Any PC guru's out there, looking for advice for new desktop

Guy007 posted:

 I tried the USB, but my PC wouldn't read it for some reason...

Yes, I had the same problem.

Thanks again for the input guys.

All our windows devices are currently running W10 and I like it, it was also painless to transfer.....but I know that hasn't been the case for all.

I don't want to have the whole mac v pc debate, as I feel there is no debate.....If you are in one camp fine, I get it, if you have lots of apple devices it makes perfect sense.......but, although I do have apple devices - a couple of ipads, an old ipod touch constantly docked to a mini zep in the kitchen, a shuffle for the gym, and even older ipod classic stuck in the car and that's it, no iphone or mac etc. I detest itunes, with a passion, hate it, hate the fact I have to install it to organise my tunes on apple devices, hate the way it runs so slow and glitchy on windows, hate the navigation blah blah blah, but remember - that's just my opinion, I don't hate apple users.

So, as much as I get the imac, I doubt very much one will make into the room - no expand ability , expensive, no software, plus we have both always been used to windows machines....

PC USE - editing / processing videos shot using Nikon D810 (regardless of glass lol) plus photo editing, 36 Mega Pixel RAW images (roughly 75 MB a hit), or vids shot with GoPro, probably a bit of gaming but nothing too serious, and the usual browsing / office stuff.

The NAS drives are used for storing all our music (Synology DS212j, 2bay with 2x2TB WD drives), and all other media is on the other (Synology DS414, 4 bay with 4x4TB WD Reds). But I would want a few drives in the PC for back up / storage. Operating sys etc would be off a SSD.

Insulation - yes it is the foil backed foam insulation type, and there was plenty of space in the solum below the joists & insulation for ventilation - once the soffit vents were drilled there was a good cool air flow coming up the back of the cupboard.

Any thoughts on the HP omen option vs a custom build ??

Cheers,

Ali

I've been building & upgrading the four PCs in the family for a couple of decades. In fact the only PC that I didn't build was an IBM XT with the Big Red Lever on the side.

This is the current state of mine:

Motherboard	Gigabyte Z97X-UD5H-BK (LGA 1150)	SWMBO's & daughters' have ASUS mobos. I've tended to stick with ASUS (see below)
Processor	Intel® Core™ i7 4790K 4.0GHz Socket LGA1150 DDR3.	I've tended to stick with Intel
Cooler	Arctic Freezer i30	Keeps the CPU cool - but then I'm not in a cupboard!
Memory	Corsair Vengence  PC3-19200 (2400MHz) 16GB	I've tended to stick with Corsair. 64GB may be overkill
Graphics Card	Gigabyte G1 Gaming GTX1070 (PCIe)	This year's self-indulgence. I've tended to stick with ASUS GPUs but daughter #2 tapped me up for a 1070 for her birthday, and the Gigabyte was 50 quid cheaper, but only marginally "lower" spec.
Sound Card	Soundblaster X-Fi Elite (PCI) + Media Unit	Old but still usable. The other three use on-board sound
HDD1	WD 2TB  Black	Always two disks. OS & Software on one, data on t'other.
HDD2	WD 2TB  Black
HDD3	WD 500GB  Blue	Coz it was going spare from another machine
CD/DVD1	Pioneer BDR-209EBK	BD writer
CD/DVD2	Novatech DVD ROM	Set for Region 1
Mouse	Logitech MX1000	getting a bit tatty now, Should really be replaced
Keyboard	Logitech G15 Mk 1	Oooh, pretty light-up KBD  but daughter#2 has a Razer KBD with rainbow effects
Tablet	Wacom Intuos 4 M	For Photoshop
Screen 1	DELL U2412M	Two screens is where it's at, Baby.
Screen 2	DELL U2412M
Speakers	Creative Inspire T7900 (7.1)	Old but still usable
Case	Antec Nine Hundred	Anything you like that fits in your space.......
PSU	Thermaltake Toughpower CM 700W	Your 550W may be a bit small
Webcam	Microsoft Lifecam VX-5000 (USB)	Good enough for Skyping daughter #1
Operating System	Windows 10 PRO - 64	It's OK, yes really……but if you prefer the old win7 menu system, then add Stardock Menu10

I rebuilt it last year, ulilising older parts but changing the mobo from Asus to Gigabyte (I needed a particular interface that the ASUS Z97 didn't have) , with new processor, RAM & HDD.

