2GB gfx card then.

Wabbit Ears

TBH I use the Onboard HDMI and let the i7 Do the graphics on my photo PC.

If youre gonna get a dedicated graphics card then why not get a Xeon instead of an i7 or any number of CPUs without built in graphics.

Poncke

This is my shopping cart at the moment :

Gigabyte GA-Z170X-UD3 Intel Z170 So.1151 Dual Channel DDR4 ATX Retail
Intel Core i7 6700K 4x 4.00GHz So.1151 WOF
Noctua NH-U9S Tower Kühler
16GB G.Skill RipJaws 4 schwarz DDR4-2800 DIMM CL16 Quad Kit
128GB Samsung SM951 M.2 2280 PCIe 3.0 x4 32Gb/s MLC Toggle
128GB Samsung 850 PRO 2.5" (6.4cm) SATA 6Gb/s MLC Toggle
1000GB WD Red WD10EFRX 64MB 3.5" (8.9cm) SATA 6Gb/s
2048MB Gigabyte GeForce GTX 750 Ti OC Aktiv PCIe 3.0 x16 (Retail)
650 Watt XFX TS Series Non-Modular 80+ Gold
Fractal Define R5 gedämmt Midi Tower ohne Netzteil

1168 euro, 1200 incl. shipping to Ireland

Any suggestions to further reduce the cost?

Digital Solitude

Drop the 750Ti and to a 750 and drop the PCIe SSD

Poncke

Digital Solitude wrote: »

Drop the 750Ti and to a 750 and drop the PCIe SSD

The pcle is the scratch disk, for photoshop and lihgtroom. Id think thats beneficial?

Digital Solitude

It is, it's the handiest way to knock a few euro off

Dropping to a 6700 non-k should save a few euro, with a cheaper board. Not sure how that would affect performance though

Edit* For someone who knows more about this than me, would Iris' igpu be powerful enough for him

grindle

Poncke wrote: »

This is my shopping cart at the moment :

Gigabyte GA-Z170X-UD3 Intel Z170 So.1151 Dual Channel DDR4 ATX Retail
Intel Core i7 6700K 4x 4.00GHz So.1151 WOF
Noctua NH-U9S Tower Kühler
16GB G.Skill RipJaws 4 schwarz DDR4-2800 DIMM CL16 Quad Kit
128GB Samsung SM951 M.2 2280 PCIe 3.0 x4 32Gb/s MLC Toggle
128GB Samsung 850 PRO 2.5" (6.4cm) SATA 6Gb/s MLC Toggle
1000GB WD Red WD10EFRX 64MB 3.5" (8.9cm) SATA 6Gb/s
2048MB Gigabyte GeForce GTX 750 Ti OC Aktiv PCIe 3.0 x16 (Retail)
650 Watt XFX TS Series Non-Modular 80+ Gold
Fractal Define R5 gedämmt Midi Tower ohne Netzteil

1168 euro, 1200 incl. shipping to Ireland

Any suggestions to further reduce the cost?

A cheaper cooler. The TX3 Evo is a great price on Mindfactory.

You'll be fine with a lower-wattage PSU also.

There are cheaper mobos as well - I chose that other one initially because it has 2 x M.2 slots and my build above was to show what E1600 could really buy - cheaper mobo.

The PCIe scratch would be a useful timesaver, but photographers and designers have been getting by fine with normal SSDs for years now and the money you'd be spending on the M.2 would be better spent on more RAM (the lack of which increases the need for a scratch disk) and a cheap-but-still-good SSD.

Poncke

Cool stuff.

So the shipping cost were double indeed, as I included the tower case in the basket. I took that out, and get it on Amazon, free shipping to Ireland.

Intel Core i7 6700K 4x 4.00GHz So.1151 WOF
128GB Samsung 850 PRO 2.5" (6.4cm) SATA 6Gb/s MLC Toggle (MZ-7KE128BW)
1000GB WD Red WD10EFRX 64MB 3.5" (8.9cm) SATA 6Gb/s
2048MB Gigabyte GeForce GTX 750 Ti OC Aktiv PCIe 3.0 x16 (Retail)
32GB G.Skill RipJaws 4 schwarz DDR4-2800 DIMM CL16 Quad Kit
MSI Z170-A PRO Intel Z170 So.1151 Dual Channel DDR4 ATX Retail
520 Watt Seasonic S12II Bronze Non-Modular 80+ Bronze
Cooler Master Hyper TX3 Evo Tower Kühler

Thats 1000 euro incl. shipping

Fractal Define R5 110 euro on Amazon

1100 euro total. Thats 300-400 euro cheaper than pre-build in Ireland.

