Photography Desktop PC

[tmechn]

Budget (including currency): 6000 Lei

Country: Romania

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Photoshop, Camera RAW, Topaz Photo AI, Luminar AI, Anthropics Portrait Pro

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): 

 

I am trying to decide on a configuration for a desktop PC that is going to be primarily used for photo editing and I want it to be able to handle the new AI features that have permeated the photo edititng programs recently. I mainly use Photoshop CC2023 including some of the Neural Filters that do local processing (as opposed to the cloud-based ones), frequent use of Object Detection tool along with Luminar AI invoked as a plugin, Topaz AI suite, Anthropics Portrait Pro and Lightroom. I have a budget of around 6000 lei (that is about 1200 US $ +- 200$).

 

Thus far I am undecided between buying a refurbished HP Z4 G4 workstation with the Intel OCTA W-2145 (Skylake) with 32 GB of DDR4 ECC, a 1TB Samsung 980 and the Nvidia RTX 3060 12 GB VRAM (Gigabyte)

OR

...building my own custom PC, which as far as I understand would allow me some newer processor like a Ryzen 7 and some cheaper 32 GB RAM and a 3060 Ti in the same budget.

I have also considered buying this Lenovo Ideacentre ( https://altex.ro/sistem-desktop-gaming-lenovo-ideacentre-5-17acn7-amd-ryzen-7-5700g-pana-la-4-6ghz-32gb-ssd-1tb-nvidia-geforce-rtx-3060-ti-8gb-free-dos/cpd/CLC90TQ005KRI/ ) that perfectly fits the budget but i am less and less attracted to it given the 500 W power supply and the lack of upgrade options in the future. Some YouTube videos also advise against it claiming the case is very poor quality amongst other stuff. For those who didn't follow the link it's an AMD Ryzen 7 5700G with 32 GB RAM, and an Nvidia 3060 Ti.

 

Thing is, it's been about 14 years since I last built a PC and I'm completely out of the loop with modern hardware and I'm also getting old which I guess contributes to my interest in a pre-built system.

 

Priority number 1 is stability. I am sick of bsod's and spending months of installing and uninstalling drivers. This is the reason why the refurbished HP Z4 g4 is at the moment the most tempting option. I'm using PC's since the nineties and I've spent way too much time playing the role of a technician and IT specialist. I want a PC that I can actually use instead of tinkering with. I also know that Macs are very stable (at  least that's what everybody says) but that is not feasible for me and  they are also too expensive here in Romania.

 

 

I don't mind waiting a couple of extra-seconds while programs launch or waiting a bit when applying hardware-intensive filters, but I do require decent performance since I deal with large batches of photos sometimes that I need to process and compatibility with perhaps even more hardware demanding AI features that I'm sure are going to come our way..

 

How does an older Xeon W-2145 (Skylake 14 nm) stack up against a modern Ryzen 5 or 7 ? Is the difference significant regarding the software that I use ?

What config would you recommend for a system to be very stable with tried and tested components that do get along well given the budget and the intended use ?

 

Thanks in advance Hope my English was not too bad.