Upgrade advice for a PC running Win 10 for photo/video editing

[i know nothing]

I'm looking to upgrade my PC to something that runs faster than the one I currently have.

I currently have:-
1) ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC. H81M-E (SOCKET 1150)
2) Intel Core i3 4160 @ 3.60GHz
3) 8.00GB Dual-Channel DDR3 @ 799MHz
4) 2047MB NVIDIA GeForce GT 710
5) 931GB Western Digital WDC WDS100T2B0A (SSD)
6) 2794GB Seagate ST3000DM001-1ER166 (SATA)
7) ASUS DRW-24D3ST
8) Viewsonic VP2468 Monitor

I am looking to re-use:-
1) Case
2) PSU
3) CD/DVD writer
4) Viewsonic VP2468 Monitor
5) Mouse & Keyboard
6) Speakers
7) HDD external USB reader/writer thingy
8) 931GB Western Digital WDC WDS100T2B0A (SSD)
9) 2794GB Seagate ST3000DM001-1ER166 (SATA)

I believe I will need to buy the following items:-
1) Motherboard
2) CPU
3) CPU cooler
4) RAM
5) Graphics card
6) M2 card for Windows and software

I primarily use my PC for general PC stuff (browsing, MS Office etc), but mostly for photo editing (Affinity photo, Luminar, Portrait Pro etc) and I'd like to have a go at editing some video (family stuff). I am not a gamer. The photo software I use at the moment is seriously struggling on my current machine and I'm looking to upgrade my camera to one which will produce even larger files sizes.

I'm way out of date, embarrassingly so, not even sure if I should look at AMD or Intel. Quite honestly I'm the sort of buyer who looks for the best value for the money, doesn't care about brand or having the latest and best as long as it does the job comfortably. AMD seems to be the best value at the moment, but as I mentioned earlier, I'm really not too sure. Any advice gratefully appreciated, thanks.

 

[i know nothing]

Would something like this be appropriate:-
1) Ryzen 5 Six Core 2600 3.90GHz (Socket AM4) Processor - Retail (includes CPU cooler) - £169.99
2) MSI B450 TOMAHAWK (Socket AM4) DDR4 ATX Motherboard - £99.95
3) Memory - Not sure what the different types of DDR4 RAM are/mean or which one I should choose? I'm guessing I would need at least 16Gb of RAM maybe more? But I'm also guessing that I don't need the fastest?
4) Graphics card. Again, no idea, what could I get for around £200?
5) 970 EVO Plus Polaris 250GB M.2 2280 PCI-e 3.0 x4 NVMe Solid State Drive - £74.99
Circa £545 plus the cost of RAM, Maybe £700 as a budget? Would that work? Or do I need to spend more?

 

[orbitalwalsh]

Would something like this be appropriate:-
1) Ryzen 5 Six Core 2600 3.90GHz (Socket AM4) Processor - Retail (includes CPU cooler) - £169.99
2) MSI B450 TOMAHAWK (Socket AM4) DDR4 ATX Motherboard - £99.95
3) Memory - Not sure what the different types of DDR4 RAM are/mean or which one I should choose? I'm guessing I would need at least 16Gb of RAM maybe more? But I'm also guessing that I don't need the fastest?
4) Again, no idea, what could I get for around £200?
5) 970 EVO Plus Polaris 250GB M.2 2280 PCI-e 3.0 x4 NVMe Solid State Drive - £74.99
Circa £545 plus the cost of RAM, Maybe £700 as a budget? Would that work? Or do I need to spend more?

what software are you using for photo and video editing ?

adobe doesn't focus heavy on GPU like Resolve does and Intel leads with Photoshop, after effects and lighthouse but Ryzen 2700x matches intel with Prem Pro

are you also doing 4k or 1080p work ?

 

[i know nothing]

what software are you using for photo and video editing ?

adobe doesn't focus heavy on GPU like Resolve does and Intel leads with Photoshop, after effects and lighthouse but Ryzen 2700x matches intel with Prem Pro

are you also doing 4k or 1080p work ?

