Advice on Photo Editing PC + monitors

S7rider

S7rider

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Dear all

My Father is looking at purchasing a new PC, this primary use for this is photo editing (lightroom and photoshop) Storage is not an issue as we have set up a NAS Drive for him. I last built a "photo editing PC" for him 7 years ago and he is over due an upgrade.

The plan is for me to Build his PC. Budget is aprox £1200-2000 (not including the monitors)
He is also interested in Pro/photo editing monitors (22-24 inch - can go larger is suggested)
He is looking at spending 500-1000 on the monitors (and is looking at 2 - or 1 if an expensive one is recommended)

I would really value your help on this.

Thanks
 

Josh.B

Josh.B

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Hi S7Rider,

I've put this together,
My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £1,017.95 (includes shipping: £11.10)
​

From my research it seems photoshop only really takes advantage of 8 cores, past that it seems to be minor gains and 32gb of ram seems sufficient.

I know i'm under budget currently however i have left off a case, you could also go up to a 9900k if you wish, its an extra £170 however i expect it will only be a minor increase in speed for photoshop.

Monitor wise, there is a lot of choice in your price range, would you want to go 1440p or 4k resolution?
 

Seearbe

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Not sure about Photoshop but Lightroom will make more use of multiple cores and so the latest Ryzen chips would seem to be the way to go there - 3700X or 3900X if you can stretch that far (conservatively budget another £300 to the cost below). 32GB is the recommended minimum on RAM especially when using Photoshop at the same time. There is good usage of GPU cores in Photoshop and expected to improve in Lightroom so not worth skimping. I'd also suggest a larger M.2 drive (add another £150 for a 2TB drive) as it will make accessing the large Lightroom libraries a bit snappier, although the performance gains aren't as significant as might be expected.

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £1,318.08 (includes shipping: £13.20)​
​
 

Danny75

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Was doing a spec but Josh.B and Seearbe have provided good Intel and AMD options.

Would just say that if you want a USB Type C front port (mostly for future) get a case like the NZXT H510 and a motherboard with internal USB Type C (the Elite in Seearbe's spec has one).

Also, this Seagate Barracuda NVME 1TB is interesting for the money:


My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £178.68 (includes shipping: £11.70)​
​


For monitors, if your dad wants to treat himself, check out these two amongst others:


ASUS ProArt PA329C 32 Inch Professional Monitor, 4K (3840 x 2160), IPS, 98% DCI-P3, 100% Adobe RGB, 100% sRGB, 84% Rec.2020,△E< 2, DisplayHDR 600, USB Type-C with PowerDelivery 60 W (approx. £1,150)

LG UltraWide 34WK95U 34-inch Monitor- 5K2K 21:9 UHD 5120x2160 Nano IPS, VESA DisplayHDR 600, Thunderbolt (approx. £1,250)
Click to expand...


The Asus has true 10-bit support, don't think the LG does although latter has more physical and pixel real estate. You can now enable 10-bit on Nvidia GTX/RTX by installing the studio drivers instead of the typical gaming ones.

 

snips86x

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Photoshop loves the cores but I have to question investing in Intel right now. The new 10 series coming out will require a new socket so the 9 series will be dead with no upgrade path available.

I would suggest AMD 3600/3700x with 32gb RAM as a baseline. Going AMD would meant that you have access to the next CPU line up (Zen3).

My Input would be this:
  • SSD is suitable for storing photos/raw files locally before transferring to the NAS
  • Monitor you'd have to look elsewhere for a decent IPS photography one
  • Case is personal preference
My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £908.95 (includes shipping: £11.10)​
​
 

S7rider

S7rider

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Thank you very much for taking the time to respond to my question. My father is willing to spend 1200+ on the monitor alone, i cant seem to find the models suggested to me. can anyone make any recommendation on the ones OCUK stock or are there other options? Thanks again!
 

Danny75

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S7rider said:
Thank you very much for taking the time to respond to my question. My father is willing to spend 1200+ on the monitor alone, i cant seem to find the models suggested to me. can anyone make any recommendation on the ones OCUK stock or are there other options? Thanks again!
Click to expand...

