Mini-ITX photo editing build

Bacchus

Some context first... I've been using a laptop hooked up to a 24" monitor to do all my photo editing (LR, PS). The laptop is starting to slow the whole process down. Exporting 600 photos involves waiting half an hour or more (and I export every batch of photos at three different quality levels). Editing individual photos has a noticeable lag between making an adjustment and it being applied to the image. Basically, if I had a snappy system I could easily have about 1/3 off my editing time and probably even more with exports.

I was considering going for a new laptop but I'd be looking at around €1200 before I start getting anything high spec. You can get high spec for less but they are usually poor build quality and are big and bulky. It has occurred to me that I rarely have my laptop out of the office... so why not get more value for money with a custom build.

1. What is your budget? €800 - though could stretch a bit... and with the extras in question 6, I might have to

2. What will be the main purpose of the computer? Photo editing (large volumes), plex server (optional).

3. Do you need a copy of Windows? Yes (Windows 10)... unless there's some way I can transfer my current Windows 10 licence on the laptop to the new build... I'll just throw Ubuntu onto the laptop then

4. Can you use any parts from an old computer? No

5. Do you need a monitor? No (have a 24" monitor already)

6. Do you need any of these peripherals? Keyboard + Mouse (wireless preferably), wireless card, SD card reader, speakers (optional)

7. Are you willing to try overclocking? No

8. How can you pay? Credit Card

9. When are you purchasing? Within the next month

10. If you need help building it, where are you based? No help thanks

I'd like to go for a mini-ITX tower to keep things neat and tidy. SSD PCIe is a must... probably in tandem with a larger (1-2TB) disk drive. Or if space is an issue in a mini-ITX, a 512Gb SSD will do. I use external storage for backups anyway.

The priorities really are high end processor (i7 or AMD equivalent) and SSD PCIe.

Only other things I'd be looking for are a decent graphics card, 16Gb RAM and cooling that won't sound like a jet engine in the office

I had a quick browse on partpicker and this one caught my eye...
https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/b/Jn6scf - would cut back on graphics card though and bump up to i7

Cheers

K.O.Kiki

For pure Photoshop, Intel i7 is the way to go; the higher core clock trumps Ryzen's core count.
GPU isn't really needed, a silent GTX 1050/RX460 is more than enough.

You can probably spend a bit less on the motherboard (stay on Z270 though) and power supply (any 400W+ Silver/Gold) than that example build.

For mouse, the Logitech MX Master is well reviewed for Pro work.

Bacchus

K.O.Kiki wrote: »

For pure Photoshop, Intel i7 is the way to go; the higher core clock trumps Ryzen's core count.
GPU isn't really needed, a silent GTX 1050/RX460 is more than enough.

You can probably spend a bit less on the motherboard (stay on Z270 though) and power supply (any 400W+ Silver/Gold) than that example build.

For mouse, the Logitech MX Master is well reviewed for Pro work.

Yeah I'm happy enough to go i7 but there's like 20 of them!! What's the best way to compare them against each other and find the cost/performance balance that suits me?

Heard about the AMD Ryzen's too. I'd be running LightRoom 90% of the time and PS would just be for specific photos that need more invasive retouching/fixing. Given the better value of the Ryzen's they are something I'm considering now.

For the motherboard and graphics card, yeah, I don't need anything fancy so I would hope to save money there.

That mouse looks v. nice. TBH though I have all my common functions mapped to the keyboard so I'd prefer to put money towards that... wireless and with programmable illuminated colours would be ideal.

Cheers.

justsomebloke

I'd been inclined to go ryzen over i7. As mentioned for just photoshop work Intel is better, but ryzen will probably give you a better ability to export photos and still be working on other photos compared to the i7 due to it's extra cores.

Bacchus

Been a good while thinking this over and another related thread gave me some ideas but this is where I currently am...

