Home · Register · Join Upload & Sell

Moderated by: Fred Miranda
Username  

  New fredmiranda.com Mobile Site
  New Feature: SMS Notification alert
  New Feature: Buy & Sell Watchlist
  

FM Forums | Post-processing & Printing | Join Upload & Sell

1      
2
       3              5       6       end
  

Archive 2016 · PC build questions follow up (arrived)

  
 
ben egbert
Offline
• • • • • •
Upload & Sell: Off
p.2 #1 · p.2 #1 · PC build questions follow up (arrived)


Dragonfire wrote:
Ben.

the Dell XPS-8900 - 32gb - 512ssd - 2tb - 4gb video arrived on Tuesday in perfect condition and all systems are up and running without issue.

everything is faster but Lightroom 5.7 still has a minor lag even after coming from i7 gen 1 with 8gb RAM with 1DsIII raw files.

It runs my NEC, Dell and a 4K TV which is a bit of overkill until InDesgn is loaded.

I do not believe the extra RAM and SSD will boost the speed of inefficient code.

Happy New Year


Thanks for the feedback, as you can see I have a Dell XPS8900 on my list albeit with 64GB. Do you have displayport on the video card?



Dec 31, 2016 at 11:26 AM
Dragonfire
Online
• • • • •
Upload & Sell: On
p.2 #2 · p.2 #2 · PC build questions follow up (arrived)


No, VGA, DVI and HDMI

Just downloaded Lightroom CC and it is still slow to load 1DsIII raws.

Edited on Dec 31, 2016 at 11:31 AM · View previous versions



Dec 31, 2016 at 11:28 AM
ben egbert
Offline
• • • • • •
Upload & Sell: Off
p.2 #3 · p.2 #3 · PC build questions follow up (arrived)


15Bit wrote:
Ben,

That looks pretty nice to me. Only a couple of questions on that list:

1. Are you sure you want a case with a window?

2. Still going to nag on the PSU. Get a seasonic. After seeing models from several of the other (supposedly reputable) manufacturers die before their time, i only buy seasonics now. Of the ones they offer at AVA i would personally choose the Platinum SS-520W for your build. It's fanless (and hence silent) and comes with a 7 year warranty (which gives you an idea of how well made it is). If you are concerned
...Show more

I thought I checked off a Seasonic, but it shows different in the listed components. I also prefer Western Digital but did not see any on the list, I will ask in both cases. I will go back and check the silent case, one case I did not check out thinking it would add cost. No, I don't need a window. I think that goes with the gamer desire to show off the computer with lights etc.

Thanks a lot for all the help, and for digging around the AVA site to find more options..



Dec 31, 2016 at 11:31 AM
ben egbert
Offline
• • • • • •
Upload & Sell: Off
p.2 #4 · p.2 #4 · PC build questions follow up (arrived)


Dragonfire wrote:
No, VGA, DVI and HDMI

Just downloaded Lightroom CC and it is still slow to load 1DsIII raws.


I need Display port according to NEC, one reason I am looking at custom.



Dec 31, 2016 at 11:31 AM
Dragonfire
Online
• • • • •
Upload & Sell: On
p.2 #5 · p.2 #5 · PC build questions follow up (arrived)


My NEC w/Spectraview is 4 years old and offers only DVI and VGA.

When I go custom new monitors will be included, but this Dell is all I need in the house



Dec 31, 2016 at 11:39 AM
ben egbert
Offline
• • • • • •
Upload & Sell: Off
p.2 #6 · p.2 #6 · PC build questions follow up (arrived)


Tony Rogers wrote:
A few thoughts:

I strongly recommend having at least two SSDs. First one can be M2 - it is faster, but you load most of the OS at startup, so the difference during operation may be small. Second SSD is for the photos you are working on - it is far faster to download the RAW files from memory card to an SSD than to an HD, and the thumbnails appear more quickly. I work on the images on the SSD, then transfer the entire directory to magnetic disk once I'm finished. It's a good idea to keep the working
...Show more

Thanks for the advice on two SSD's. I wondered about that, maybe I will just go with two smaller SSD's and one 3TB internal.

I download to an external drive using Breeze Downloader pro and then browse with Breeze browser. I put all the working files on an internal and it would be an SSD. This work gets backed up to an external and all my raw keepers get backed up to a Passport. I just switched to the Passport from CD's 3 months ago.

The download time is not a problem at all. I usually do this while having breakfast or some other thing.

I tried Raid and hated it. I also have Acronis which is a memory hog and so complicated I will probably never use it. I don't intend to reload it. Do you keep all your program files on the system SSD?



Dec 31, 2016 at 11:41 AM
ben egbert
Offline
• • • • • •
Upload & Sell: Off
p.2 #7 · p.2 #7 · PC build questions follow up (arrived)


Dragonfire wrote:
My NEC w/Spectraview is 4 years old and offers only DVI and VGA.

When I go custom new monitors will be included, but this Dell is all I need in the house


I can run my 4K NEC wide gamut from HDMI. but NEC says I get best results from displayport. I got a new video card to do this when I got the monitor 6 months ago and I love it. I had trouble then finding a card with Displayport and this is one spec they don't list very often.

