Help Kadsura build a photo-editing PC

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Warning: long post. I’m not into the whole brevity thing.

So, my 4.75 year old Dell Failbox finally failed for good and I am looking at assembling a new desktop PC system that will be good for photo editing, mostly with RawTherapee. I don’t know enough to do this myself and am working with a highly rated local tech who specializes in custom PC builds. I am going to sit and watch as he puts it together. I want to gain a basic understanding of how everything goes together and how to do some simple things myself. Tech is advising on parts, but I want to ask folks here for ideas and suggestions.

(Skip this background if you want—optional reading) Not to waste too many electrons or too much time on this old machine, but maybe some background will be relevant. I bought my current Dell refurb in 2020 at the advice of a knowledgeable friend. It had what I thought were decent specs—450 watt power supply, Xeon processor, 32 Gb RAM, etc. It worked pretty well when the screen was not freezing. This happened intermittently and unpredictably—screen would freeze with audio at the same time. Reboot restored everything. Dell tech support tried and failed three times to fix it, including a BIOS update and installing a new C drive (256 GB SSD). I finally figured out that this only happened during cold weather, so I decided to keep this room warmer, and it has not happened since. Anyway, about a month ago Windows 11 started running Modern Setup Host, consuming a ton of power, and dumping tons of large files on my small C-drive. Windows 11 seemed only too happy to completely fill it! I decided to upgrade the C drive. I bought a new 2TB Samsung M2 SSD as boot drive, new Seagate Irowolf Pro 12 TB HDD for large file storage, and 32 more GB RAM. Long story short, the techs who worked on this called me and told me that it was not displaying. They tried a different graphics card, etc. I picked it up from them (do not trust them at this point for reasons I won’t waste time on), and am getting the flashing yellow light on the power button—likely a motherboard issue. Time for something entirely new, except I want to salvage the new drives I just bought.

ANYWAY (getting to the point),

I use my home desktop PC mostly for mundane web/email/office tasks (Word, PowerPoint, Excel—or better yet, their LibreOffice Alternatives), and at this point I’m lucky to get an hour or two of photo editing per week. I do some video recording and editing for some of my classes (I am a university professor in STEM), but these are only 1440p. I am not into gaming or any other high-end applications. I like to relax with YouTube videos of rain, ocean waves and the like—so I often have one of those playing in the background. I hate Windows, and want to transition into Linux, when I have time!

Hence, I don’t need the latest and greatest CPU, Graphics card, power supply, etc. I prioritize high-quality, durability and longevity in the parts I buy. I want to put together a system that will last for, ideally five years, before needing to upgrade or a new build. I want something allowing space to grow, but I really don’t want to overspend on components that are way above what I need, or ones that will suck up a ton of power and generate excess heat, noise, etc. Our home office is warm in summer and the central air is not very effective in that part of the house.

I currently have (just bought!) the following and I want to use it in the new build:

  • Samsung 990 2TB Pro PCIe 4.0x4 M2 internal SSD with Heatsink (Will use as boot drive with some limited file storage.)

  • Seagate 12 TB IronWolf PRO 7200 SATA III 3.5 internal NAS HDD (CMR) (For storage of photos, music files, etc. I have an identical drive in an enclosure that I use as an external for backup)

  • OWC 32 GB DDR4 2666 MHz memory upgrade kit (2x16 GB)

I need to buy the following. I am looking for any advice on this stuff. I prefer to buy from B&H Photo, but if I can get these items cheaper from a reputable source I would be interested. (Please do not recommend Amazon, Walmart, Best Buy, or Target):

Motherboard: Will go for an ATX form factor. I want at least 6 USB (3.0? 4.0?) on the rear, and a few in front. Not sure whether to get Display Port or HDMI. My BENQ 27” monitor has both. I also want a headphone jack in front. Bluetooth transmitter would be nice.

CPU: Don’t really know enough to have any preference of AMD vs Intel. Not sure how many cores/threads I should be looking for.

Power Supply: I thought 450 watts was pretty good when I bought the Dell Failbox in 2020, but now I see the lowest power rating on B&H is 650 W. OK, not sure how much I need. My tech strongly recommends liquid cooling. Someone recommended Seasonic brand with 12 year warranty.

Graphic card: Open to recommendations…

Memory: I am hoping the cards I already own (referenced above) will work with the new motherboard. In any case, I want at least 64 GB to start. I am wondering whether it is worth it to get more? 128??

Sound card : I have AudioEngine 2+ speakers that I have been disappointed with (i.e., with my old/dead system) UNTIL I plugged in this borrowed laptop from work. NOW they sound good, with actual imaging, soundstage and some bass! This is with the 3.5mm plug. However, I think I may skip a sound card and go with USB and have the speakers do the D/A conversion.

Case: I would not mind something cool (maybe see-through or ORANGE) but don’t want to pay a lot.

My intended budget for all this stuff is around ~1200$ or so. Am I crazy?

Any comments, suggestions on any/all of this would be great! Thanks.