CPU: Intel Core i7-7700 3.6 GHz (€300 @ Case King)
CPU fan: Scythe Big Shuriken 2 (€45 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-Z270N-WiFi (€130 @ Amazon DE)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4 (€150 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO 500Gb M.2-2280 SSD (€170 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Seagate BarraCuda 1 TB (€50 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: Zotac GeForce GTX 1050Ti 4 GB (€145 @ Amazon UK - in stock 7th August)
Case: Cooler Master Elite 130 Computer Case "RC–130–KKN1, USB 3.0, Mini–ITX (€50 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: SeaSonic - G 550W 80+ (€75 @ Amazon DE)

Running Total: €1115


Monitor: Have already
Operating System: Will try port my Windows 10 license over
Keyboard: Not sure at all here... something with programmable colours would be handy to help with functions mapped to keys
Mouse: Not sure... maybe this... Logitech M705 (€50 @ Elara)

So... have I gone terribly wrong somewhere?

Cheers

K.O.Kiki

You're overspending on the CPU cooler if going for i7-7700 (non-K) - get something cheaper like EKL Alpenfohn panorama (€25)
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B002J21QUU?amp;creative=22110&creativeASIN=B002J21QUU&linkCode=df0&tag=geizhals07-21

Rest is fine.

frozenfrozen

video of a guy with 36 xeon cores complaining about lightroom not utilising them:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOkCHN0J35g

so extra cores may be worse for performance since lightroom seems to not be made to use them

K.O.Kiki

frozenfrozen wrote: »

video of a guy with 36 xeon cores complaining about lightroom not utilising them:

so extra cores may be worse for performance since lightroom seems to not be made to use them

Hence why I was advocating for a speedy i7; the guy's Xeon E5-2695v4 is a 2.1GHz CPU
============
@OP
With the €20 saved from above, you could upgrade the CPU to i7-6700K (4.0GHz) and run it at stock (non-overclocked), maybe undervolt by 100mV to run nice & cool.
Would give you more longevity & resale value.

frozenfrozen

Was in reply to amd being mentioned

Bacchus

K.O.Kiki wrote: »

Hence why I was advocating for a speedy i7; the guy's Xeon E5-2695v4 is a 2.1GHz CPU
============
@OP
With the €20 saved from above, you could upgrade the CPU to i7-6700K (4.0GHz) and run it at stock (non-overclocked), maybe undervolt by 100mV to run nice & cool.
Would give you more longevity & resale value.

frozenfrozen wrote: »

Was in reply to amd being mentioned

Yeah I looked in to the AMD CPU after it was suggested but I want speed over cores

Regarding the i7-6700k... I presume even though it's the previous generation (if I understand Intel's numbering scheme correctly) that it is better than the i7-7700? And it is compatible with the EKL Alpenfohn panorama you suggested previously?

K.O.Kiki

Bacchus wrote: »

Yeah I looked in to the AMD CPU after it was suggested but I want speed over cores

Regarding the i7-6700k... I presume even though it's the previous generation (if I understand Intel's numbering scheme correctly) that it is better than the i7-7700? And it is compatible with the EKL Alpenfohn panorama you suggested previously?

i7-6700k > i7-7700 due to clockspeed.

Technically, an i7-7700k would be the "best" - except Intel bungled the manufacturing of it, and they run hot AF

Bacchus

Hey I'm just putting everything I listed above into part picker to double check any compatibility issues.

When I add both storage drives, the following note comes up...

"The motherboard M.2 slot #1 shares bandwidth with a SATA 6.0 Gb/s port. When the M.2 slot is populated, one SATA 6.0 Gb/s port is disabled."

Does this mean the motherboard I chosen cannot support both the SSD drive and the 1Tb harddrive at the same time?

Actually the warning comes up even with just the SSD selected. Note, I had to put in the 960 version of the SSD in the list as for some reason the 850 version wasn't listed.