It is a general purpose machine, so handing 18Mpixel RAW from my Canon 7D in PS-CC and running recent RPG such as Dragonage: Inquisition present no problems.

Of course YMMV (and everybody else's as well)

Depending on your situation, need to be able to upgrade, environment, etc., something like the Compulab Airtop passive cooled models might be better than build it yourself.  I don't find generally build it yourself to save money, though you can get exactly what you want that way.

Alternatively look at a year or two old second hand off eBay is another way to get a big bargain.

wow - thank you Suzy Wong

arf005 posted:

wow - thank you Suzy Wong

Yes a nice update. The only change I would recommend is for the prime hard drive, you should really look at an SSD - 500GB Sandisk Extreme or Samsung equivalent - 1TB/960GB would be better still.  Keep the others as data/slave drives, but the prime should be SSD.

ARF005, otherwise, the specs look good for your needs.  The issue comes down your time and ability and whether you have a good local parts vendor, or are you buying the bits off the net vs buying it pre done with easy warranty and support.  I can't talk to the Omen, but my Dad's been happy with his HP Spectre laptop.

OK, A few points you need to consider.

The Nikon810 is capable of remarkable image fidelity, and you're using RAW, so...

1a   Is your monitor up to the job?  I'm not talking about resolution, but colour fidelity.
1b   Is your selected Graphics card up to the job?  Again I'm not talking about resolution, but colour fidelity.
1c   Do you have a competent colour calibrator (another vote for the i1 Display series)?
1d   How good is the colour fidelity of your eyesight (in terms of your discrimination expressed in average ΔE)?

2   What software are you using for Raw Processing?  This will have a bearing on the Graphics Card Processor and/or CPU

3   What software are you using for Photo Editing?  This may have a bearing on the Graphics card.

4   What is balance between Photo Processing and Video Processing?  This will have a bearing on the CPU / Memory / SSD capacity / Graphics Card.

5   What is the balance between Photo and Video Processing and general computing?  (The more you bias the cost toward Photo and Video Processing, the higher the cost.)

6   If you do a lot of Raw conversion using more complex parallel algorithms run in the CPU (rather than the GPU) this may well require forced ventilation of your cupboard (particularly if you have HDDs in the PC case - CPUs slow down when they get hot, HDDs and PSUs just die)

7  If you do a lot of Video Processing this will almost certainly require forced ventilation of your cupboard.

...  And possibly most important
8a    What is your budget?
8b    How much do you want to spend?  And can you build it yourself.

Finally, for use in a cupboard I would strongly advise against passive cooling - that's a recipe for disaster.
Instead, consider a ducted cooling solution with water cooling for the CPU, particularly if you have heavy CPU focused loading.

Simon-in-Suffolk posted:

fatcat posted:

If you’re processing photos shot with fast glass, you’re definitely going to require some form of forced ventilation for the cupboard.

 I’d recommend a fast fan.

 

Really? I process high megapixel raw photo images  all the time using Adobe software on PC and Mac and there is no noticeable or minimal  rise in temp or increase in fan speed. I assume you mean by 'fast glass' a  wider aperture lenses like f2.8 or greater - yes these are better for a better depth of field and working in a given light to drive higher shutter speed / lower ISO sensitivity - but I can't see or have ever experienced increased PC load in processing  images from such lenses - in fact its possibly the opposite - images from wider apertures often means lower sensitivity can be used so there is less noise in the image. For modern PCs however in my experience this just is not a serious load - even using smart noise filtering software and smart sharpening software ... Now if the OP was processing video - then I totally agree - that is CPU and memory intensive by most modern PC standards  - and without proper ventilation things will get rather too warm... my Mac and PC fans certainly pickup speed and give out heat when doing video processing.

