Since changing from SATA to NVME I have certainly noticed a significant difference in the overall responsiveness, including in photography software. I haven’t benchmarked, but I doubt I have a 4x improvement. 2x or almost seems likely, however.
I went for an NVME partially because I took the SATA SSD from my laptop when I first built my box:
And that was an upgrade (to the laptop) of a 3600RPM HDD which was painfully slow.
That said, building a box today, every motherboard bought new now surely supports NVME.
Absolutely not data … except local configuration, database and cache, and maybe some copy-local images, I keep all my photos on external HDDs:
And always backed up to at least two different drives in different rooms:
If photography is the only reason for building your box, I agree that a really, really good monitor is essential.
I guess my mixed-use scenario is the reason I compromised. I have two monitors - an Acer CB281HK (4K) and an Acer KA2708 (not 4K). The 27 inch had almost zero bezel, whereas the 28 inch a half-inch bezel, so they fit very nicely together. They have the same calibration options, and I have historically been able to profile using DisplayCAL. Plasma/KDE color management struggles with using two different profiles (one per monitor), however, so I only use the 28" 4K monitor for photo-editing.
I think there are several possibilities. One could e.g. go for a PC with a very good graphics card or for a machine with a processor that has at least 8 cores. I recently discovered that my compter (Ryzen 7) is not so bad when darktable is running without opencl. darktable would be as fast with 16 cores as a graphics card such as the RTX 20xx. On the other hand, there is also overkill. E.g. RawTherapee would not significantly benefit from a machine with more than 8 cores. Also, I don’t think that more than 32 GB is really necessary.
Well. I must admit that I don’t have experience with very large and high-res screens. Those probably need powerful graphics cards.
I can imagine that a 27-inch 4k screen is really cool, although I don’t feel the need for it.
I guess it also depends on your budget. Another important factor from my point of view is pollution (power consumption). Obviously, the larger your screen, the stronger your GPU and CPU, the more electricity you need.
I would have the money to buy an even more expensive PC but somehow… I don’t think that I am stingy. I just don’t feel like buying the most expensive of everything and I try to get things that I really need.
So I guess what is essential is subjective.
A good screen is certainly important but - owning a wide gamut screen since a few years - I meanwhile think that wide gamut is not 100% necessary. You can create great photography with a good sRGB screen, too. And I think a good sRGB screen does not necessarily need to cost more than 300 €. But this is just an example.
So, e.g. if you use RawTherapee instead of of darktable, you can choose a relatively cheap solution like a PC with a Ryzen 5 processor and an internal GPU. Or even a laptop. RT runs well on my Intel i7 laptop.
It depends on which programs you use, so ultimately on your style.
Then, of course, there is also the question of the distro…
I mean… I think it would be a really interesting business project and challenge to build and sell Linux boxes for photographers, sort of Mac alternatives. I wonder why nobody has tried that yet. Everything is possible with good marketing… but I guess the problem is that there are so many possibilities… probably an own distro should be created for that purpose…
Edit - conclusion: I think what is really necessary is surprinzingly little.
Indeed, the point of this thread is to distill the essentials for those who may want to build. It is already hard enough for the average customer to choose a prebuild. The analysis paralysis is real. The gulf between newbies and veterans is huge; people who think they belong to the latter group but don’t. There is much to learn.
The first, second or both?
PS I forgot to address this
I do think about this often. As said, my machine is runs hot in the warmer seasons. I have to turn down the processor. Turn off the computer when the temp peaks. Energy isn’t being used efficiently if idling or basic computing turns it into a space heater. (In the winter, no problem. ) But then, replacing the hardware would mean that I would have to discard or disuse it, and replace it with something that required energy, resources, infrastructure and disadvantaged people to make, with externalities like pollution. I don’t let these thoughts make me depressed but if one is to be truly responsible there is much to consider.
Interesting comments, thanks to all.
I’ve been running the OpenRC version of Artix (Arch) for about 8 months on a now 7 year old Dell with I5-4570, 16GB RAM and SATA SSD system drive and have absolutely no issues in Darktable with 24 MP raw files. And that’s with the Intel 4600 Pro integrated graphics! I also did a couple of shoots with D800 and D810 and have no problems processing those raw files either.
