Photo Editing Rig Help!

[Eckhornsol]

Okay, so I am planning on building a photo editing rig for my mother and came up with a few questions. I'll provide a little background before getting to my questions.

 

Use: Light photo editing with Lightroom, Photoshop. Photos that are shot on a Canon 5D MKIV in RAW.  No video editing at all!

Budget: Around $1300

Current build: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/ngDwmq

 

Questions:

Is 16GB of RAM necessary? 16GB of RAM is my final decision

Do I need a graphics card?

Is the Core i3 8350k sufficient or would a Core i5/i7 be the better choice?

Is this monitor overkill? She would appreciate a good monitor with better color accuracy, but I am unfamiliar with this area. 

 

I feel like 16GB of RAM is needed, and I assume the photo editing software take advantage of physical cores over HT and would also prefer higher clock speed. I have built plenty of office computers and gaming computers, but no workstations/editing rigs. I appreciate any help!

[DrMacintosh]

Remove the i3 and pick up a Ryzen 3 APU instead. Better graphics eliminating the need for a GPU all together, as well as having better performance and price.  

 

As for the RAM, I would say 8GB is sufficient for photo editing. Especially light photo editing, photos simply don't use that much RAM. 

[Guest]

RAM will depend on your workflow. I tend to have lightroom & PS open almost 24/7 this is average resource usage for my workflow when everything is open, but idle:

 

 

Add to that the usage of other programs in the background and 8GB can get thin pretty quickly.

I admittedly have a strange workflow, but it's just something to consider. 

[Herman Mcpootis]

try this:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel - Core i7-8700 3.2GHz 6-Core Processor  ($309.99 @ Amazon) 
CPU Cooler: RAIJINTEK - AIDOS BLACK 48.6 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler  ($18.89 @ SuperBiiz) 
Motherboard: ASRock - B360M Pro4 Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard  ($67.99 @ Newegg) 
Memory: G.Skill - Aegis 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2800 Memory  ($126.99 @ Newegg) 
Storage: ADATA - XPG SX6000 256GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive  ($58.99 @ Amazon) 
Storage: Toshiba - P300 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($56.49 @ OutletPC) 
Video Card: MSI - GeForce GTX 1050 Ti 4GB Video Card  ($154.99 @ B&H) 
Case: Thermaltake - Versa H18 Tempered Glass MicroATX Mini Tower Case  ($41.99 @ Newegg) 
Power Supply: EVGA - SuperNOVA G2 550W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($49.99 @ B&H) 
Monitor: LG - 27UD58-B 27.0" 3840x2160 60Hz Monitor  ($296.93 @ Newegg) 
Total: $1183.24
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-08-24 23:14 EDT-0400

if she needs the optical drive, get an external one.

[brob]

Photoshop does prefer higher performance cores over more cores. Lightroom does do much better with more cores when exporting. Something like an i5-8600 is a reasonable compromise with six cores and capable of 4.3GHz on lighter loads.

 

Fast storage greatly improves system responsiveness when working with significant amounts of data like RAW files.

 

A discrete gpu improves display speeds improving responsiveness.

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel - Core i5-8600 3.1GHz 6-Core Processor  ($209.99 @ Walmart) 
CPU Cooler: CRYORIG - H7 49.0 CFM CPU Cooler  ($36.50 @ Newegg Marketplace) 
Motherboard: ASRock - H370M Pro4 Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard  ($83.79 @ SuperBiiz) 
Memory: G.Skill - Ripjaws V Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3000 Memory  ($144.99 @ Newegg) 
Storage: Crucial - MX500 1TB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($189.00 @ Amazon) 
Video Card: EVGA - GeForce GTX 1050 Ti 4GB ACX 2.0 Video Card  ($179.99 @ Amazon) 
Case: Cooler Master - N200 MicroATX Mini Tower Case  ($44.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Power Supply: Corsair - CXM (2015) 450W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($49.99 @ Amazon) 
Optical Drive: LG - GH24NSC0B DVD/CD Writer  ($16.89 @ OutletPC) 
Monitor: Asus - PB278Q 27.0" 2560x1440 60Hz Monitor  ($373.67 @ Amazon) 
Total: $1329.80
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-08-25 00:44 EDT-0400

 

 

[Eckhornsol]

DrMacintosh - Thanks for the suggestion, the Ryzen 5 APU would probably be a better choice as it has a closer clock speed to the i3, HT, better GFX, and can be OC'd. It's still cheaper than the i3 too. I am still uncertain if anything more powerful than Intel igpu is needed for the software or display.

 

Densetsu - I really appreciate the picture, that tells me that 16GB of RAM is most likely necessary for this build. She tends to have several internet tabs open as well as both those programs, and I know Windows eats up a bit also.

 

Herman Mcpootis - That's a decent build, but what is your rationale for including a graphics card and changing the monitor? 

 

brob - Thanks for the info, I could easily squeeze in an i5-8600 if I don't need a graphics card and maybe find a cheaper monitor.

13 hours ago, brob said:

A discrete gpu improves display speeds improving responsiveness.

This makes perfect sense in video games, and especially when you have a high refresh rate monitor. However, I am still unconvinced this is a necessity. I was reading up on Adobe PS and discovered that in certain situations PS can take advantage of hardware acceleration from a GPU. Still not sure if an igpu is sufficient or if the GPU acceleration creates a significant improvement.

 

Thanks everyone for the help so far!

[brob]

10 minutes ago, Eckhornsol said:

...

brob - Thanks for the info, I could easily squeeze in an i5-8600 if I don't need a graphics card and maybe find a cheaper monitor.

This makes perfect sense in video games, and especially when you have a high refresh rate monitor. However, I am still unconvinced this is a necessity. I was reading up on Adobe PS and discovered that in certain situations PS can take advantage of hardware acceleration from a GPU. Still not sure if an igpu is sufficient or if the GPU acceleration creates a significant improvement.

 

Thanks everyone for the help so far!

 

If you want people to be notified when posting type @ and the first few letters of their use name. Then pick the user off of the popup list. The name will then look something like @Eckhornsol and the user will receive a notification of your post.

 

Display responsiveness is very important in image editing. If you can, I suggest trying out some simple photo editing with and without a discrete gpu. I think you will be surprised at the difference, especially on higher resolution monitors.

 

For this application I would spend less on the cpu to get a better monitor. The system would have reasonable performance with an i5-8400 or Ryzen 5 2600. Given the usage, a very good monitor is important since its performance will ultimately be the basis on which the user judges the system.

 

GPU acceleration does make a difference when applying particular transforms and effects, especially with higher resolution images.