In my experience modern PCs and Macs are a lot more efficient than from even a few years ago - and as efficiency has improved  heat output has dropped significantly... so yes in a cupboard i would use ventilation or if no real air flow a fan - but I wouldn't suggest that specifically for processing photos - I would suggest that for what ever despite the increased efficiency.

Modern PCs can process high-resolution still images in their sleep. It seriously is not any sort of burden on them. As Huge says, the exception may be if there is a combination of multiple complex algorithms and batch processing of many images. But if you're doing the adjustments and editing in real, human time, the PC is just sitting around for about 99.999% of the time waiting for you to tell it what to do next, which it then executes in nanoseconds, and patiently waits for your next clumsy and painfully slow (by the PC's standards) instruction.

Colour fidelity is obviously important for commercial work, and can make getting suitable prints by properly matching monitor and printer a lot easier, with less trial and error. But for most amateur stuff, you're going to go with what you thinks looks nice, and/or with what matches your recollection of the scene/object. The colour gamut you'll be working with is a poor imitation of life anyway. You're not likely to be interested in whether or not you've exactly matched the patented Pantone code for a commercial trademark, or captured a fashion designer's intended hue for example.

Innocent Bystander posted:

Joff posted:

Go Mac, you will never look back.

I have a 4 year old iMac and its as good now as it was new...

Off

A professional photographer friend of mine used to use PCs, biput a couple of years ago switched to Mac - and wishes he had long before. But he is working on 21Mp RAW files with photoshop and with montage software. In particular he was very impressed with the monitor quality, far better than anything he'd used before (but I don't know what they had been), its instant boot up, and stability. 

But building yourself you can get a PC equivalent to any spec of Mac much cheaper, and with the option of tweaking things like cooling to meetdemand if that's whatbyou need.

Unless you have the cash, under no circumstances go to an Apple store and look at the high resolution demonstration images on a 5K 27" iMac.

Guy007 posted:

arf005 posted:

wow - thank you Suzy Wong

Yes a nice update. The only change I would recommend is for the prime hard drive, you should really look at an SSD - 500GB Sandisk Extreme or Samsung equivalent - 1TB/960GB would be better still.  Keep the others as data/slave drives, but the prime should be SSD.

ARF005, otherwise, the specs look good for your needs.  The issue comes down your time and ability and whether you have a good local parts vendor, or are you buying the bits off the net vs buying it pre done with easy warranty and support.  I can't talk to the Omen, but my Dad's been happy with his HP Spectre laptop.

 

I have often contemplated an SSD for the system drive, but the last time I looked they were a lot of cash for not a lot of MB.

I've considered water cooling, but my 5-fan air cooled case keeps the processor temp down well enough. However as you are in a cupboard it might be worth considering if you could get the radiator out in the open.

Overall performance is good with batch image processing (Lroom. & Photoshop CC) but haven't tried video editing.

Pretty smooth with my (last years) games as well, in-game graphics set to "high" or "ultra" gives good detail and smooth scrolling.

Last time I looked - over a year ago now - SSDs were down to about £250-300 for 1TB, so I would expect lower now, unless hit by the exchange rate already. But you don't need that large for a primary boot drive, which is where the main benefit woukd lie, e.g with far quicker boot up. 

Just checked my laptop. 120Gb SSD of which Windows 10 Pro consumes only 40Gb. Seems 120Gb is more than adequate for a primary SSD and they can be picked up under 50.

Another vote for DIY and Asus motherboards with Intel CPUs.  Easier to get exactly what you want and be sure that all the critical components are uncompromised. Good components will last longer, means there is an inevitable trickle down and I get my son's old graphics cards when he upgrades. 

