new PC for RawTherapee and darktable

Hardware
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Hi,

I think I want to buy a new PC. darktable and RawTherapee should run well on it. At the moment I have a dual graphics laptop with an Intel i7 quad core processor, an Nvidia Geforce MX250 and 16 GB RAM. So obviously, although the performance of my laptop is acceptable for me, the new desktop should be significantly faster, but it does not need to be super fast, super power hungry and super expensive. Actually I don’t really need a new computer, but I have the money and since I think I have also become something like a part-time IT journalist, I thought myabe it’s time to get a proper computer. Also I have a second Iiyama screen that I don’t use, and so I thought maybe I could have a dual-screen-setup. Although I have no idea how I could use 2 screens and probably it’s just a waste of power.
I am not a gamer, but apparently gaming PCs are the best for image and raw editing. Building a PC is not really an option for me. I am a woman, I have never built a PC and I have none who could help me (everybody around me knows less about computers than me). The most difficult hardware task that I did so far was upgrading memory.
So I thought the desktop PC should have a Ryzen 5 or 7 CPU, 16 GB of RAM (with the possobility to upgrade) and a nice Nvidia GPU with at least 6 GB of RAM.
My budget is max 1500-2000 EUR.
Curucial is of course Linux compatibilty and dual booting - I need Windows for the Benq screen calibration program and the firmware updater for my Olympus camera and lenses.
What do you think about these computers:

I will probably add more links here if this becomes an interesting discussion since the hardware components in the shops change constantly.

Thanks in advance

Anna

Edit: It’s probably important what kind of screens I have: They are both 24 inch, full hd resp WUXGA.

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I bought a new system a while back (Insights or advise about: […] and based on that I might be able to give you some pointers.

  • I initially thought that 16 Gb RAM would suffice, but it took all but 3 months before I ordered an extra set of memory sticks to get to 32 Gb. This makes working with images/projects a much better experience. Side note: The memory increase is nice in general but I especially noticed/needed it when using GIMP or Krita.

  • If you do go for 16Gb: Make sure that your motherboard has enough unused slots to add future memory sticks.

  • At the time I bought my machine I was a 100% darktable user and the choice between a less powerful CPU+powerful GPU versus powerful CPU+less powerful GPU was based on that. I switched to RawTherapee (which also seems to be your preferred RAW editor) and now I notice that I made the “wrong” or lesser choice (hindsight and all that :unamused:.
    RawTherapee is not geared towards utilizing opencl usage so a more powerful CPU instead of a more powerful GPU would benefit you if you have to make a choice between those. This also depends on what else you do on that box-to-be (Krita does make use of opencl for example).

If I look at the two options you posted I would go for the Captiva G12AG 21V1, Ryzen 7 5800X. Maybe change the 1TB SSD into a 512MB SSD (to lower the costs if needed) and upgrade the graphics card (to a RTX 2080 or RTX2060 super for example).

Both machines are in the lower range of what you mentioned wanting to spend. As said earlier: the most powerful CPU you can afford would benefit you/RawTherapee. So maybe look into that.

BTW: I haven’t had any problems with my machine in a dual monitor, Linux driven setup.

Anyway, hope this helps.

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I very rarely use those programs. Actually I noticed that darktable and RawTherapee usually only need a fraction of the 16 GB of RAM in my laptop. So at the moment for me even 16 GB seem to be overkill. But one never knows. There are also machines that only allow 16GB and I have intentiously excluded those. So the PC should be at least upgradable to 32GB.
Well, as far as I can see, there are basically only PCs available with 16GB, 32GB is very rare and expensive.
Of course I don’t want to buy a machine that I can throw away in a year. Strangely, I see a lot of devices that only allow 16GB max. Who would buy those, maybe idiots?

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Yep, that is what I noticed and why I initially decided to stick with 16Gb.

16Gb is definitely not overkill. You mentioned being/becoming an IT journalist and you also seem to like setting up meetings. If you ever want to take the step to demonstrate the likes of Krita/RawTherapee/etc to a live internet audience (streaming), all the power you can get would be welcome and this would include memory.

Being able to compare 2 (3) instances of the same piece of software at the same time would also benefit. I often have multiple version of RawTherapee and darktable open at the same time…

Having 4 memory slots (kinda default for desktops if I’m not mistaken) and initially using 2 of those is the best way to go in my opinion. Gives you room to expand. Do make sure that it has 2x8Gb instead of 4x4Gb though.

You are probably talking about single 32Gb sticks. Yep, those are still on the expensive side. Go for 2x16Gb sticks (if you want a 32Gb machine) or 2x8Gb sticks for a 16 Gb machine (I’m assuming that the above linked machines have each 2x8Gb sticks).

