GIS-specific PC Build? (help please!)

[superturtle22]

Hello! I know basically nothing about PCs, but I'm about to graduate university and am currently interviewing for a GIS-heavy job (and looking to build my GIS skills/portfolio even if it doesn't pan out). The only computer I've ever owned is my 2020 M1 Macbook Pro, but I would need some sort of windows machine to run ArcGIS Pro once I leave campus and so I'm trying to understand what kind of desktop setup I might be looking at.

 

I've been trying my best to do research, but a lot of the information I'm reading is centered around gaming. I'm sure there is crossover here, but I don't have a great understanding of all the components yet, and I'm having trouble understanding how to translate recommendations from gaming-specific to my use case of GIS and geospatial data processing.

 

Here's some ArcGIS guidelines if helpful, but like I said I am a total noob so literally any information explained simply is much appreciated!

 

Budget (including currency): I was hoping for around $1000 USD, but I'm not sure if this is realistic? Puget has an ArcGIS Pro specific PC listed for $5300 USD, which is much more than I could spend, but I would save up to spend more if it's necessary for the specs I need. 

Country: US

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Mainly ArcGIS Pro (at the moment to process bathymetry & sonar data). In addition to this, standard office things (Microsoft Office, Zoom/Teams meetings, etc.) and relatively light data analysis & mapping in Python or MatLab. Gaming is much less of a priority (I really only play Minecraft, Stardew, and some indie games), but would be a nice addition to be able to play some of my favs on the machine as well.

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'd be buying pretty much everything since I only own a laptop at the moment, so the actual PC and the monitor are definitely a priority spending-wise; I'm okay with a cheap mouse, keyboard, etc. for the time being. I will probably start with just one monitor with the possibility of adding another in the future if I end up needing or wanting it, and any suggestions on which would work best are appreciated! In terms of other loose preferences, I like the look of lighter cases and have a pretty cozy room aesthetic going, and I also live in an apartment so quieter/smaller is better if possible. Overall though, color/style is much less important to me than function!

 

Any help would be appreciated! If you have time, explaining rationale would also be awesome and help me understand a bit more of what I'm looking at!

[Why_Me]

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: *Intel Core Ultra 7 265F 2.4 GHz 20-Core Processor  ($355.54 @ Amazon) 
CPU Cooler: *ID-COOLING FROZN A620 PRO SE 58 CFM CPU Cooler  ($29.99 @ Amazon) 
Motherboard: *Gigabyte B860 EAGLE WIFI6E ATX LGA1851 Motherboard  ($169.99 @ Amazon) 
Memory: *Patriot Venom 64 GB (2 x 32 GB) DDR5-6000 CL30 Memory  ($144.99 @ Newegg) 
Storage: *Acer Predator GM7000 2 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive  ($125.99 @ Amazon) 
Video Card: *Asus Dual GeForce RTX 3060 V2 OC Edition GeForce RTX 3060 12GB 12 GB Video Card  ($329.99 @ Amazon) 
Case: *Fractal Design Pop Air ATX Mid Tower Case  ($79.99 @ Best Buy) 
Power Supply: *MSI MAG A750BN PCIE5 750 W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply  ($74.99 @ Newegg) 
Total: $1311.47
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
*Lowest price parts chosen from parametric criteria
Generated by PCPartPicker 2025-04-08 20:11 EDT-0400

 

https://www.tomshardware.com/software/windows/windows-11-free-or-cheap

[brob]

The ArcGIS Pro requirements seem to predate Intel's move to hybrid cores. I took the Optimal 10 cores to mean 20 concurrent threads. The i5-14600K offers 20 threads.

 

GPU is a compromise. Mostly because it is easily upgraded when funds are available.

 

PCPartPicker Part List

 

CPU: Intel Core i5-14600K 3.5 GHz 14-Core Processor ($207.99 @ Amazon) 

CPU Cooler: Thermalright Phantom Spirit 120 SE 66.17 CFM CPU Cooler ($35.90 @ Amazon) 

Motherboard: MSI PRO Z790-S WIFI ATX LGA1700 Motherboard ($169.99 @ Amazon) 

Memory: Silicon Power XPOWER Pulse Gaming 64 GB (2 x 32 GB) DDR5-6000 CL30 Memory ($169.99 @ Amazon) 

Storage: MSI SPATIUM M461 2 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive ($119.99 @ Newegg) 

Video Card: MSI GeForce RTX 3060 Ventus 2X 12G GeForce RTX 3060 12GB 12 GB Video Card ($339.98 @ Newegg) 

Case: MSI MAG FORGE 321R AIRFLOW ATX Mid Tower Case ($76.98 @ Amazon) 

Power Supply: Thermaltake Toughpower GF3 TT Premium 750 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply ($89.99 @ Amazon) 

Total: $1210.81

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Generated by PCPartPicker 2025-04-08 18:49 EDT-0400

[Somerandomtechyboi]

Using the puget systems build as a reference looks both cpu and gpu intensive but luckily its basically just a gaming pc with some extra ram and maybe a secondary compute gpu if you wanna do machine learning (say tesla p40 one of the cheaper cards with 24gb of vram)

 

2 hours ago, superturtle22 said:

I was hoping for around $1000 USD, but I'm not sure if this is realistic?

More than doable if you sack or cut down on less important things (ex case, excess storage/ram) or on things you can cut with almost no reprecussions (ex used psu equiv to rm850x)

 

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/wQbY8Q

14700k + 3080 + 128gb 3600c18

 

About 140$ that can be shaved off if you cut half the ram and half the storage with a further 50-100$ on case and psu

 

Used gpu is practically a neccessity at these low budgets so yeah no getting around that one unless you like overpaying for rubbish (3060 4060) though the board wont run dual gpu due to the idiotic pcie lane allocation to the bottom pcie x16 slots so youll have to get a diff board if you want dual gpu

[KhazadSanci]

On 4/8/2025 at 2:07 PM, superturtle22 said:

Puget has an ArcGIS Pro specific PC listed for $5300 USD, which is much more than I could spend, but I would save up to spend more if it's necessary for the specs I need. 

 

To give some context on this, a good chunk of that price is due to the 5080. That's recommended b/c you want *a* video card for ArcGIS Pro in general, and it has some Deep Learning functionality built-in. That functionality has a minimum 6 GB VRAM buffer requirement, but a recommendation of 16 GB—and 5070 Tis are hard to find right now compared to 5080s. This is super flexible though, and if you are unsure you'll be using those features, a lower-end GPU will do totally fine—you can always upgrade that down the line. 

Otherwise, while I haven't done any recent testing on ArcGIS myself, it is historically a lighter program, so something like a 14600K (or similar) should be great. Both Brob's and why_me's recommendations look good to me, especially if you are on a tighter budget.