Photo editing PC for my dad

Shicky

Shicky

Shicky

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Joined
13 Jan 2007
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Belfast,Northern Ireland
Hi everyone,

I just wanted to check if this was a sensible setup for what is required for basic photo editing using Photoshop Elements for my dad? I haven't built a PC in over 5years and frankly CBA - the extra cost in getting in built elsewhere + warranty is worth it in my book. He has a track record of buying duds from supermarkets or PC world so I want this to be the last he requires and I can manage internal upgrades as he needs them.

Intel Core i5-4690K 3.50GHz (Devil's Canyon) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail
Gigabyte Z97P-D3 Intel Z97 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard
8GB Kingston DDR3 1600MHz
1GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GT 720 - cut from GTX 750 for a £50 saving
1TB HDD - overkill but only £3 less for 500GB
Corsair 450W VS PSU
Basic DVD - could save £15 if an old one I dig out works..
CPU cooler - £19, figured this could help longevity.
COOLERMASTER ELITE 311 BLUE CASE - £35

Total is £512 currently but as above can cut some corners or beef it up slightly to help with longevity. Was tempted to go for 16GB RAM but I don't think he'd require it with his use and I'm confident I can pickup another stick cheap down the line. Any glaring faults or smart improvements to be made? No perhipherals required, i'll try and use my hand-me-downs

thank you!
 
You can save money with a non-overclockable board+CPU.

Then get 16GB and a SSD.


YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-4440 3.10GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £152.99
1 x TeamGroup Elite Black 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (TPKD316G1600HC11DC01) £79.99
1 x Crucial BX100 250GB SSD SATA 6Gbps 7mm Solid State Drive (CT250BX100SSD1) £68.99
1 x Asus H81M-PLUS Intel H81 (Socket 1150) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £41.99
1 x Toshiba (7K1000.D) 1TB SATA 6GB/s 32MB Cache - OEM (DT01ACA100) HDD £35.99
1 x SuperFlower FX 350W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply - Black £29.99
1 x Zalman T1 Plus Mini-Tower USB 3.0 - Black £19.99
Total : £443.42 (includes shipping : £11.25 Ex.VAT).




You can also use the onboard display outputs rather than buy a discrete gpu.
 
What size photos will he be editing?
What image format?

Depending on what exact editing he's doing (I assume not too vigorous as it's only photoshop elements) then he may want to go for a 500GB+ SSD
 
Thank you for the response Stulid, you're correct in thinking this won't be OC'd at any point I imagine. With the CPU, how do you tell its overclockable? Same question for the board? The main reason I went for these is simply because I'd searched other threads regarding photo editing epcs and they were consistently picked.

I think SSD is overkill as he doesn't work in batches so the need for a scratch disk seems pointless? I was tempted to go for 16GB but I really think he won't need more than 8GB based on his use and as mentioned I can always extend later
 
Its the "K" in the CPU name.

Plus Z97 boards are for overclocking to.

The board I picked has just two DIMM slots, so you would have to swap the RAM out fully.

The SSD wasn't for a scratchdisk, rather the OS the programs and a bit of spare room.
 
Re 16GB. Photo editing tends to use a lot of memory, is he processing RAW files?

Adding memory later sounds fine. Then 2 years later you can't match your existing memory up, and memory price has increased 50% due to low production runs.

EDIT.

Re Geforce 720, I use one of these in a HTPC there totally fine for 2D and 1080p video playback. However there is 2 versions, DDR3 based and GDDR5 based. The GDDR5 versions are faster, also from everything I can tell they use less power over the DDR3 versions. I would pay the extra £5 and get the GDDR5.

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-267-MS&groupid=701&catid=1914&subcat=2304
 
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Shivy011 said:
What size photos will he be editing?
What image format?

Depending on what exact editing he's doing (I assume not too vigorous as it's only photoshop elements) then he may want to go for a 500GB+ SSD
Click to expand...

When speaking to him last he was talking about 6-8mb but wanted to be able to handle double this - he's far from an expert on this subject, he's just guessing as am I. In terms of image format I'm afraid I've no idea, all I can say is he would be a novice user and photographer.

You're certainly right it's nothing vigorous. Is an SSD really a requirement? From speaking to him, he usually only deals with one image at a time
 
stulid said:
Its the "K" in the CPU name.

Plus Z97 boards are for overclocking to.

The board I picked has just two DIMM slots, so you would have to swap the RAM out fully.

The SSD wasn't for a scratchdisk, rather the OS the programs and a bit of spare room.
Click to expand...

thank you Stulid, apologies for my stupid questions, it's looking like an SSD might be on the cards then!
 