Regards,

Willy.

Willy posted:

Just checked my laptop. 120Gb SSD of which Windows 10 Pro consumes only 40Gb. Seems 120Gb is more than adequate for a primary SSD and they can be picked up under 50.

Another vote for DIY and Asus motherboards with Intel CPUs.  Easier to get exactly what you want and be sure that all the critical components are uncompromised. Good components will last longer, means there is an inevitable trickle down and I get my son's old graphics cards when he upgrades. 

Regards,

Willy.

 

 

120GB system drive (with Win10 consuming 40Gb) only allows for 59Gb of programs before hitting the 80% limit.

Intel CPUs are much more finicky about chipsets than AMD, and there are many more variants of intel chipsets, so it's actually harder to get an uncompromised system.
(I've built both, and Intel systems take at least twice as much time in research to avoid unexpected compatibility issues.  The issues are usually fairly minor, things like certain operations being much slower than expected or certain peripherals not working; they're rarely out and out failures).

arf005 posted:

Has anyone out there built their own, bought a new one recently or upgraded...??

I have specs in mind, and a budget, but need to run some ideas past someone who knows more than me!

I've done all of these and worked with PCs since the very first ones were marketed by IBM back in the stone age.

So as a PC guru, prone to giving you gigaherz, gigabytes and gigaflops specs, I'd say this to you ARF005... "Buy the most powerful one you can afford to buy - it'll last for years and for much of that time you'll avoid the frustration of an underperforming device.  And secondly, say 'No' to all the additional stuff the salesman says you can't live without - you can live without it, he's telling porkies."

Roger

rjstaines posted:

arf005 posted:

Has anyone out there built their own, bought a new one recently or upgraded...??

I have specs in mind, and a budget, but need to run some ideas past someone who knows more than me!

I've done all of these and worked with PCs since the very first ones were marketed by IBM back in the stone age.

So as a PC guru, prone to giving you gigaherz, gigabytes and gigaflops specs, I'd say this to you ARF005... "Buy the most powerful one you can afford to buy - it'll last for years and for much of that time you'll avoid the frustration of an underperforming device.  And secondly, say 'No' to all the additional stuff the salesman says you can't live without - you can live without it, he's telling porkies."

Roger

Precisely what I have always done. Buy the biggest RAM, HDD and the fastest chipset you can afford and forget about the fripperies. Then it will become obsolete more slowly. Buying a PC that is just about OK for current needs means it will be too slow/stupid fairly shortly. My home Dell is 8 years old and just about to be replaced. I reckon 8yrs is pretty good considering the pace of chance in computing

Bruce

The problem with the advice "buy the fastest that you can afford" is that when you get to the top end of performance you're paying a LOT for very small increases in performance, often the top CPU is less than 10% faster than a CPU 2 steps down in performance, but is double the cost.  The same applies with RAM speed.  Amount of RAM is approximately proportional to cost, but if you get a 4 slot MB and only populate 2 slots then you can add more RAM when you need and when it's come down in price.

So: "buy the fastest that you can justify on a performance / cost basis" and don't wast money chasing the last few percent.

Bruce Woodhouse posted:

rjstaines posted:

arf005 posted:

Has anyone out there built their own, bought a new one recently or upgraded...??

I have specs in mind, and a budget, but need to run some ideas past someone who knows more than me!

I've done all of these and worked with PCs since the very first ones were marketed by IBM back in the stone age.

So as a PC guru, prone to giving you gigaherz, gigabytes and gigaflops specs, I'd say this to you ARF005... "Buy the most powerful one you can afford to buy - it'll last for years and for much of that time you'll avoid the frustration of an underperforming device.  And secondly, say 'No' to all the additional stuff the salesman says you can't live without - you can live without it, he's telling porkies."

