New desktop pc for editing

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Ian
Edit My Images
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Well I have two one has 16GB and the other 32GB, the 16GB RAM older one feels slow doing anything more serious like noise reduction, so don't even think of going lower.
It will be a decent upgrade for not much money.
A lot of programs now work with fast video cards which are rated similar to RAM - they don't even mention it so it will be nothing special.
Mainly comes into play with video rendering though.
 
Well I have two one has 16GB and the other 32GB, the 16GB RAM older one feels slow doing anything more serious like noise reduction, so don't even think of going lower.
It will be a decent upgrade for not much money.
A lot of programs now work with fast video cards which are rated similar to RAM - they don't even mention it so it will be nothing special.
Mainly comes into play with video rendering though.
Thank you, do you think this one still seems capable though? Or is it difficult to say without knowing what the video card is?
 
For photos it would be fine but perhaps not very future proof, if funds are tight you will probably be pleased with it for at least a couple of years.
That SSD for main drive is very generous you won't bog that down with half a dozen programs + windows like my older 128GB one from 2010!
 
That's very cheap, but is lower spec than the machine I'm using now, owned since 2014. As 4wd said, you'll probably be happy with it for a couple of years if you stick to older cameras and software, but if you buy something more recent & have to upgrade software too then it's going to struggle. If it were mine then the first thing I'd do would be to pop a 1TB SSD in there for image storage, but that would be an extra 30% of the cost on the computer straight off.

What software will you use? Lightroom (especially LR6 or older) doesn't use the graphics card at all, where as some other software can really benefit from strong graphics processing.

Just my opinion, but I would say that if you're looking to run software released in the last 3 years then this isn't really going to perform *well* and it's not a good buy. OTOH if you're going to be processing images from a 7 or 8 YO camera (or the D90 in your user profile) on Lightroom 5 then it will be fine. I'd possibly buy a machine like this to run a lightweight Linux install, but not for photo-processing.
 
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Hi all,

I'm looking to get an new desktop for editing my photos, I don't do anything intensive and I currently manage with a pc that only has 4gb of ram but it's time for an upgrade.

Is this one too good to be true? Seems very cheap for the spec? Do you really need 16gb of ram?


Being a refurb the price is going to be cheap and whilst it's pretty dated it's not a bad spec for the money. What's the spec of your current pc?
 
That's very cheap, but is lower spec than the machine I'm using now, owned since 2014. As 4wd said, you'll probably be happy with it for a couple of years if you stick to older cameras and software, but if you buy something more recent & have to upgrade software too then it's going to struggle. If it were mine then the first thing I'd do would be to pop a 1TB SSD in there for image storage, but that would be an extra 30% of the cost on the computer straight off.

What software will you use? Lightroom (especially LR6 or older) doesn't use the graphics card at all, where as some other software can really benefit from strong graphics processing.

Just my opinion, but I would say that if you're looking to run software released in the last 3 years then this isn't really going to perform *well* and it's not a good buy. OTOH if you're going to be processing images from a 7 or 8 YO camera (or the D90 in your user profile) on Lightroom 5 then it will be fine. I'd possibly buy a machine like this to run a lightweight Linux install, but not for photo-processing.
I'll be editing Z6 files with it and I've been thinking of buying affinity photo, I thought the main key factor was the RAM for editing but I'm always behind on my knowledge for computers, why wouldn't this one perform well, is it the lack of a decent graphics card?
 
Being a refurb the price is going to be cheap and whilst it's pretty dated it's not a bad spec for the money. What's the spec of your current pc?
Yeah it seems good for the money, what part of it is dated? The processor?

It's a HP quad core i3 (I think) with 4gb ram, it still runs photoshop ok but it's generally slow and still has windows 7 so I wanted something with windows 10 at least so I can invest in new editing software, I just don't want to spend too much on a new computer after just buying the Z6 haha
 
You can upgrade to Windows 10 for free but it's not worth it with only 4GB RAM. W10 works well with 8GB but 16GB is now the minimum I have when possible. If you can find out exactly what your current CPU is we can tell you if that one on Amazon is better or not although, personally, I'd say it was so old I wouldn't touch it.. If you right-click on My Computer and select Properties, it should tell you what the CPU is.
 