16gb memory is preferable. Also dont forget whats 6-8mb on disk is not necessarily the same when in memory its a lot larger.
 
Unless you're editing RAW image files or very high pixel images then a lot of what is above is a little OTT in my opinion. Even Photoshop CC is quite light on resources unless you're doing heavy editing.

What exactly does he use to shoot and what style of editing does he do? If it's only a basic DSLR and some levels/curves you could easily get away with 8GB ram and a G3258.
 
FL630 said:
Unless you're editing RAW image files or very high pixel images then a lot of what is above is a little OTT in my opinion. Even Photoshop CC is quite light on resources unless you're doing heavy editing.

What exactly does he use to shoot and what style of editing does he do? If it's only a basic DSLR and some levels/curves you could easily get away with 8GB ram and a G3258.
Click to expand...
I tend to agree with this. If he is editing just high quality Jpeg files then the only must is a good size SSD drive for operating system and photo's. The dual core G3258 could suffice.

Though just in general I would always recommend a quad core at minimum as far as the OS and running apps is concerned. It makes everything just that bit smoother and faster. Plus Win10 will make even better use of the cores. For photo's and most things 8Gb of RAM is more than enough. Generally it's mainly gamers and people working with video that may benefit from more.

If he does expand his horizons and starts using stuff like RAW (which in my opinion every amature photography should aspire to ;)) , Dx0 and Lightroom CC, there are occasions that the more cores the better. (i.e processing noise reduction using Prime on a RAW file)

Edit: The system the Stulid put together is spot on except I would lower the ram to 8GB and use the saving towards a 512Mb SSD. The long term benefits will be far more weighted to the extra size (those photo's soon mount up) than the extra 8Gb of RAM. I do a lot of photo editing of RAW files in Lightroom etc and more than 8GB makes no difference in terms of speed.
 
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For those mentioning an SSD is a huge one really necessary? I thought it would only be needed for OS and the photos you wish to work with? So theoretically a small one would do as you move the ones you want to work with to the SSD and off to HDD when done?
 
Shicky said:
For those mentioning an SSD is a huge one really necessary? I thought it would only be needed for OS and the photos you wish to work with? So theoretically a small one would do as you move the ones you want to work with to the SSD and off to HDD when done?
Click to expand...
Yeah I used to think that but after using Adobe Lightroom for a while and the way it works (with the catalogue system) you don't really want to be moving photos around after you've edited them. Much better to leave them in place with Lightrooms non destructive editing and catalogue system. Besides going back to view old folders with hundreds of photos in will be much, much faster from the SSD.

I built a system for a client in Latvia who does a lot of photo work and he is glad I convinced him to get the bigger SSD drive. Just get the biggest one you can afford.
 
I have just built a new PC for my editing...
I have a 5D MkII and a 1D MkIII and have no issues editing the photos quickly in Lightroom / Photoshop.

I have a G3258 clocked at 4.4ghz and watercooled, 8gb ram, 2x 2TB HDDs and an ATI 7770 clocked at 1.3ghz.

I am going to be moving over to an SSD but not because the adobe system is slow, i just want it to boot faster. and i will then keep 1 years photos on the SSD and previous years archived to a platter drive.
 
Thank you for the responses....also apologies up front for the dumb question...

With the SSD I'm assuming it's just like an HDD in that if you have the relevant connections, you won't have any issues? i.e. I don't need to get a specific SSD to match my board/cpu choice?

I'm tempted to go for more cost effective now, pickup the RAM and an SSD later via marketplace
 
Shicky said:
Thank you for the responses....also apologies up front for the dumb question...

With the SSD I'm assuming it's just like an HDD in that if you have the relevant connections, you won't have any issues? i.e. I don't need to get a specific SSD to match my board/cpu choice?

I'm tempted to go for more cost effective now, pickup the RAM and an SSD later via marketplace
Click to expand...

Yes SSD's are just the same as mechanicals but you do want to make sure that windows is installed with AHCI enabled in BIOS.

To be honest, putting hardware to one side for a minute, I think the most enjoyment and time saving when it comes to photography in windows is to get lightroom and a proper workflow.

My machine is fast but I got the most time savings from generating 1:1 previews on import and building a develop preset that auto applied all my my most commonly applied edits.

You're right about the ssd, you only really need it for OS, working photos and the catalogue.

I only ever use anywhere near 16gb when doing multi shot raw panoramas but my machine is a joy in this situation vs my old 4gb 2.26ghz core2duo.

Personally I think you could get away with a pentium k and 8gb but I wouldn't build anything less than a quad core these days personally.
 
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