£1200 photo editing PC

AndrewSt

AndrewSt

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I have a monitor and looking to put together a PC, either a custom build or self build with a £1200 budget.

What would you go for?

I'm thinking i7, 16GB ram, 512 ssd or m.2 ssd with 2x3tb hard drives. I think it should just about be possible for the budget.

Any recommendations?
 
The SSD doesn't need to be that large unless you want the PC for gaming too.
An i5 would be more than adequate too.

You should be able to put together a good enough build for almost half that. A quickly thrown together example...

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/6xWDwV

Add a beefier PSU and a graphics card for high end gaming and maybe upgrade to an i7 for gaming. Maybe add a second small SSD for LR cache and PS scratch disks, but I never really felt it to be neessary.
 
afasoas said:
The SSD doesn't need to be that large unless you want the PC for gaming too.
An i5 would be more than adequate too.

You should be able to put together a good enough build for almost half that. A quickly thrown together example...

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/6xWDwV

Add a beefier PSU and a graphics card for high end gaming and maybe upgrade to an i7 for gaming. Maybe add a second small SSD for LR cache and PS scratch disks, but I never really felt it to be neessary.
Click to expand...
:agree:
 
afasoas said:
The SSD doesn't need to be that large unless you want the PC for gaming too.
An i5 would be more than adequate too.

You should be able to put together a good enough build for almost half that. A quickly thrown together example...

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/6xWDwV

Add a beefier PSU and a graphics card for high end gaming and maybe upgrade to an i7 for gaming. Maybe add a second small SSD for LR cache and PS scratch disks, but I never really felt it to be neessary.
Click to expand...
Worth getting an unlocked K processor or is i5 more than enough?
 
Personally I'd still go i7 if the budget allows. Might as well give yourself a bit more horsepower.

Incidentally an i7 lends itself more to editing than gaming (not many games demand that sort of cpu and instead want gpu power).
 
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I'd get the i7 but that money will get you a good spec self build.

I7 6700k £300
Z170 board £150
CPU cooler £60
Psu £80
Ram. Go for 32gb. £150
Personally I'd get some high cap ssd's with the change and stick your working catalogue on there. Makes for a real snappy machine.
Case£you choose!
 
Brazo said:
I'd get the i7 but that money will get you a good spec self build.

I7 6700k £300
Z170 board £150
CPU cooler £60
Psu £80
Ram. Go for 32gb. £150
Personally I'd get some high cap ssd's with the change and stick your working catalogue on there. Makes for a real snappy machine.
Case£you choose!
Click to expand...
Standard SSD or a m.2? Is it worth the extra?
 
AndrewSt said:
Standard SSD or a m.2? Is it worth the extra?
Click to expand...
I've got an m.2 Samsung 950 in a full speed 3x4 slot which is technically a lot faster than a normal ssd. Only in benchmarks I'd say as I don't feel its massively faster in real world usage.
 
I would add a gpu too. Not strictly necessary for 2d work but even a 750ti will move things along nicely and game if that's your bag.

Look at AMD 460, 470, 480 as they are quite cheap.
 
afasoas said:
The SSD doesn't need to be that large unless you want the PC for gaming too.
An i5 would be more than adequate too.

You should be able to put together a good enough build for almost half that. A quickly thrown together example...

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/6xWDwV

Add a beefier PSU and a graphics card for high end gaming and maybe upgrade to an i7 for gaming. Maybe add a second small SSD for LR cache and PS scratch disks, but I never really felt it to be neessary.
Click to expand...
This.

I built a decent processing rig for about half that, it still eats the 6d raw files, it boots in seconds and does everything I throw at it.
 
I really don't think you will benefit from a discrete graphics unless you go high end, and the stuff NVidia is knocking out is much better (more efficient) than the AMD stuff.

I have an i7 at home and an i5 at work. If they were blindly swapped I don't think I would notice. If you can really spare the cash, pony up for an i7, it will future proof your rig a bit. Otherwise, maybe consider your backup solution.

