Photo and video editing desktop

[AHarvey]

Hi all, looking at getting the other half a new system for editing photos and eventually videos. Current setup is old and had no issue with old D700 photos and not really any trouble with the D810, however the new Z8 and A.I. functions are killing it.

It'll run Windows + lightroom + Photoshop

I'm thinking ssd with win10/11
2 x 6tb drives for storage and backups
Motherboard and CPU
PSU
Cheap case
32gb ram

Cheap gfx card as my understanding is it's all mostly CPU intensive, but it would nice to be able to upgrade to top graphics card if the software starts using it.

Doesn't have to look pretty. I've monitors, keyboards and mice.

Budget from £1k but could go up to £2k at a push.

Any suggestions or feedback on what to look at?

 

[Tetras]

Current setup is old and had no issue with old D700 photos and not really any trouble with the D810, however the new Z8 and A.I. functions are killing it.

What is the current PC, just to make sure this is a decent upgrade?

Cheap gfx card as my understanding is it's all mostly CPU intensive

Afaik, the newer features that she is struggling with can be demanding on the GPU too.

AMD/DDR5
There are deals available where you can get a 7700 for around £200, so I'd see if you can find one. I think these discounts will be more widely available in the UK very soon.

My basket at OcUK:

• 1 x AMD Ryzen 9 7900 Twelve Core 5.40GHz (Socket AM5) Processor - Retail (SKU: CP-3DU-AM) = £359.99
• 1 x Asus TUF Gaming B650-Plus WIFI (Socket AM5) DDR5 ATX Motherboard (SKU: MB-6K0-AS) = £169.99
• 1 x Crucial Pro 48GB (2x24GB) DDR5 PC5-44800C46 5600MHz Dual Channel Kit (SKU: MEM-CRU-01086) = £139.99
• 1 x MSI GeForce RTX 3060 Ventus 2X OC 12GB GDDR6 PCI-Express Graphics Card (SKU: GX-374-MS) = £278.99
• 1 x Crucial T500 2TB NVMe PCIe Gen4 M.2 Solid State Drive (SKU: STO-CRU-01090) = £151.99
• 1 x WD Blue SN580 2TB SSD NVME M.2 2280 PCIe Gen4 Solid State Drive (SKU: STO-WDC-00541) = £104.99
• 2 x Seagate 4TB Barracuda HDD 5400RPM 256MB Cache Internal Hard Drive (ST4000DM004) (SKU: HD-37T-SE) = £94.99
• 1 x Phanteks Eclipse P400S Glass Midi Tower Case - Noise Dampened Gun Metal (SKU: CA-06A-PT) = £69.95
• 1 x Phanteks AMP 650W 80 Plus Gold Modular Power Supply (SKU: CA-09Q-PT) = £89.99
  

Total: £1,567.85 (includes delivery: £11.98)​

Use stock cooler in the CPU box or get a peerless assassin/phantom spirit (for ~£35).
------

Intel/DDR4

Swap the 12400 for a 12600KF.

My basket at OcUK:

• 1 x Intel Core i5-12400 2.50GHz (Alder Lake) Socket LGA1700 Processor - Retail (SKU: CP-6AL-IN) = £175.00
• 1 x Gigabyte B760 GAMING X AX DDR4 (LGA 1700) DDR4 ATX Motherboard (SKU: MB-5BV-GI) = £154.99
• 1 x Team Group Xtreem "8Pack Edition" 64GB (4x16GB) DDR4 PC4-25600C16 3200MHz Quad Channel Kit - Black (SKU: MY-09Y-TG) = £139.99
• 1 x Gigabyte GeForce RTX 3060 WindForce OC LHR 12GB GDDR6 PCI-Express Graphics Card (SKU: GX-1FH-GI) = £269.99
• 1 x WD Black SN770 2TB SSD M.2 2280 NVME PCI-E Gen4 Solid State Drive (WDS200T3X0E) (SKU: HD-58G-WD) = £119.99
• 1 x KIOXIA EXCERIA G2 2TB SSD NVME M.2 2280 Solid State Drive (SKU: STO-TSH-00982) = £99.94
• 1 x WD 8TB Blue HDD 5640rpm 256MB Cache Internal Hard Drive (WD80EAAZ) (SKU: STO-WDC-01658) = £215.00
• 1 x Lian Li Lancool 205 Midi-Tower Case - Black Window (SKU: CA-785-LL) = £49.99
• 1 x Seasonic Focus GX-850 850W 80+ Gold Modular Power Supply (SKU: CA-06T-SS) = £119.99