Yeah it seems good for the money, what part of it is dated? The processor?

It's a HP quad core i3 (I think) with 4gb ram, it still runs photoshop ok but it's generally slow and still has windows 7 so I wanted something with windows 10 at least so I can invest in new editing software, I just don't want to spend too much on a new computer after just buying the Z6 haha

The processor and ram is a little dated but compared to your current system I think you'll be delighted.
 
it is an ex-business PC. What they do is they put a 1 time only windows 10 on the hard drive just to get it flogged off.

it is old, im sure i got a better one than that years ago for cheaper, it had a newer i7 cpu on it anyway, i remember it was the generation after that one and was 199.99.
and as i say that is going back a couple of years and i got it on ebay as a refurb
 
You can upgrade to Windows 10 for free but it's not worth it with only 4GB RAM. W10 works well with 8GB but 16GB is now the minimum I have when possible. If you can find out exactly what your current CPU is we can tell you if that one on Amazon is better or not although, personally, I'd say it was so old I wouldn't touch it.. If you right-click on My Computer and select Properties, it should tell you what the CPU is.

Thank you, I think I've attached a pic with the right info?
 

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it is an ex-business PC. What they do is they put a 1 time only windows 10 on the hard drive just to get it flogged off.

it is old, im sure i got a better one than that years ago for cheaper, it had a newer i7 cpu on it anyway, i remember it was the generation after that one and was 199.99.
and as i say that is going back a couple of years and i got it on ebay as a refurb


I didn't realise there was different versions of an I7, I just saw the I7 and thought great, I'm quite a novice....
 
Here's the difference between your processor and the one in that computer

Screenshot_20210428-151004.png
 
QUOTE="IanC, post: 8938708, member: 17888"]
I didn't realise there was different versions of an I7, I just saw the I7 and thought great, I'm quite a novice....
[/QUOTE]

Even us geeks couldn't keep up with the different versions of the i series proccessors as each generation more or less required a different chipset so you had to be careful when buying a motherboard :)
 
Well I have two one has 16GB and the other 32GB, the 16GB RAM older one feels slow doing anything more serious like noise reduction, so don't even think of going lower.

When I recently upgraded my latop from 16GB to 32GB the performance diffence was very impressive.
I also use it for making music and when I run the sequence software, it scans all the virtual synths I use and now on start up it does it so much quicker.
I thought going from an i5 desktop with 16GB to my i7 laptop with 16GB was a massive jump performanace wise but the ram upgrade really impressed me.

@IanC The one you are looking at will be sharing the system memoryy with the graphics chip rather than have a seperate graphics card.
Ideally you want all the system ram for itself.
There is quite a large market for refurb computers and you can get some very good deals, you could buy one with a massive performance gain over your old one.
It doesn't have to be the latest generation intel i series proccessor, I've previously owned two different generations of i3 8gb laptops and I didn't see much of a difference perfomance wise.
However, I would suggest going for at least and i5 and if you can afford it, go for an i7.
 
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What is your actual budget? One of the best "upgrades" could be the type of storage you use. I have an M2 NVME SSD in my PC, the refurb one you have linked to can probably write at about 300MB/s whereas an M2 drive can write at upwards of 3GB/s so 10x faster. It definitely makes things feel a lot faster. Although in order to have the required slot it would need to be a fairly recent PC.
 
When I recently upgraded my latop from 16GB to 32GB the performance diffence was very impressive.
I also use it for making music and when I run the sequence software, it scans all the virtual synths I use and now on start up it does it so much quicker.
I thought going from an i5 desktop with 16GB to my i7 laptop with 16GB was a massive jump performanace wise but the ram upgrade really impressed me.

