New system for mostly photo editing ~1000 USD

[Xibalba]

Budget (including currency): 1000ish USD

Country: Poland

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Lightroom, Photoshop, Resolve (Up to 25p 4K Sony H.264), Interwebz

Other details (existing parts lists, whether any peripherals are needed, what you're upgrading from, when you're going to buy, what resolution and refresh rate you want to play at, etc): 

 

Okay, so here`s the deal: my current PC started annoying me. It literally CANNOT play music from Spotify while editing images in Lightroom. And I can see the it slowing down day by day, at first it had trouble opening both PS and Lr at the same time, now it can`t handle Lr (simple catalogue with ~2500 24mp RAW images) with Spotify in the background. You know, the lovely buzzing noises of music being slowed down by 300%. So yeah, I guess it is time to upgrade. Oh, and I`ve reinstalled the OS about 3 months ago and I try to keep everything clean and tidy. No hotanimugirldoinglapdance.exe My workflow involves all the usual Lr editing- rbushes, gradients, culling, exporting etc. For PS, I often work on files exceeding 1GB size - so multiple layers, adjustments, smart objects and filters.

 

Current setup:

 

i5 4690k (can check if it`s OC`ed right now or not, but it makes no difference, runs like garbage either way) cooled by an aftermarket cooler- temps are OK;

24 GB RAM (4 slots used);

Gigabyte GTX970;

System (Win10) installed on SATA SSD, pictures are kept on a seperate SATA SSD, music documents etc on a hard drive;

MSI Z390 Mobo

Seasonic 650W PSU;

Single 1200p Display

 

Right, now for the fun part. I will be using the new computer primarily for photo editing, and I need it to be two things: SMOOTH and future proof. I don`t want to have to upgrade in the next 4-5 years. That`s how long I`ve had this PC and I believe it to be a reasonable lifespan. I do game occasionally now, but in the future I plan to get a PS5 (once the scalping fiasco ends...). It would be nice to be able to open Steam once in a while, but I could live without it.

 

So, here are my ideas:

 

• Get a M1 Mac mini. Yeah, I know I know. And trust me, I`ve always been a happy PC camper. But the combination of good performance, silence, ease of use and general "fewer issues approach" is quite compelling. Maybe I am a little bit bought by all the rave reviews, but who cares as long as it works. And it could work, given I will use it for "professional" workloads. So I see it this way- buy 16GB version with base storage and use my current old girl as a base for NAS/storage. This is the most risky approach for me, as I have NO experience with Macs and I would have to build my own storage server (is that rig even suitable for that job?). Pretty scary, but at the same time pretty exciting.
• Build a new PC with as much salvaged stuff from the old one as possible. So the GPU, PSU and storage are ticked. For the rest- I was thinking Ryzen (which one? 5k series?) 32GB of 3200mHz RAM (is there any point in going 3600?) and a nvme boot drive (980 Samsung? Doesn`t need to be too big, 500GB is plenty). I have NO IDEA what mobo to pick here. Obviously I could not care less for RGB and other GAMERZ stuff. Help out! And later on all the old parts can be used for a server as well.

Thoughts? Maybe there is a 3rd, hidden option?

Thanks!

 

[MarvintheParrot]

14 minutes ago, Xibalba said:

Budget (including currency): 1000ish USD

Country: Poland

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Lightroom, Photoshop, Resolve (Up to 25p 4K Sony H.264), Interwebz

Other details (existing parts lists, whether any peripherals are needed, what you're upgrading from, when you're going to buy, what resolution and refresh rate you want to play at, etc): 

 

Okay, so here`s the deal: my current PC started annoying me. It literally CANNOT play music from Spotify while editing images in Lightroom. And I can see the it slowing down day by day, at first it had trouble opening both PS and Lr at the same time, now it can`t handle Lr (simple catalogue with ~2500 24mp RAW images) with Spotify in the background. You know, the lovely buzzing noises of music being slowed down by 300%. So yeah, I guess it is time to upgrade. Oh, and I`ve reinstalled the OS about 3 months ago and I try to keep everything clean and tidy. No hotanimugirldoinglapdance.exe My workflow involves all the usual Lr editing- rbushes, gradients, culling, exporting etc. For PS, I often work on files exceeding 1GB size - so multiple layers, adjustments, smart objects and filters.

 

Current setup:

 

i5 4690k (can check if it`s OC`ed right now or not, but it makes no difference, runs like garbage either way) cooled by an aftermarket cooler- temps are OK;

24 GB RAM (4 slots used);

Gigabyte GTX970;

System (Win10) installed on SATA SSD, pictures are kept on a seperate SATA SSD, music documents etc on a hard drive;

MSI Z390 Mobo

Seasonic 650W PSU;

Single 1200p Display

 

Right, now for the fun part. I will be using the new computer primarily for photo editing, and I need it to be two things: SMOOTH and future proof. I don`t want to have to upgrade in the next 4-5 years. That`s how long I`ve had this PC and I believe it to be a reasonable lifespan. I do game occasionally now, but in the future I plan to get a PS5 (once the scalping fiasco ends...). It would be nice to be able to open Steam once in a while, but I could live without it.

