Photoshop and light gaming

[Ansger]

Hi, I'm thinking of building a PC for my girlfriend but I don't know anything about shopping for parts. 

 

I was thinking of building a gaming PC for myself a while back but then I saw my girlfriend struggling on her macbook pro. She is in to photography and is trying to make a buck out of it. The only problem is that het Macbook Pro isn't really suited for the work she bought it back when she wasn't that serious  about photography). It only has 4 gigs of RAM so it slows to a crawl every time she works in photoshop with fairly large files.

For the meantime I offered her to switch laptops with me (my macbook pro is a bit more beefy), but sooner or later i'm going to need my laptop back. 

I want to help her out and build a PC where she can edit het photo's on (and so i can have my laptop back). She uses Lightroom and Photoshop. I think she will want to do very basic video editing down the line (but nothing to serious).

The PC must be cheap as we don't have a lot of money to throw around. However, it should perform adequately in photoshop. I'd rather spend a bit more instead of cheaping out and end up with unusable hardware. After all, it's here dream we're talking about. 

 

On a side note: It would be awesome if it could be used for some light gaming down the line. I'm not a heavy gamer, but it would be nice if the system could run some games if I slap a graphics card in there whenever I have the cash to spoil myself a bit. 

[Ansger]

Also, those lovely people at Apple decided to solder the RAM to the motherboard of her macbook pro, so a RAM upgrade is not possible. 

[DrMacintosh]

Define cheap

[DrMacintosh]

Here is something that is sub $650

 

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/Hyj7m8

 

Will crush photoshop and will be able to video edit and do light gaming. 

[Ansger]

27 minutes ago, DrMacintosh said:

Define cheap

well, my budget is limited to say 500 but i can stretch it out a hundred or two if it is really wordt it. Keep in mind that it doesn't have to be a "beast" at photoshop. It just needs to work properly. I could always improve on it down the line whenever i have some more cash.

[Ansger]

24 minutes ago, DrMacintosh said:

Here is something that is sub $650

 

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/Hyj7m8

 

Will crush photoshop and will be able to video edit and do light gaming. 

Thanks! Looks good and is in my price range. Hopefully I will be able to pull it of without her knowing. I'm hoping to surprise her with an (early) Christmas gift.

[Ansger]

On 5-11-2017 at 10:22 PM, DrMacintosh said:

Here is something that is sub $650

 

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/Hyj7m8

 

Will crush photoshop and will be able to video edit and do light gaming. 

Sorry to bother again, but would it be possible to  switch the DD4 for DDR3 RAM? As I said, I don't know much about the matter.

I also can get my hands on second hand HyperX 16 GB DDR4-2133 RAM (2x 8GB). would that be fine or is second hand RAM a no-go?

[DrMacintosh]

55 minutes ago, Ansger said:

Sorry to bother again, but would it be possible to  switch the DD4 for DDR3 RAM? As I said, I don't know much about the matter.

I also can get my hands on second hand HyperX 16 GB DDR4-2133 RAM (2x 8GB). would that be fine or is second hand RAM a no-go?

These new platforms require DDR4 unfortunately. 

[Ansger]

On 7-11-2017 at 4:14 PM, DrMacintosh said:

These new platforms require DDR4 unfortunately. 

Due to me living in Belgium half of the components aren't available here. Would these parts work as well?

Motherboard:

http://www.asrock.com/MB/AMD/A320M-DGS/

RAM:

https://www.amazon.de/HyperX-HX430C15SBK2-Savage-Arbeitsspeicher-schwarz/dp/B0151PXW9E/ref=sr_1_3?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1510402581&sr=1-3&keywords=ddr4+3000+8gb

Power supply:

https://www.amazon.de/Corsair-CP-9020107-Vengeance-Bronze-Netzteil/dp/B01CQ4BQ50/ref=sr_1_1?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1510401770&sr=1-1&keywords=500W+80%2B+Bronze+power+supply

Case:

https://www.newegg.com/global/be/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811139018