@IanC The one you are looking at will be sharing the system memoryy with the graphics chip rather than have a seperate graphics card.
Ideally you want all the system ram for itself.
There is quite a large market for refurb computers and you can get some very good deals, you could buy one with a massive performance gain over your old one.
It doesn't have to be the latest generation intel i series proccessor, I've previously owned two different generations of i3 8gb laptops and I didn't see much of a difference perfomance wise.
However, I would suggest going for at least and i5 and if you can afford it, go for an i7.
Thank you, can you reccomend any refurb companies?
 
What is your actual budget? One of the best "upgrades" could be the type of storage you use. I have an M2 NVME SSD in my PC, the refurb one you have linked to can probably write at about 300MB/s whereas an M2 drive can write at upwards of 3GB/s so 10x faster. It definitely makes things feel a lot faster. Although in order to have the required slot it would need to be a fairly recent PC.
It's about £400 really...
 
Thank you, can you reccomend any refurb companies?

I know a few people who have bought refurb computers via ebay and they've all been happy plus then tend to have a warranty.
Have a look at few and look at their feedback, that will tell you enough because a good reputation is important to them.
I know some of them have upgrades available as well which helps with specs.
A friend of mine works for another ex work colleague where they buy up computer and IT tech for recycling but they also service and resell deskops and laptops and they sell them via ebay.
He once told me he was surprised how quickly they sell.
 
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Is that good then :D?

Much better, and probably a better motherboard as well. But if your budget is £400 you could pop a graphics card in, if you can find one - global supply issues at the moment.
 
Much better, and probably a better motherboard as well. But if your budget is £400 you could pop a graphics card in, if you can find one - global supply issues at the moment.

Yup, about 3 X faster, and with better internal architecture it should turn utter tedium into something tolerable. ;)
 
I didn't realise there was different versions of an I7, I just saw the I7 and thought great, I'm quite a novice....
The first of the four (now five) digits gives the series of CPU so 2600 is series 2 and the current one is series 11. To show how things move on, my current series 9 i7 gives a passmark of 14,000 compared with the 5,300 that the 2600 scores and does it using 65W instead of the 2600's 95W.
 
The first of the four (now five) digits gives the series of CPU so 2600 is series 2 and the current one is series 11. To show how things move on, my current series 9 i7 gives a passmark of 14,000 compared with the 5,300 that the 2600 scores and does it using 65W instead of the 2600's 95W.

Just had a quick check - this Dell XPS is running an i7-4702HQ and benches at around 5125. So this is going to perform a touch quicker than my 7 year old laptop, though without the separate graphics card built in and possibly using slower RAM & subsystem. While a benchmark isn't everything, it certainly helps give a guide.
 
How about this one?

Hi

This one looks to have a 6th gen i7 processor so will be way better compared to the 2 gen you had initially linked to.

However they are all small factor pcs so would not have any space for a second HDD if you want to add one for backup purposes.

If you don't need one it is fine.
 
You could have a browse through the Dell refurbished site.
 

If you look to new, there are some pretty decent machines out there from various system builders. You can configure it with a slightly less conspicuous case design although they tend to run faster if you have lots of flashing lights ;). They have a lot of options so what I have linked isn't necessarily the best one. A good place to look is hotukdeals.com, there are a lot of people there who scour system building sites and post their best deals and configurations for a range of budgets. Also having a machine like that offers a little more of a future upgrade path than getting a small form factor refurb where the room in the case in limited. For example. in the future when prices have calmed down a little you could add more RAM, a GPU and a new CPU all over a few years and have a much faster machine than you started out with. They are very easy to change.
 
How about this one?


There's another similar on there that has an M2 SSD - £429 but I'd take that because the SSD should be a lot faster than a SATA drive and it will have space for a second HDD.
 
I have my windows pc with elements, photoshop, paintshop pro blah blah.....and I have my Linux pc for editing, running ubuntu and the best editing software I've found....Gimp ! my advice, keep your old pc and look for a used machine, get rid of windows and use Linux, few errors and so much faster. Gimp is also available for windows as well
 
I thought 16gb ram would be adequate, I'll only be using it to run affinity photo and no intensive video editing?

If you use LR or anything adobe it might struggle even with modest 24mp files. No direct experience of Affinity but reckon 16gb is a tad light depending on the level of editing you do and camera files you work with.
 
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