Upgrade Advice Please

[fragilesi]

Hi, almost four years ago I bought a "graphics workstation" from OC, and up until recently it has been genuinely good for my world of intensive photo editing, a bit of gaming, some work and being an argumentative git on social media. Full specs at the end to give an idea.

Now I'm hitting a couple of constraints, not the least of which is a terminal fear of opening a PC case and trying to fix something!

- The new AI features on Adobe image editing projects, most especially the DeNoise feature of Adobe Lightroom are stressing it out. I work with 50Mb RAW files and they can take minutes each to denoise. I feel pretty sure that the bottleneck is the graphics card (based on Internet reading and watching task manager while it was carrying out Denoise operations) so what's the best bang for buck upgrade I can get from my Palit GeForce RTX 2060 StormX 6144MB GDDR6 card? I wouldn't want to spend more than £500 unless there is a slightly more expensive option which comes with a significant premium. It seems both processing power and memory are important so a 12GB model looks essential.

- I'm drifting up towards capacity on the disks. Can I simply add more into this system or do I need to look at upgrading the existing ones?

- The one thing I am a bit surprised is that Microsoft seems to be telling me the system isn't Win 11 capable - does not support TPM 2.0. Looking online got me into the BIOS but the menu they suggested enabling it on had very different options to what was described. Should this system be capable? Maybe with a BIOS upgrade?

Sorry if this is a bit much but I wasn't sure where to ask these kind of questions but there seemed to be a lot of good advice in this forum. And if the answer really is "It's time to go for a new machine" then feel free to hit me with that too, I just think it really ought to be able to give me another couple of years with some upgrade TLC . . .

RENDA G4-CS Photography & Graphic Design Workstation -

Frequency Enhanced Intel Core i7K

CA-003-PT Phanteks Enthoo Pro Mid Tower Case - Black 1
CA-03A-KK Kolink Continuum 850W 80 Plus Platinum Modular Power Supply 1
CD-004-OK OcUK Value Blu-ray / DVDRW combi SATA - OEM 1
CM-000-KK Kolink Internal USB Hub - 60cm USB Cable 1
CM-027-TL Tech Labs Insulation 700x500x10mm base 1
CP-65L-IN Intel Core i7-9700K 3.6GHz (Coffee Lake) Socket LGA1151 Processor - Retail 1
FG-063-NB System Build Fan - Noiseblocker BlackSilent Pro Fan PLPS - 120mm PWM (SI) [EXNO-001] 2
GX-04N-PL Palit GeForce RTX 2060 StormX 6144MB GDDR6 PCI-Express Graphics Card 1
HD-093-BT IcyBox Standard 5.25" Drive Bay USB 3.0 Multi Card Reader eSATA (IB-867) 1
HD-23Y-SA Samsung 970 EVO Plus Polaris 1TB M.2 2280 PCI-e 3.0 x4 NVMe Solid State Drive 1
HD-23Z-SA Samsung 970 EVO Plus Polaris 2TB M.2 2280 PCI-e 3.0 x4 NVMe Solid State Drive 1
HD-550-WD WD 4TB Black 7200RPM 256MB Cache Internal Performance Hard Drive (WD4005FZBX) 2
HS-044-AS Asetek Premium Retention Kit Intel LGA115X (35-150-0000014) 1
HS-04K-AS Asetek 240mm 670LT Thick Radiator (35-102-0000135) **PICK ONE SCREW BAG PER COOLER** 1
MB-6CU-AS Asus ROG Strix Z390-H Intel Z390 (Socket 1151) DDR4 ATX Motherboard 1
MY-08P-TG Team Group Vulcan T-Force 32GB (2x16GB) DDR4 PC4-24000C16 3000MHz Dual Channel Kit - Grey (TLGD432G3 2
SW-172-MS Microsoft Windows 10 64-Bit DVD - OEM (MS-KW9-00139) 1

 

[Tetras]

- The new AI features on Adobe image editing projects, most especially the DeNoise feature of Adobe Lightroom are stressing it out. I work with 50Mb RAW files and they can take minutes each to denoise. I feel pretty sure that the bottleneck is the graphics card (based on Internet reading and watching task manager while it was carrying out Denoise operations)

Yep, that's my understanding too (that they're GPU-accelerated), but I haven't seen any benchmarks of newer/older cards which makes it tricky to know what upgrade to recommend, especially as GPU-acceleration can have unpredictable results depending on GPU-gen and the level of optimisation.

