Desktop P.C for photo editing.

LeoN88 · 20 Aug 2017 at 14:39

As per the title I'd like to either build (built my last one 10 years ago) or buy a pre built system for photo editing using lightroom/photoshop and alike. I was looking at an apple iMac even though I've only ever used Windows but I feel that they aren't good value.. I would like it to be future proof to a certain extent and budget wise I don't really have a figure in mind as I'm not sure how much I would need to spend to achieve what I want. Camera I use is a d7200 and raw images I think are about 30mb or so I would like it to run smoothly having multiple images open at once etc. I'm not into gaming that much anymore last time I played one was about 5+ years ago but would like to have the flexibility to be able to if I wanted but as said primarily for photo editing. I look forward to your responses

radderfire · 20 Aug 2017 at 14:55

If you put 8Mb of RAM in it, it will run nice and smoothly for most purposes. If you are handling a lot of really large files at once, consider 16Mb.

I personally think Windows machines have made a comeback against Apple. I would now prefer Windows to Apple. Windows 10 is a nice OS and you can build a more capable machine for less money than with Apple.

Note also there is now the Microsoft Surface Studio to consider. This is a very capable machine and is designed specifically for graphic design.

lsg1r · 20 Aug 2017 at 15:55

radderfire said:
If you put 8Mb of RAM in it, it will run nice and smoothly for most purposes.

Um... think you might struggle with 8Mb or 16Mb these days.... Pretty sure he means 8/16GB lol although personally I wouldn't be looking at less that 32GB or at the very least the ability to 'expand' to it (so 2x8 for 16GB) because you say future proofing.

As to the rest, I'd be looking at a decent 4core 8 thread or above cpu (probably a ryzen 8c/16t if I'm honest), a few ssds, one for the os, one for the scratch disk and maybe two for saving/backing up stuff while working on it. Then consider a nas or something or larger hard drives for 'bulk storage'. As to gpu, personally I'd be looking at 1060 6GB sort of range or above just so it gives you a little more power for 4k or cuda... can't comment on amd options purely because I use software which benefits from cuda more than opencl. Having said all that I'd maybe wait to see what the new cpu's coming from Intel in a few weeks iirc offer up, supposedly 6c/12t option so you can compare with a ryzen 8c/16t etc.

LeoN88 · 20 Aug 2017 at 20:03

lsg1r said:
Um... think you might struggle with 8Mb or 16Mb these days.... Pretty sure he means 8/16GB lol although personally I wouldn't be looking at less that 32GB or at the very least the ability to 'expand' to it (so 2x8 for 16GB) because you say future proofing.

As to the rest, I'd be looking at a decent 4core 8 thread or above cpu (probably a ryzen 8c/16t if I'm honest), a few ssds, one for the os, one for the scratch disk and maybe two for saving/backing up stuff while working on it. Then consider a nas or something or larger hard drives for 'bulk storage'. As to gpu, personally I'd be looking at 1060 6GB sort of range or above just so it gives you a little more power for 4k or cuda... can't comment on amd options purely because I use software which benefits from cuda more than opencl. Having said all that I'd maybe wait to see what the new cpu's coming from Intel in a few weeks iirc offer up, supposedly 6c/12t option so you can compare with a ryzen 8c/16t etc.

Thanks for the info! But just unclear about a few terms what do you mean by scratch disk, cuda and nas? I would be looking at getting a 4k monitor would it be achievable for around 1k with monitor included?

lsg1r · 20 Aug 2017 at 22:13

LeoN88 said:
Thanks for the info! But just unclear about a few terms what do you mean by scratch disk, cuda and nas? I would be looking at getting a 4k monitor would it be achievable for around 1k with monitor included?

scratch disk - a drive or area of drive which programs like photoshop can use for temp storage while working on files (in photoshop go to preferences, performance section and you'll see the section called scratch disk)
cuda - nvidia proprietry gpu processing which can in some cases speed up work where the program supports it... not 100% sure which adobe programs support it off the top of my head
nas - network attached storage.

4k monitor which is suitable for hi res photo work and a pc for under 1K... not in my opinion unless you go for a low end 4k display which is not a good idea if you want accurate colours and decent colour range etc