At the moment I am just using photo editing software, no video. For photo editing I use Affinity (instead of Adobe Photoshop) and Luminar (instead of Adobe Lightroom). I also use programs such as Portrait Pro and Aurora for HDR.

I'm looking to get into video (with a new camera I plan on buying) and I believe that what most people do is shoot 4K and down res to 1080 to get the best results. I've been looking at Davinci Resolve for that purpose. This is for family videos, nothing important and not something I will be doing everyday, I certainly wouldn't want to spend too much money accomodating it. The photography is different, I use that software a few times a week.

Thanks for your response.

 

[i know nothing]

Not sure if this is of any help, it's the minimum requirements recommended by the photography software companies:-

System Requirements
Luminar 2018 PC

• Windows-based hardware PC with mouse or similar input device
• Open GL 3.3 or later compatible Graphics Cards
• Processor Intel Core i5 or better
• Memory 8 Gb RAM or more
• Operating System Windows 7 (only 64-bit OS), Windows 8.1 (only 64-bit OS), Windows 10 (only 64-bit OS)
• Hard disk 2 Gb free space, SSD for best performance
• Display 1280x768 size or better

Affinity Photo Windows System Requirements
Hardware
Windows-based PC with mouse or equivalent input device. DirectX 10-compatible Graphics Cards and above.

Memory
2GB RAM (4GB RAM recommended)

Hard Disk
593MB of available space; more during installation

Operating Systems (64 bit)

• Windows® 10
• Windows® 8.1
• Windows® 7 (Service Pack 1; Aero enabled)

Display

• 1280x768 display size or better

Portrait Pro minimum requirements
Processor
2GHz processor or faster recommended.

Memory
2GB RAM minimum recommended. To handle larger images (8 megapixel or more) you would benefit from having 4GB or more RAM.

Display
1024 x 600 minimum supported display size.

OS

Windows - 64-bit Windows 10, Windows 8, or Windows 7, with the latest updates installed.

 

[Kurgen]

small point your old motherboard is showing on google as MATX can you confirm if your case is ATX or MATX (model if you know it), as that will make a differernce as to what the pros will spec you. saying that an MATX in an ATX case makes building easier. If your existing case is un branded and not much space. it might be worth adding thisd into your budget for the sake of 50-60 £

 

[i know nothing]

small point your old motherboard is showing on google as MATX can you confirm if your case is ATX or MATX (model if you know it), as that will make a differernce as to what the pros will spec you. saying that an MATX in an ATX case makes building easier. If your existing case is un branded and not much space. it might be worth adding thisd into your budget for the sake of 50-60 £

I can confirm it's an unbranded ATX case. It has 2 x USB 2.0 and 1 x USB 3.0 sockets on the front, as well as the start button, reset button, green headphone jack, pink microphone jack and a LED for HDD as well as one for power.

 

[orbitalwalsh]

Comparison of Photoshop vs. Affinity Photo requirements:
I have observed that AP better uses CPU multicore than PS but the summary CPU usage is quite large; AP requires less RAM than PS; AP uses graphics card less than PS, more image processing is done by CPU, GPU power is less used. Of course, this may be specific to my hardware configuration (see footer)

scraping budget


CODE
My basket at Overclockers UK:

• 1 x AMD Ryzen 5 Six Core 2600X 4.20GHz (Socket AM4) Processor - Retail= £199.99
• 1 x Gigabyte B450 AORUS ELITE (Socket AM4) DDR4 ATX Motherboard= £91.99
• 1 x Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 PC4-24000C16 3000MHz Dual Channel Kit - Black (CMK16GX4M2D30= £76.99
• 1 x Corsair Force MP510 series 240GB NVMe PCIe M.2 Solid State Drive (CSSD-F240GBMP510)= £55.99
• 1 x Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1660Ti OC 6144MB GDDR6 PCI-Express Graphics Card= £269.99

Total: £706.05 (includes shipping: £11.10)


Ryzen 2700x bundle

My basket at Overclockers UK:

• 1 x AMD Bundle - AMD Ryzen 7 2700X, Gigabyte X370 Gaming K5 *FREE 240GB SSD* *ONLINE ONLY*= £372.98
• 1 x Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 PC4-24000C16 3000MHz Dual Channel Kit - Black (CMK16GX4M2D30= £76.99
• 1 x Zotac GeForce GTX 1660 Twin Fan 6144MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card= £209.99
• 1 x Corsair Force MP510 series 240GB NVMe PCIe M.2 Solid State Drive (CSSD-F240GBMP510)= £55.99

Total: £727.05 (includes shipping: £11.10)​

​

​

 

[i know nothing]

Ooooh! Lots to look at and read about! Thanks orbitalwalsh!