- I'm drifting up towards capacity on the disks. Can I simply add more into this system or do I need to look at upgrading the existing ones?

According to the tech spec of your board it has 2x M.2 and 6x SATA, which is actually pretty good for an older board. Unfortunately that means you'd have to replace your EVO drives (if you want to go M.2), which is a shame, because they're decent drives. You could buy SATA, but I don't know if that will have an impact on speed with your workloads (it is very unlikely to have any impact with games) and good SATA drives are getting hard to find.

- The one thing I am a bit surprised is that Microsoft seems to be telling me the system isn't Win 11 capable - does not support TPM 2.0. Looking online got me into the BIOS but the menu they suggested enabling it on had very different options to what was described. Should this system be capable? Maybe with a BIOS upgrade?

9th gen is Windows 11 compatible, Asus released a bios update which supports it by default on 9th August 2021 (version 3004). The wording suggests that the options should already exist, but be careful with messing around if you don't have your data backed up (e.g. enabling secure boot has temporarily bricked a few PCs on here...).

 

[Noughtboy]

What @Tetras was trying to say about your storage solution is that you could potentially add another 5x SATA drives (either SSD or HDD) as you wish and weigh up whether you want more storage (HDD) or speed (SSD) but yes, you can add 5 more. Not even an upgrade...you take the drive, clip in a power cable from the PSU, plug in a SATA cable and connect this to the MB in a spare slot. If you can change a lightbulb and plug in a lamp and, you are sorted! You can add a Seagate Iron Wolf 4TB for £83 on OCUK (pre order or source it elsewhere) or a 6TB for £131. Don't get a Seagate Barracuda as it is a SMR drive. Look for a CMR one.

For SATA SSD, OCUK has a 2TB Samsung 870 EVO for £100 so you can decide on the 6TB if the £131 or £100 for 2TB.

 

[fragilesi]

Thanks both of you, it is genuinely appreciated, so it seems that I can probably stick with this system for a while yet. I'll investigate the BIOS upgrade soon, which should take care of Win 11 when the time comes. It also sounds like the disk capacity situation is easily sorted out. I believe I can live with the physical disks, I just move stuff around so that what I am normally working on sits on the second SSD. So I think a couple of those 6TB Iron Wolfs will keep me going for a bit and it sounds like even I would struggle to mess up the install

The graphics card I assumed wouldn't be an easy thing to recommend because I think with the new AI tools it's a relatively new niche usage of the power of these cards. I'm minded though, from what I have read and seen in some of the Adobe users fora that upgrading to 12MB model is the way to go. I don't think anything will reduce the time down to mere seconds but going generally on the processing speed of the things is there a 12GB model that stands out in terms of price/performance. Like I said up to around 500 or a little more would be good.

 

[Noughtboy]

@fragilesi, there are two 12GB from the previous range of GPU's. Nvidia 3060 and AMD 6700/6750 XT.

The Nvidia is a class below in performance but costs about £270 - £300. The AMD is £320-£330. If you were gaming, AMD all the way. With Adobe, not certain if Nvidia is the better option and may be better to scroll through those Lightroom forums. If you want to jump up a class, the AMD 6800 16GB is £440 on pre order or the 6800XT is £520 in stock.

An upcoming option (not released as I type) is the AMD 7700XT which is imminent but no price as yet.

Another storage option could be an external drive. There are 4TB Seagate models @£84 and a 6TB@£114 (all probably SMR) and use USB 3.0 to connect so not ideal in both cases HOWEVER easy as plug into USB port, attach external power pack and Bob's your uncle.