I paid about 250 USD for the refurbished Dell from Amazon
I did first buy a Lenovo PC with Ryzen 2400G over a year ago, but couldn’t get any Linux stable on it. And, I do plan to build a custom SFF box with a newer Ryzen G CPU soon.
That said, I do believe practically any recent, Linux friendly PC with plenty of RAM will do.
Window$ and MacO$ users, YMMV.
I too recommend a good wide-gamut RGB monitor, BenQ is plenty good enough and the price can’t be beat IMO. Check the BenQ website for sales and refurb’s if you need to save some $$.
Another big speed boost for me has been investing in better/faster SD cards and readers. My favorites so far are Angelbird AV Pro cards and Angelbird USB3 reader. In the past I’ve always used SanDisk Extreme Pro cards, but the Angelbird kit is faster and much cheaper. Also, the cards are made in Taiwan and the reader is made in Austria!
Even the onboard GPU on my AMD A8 6600K cpu was able to drive the 27" monitor at 2560x1440p resolution without any issues. The only reason I upgraded to a discrete GPU was for more performance with opencl. (Previously an Nvidia GT1030, currently a GTX1660). You don’t need the latest and greatest of GPUs for opencl acceleration for image editing.
A key factor though, is to run a distro and desktop environment which supports colour mangement natively, e.g. Gnome, Cinnamon and XFCE. KDE apparantly has issues with colour profiles if you use more than one screen.
I wouldn’t say there is a direct correlation between display size, and GPU & CPU power needed. The main factor which dictates power consumption is what you are doing with the computer. e.g. rendering 3d animations will use a lot more processing power than editing photos even if the display is a 32" 4K display.
With regards to cooling, perhaps an additional case fan would help @betazoid ? Or if the computer tower is housed in a shelf under your desk, move it onto the top of your desk, giving it more free air for cooling?
I don’t understand. What are you referring to? My new PC is super silent. So far at least. We have a cool spring so far.
Edit: Ah, I think you are confusing me and @afre . But he has a laptop i think.
I purchased a refurbished laptop for people with low income. It was a risk because it was very much a lottery: they give you something for $300. Today I picked it up and didn’t get much of a deal. Got an HP EliteBook 840 G2 with i5-5300u (2-core), 8GB RAM and 500 HDD. I will have to replace the HDD with an SSD, buy an DP-to-HDMI and contend with the other half-way-there ports.
In any case, it is a small upgrade from the 2nd gen i3, double the RAM, better keyboard, hopefully working camera, speaker, audio for our next Jitsi sesh, etc. At least, there won’t be any more hardware related crashes.
My notebook is an HP Probook G3. Except for the wi-fi card, it has worked pretty well for me for several years. I had to replace the crappy wi-fi card with an Intel, but that cost me only about $40 US.
Looks like another laptop will be entering my life since my job is starting soon and I will be working from home due to COVID-19. Remote work is the worst for me due to the situation I have here. Maybe I will find an alternative location to work. I wonder what the specs will be like…
Any recommendations on a HDMI switch? Using an external monitor would be better on the eyes. I don’t know which HDMI spec I have. Would it matter? Is HDMI backward compatible?
Thanks @garagecoder. I haven’t touched the laptop much yet. Just installed Firefox to reply to you. No Linux yet. The clunker of a hard drive I got with this random laptop is so very slow. I will wait until I get my hands on a M.2 SSD.
Speaking of clunky, I just tried the webcam and it is definitely the worst one I own, including the mostly nonfunctional one in my old laptop. Green speckle noise and posterization. Bad driver or bad hardware…?
The redeeming feature is that there isn’t much of a barrel distortion but that makes the capture too wide for my taste. More stuff is showing than I am comfortable with for a work meeting.
) But then, replacing the hardware would mean that I would have to discard or disuse it, and replace it with something that required energy, resources, infrastructure and disadvantaged people to make, with externalities like pollution. I don’t let these thoughts make me depressed but if one is to be truly responsible there is much to consider.
Green speckle noise and posterization. Bad driver or bad hardware…?