Roger

Precisely what I have always done. Buy the biggest RAM, HDD and the fastest chipset you can afford and forget about the fripperies. Then it will become obsolete more slowly. Buying a PC that is just about OK for current needs means it will be too slow/stupid fairly shortly. My home Dell is 8 years old and just about to be replaced. I reckon 8yrs is pretty good considering the pace of chance in computing

Bruce

Quite so,   five liters under the hood, a six speed box and four wheel drive will fix anything.

Err, sorry. Wrong forum.

Buy cutting edge and change infrequently or buy good spec and change more often.  Over a number of years the cost works out the same.  Whilst the focus on processor, memory speed and storage makes sense it also makes sense to get the best motherboard you can reasonably afford as this will allow you to upgrade the other components as and when you need to.

My approach building computers has generally been to buy last or year before's best (never the current due to the price premium), except graphics card other than for a gaming computer. I then tend not to change anything until something fails, or upgrades in necessary software demand better when I upgrade things. In general terms a bit like my approach to hifi.

Huge posted:

Willy posted:

Just checked my laptop. 120Gb SSD of which Windows 10 Pro consumes only 40Gb. Seems 120Gb is more than adequate for a primary SSD and they can be picked up under 50.

Another vote for DIY and Asus motherboards with Intel CPUs.  Easier to get exactly what you want and be sure that all the critical components are uncompromised. Good components will last longer, means there is an inevitable trickle down and I get my son's old graphics cards when he upgrades. 

Regards,

Willy.

 

 

120GB system drive (with Win10 consuming 40Gb) only allows for 59Gb of programs before hitting the 80% limit.

Intel CPUs are much more finicky about chipsets than AMD, and there are many more variants of intel chipsets, so it's actually harder to get an uncompromised system.
(I've built both, and Intel systems take at least twice as much time in research to avoid unexpected compatibility issues.  The issues are usually fairly minor, things like certain operations being much slower than expected or certain peripherals not working; they're rarely out and out failures).

The 40Gb is windows and my full compliment of programs! 

I know two people who build/support/repair PCs servers and networks for a living. Both have expressed a strong preference for intel. 

Willy.

Willy posted:

Huge posted:

Willy posted:

Just checked my laptop. 120Gb SSD of which Windows 10 Pro consumes only 40Gb. Seems 120Gb is more than adequate for a primary SSD and they can be picked up under 50.

 

120GB system drive (with Win10 consuming 40Gb) only allows for 59Gb of programs before hitting the 80% limit.

The 40Gb is windows and my full compliment of programs! 

 

Whereas my OS & programs complement on C: is 450GB.

But as always, YMMV.

Willy posted:

...

I know two people who build/support/repair PCs servers and networks for a living. Both have expressed a strong preference for intel. 

Willy.

They likely would do:

First of all they can justify looking through Intel's disparate data sheets on the technical details of their multitude of different chipsets.

Second they probably have access to some of Intel's documents containing their privileged system build information (as we did with my former employer); for instance the ones covering the list of incompatible combinations.  It's still a lot easier to extract the important information from AMD documentation, and there are far fewer incompatible combinations of CPU / chipset / memory.  

This is a significant difference between DIY and professional environments.

From personally building PC's and once running a modest organization all on them of virtual clients (PC based)  upon getting my last computer virus I switched to mac...  

I have NEVER looked back.

To this day some of my tema members have been hell bent on keeping s PC because its what they know...

as I type this... their 9 month old PC is in for a 3 day repair...  my mac...  well using it right now and have never had problems... same with the other 41 macs we have implemented...

You pay on the front end for sure... but save it on the back....

Ah, the old Macs don't get viruses, and don't go wrong argument.  

Hm, I bought my first Mac last year.  Took it home, all excited, plugged it in and it didn't work.  Had to take it back the day after for a replacement.  I've used PCs for decades and the only thing that has ever gone on them have been hard drives (2) and power supplies (also 2).  Viruses generally speaking have been well controlled with good house keeping etc.  I like my Mac for some things, and I like my PC for others.