 

[i know nothing]

scraping budget


CODE
My basket at Overclockers UK:

• 1 x AMD Ryzen 5 Six Core 2600X 4.20GHz (Socket AM4) Processor - Retail= £199.99
• 1 x Gigabyte B450 AORUS ELITE (Socket AM4) DDR4 ATX Motherboard= £91.99
• 1 x Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 PC4-24000C16 3000MHz Dual Channel Kit - Black (CMK16GX4M2D30= £76.99
• 1 x Corsair Force MP510 series 240GB NVMe PCIe M.2 Solid State Drive (CSSD-F240GBMP510)= £55.99
• 1 x Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1660Ti OC 6144MB GDDR6 PCI-Express Graphics Card= £269.99

Total: £706.05 (includes shipping: £11.10)


Ryzen 2700x bundle

My basket at Overclockers UK:

• 1 x AMD Bundle - AMD Ryzen 7 2700X, Gigabyte X370 Gaming K5 *FREE 240GB SSD* *ONLINE ONLY*= £372.98
• 1 x Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 PC4-24000C16 3000MHz Dual Channel Kit - Black (CMK16GX4M2D30= £76.99
• 1 x Zotac GeForce GTX 1660 Twin Fan 6144MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card= £209.99
• 1 x Corsair Force MP510 series 240GB NVMe PCIe M.2 Solid State Drive (CSSD-F240GBMP510)= £55.99

Total: £727.05 (includes shipping: £11.10)
​

Out of those two options, would I be correct in guessing that you think I should go for the second option as opposed to the first one? As far as I can determine, the main differences between the two are the first one has a better graphics card but slower CPU, whereas the last option has a fast CPU and slower graphics card.

The other day I was having a look at what other people are doing with regards to upgrades and I noticed in one of the threads on this forum, you mentioned to one individual that new CPU's should be coming out in a couple of months (or words to that effect) and that maybe they should wait. If there are likely to be substantial price drops, then I'd be happy to wait 2 - 3 months, I'm certainly in no hurry, would it be a good idea to wait?

 

[Double07]

No-one going to mention that 3 series chips are just around the corner? If you can wait for those in a couple of months, almost certainly the wise move, assuming of course you can wait till then.

 

[orbitalwalsh]

As above, they are around the corner, but you'll be left with x570 flagship boards so expect £120+ mark and chips most likely will be pre-order first and sell out or straight release and sell out , then prices will inflate via resellers which is allowed .
Release is July if you can wait, reveal is Computex .
Ideally you'd like the CPU of the latter and GPU or the former !
Gigabyte only board vendor that will take a brand new older X/B board and flash it for you to run new CPUs (like they did with ryzen 2000) as they are UK based

 

[i know nothing]

I was thinking more along the lines of getting what you've suggested above, but in 3 months time. My logic being that the new CPU's will push the prices down (of what you've listed above for me), or is that not likely to happen?

I've been thinking of doing this since Xmas, I can wait...

 

[orbitalwalsh]

I was thinking more along the lines of getting what you've suggested above, but in 3 months time. My logic being that the new CPU's will push the prices down (of what you've listed above for me), or is that not likely to happen?

I've been thinking of doing this since Xmas, I can wait...

in theory, as with ryzen 1*** prices, they did drop down BUT ryzen 2000 actaully came out slightly cheaper in some areas, firstly due to intel moving to 6 cores and AMD having 3 8 core products, this time around just two.
Would either be AMD doing rebates or reseller like OCUK having to do sales to clear old stock . Dont think prices will drop straight away as they didn't before hand, and gather there will be a high demand for Ryzen 3000 is they sell out fast and resellers then can price increase due to supply and demand! so ryzen 2*** maybe not have to drop for a bit.

time will tell, and then you might just grab 6/8 core Ryzen 3000 and get an older board.. as mentioned Gigabyte can flash the bios for customers . in theory, 6 core Rzen 3000 could be faster then 8 core Ryzen 2700 due to increase in speed, latency improvements and performance increase in design ....