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funny, just noticed that the Ryzen’s have the names of famous painters LOL

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Hi Anna,

Finding a new pc is always an interesting quest! I understand that building one yourself is a daunting task, but it should be manageable if you have some (video) assistance. I would be willing to help you out. Then again, if you don’t want the fuss, a prebuilt is easy, though usually somewhat more expensive and it maybe has unnecessary ‘gamer’ stuff.

As for the specifications, some ideas.

CPU
You know that RawTherapee doesn’t utilize the GPU, but is heavily multithreaded on CPU, so I would say, the more cores the better. But you’ll have a solid upgrade from your i7 anyway, and if your needs are not extreme there is also no need to go overboard. Your first option has the AMD Ryzen 7 3700X, which is a wonderful 8-core CPU and reasonably priced (the 5800X in your second option is a bit overkill imo).

GPU
Probably relevant for darktable. Anything you can buy at the moment will be miles better than your MX250. I am quite surprised to see that your first option has a GTX 3070, because the card alone costs about €1.300 here in the Netherlands and your total system is only €300 more expensive - which is ridiculously cheap for all the other components… Almost seems fishy to me.
Then GTX 1660 SUPER from your second option seems like a much more suitable card for your purpose.

Another thing to consider for your potential dual-screen setup, is which connectors your monitors have. Try to find a system with a graphics card that supports the correct video-connectors (HDMI, DisplayPort, DVI, …), without the need for an adapter piece.

RAM
@Jade_NL is correct about the memory slots. If you make sure that your system only uses 2 out of the usual 4 memory slots, there is enough room for future upgrades. Both your options have that. The 16 GB RAM is usually sufficient imo, if you’re not using other more heavy software. RAM is not the most expensive component of your PC, so going for 24 or 32 GB should be doable.

Disks
In my own experience, this is the most important quality improvement when upgrading your computer. You notice faster disk speeds in nearly everything you do. So, if you have the option, go for an M.2 SSD. It makes particular sense to install your OS on this drive. Whether you want 512 GB or 1 TB depends on how much disk space you have now and how much it has grown in the past years. As a photographer with lots of image files, you might want an additional disk (either SSD or HDD) for storage, unless you already have external drives for that.
Oh, and never forget about backups :slight_smile:

Hope this helps! With a budget of €1500-2000 you should definitely be able to find a very good machine. Never hesitate to ask more questions.

Roel

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Not really to be honest. In the US the MSRP for the 3070 is $560 ish. PC manufacturing companies sign contracts for their cards they do not buy them off the insane current over inflated prices of GPU’s instead they get them at MSRP and or cheaper through subsidized pricing due to large volumes of purchases on their contracts.

As for the PC it all depends on your use cases. Personally if I was able to upgrade my laptop (not so due to just buying another camera and bunch of lenses last week.) I would strive for a good balance between CPU/GPU instead of focusing on one or the other as well as aim for 32gb of ram. 16gb is more then enough for most photo editing through a raw converter, however, if you start getting into stacks and blending exposures by hand that is where the ram starts to hurt.

The reason I say strike a good balance is that software changes. darktable greatly benefits from GPU but I am sure there is some areas in there that will also benefit from a good CPU. Rawtherapee is heavy on the CPU but at some point (at least in the plans I have seen in the past) they want to add GPU acceleration. Most software can’t be fully GPU accelerated some things are just better done on a CPU so I think a balance would be the best option but it is all a personal preference.

I would aim for something with say a Ryzen 7 3000 series or a 10th gen i9. And GPU wise a 1660TI and or 1660 super also sometimes you will find the 2060 in newer released systems which are also fine.

This is just a example link of something to look for. Keep in mind 9 times out of 10 there are extra ram slots so you could always buy at 16gb and move up to 32 later. If not you can always just swap the only 2 available slots for 2 bigger sticks. like instead of 2x8gb put in 2x16gb.
Customize Gamer Master 7500 Gaming PC (cyberpowerpc.com)

As for dual booting I am not the guy to ask about that. I have always had terrible luck picking systems that can run Linux even though I have wanted to switch for a long time. I also refuse to buy a System76 there prices are a bit insane imho even more so then apples prices. To build is just way to hard right now with shortages everywhere.

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I agree with almost everything you suggested. But I would advice to focus on Display Port and add a small adapter if needed. I never saw any issue with adapters (looking at roughly 15-20 PC). But we had several issues with HDMI and high resolution displays. So from my experience Display Port seems to be the more future proof and robust way to go.