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I have had good luck with my previous Gigabyte motherboard - I used it from 2008 until 2021 (yes, 13 years), and it was still working when I removed it from the PC due to replacing the CPU and RAM.
My current Asus ROG Strix motherboard is going great, too, it’s currently 4 years old. It came with 3 years of warranty.
I use 4x16 GB of Corsair Vengence LPX RAM, those came with lifetime warranty. The only issue was they have heatsinks, and my motherboard’s RAM slots are quite closely spaced together, so they fit, but only just. Initially, I installed the fan that came with the RAM, but it was quite noisy. I do not overclock, removed the fan and the system remained stable, and is very quiet now.
I use an old NVidia GTX 1060 with 6 GB of RAM, it works decently with darktable and chaiNNer (but I’m not a heavy chaiNNer user). It’s not really capable of running LLMs locally, if that’s a concern.

My power supply is a be quiet! Straight Power 10 CM 700 W unit, it has served me well since May 2018. It is quiet. :slight_smile:

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About 6 months ago I got me a Quiet PC A50 Fanless i17 D5 with an i7 14700T CPU, 64 GB RAM and the SSD you have. The machine is really fast with RawTherapee, has a power consumption of typically less than 100W (only 30 W when idling) and is truly silent because it has no fans at all. With 64 GB RAM and no drives and OS installed, this machine would fit your budget and the white case is just simple and elegant.
You can get the full specs at A50 Fanless i17 D5

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https://pcpartpicker.com/user/raublekick/saved/#view=VnRhK8

Here’s most of a build with some parts I’d recommend. I don’t know exactly what your RAM is so I just stuck a whole 64GB kit on this build. The GPU is the big unknown because GPUs are in such a terrible spot right now with prices all over the place.

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Thanks guys! My tech is recommending a very similar list of components, including, I think the exact same CPU, 64 GB RAM, 850 Watt power supply, etc. He is also recommending a liquid cooling add-on for about 150$.

I am kind of stuck on the Motherboard. I want something durable, reliable, and not too sensitive to heat. The first one he recommended, this ASUS, https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1812265-REG/asus_prime_a620_plus_wifi6_atx.html appears to have only one USB in front.

I want 6 in back, at least 3 in front, 4 DIMMs/RAM slots, HDMI and/or DIsplay Port (preferably both), headphone jack.

He recommended this as an alternative: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1855751-REG/asus_rog_strix_x870_a_gaming_wifi_republic_of_gamers_strix.html

or this: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1852679-REG/gigabyte_x870_eagle_wifi7_motherboard.html

or this: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1771748-REG/msi_x670etmahawifi_mag_x670e_tomahawk_wifi.html

However, the MSI you recommended looks very good too. Will have to compare specs on all of these. Let me know if you have any thoughts.

Thanks!

PS: I like to annoy my wife by calling them GiggityGiggityBytes

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I’d like to add that in my experience, liquid cooling has more potential issues (my Corsair liquid cooler deteriorated dramatically in 5 years and was pretty loud) and if you are after something hassle-free, a good air cooler might be worth considering - I recommend Noctua (NH-U12A keeps my overclocked i7-6700k under 65°C) if they are in your price range, otherwise there are also good options for cheaper (Thermalright Peerless Assassin).

Regarding CPU, if you are buying new, AMD is pretty much the market leader right now, in power consumption and performance (except for a few specific cases) at the moment, but you might be able to get a good discount on Intel which could make it worth it for you.

P.S. It might be a good idea to look for used GPUs since there is a big bubble at the moment, and they haven’t gotten much better recently anyway.

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I think you will be fine with major brands (Asus, MSI, ASrock, Gigabyte, etc), they have low failure rates. But keep in mind that everything can fail, at which point you just replace it. No point in paying more than 20% extra for lowering the probability of an already unlikely event.

I usually “splurge” on only two components: ECC RAM and the PSU. The first usually means AMD CPUs since they “unofficially” support ECC on some motherboards (always check the actual MB and CPU combination). For the PSU, I go with bequiet!, I overspec them a bit so they are good for the next upgrade. I have a PSU from them I have been using for 15 years now.

If you are not editing a lot of photos you may want to consider skipping the video card for now to save money, you can always add one later.

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Probably you will not be able to use DDR4 RAM in a new build because DDR5 is the standard now.

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Thanks for all the replies. I ended up going with:

MSI MAG X670E TOMAHAWK WIFI AM5 ATX Motherboard

AMD Ryzen 7 8700G 4.2 GHz Eight-Core AM5 Processor

Crucial 64GB Pro DDR5 5600 MHz Memory Kit

Corsair SF850 80 PLUS Platinum Fully Modular 850W SFX Power Supply (Black)

MSI GeForce RTX 3050 VENTUS 2X 6G OC Graphics Card

Corsair iCUE LINK TITAN RX RGB 240mm AIO Liquid CPU Cooler (Black)

Fractal Design Pop Air RGB Mid-Tower Case (Orange Core)

These will go with the new SSD and HDD I already had (listed above). This totals about 2000$, not counting the cost of having the tech assemble it with me–likely 200-300$. Hopefully, I can learn something about how all this works.

Not sure I did well financially here (compared to buying prebuilt), but at least I was able to choose exactly what I want and I found (I believe!) a really good tech to help me with my endless tech issues and hardware. Hope this will last a good five years before I have to mess with it again.

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