Bacchus

Ok, I did some Googling this morning. That motherboard has 6 SATA ports so I'll still have 5 which is more than I need

At least I think I have that right.

frozenfrozen

yes that sounds right to me

are you sure you want just a 1tb mechanical drive? even if you went for a 2tb drive it's double the density and for only a bit more (eg https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00HRLI2FU/?tag=pcp0f-21 )

I would be trying to not have any mechanical drives at all if it were me in a build like this, it would be so painfully slow even with the difference between m.2 speeds and ssd let alone moving stuff from m.2 to a single 1tb mechanical disk

Bacchus

frozenfrozen wrote: »

yes that sounds right to me

are you sure you want just a 1tb mechanical drive? even if you went for a 2tb drive it's double the density and for only a bit more (eg https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00HRLI2FU/?tag=pcp0f-21 )

I would be trying to not have any mechanical drives at all if it were me in a build like this, it would be so painfully slow even with the difference between m.2 speeds and ssd let alone moving stuff from m.2 to a single 1tb mechanical disk

Hey, I'll be kinda treating the mechanical drive as an 'active archive' drive. I'll be actively working on files that are on the SSD. I need about 200Gb space for this (so the 500Gb SSD should be plenty). Once a batch of photos are completed I'll ship the exported JPEGs to the mechanical drive (a batch will consume 5-8Gb so 1Tb is plenty to keep anything in the last 2 year to hand). RAWs will be backed up on an external drive. JPEGs are also backed up to external drive and cloud service.

I'll occasionally run a Plex server off this build too so those video files can reside on the mechanical drive too.

BTW, not having a mechanical drive at all would just be too expensive to try and get 1.5-2Tb of SSD storage :eek:

I've put my order in btw so any "you should have done x" will be met with "la la la not listening"

Bacchus

I should also say, thanks for all the advice on this build to all the posters who have replied. Everything should start arriving by the end of next week... unfortunately it seems it will be the case that will the only thing not to arrive by next weekend, so I'll be waiting a while before I can get building :rolleyes:

frozenfrozen

your reasoning sounds good and it's nice that you have what from the outside appears to be a proper backup routine!

K.O.Kiki

Which CPU & cooler did you go for?

PS you can build the machine outside the case to test it.

Bacchus

K.O.Kiki wrote: »

Which CPU & cooler did you go for?

PS you can build the machine outside the case to test it.

The i7-6700k and the Alpenfohn panorama.

I might try building it naked so (the PC not me :pac:) to check if it all works.

K.O.Kiki

Just make sure you rest the motherboard on a piece of wood/cardboard.

Bacchus

Update (and a question):

Everything miraculously arrived yesterday (except the graphics card) so I got started on the build last night. Harddrive attached to case. SSD and CPU attached to motherboard. CPU fan nearly assembled... that was a fidgety job to do... made longer than necessary when I attached the AMD braces by accident :rolleyes:

Anyway, will finish attaching the fan tonight, get the motherboard and PSU attached to the case and clip in the RAM. If I've time I'll try and figure out the cables and hook all that up together. Realistically would be booting up for the first time tomorrow night.

Question though... does it matter that I don't have the graphics card yet? I'm not creating extra work for myself by setting up the PC with Windows installed and all, and then adding the graphics card next week when it arrives?

frozenfrozen

keep going, you can just add the graphics card in a week with no issue

Bacchus

It's alive! Graphics Card arrived today and all.

Question though. How do I connect up the case fans to the PSU. The connectors don't match. I have it running at the moment with any case fans so would like to get them going soon enough.

K.O.Kiki

Bacchus wrote: »

It's alive! Graphics Card arrived today and all.

Question though. How do I connect up the case fans to the PSU. The connectors don't match. I have it running at the moment with any case fans so would like to get them going soon enough.

The motherboard has 1x 4-pin fan header. Are you sure the PSU didn't come with a 3/4-pin to MOLEX?

Bacchus

K.O.Kiki wrote: »

The motherboard has 1x 4-pin fan header. Are you sure the PSU didn't come with a 3/4-pin to MOLEX?

Ah yes! Thank you!

All fans running now.