Does that look like a good machine, that does the trick.

Digital Solitude

You'll hardly need 32gb RAM?

Poncke

They are charging me for the PayPal payment which is something they shouldnt do. 1.9% of the purchase price. 50 euro pay+ship cost. Meh.

Zwischensumme:
€ 966,13*

Versandkosten:
+ € 29,99*

PayPal:
+ € 18,36*

inkl. 19% USt:
€ 161,98

Gesamtpreis:
€ 1.014,48

Poncke

Digital Solitude wrote: »

You'll hardly need 32gb RAM?

Well I am following advice here, I dropped the scratch disk and increased the RAM.

It seems I need a scratch disk. If not, is 16GB DDR4 memory enough?

Wabbit Ears

Photoshop will use a scratch disk regardless of how much Ram you have. 16 Gig is plenty TBH. I have only 16 Gig and the raw files from my D750 are no bother to it, it never uses all the available ram.

Poncke

Thanks, so what gives the best performance, a separate SSD scratch disk, or enough RAM and a normal HDD ?

grindle

Just get 16gb for now, you can buy extra when you reach it's limits. Hard to know for sure without knowing how many files you like to work with at once, how many edits you make to each file and how much you tend to revise different edits.
You have to have a separate scratch disk - if you have a partition for it on the same SSD as the OS and Photoshop it'll be bogged down and you might as well just use 2 HDDs as OS & scratch disk for all the benefit you'd see.
Whether or not the RAM gets filled, the scratch disk will be written to as a just-in-case measure.
If you haven't bought everything yet the Define S would be a good pick for your mobo and the amount of drives you want to use.
You can always upgrade other things later, things like PCIe drives are only going to drop in price once every laptop has one, RAM will also drop, etc etc.

Poncke

Thanks Grindle, that makes sense, again.

Poncke

Ok, latest configuration:

Intel Core i7 6700K 4x 4.00GHz So.1151 WOF
128GB Samsung 850 PRO 2.5" (6.4cm) SATA 6Gb/s MLC Toggle (MZ-7KE128BW)
128GB Samsung PM951 NVMe M.2 2280 PCIe
1000GB WD Red WD10EFRX 64MB 3.5" (8.9cm) SATA 6Gb/s
2048MB Gigabyte GeForce GTX 750 Ti OC Aktiv PCIe 3.0 x16 (Retail)
16GB G.Skill RipJaws 4 blau DDR4-3000 DIMM
MSI Z170-A PRO Intel Z170 So.1151 Dual Channel DDR4 ATX Retail
520 Watt Seasonic S12II Bronze Non-Modular 80+ Bronze
Cooler Master Hyper TX3 Evo Tower Kühler

Thats 995 euro incl. shipping+paypal
Fractal Design Define S 89 euro on Amazon incl. shipping

1084 euro total for a nice configuration, I'd say so.

Is there anything you see that is not right, or not compatible or will work against each other?

Thanks

Poncke

The whole same configuration cost 1212 euro on Amazon including shipping.

grindle

You're overpaying for the 4 x 4GB RAM when you can get 2 x 8GB for E8 less and also leaves room for more sticks in the future. That E8 saved can go towards...

...the 2TB WD Red which is only an extra E14 (E6 extra with those RAM savings!) but if you know that already and don't mind then that's that.

The savings against Amazon are something you'd have to consider for yourself. Amazon have fantastic customer service - is the chance of having to deal with German CS worth spending an extra 11% to avoid?
When I'm buying single parts that's a yes because it's only the cost of a pint or three, maybe a nice takeaway but for whole builds the money saved is stuff I could buy - a new hard drive here, a midi controller there. Or in your case a down-payment towards a calibrator or a lens.

Poncke

I have already changed the RAM to 16GB G.Skill RipJaws V rot DDR4-3000 DIMM CL15 Dual Kit which is 2x8gb

I am buying a NAS 2x2tb so no need for bigger HDD at this point.

So thats it then. Thanks. Let the build begin.

K.O.Kiki

Just as a general rule, but higher-capacity SSDs are faster.

Buy 1x 256Gb (or larger).

Poncke

K.O.Kiki wrote: »

Just as a general rule, but higher-capacity SSDs are faster.

Buy 1x 256Gb (or larger).

Ok, so are you suggesting to have all the software and the OS and the scratch disk function on one and the same SSD rather than 2 separate ones?

Poncke

Haven't placed the order yet. Is it better to have all the software and the OS and the scratch disk function on one and the same 256gb SSD rather than 2 separate 128gb ones? Cheers