 

So, here are my ideas:

 

• Get a M1 Mac mini. Yeah, I know I know. And trust me, I`ve always been a happy PC camper. But the combination of good performance, silence, ease of use and general "fewer issues approach" is quite compelling. Maybe I am a little bit bought by all the rave reviews, but who cares as long as it works. And it could work, given I will use it for "professional" workloads. So I see it this way- buy 16GB version with base storage and use my current old girl as a base for NAS/storage. This is the most risky approach for me, as I have NO experience with Macs and I would have to build my own storage server (is that rig even suitable for that job?). Pretty scary, but at the same time pretty exciting.
• Build a new PC with as much salvaged stuff from the old one as possible. So the GPU, PSU and storage are ticked. For the rest- I was thinking Ryzen (which one? 5k series?) 32GB of 3200mHz RAM (is there any point in going 3600?) and a nvme boot drive (980 Samsung? Doesn`t need to be too big, 500GB is plenty). I have NO IDEA what mobo to pick here. Obviously I could not care less for RGB and other GAMERZ stuff. Help out! And later on all the old parts can be used for a server as well.

Thoughts? Maybe there is a 3rd, hidden option?

Thanks!

 

You are going to need to upgrade you GPU and monitor IMO. For now, all Ryzen 5000 is out of stock and all GPU's (and I mean all) are hundreds over MSRP. For Ryzen, you should always get the fastest RAM, I would recommend 3200 or 3600. For a CPU and MoBo combination, you could go with the Ryzen 5 3600 (once it comes down in price) and the MSI B450 Tomahawk MAX. If you live in the US and you have a Microcenter near you, you can get around $20 off for going with that combination  

[Xibalba]

5 minutes ago, jsugarman2005 said:

You are going to need to upgrade you GPU and monitor IMO.

Does Lr and PS rely heavily on GPU acceleration? From my own observations, not much. When stitching panoramas and adding some funky filters in PS sure, but I don`t do that often, so a couple of seconds there won`t make me happier. And not spending extra cash on GPU definitely will.

 

As for monitor... well, sure, if 4K one will make my PC run faster then I`m all for it! But jokes aside, sometime in the future at least 1440p and preferably 4K monitor will be on my buying list. But not for now, my current one is sufficient.

[brob]

It really comes down to local cpu supply and pricing. Now is not really a good time to buy a cpu. AMD 5xxx cpu are out of stock and prices are getting ridiculous. Intel supply seems to be decent but the AMD offerings are generally significantly better.

 

Still, if you can't wait consider something like an i5-10600 with a B460 or H470 motherboard and 32GB of DDR4-3000 CL16 memory.

 

If budget permits, consider getting two NVMe 1TB drives.

[Xibalba]

7 minutes ago, brob said:

if you can't wait

That really is up to my PC, not my patience ^^ If it dies, it dies...

But realistically, I will not have to buy this tomorrow, so the AMD stock should not a big concern.

 

10 minutes ago, brob said:

If budget permits, consider getting two NVMe 1TB drives.

For what purpose? 

[Avocheeseado]

The new M1 Mac Mini is certainly very good for photo editing and most productivity things, however cannot be upgraded or really play games on it if you were considering that. 

PC-wise, I would build something along the lines of this (if you can use your GPU and PSU):

PCPartPicker Part List

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD Ryzen 7 5800X 3.8 GHz 8-Core Processor	$449.00 @ Best Buy
CPU Cooler	be quiet! Dark Rock 4 CPU Cooler	$74.90 @ Amazon
Motherboard	MSI MAG B550 TOMAHAWK ATX AM4 Motherboard	$139.99 @ Newegg
Memory	Team T-FORCE DARK Z 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory	$104.99 @ Newegg
Storage	Western Digital Blue SN550 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive	$89.99 @ Western Digital
Case	Fractal Design Meshify C ATX Mid Tower Case	$93.99 @ Amazon
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total (before mail-in rebates)	$962.86
	Mail-in rebates	-$10.00
	Total	$952.86
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-12-01 14:53 EST-0500

 

[Xibalba]

@Avocheeseado Thanks! This setup looks nice. As I said, gaming is not a big concern to me. BTW, I can use my cooler as well, so another saving here.

 

I`m curious - if I bought say 5900X instead of 5800X, will I see noticeable difference? Or if I downgraded to 5600X will it be visibly slower? I know, benchmarks exist, but they only tell one side of the story- they will not tell how responsive the system feels. I would trade a minute of export time for a second of faster photo witch or smoother mask apply. So instead of raw, output power I aim for the "snappiness" of the system and immediate feeling of actions.

[brob]

2 hours ago, Xibalba said:

For what purpose? 

 

Load and save performance. But also system boot and overall performance. Even with 32GB of memory storage performance contributes to overall system performance. Some work will use swap and scratch space so providing faster storage for that will improve performance.

 

13 minutes ago, Xibalba said:

I`m curious - if I bought say 5900X instead of 5800X, will I see noticeable difference? Or if I downgraded to 5600X will it be visibly slower?

 

More cores generally provide for a much more responsive system, especially when running tasks that use multiple cores.

 

The speed differential is marginal so for software that is mostly single threaded the performance difference will not be great. For software that uses multiple cores, especially those that use as many as are available, there will be significant performance difference.