 

[i know nothing]

Can I ask if this Corsair memory would be compatible with the motherboards listed above? I note that there are 2 versions of the 3000Mhz memory on that link, one ends with "C15" and the other "C16". What's the difference? (apart from a massive increase in price!)

Forgive me if this is a stupid question... but is DDR4 memory the same for Intel and AMD based systems? Are there different types of DDR memory that I need to be aware of?

I understand the speed varies (in this instance they're 3000Mhz), but if I'm looking at motherboards for a AMD Ryzen 2700X, do I need to look out for anything more than it being a DDR4 compatible motherboard and that it can accomodate the memory's speed? (in this example 3000Mhz)

 

[EsaT]

Can I ask if this Corsair memory would be compatible with the motherboards listed above? I note that there are 2 versions of the 3000Mhz memory on that link, one ends with "C15" and the other "C16". What's the difference? (apart from a massive increase in price!)

CAS16 version has slower cheaper memory chips.
Lower latency and higher clocks both demand more from memory chips... especially both together.


Suspect also PSU needs replacing with current being some cheapo as new and now old worn cheapo.
If case was at same level it might also need some improving of cooling for high end CPU.
Worst case would be it using PSU as only exhaust.

 

[i know nothing]

CAS16 version has slower cheaper memory chips.
Lower latency and higher clocks both demand more from memory chips... especially both together.

So C15 is better? Is that memory compatible with motherboards designed for the Ryzen 7 2700X?

Suspect also PSU needs replacing with current being some cheapo as new and now old worn cheapo.
If case was at same level it might also need some improving of cooling for high end CPU.
Worst case would be it using PSU as only exhaust.

I think you might be right on the case! The PSU was recently changed though.

 

[EsaT]

I think you might be right on the case! The PSU was recently changed though.

If you can take couple pictures showing rear of the case and what kind front is we can tell if it's good.
(or how it could be improved you can access Dremel etc)

 

[i know nothing]

in theory, as with ryzen 1*** prices, they did drop down BUT ryzen 2000 actaully came out slightly cheaper in some areas, firstly due to intel moving to 6 cores and AMD having 3 8 core products, this time around just two.
Would either be AMD doing rebates or reseller like OCUK having to do sales to clear old stock . Dont think prices will drop straight away as they didn't before hand, and gather there will be a high demand for Ryzen 3000 is they sell out fast and resellers then can price increase due to supply and demand! so ryzen 2*** maybe not have to drop for a bit.

time will tell, and then you might just grab 6/8 core Ryzen 3000 and get an older board.. as mentioned Gigabyte can flash the bios for customers . in theory, 6 core Rzen 3000 could be faster then 8 core Ryzen 2700 due to increase in speed, latency improvements and performance increase in design ....

Looks like you were spot on orbitalwash, looks like a 10% drop is all I can expect. I think I might wait a bit longer still.

Should I consider a 570 motherboard even if I do opt for the 2700X? Thinking about future proofing and all that, wondering if there's a cost benefit if I upgrade processor in 3 years time?

 

[orbitalwalsh]

Looks like you were spot on orbitalwash, looks like a 10% drop is all I can expect. I think I might wait a bit longer still.

Should I consider a 570 motherboard even if I do opt for the 2700X? Thinking about future proofing and all that, wondering if there's a cost benefit if I upgrade processor in 3 years time?

If your going x570 I'd go with 8 core 3rd gen still for the performance uplift .
Hard with future proofing as we known Zen 4 will be a new platform and DDR5 .
And likely new gen boards with have a feature current x570 don't etc . AND have to mAke it attractive for board vendors to produce high quality boArds to gain share from intel and make everyone money lol

10 core intel should be out end of year . Again knee jerk reaction to Zen2 like 6 core and 8 core coffeelake was to Zen and Zen+