Same with RAM, unless you are running virtual machines, or batch processing a large number of images through Photoshop, you're not going to see the benefit from 32GB. If you buy 2x8GB you will still have the option to upgrade in future of the need arises.

An m.2 might make a difference with sequential read and write of large files. Ideal if you are shovelling around large videos.

My main point was, once you get beyond the £600 mark, the law of diminishing returns kicks in.

neil_g said:
Incidentally an i7 lends itself more to editing than gaming (not many games demand that sort of cpu and instead want gpu power).
Click to expand...

Not strictly true. With both it depends on what. What games and what operations you are performing in Photoshop.



Apologies for the typos in my earlier reply. Rushed post from my mobile.
 
I'd definitely choose the i7 over the i5 any day. I notice the difference between my machines, and the moment you may have to make a slideshow or video the difference becomes even greater.

Likewise a larger sSD is very useful. If not anything but to import the project on there first and only once finished move it to the slower platter based drives.

Likewise with a graphics card, don't forget that a fair few user interfaces are build using OpenGL as well. A decent card will make that experience better as well.

Your budget allows for it; I would go self build and carefully select the components where it matters for you.
 
My £1400 photo (& occasional video) editing machine, which I built in July, covers the following:

i7 Hex Core 5820k 3.3Ghz
MSI x99A Krait Motherboard
Corsair Vengeance LPX 32 GB 2666MHz CL16 DDR4 RAM
Samsung 850Evo 500gb m.2 SSD
Gigabyte 730GT 2gb graphics
1Tb WD Black Primary HDD
4Tb WD Black Secondary HDD
Samsung DVD rewriter
CoolerMaster CPU cooler
Corsair 650W power supply
TP-LINK Archer T8E AC1750 Wireless PCI Express Adapter
Windows 10 Pro
Anidees AI06BW v2 case

Built it myself using a great step by step guide on YouTube.

Runs beautifully and should be future-proof for many years.
 
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Phil V said:
This.

I built a decent processing rig for about half that, it still eats the 6d raw files, it boots in seconds and does everything I throw at it.
Click to expand...
Absolutely you can build a great editing pc for half the op's budget but adding more will get a faster more capable machine but I'll be the first to admit the law of diminishing returns kicks in.

That is of course the same law that applies to cameras and as we all know a phone can take a decent pic and a 6d is complete overkill :D

But that's not why we're on here ;)
 
My editing PC has

I7 4790k @ 4.8ghz
Swiftech h220x cooler
16gb ddr3 2400/cl10 ram
Samsung 950 256 m.2 boot ssd
1tb storage ssd
2x 256 ssd in raid 0
GTX 1080 graphics
Win 10
 
You got some fantastic advice here. My question however would be first of all what do you need it for? What file size are we talking about and what do you want to do wit it. A 40mb RAW file will fly on i5 16mb RAM, but 50 megapixel panorama made of 6-8 files will not. I would say you have solutions for both above, but need to decide what you need.
 
Brazo said:
My editing PC has

I7 4790k @ 4.8ghz
Swiftech h220x cooler
16gb ddr3 2400/cl10 ram
Samsung 950 256 m.2 boot ssd
1tb storage ssd
2x 256 ssd in raid 0
GTX 1080 graphics
Win 10
Click to expand...

whats the Swiftech h220x cooler like ,,,,, looking at upgrading too a I7 6850k, thou always used air coolers
 
amfoto said:
whats the Swiftech h220x cooler like ,,,,, looking at upgrading too a I7 6850k, thou always used air coolers
Click to expand...

It works very well and is upgradable.

Basically it's a pre built water cooled module using proper water cooled parts.

This means it has a huge copper contact plate and a copper rad which is great and very wide diameter tubing which isn't so great for my build but obviously allows more water to be pushed through than a typical aio cooler.

Unless your going to overclock though I wouldn't bother!
 
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