Funny, I tried a retailer that stocks them and the website's own search engine failed to find them. If you enter the full text in a google search (minus the approx. price) the results will pop up there.

OcUK stocks one of the two I mentioned, in Open Box format (guessing they are returns but with full warranty rather than B-Grade with just 3 months but you'd have to ask staff to confirm).

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/lg-o...ssional-widescreen-led-monitor-mo-157-lg.html
 

S7rider

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Seearbe

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S7rider said:
Thanks again for the responses. I was just looking at the graphic card suggestions

1 x KFA2 GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER EX 1CLICK-OC 8192MB GDDR6 PCI-Express Graphics Card= £374.99 - seems expensive and only has 1 Display port, i am happy to spend the cash, would buying this card make a big difference over the other suggestion:

Asus GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER Dual EVO OC 6144MB GDDR6 PCI-Express Graphics Card

Thanks again
Click to expand...

I believe the 2060 linked has 2 x DP: http://www.kfa2.com/kfa2/graphics-card/20-series/kfa2-geforce-rtx-2060-super-ex-1click-393.html

As mentioned, it would appear that Photoshop does make use of GPU processing power for certain tasks. Have a look at this, assuming the link doesn't get deleted (they sell computers but only in the US so doubt they will be seen as a competitor - sorry mods if I've got that wrong): https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Photoshop-CC-2018-NVIDIA-GeForce-GPU-Performance-1139/

You'll note that in Photoshop, there isn't a huge difference in performance between a 1080ti and a 1050 for most tasks (and that's a big difference in graphics power). However, "smart sharpen" uses a bit more GPU and resizing uses quite a lot.

I understand that Lightroom is a little behind Photoshop when it comes to leveraging GPU power but there are some features that do make use of this: https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/a...C-2019-Enhanced-Details-GPU-Performance-1366/

So if the budget allows, you want to guarantee top performance and the sharpening/resizing type operations are things you are likely to use, then it's probably worth the extra.
 

Journey

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S7rider said:
Thank you very much for taking the time to respond to my question. My father is willing to spend 1200+ on the monitor alone, i cant seem to find the models suggested to me. can anyone make any recommendation on the ones OCUK stock or are there other options? Thanks again!
Click to expand...

With regards to the monitor, a great mid-range photo editing monitor is the BenQ PD3200U which is around the £600 mark, as the name suggests it is a 32" model and offers a 4K capable panel. If he really wanted to push the boat out then the Dell UltraSharp UP3216Q is great, but it is twice the price and you need to ensure you are editing in a full 10-bit workflow to make real use of it.
 

S7rider

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Thanks again, I am in the process of looking to order. This is what i am planning on going with:

The suggested SSD is not in stock, is this a suitable option ?
  • Samsung 970 EVO Plus 1TB M.2 2280 PCI-e 3.0 x4 NVMe Solid State Drive
  • or: Crucial MX500 1TB 3D NAND Sata PCIe M.2 Solid State Drive
    I assume any SSD PCIe 1TB would suffice?
Thanks again!
 

Quartz

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Given your father's requirements, why are you ordering a gaming GPU? Would not a Nvidia Quadro offer a better colour gamut? Full 10 bit colour, for instance. I would suggest you choose your GPU in concert with themonitors - there's no point getting a 10 bit GPU if the monitors aren't 10 bit.

As for monitors, your father will want something better for imagery than Acer, Asus, and other gamer-oriented monitors. He cannot afford Eizo monitors, but the NEC PA243W looks affordable and the Dell P2415Q Ultrasharp 4k 24" monitor is very nice and very much in the price range but is only 8 bit - it gets to 10 bit via dithering.
 

S7rider

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Thanks for the advice quartz. Good questions which i havent got the answers to (hence my request for suggestions)

I think the Quadros are too pricey? OCUK only stock the: Dell P2415Q Ultrasharp 4k 24" would 2 be a good option?
 

Quartz

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I have the Dell and it's very nice but I don't use it for photomanipulation. I purchased it from the manufacturer direct: they had it on special offer.
 
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