Keep in mind: prices for RAM are increasing rapidly! There’s a shortage on lots of electronics and RAM ist also effected. This will last for a while. So it may be a good idea to start with 16GB RAM and make sure to have some spare slots available to be able to upgrade later.

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Well, both of my screens have both HDMI and DisplayPort. And I think at least one of them even has VGA or DVI or both. They are both not so old. So that should not be a problem.

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fwiw I built mine from parts. It takes an hour or two to assemble it all. Gaming mother board, most expensive main chip and gpu you can afford, lots of high speed memory, half a dozen disks with ssd for the boot drive. /home mounted on a separate disk, so I can change distributions as often as I like. I have a Windows laptop so I didn’t bother making it dual boot.

I do need Windows for tethering Sony cameras and for Sketchup. But that’s all I use it for. So a Windows laptop is Windows enough. I have a few Mac laptops too but they’re so old and slow I don’t boot them often.

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Well the thing is: I don’t want to remove the Benq screen resp its cable from the desktop each time I want to calibrate it and attach it to the laptop. So that’s why I need the desktop to run Windows as well. Maybe I will delete Windows from my laptop.

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You don’t need any skills beyond being able to read and comprehend, and ideally somewhat steady hands (I have pretty bad fine motor skills and reached limits hand-crafting a lot of times, but not assembling computers). You definitely don’t need a Y-chromosome.
Beyond the increased price for being “ready-to-use”, I always liked to buy high-end, but second-generation models of pretty much anything. The new stuff was always crazily expensive compared to the performance gains. And usually pre-assembled were either severely outdated or the newest and greatest, while I wanted the greatest for the smallest amount of bucks. I use past tense as my last computer assembly was a while ago, nowadays I am using (and upgrading) second hand thinkpads (basically because I don’t game anymore) :slight_smile:

And definitely go for at least 16GB of RAM. Web browsers are so crazily memory hungry. Yes I don’t have good tab hygiene, but still :slight_smile:

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Well I don’t want to exclude the possibility that I will build my PC, especially since time is not an issue.
But I imagine that this is not so easy, especially finding the right cooling, mainboard and other parts that work well together. I heared that even pros that build PCs for selling sometimes have problems with that (and mess it up). Time is not an issue in the sense that this is not urgent, however it takes some time to study manuals, documentation etc. and maybe I would rather spend that time for taking and editing photos.
I remember many years ago I had a desktop PC and I had to ask my father to help me with the memory upgrade because I was not strong enough to pull the old module out and push the new module in. I think that was some strange computer.

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I’d usually say build your own, even if you’ve never done it; it isn’t that hard, and we are here to help. However, the way Coronavirus has effected the supply chain, it might be more expensive to build it yourself right now… But you should put all the parts in the cart and check it out!

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Yes, assistance will be close, if you want.

Self assembling is an interesting exercise and you are prepared to do future upgrades or changes to your system by yourself.
But there are plenty of stores, who offer this service as well.

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Yea I would always rather build so there are plenty of people with the knowledge to help. But at least in the US the way prices are due to supply a home build is almost 3x the cost of a prebuilt atm.

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This makes zero sense (not saying it’s wrong). I mean if there was a market for both, what stops one from buying assembled computers and sell the components at 3x the price (maybe 2x because of missing original packaging)?

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Could have been done considering just the GPU alone can go for the cost of the prebuilt due to the semi conductor shortage going on. Like I said above take the Rtx 3070 msrp $560 selling for anywhere between $1200 - $1600 depending on if new or used. If you have a bot to snipe a electronic store you might get one for $500.

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I see lots of these HP Omens but as I look into the specs I see that they only have 2 RAM slots and the maximal amount of RAM they can handle is 16 GB.
https://www.cyberport.at/pc-und-zubehoer/pc-systeme/hewlett-packard/pdp/1129-21p/omen-25l-gt12-0600ng-ryzen-7-3700x-16gb-1tb-512gb-ssd-rtx-2060-super-win10.html

This one, on the other hand, seems to have really nics specs but apparently it’s not available atm
https://www.cyberport.at/pc-und-zubehoer/pc-systeme/dell/pdp/1139-08c/dell-alienware-aurora-r10-dw969-r7-3700x-16gb-512gb-ssd-rtx2060-super-win10.html

I think I saw some nice Lenovos at this store some days ago but they are gone. But I think they were Ryzen 5’s.

What do you think about the Ryzen 5’s? Are they too old/weak?

Maybe this one is interesting, too:
https://www.ditech.at/details.php?artnr=309138

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I used pcpartpicker to help me build my pc years ago, and find any incompatibilities between the parts or if they fit, etc.

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