Total: £1,356.86 (includes delivery: £11.98)​

Cooler: as above.
------

Intel/DDR5, blow the budget build:

My basket at OcUK:

• 1 x Intel Core i7-14700K (Raptor Lake-S) Socket LGA1700 Processor - Retail (SKU: PRO-INT-00800) = £399.95
• 1 x Gigabyte Z790 Aorus Elite AX (LGA 1700) DDR5 ATX Motherboard (SKU: MB-5BK-GI) = £224.99
• 1 x Crucial Pro 96GB (2x48GB) DDR5 PC5-44800C46 5600MHz Dual Channel Kit (SKU: MEM-CRU-01084) = £248.98
• 1 x Gigabyte GeForce RTX 4070 WindForce OC 12GB GDDR6X PCI-Express Graphics Card (SKU: GX-1G2-GI) = £500.00
• 1 x WD Black SN770 2TB SSD M.2 2280 NVME PCI-E Gen4 Solid State Drive (WDS200T3X0E) (SKU: HD-58G-WD) = £119.99
• 1 x WD Blue SN580 2TB SSD NVME M.2 2280 PCIe Gen4 Solid State Drive (SKU: STO-WDC-00541) = £104.98
• 2 x Seagate 4TB Barracuda HDD 5400RPM 256MB Cache Internal Hard Drive (ST4000DM004) (SKU: HD-37T-SE) = £95.00
• 1 x Phanteks XT Pro ATX Case Tempered Glass Window, Black (SKU: CAS-PHK-01442) = £50.98
• 1 x Corsair RMx Series RM850x 80 PLUS Gold Fully Modular ATX Power Supply (CP-9020200-UK) (SKU: CA-267-CS) = £119.99

Total: £1,971.84 (includes delivery: £11.98)​

Cooler: as above.

 

[qbazdz]

Does she do it professionally, ie. she needs solid backup? If so, consider setting RAID so if one HDD is done 2nd one still has the precious data.
Separately, have another backup drive stored elsewhere.

 

[jp7152]

I know it might sound daft as it's only under fairly light load but I would recommend getting a GPU with a high quality cooler. The reason being it can be very noticeable when the fan is ramping up and down when doing editing tasks. Much more so then when gaming and having a constant (louder) noise from a budget style GPU cooler.

 

[JollyJamma]

Puget Systems have roundups for content creation https://www.pugetsystems.com/article-tag/premiere-pro/

If the version of photoshop and premier uses GPU acceleration, you can’t offload the intense rendering onto the GPU and use a midrange CPU.

I know that CPU rendering can be more accurate than GPU but I’m sure sure if that’s an issue with Photoshop or Premier (or if it’s an issue at all any more).

Any 8+ core CPU (13700 or 7800 or better) with 64gigs of RAM and a GPU with good amounts of VMAM ( more than 8gigs) would be fast.

 

[adrichardson81]

Main thing is don't skimp on the GPU.

Lightroom and Photoshop both use GPU acceleration if you're on a recent version. If she's looking at adding DXO to her workflow (which I thoroughly recommend), it makes a night and day difference there.

GPU also has an impact on colour support - she'll really want to be able to use 30-bit colour rather 24-bit. Nvidia supports it on newer consumer GPUs (I think as far back as 20 series?), but I'm not sure about AMD.

A used 3080ti or 3080 would be quite future-proof.

8 cores is plenty for the CPU. If you go down the Intel route, 8 P cores.

Storage, get plenty. An hdd is fine for longterm storage of edited images, but it'll bottleneck an editing workflow. I'd go for a 2tb m.2 and a larger hdd.

Also make sure you have a backup option. RAID 1 is fine for hardware failure, but I'd say it's lower priority than an offline backup (RAID 1 will keep you going if a drive dies, but won't help if you accidentally delete a file). Depends how much money you want to throw at it. I use a combination of Backblaze and removable drives.

 

[AHarvey]

Thanks for all the comments, I've been away with zero phone signal, but seems I've a lot to go through

We do professional photography and video is more just playing around at the moment. Active adobe subscription so it's always the latest version.

I do my backups manually over a few file servers + offsite so not too worried about that element.

 

[tamzzy]

if you're not going to upgrade the core (cpu/mobo/ram) for the next few years then the intel 14700(k) build is the correct build for professional photography editing

Intel Core 14th Gen Processors Content Creation Review

The new Intel Core 14th Gen processors are a refresh update of the previous 13th Gen processors. But, how much faster are they for content creation workflows?

www.pugetsystems.com