Also how hard was it to get CC up and running? I don't use LR, but Photoshop CC will be the same. Do you have to disable it on one machine to stay under the max number of machines? And of course you have to find the impossible to remember Adobe password.



Dec 31, 2016 at 11:43 AM
Dragonfire
Online
• • • • •
Upload & Sell: On
p.2 #8 · p.2 #8 · PC build questions follow up (arrived)


I own LR 5.7 and that will remain on my laptop and CC was just a simple download. I am pretty good with passwords because my web host forced me to use @#$crap124 for their security. Downloading InDesign for a book and hopefully using both monitors at full size because I'I am not as your as I used to be" and my wife has banished Dragonfire to the basement.



Edited on Dec 31, 2016 at 12:16 PM · View previous versions



Dec 31, 2016 at 12:05 PM
15Bit
Offline
• • • • •
Upload & Sell: Off
p.2 #9 · p.2 #9 · PC build questions follow up (arrived)


ben egbert wrote:
Thanks a lot for all the help, and for digging around the AVA site to find more options..


You're more than welcome.

To get the full option list you will see at the bottom of every section in the configurator a box marked "See all xx options". Push that.

If you are going to go with the dual SSD approach, then i'd suggest a 256GB Samsung 950 PRO M.2 drive to boot from and a 250GB SATA for "working files". For another 70 bucks the move to a 500GB Samsung 960 EVO M.2 drive would be good value in my opinion, but these "little" upgrades do pile on the price when tick a few of them....


Edited on Dec 31, 2016 at 12:28 PM · View previous versions



Dec 31, 2016 at 12:15 PM
ben egbert
Offline
• • • • • •
Upload & Sell: Off
p.2 #10 · p.2 #10 · PC build questions follow up (arrived)


15Bit wrote:
You're more than welcome.

To get the full option list you will see at the bottom of every section in the configurator a box marked "See all xx options". Push that.



Yep, I have been doing that, just never ran the silent box. Each chassis has different options, I had to change cases to get the H170 option.



Dec 31, 2016 at 12:18 PM
Mr Mouse
Offline
• • •
Upload & Sell: Off
p.2 #11 · p.2 #11 · PC build questions follow up (arrived)


ben egbert wrote:
For 15BIT, speced as you suggest it comes to $1943 which is not bad. I will probably add Office as my version is the 2007 version.

For many years my rule of thumb has been spend 1500 to 2500 for a machine. Get a yesterday's top the line machine. You pay too much of a premium for the current bleeding edge hardware where within a year that price will drop quite a bit. A refurbished open box machine will save an additional 20 to 30% and include service.

It uses to be the case that a machine became outdated within three years. IMO that changed years ago a good new machine should serve you well for 5 to 7 years now. For 2K you can get very good workstation stay away from Laptop they cost too much get a low-cost tablet or a low-end surface for travel light work unless Travel is where you do all your work.




Dec 31, 2016 at 12:18 PM
ben egbert
Offline
• • • • • •
Upload & Sell: Off
p.2 #12 · p.2 #12 · PC build questions follow up (arrived)


Latest specs with the suggestions so far received. Updated for (2) 256GB SSD and one 4GB WD drive and Seasonic 750PS. $2300 with Office and a Win 10 pro CD.

Carbide Series 330R Blackout Edition Ultra Silent, No PSU, ATX, Black, Mid Tower Case
H170-PRO/CSM, Intel H170 Chipset, LGA 1151, DDR4 64GB, HDMI, M.2, ATX Retail Motherboard
Core i7-6700 Quad-Core 3.4 - 4.0GHz TB, HD Graphics 530, LGA 1151, 8MB L3 Cache, DDR3L / DDR4, 14nm, 65W, Retail Processor
GeForce GTX 1050 Ti GAMING, 1290 - 1392MHz, 4GB GDDR5 128-Bit, PCI Express 3.0 Graphics Card
64GB Kit (4 x 16GB) HyperX Fury DDR4 2133MHz, PC4-17000, CL14 1.2V, Non-ECC, Black, DIMM Memory
Snow Silent Series 750W, 80 PLUS Platinum, Full Modular, ATX Power Supply
CNPS2X, Socket 1151/AM3+/FM2+, 27mm Height, Copper/Aluminum, Retail CPU Cooler
DS Series DS-120mm Black 120mm, 1500 RPM, 81.5 CFM, 23.1 dBA Cooling Fan
<strong>2 x </strong>250GB 850 EVO 7mm, 540 / 520 MB/s, 3D V-NAND, SATA 6Gb/s, 2.5-Inch Retail SSD
4TB WD Black WD4004FZWX, 7200 RPM, SATA 6Gb/s, 128MB cache, 3.5-Inch Retail HDD
DRW-24B1ST, DVD 24x / CD 48x, DVD-Writer, SATA, 5.25-Inch, Black, OEM Optical Drive
PRO-77U, Internal, 5.25" Bay, 4x USB 3.0, Black Retail Card Reader
Standard Wiring with Precision Cable Routing and Tie-Down
Windows 10 Pro 64-bit DVD OEM
Office Home and Student 2016 P2 - 1 PC
Silver Warranty Package (3 Year Limited Parts, Life-Time Labor Warranty)



Dec 31, 2016 at 12:37 PM
15Bit
Offline
• • • • •
Upload & Sell: Off
p.2 #13 · p.2 #13 · PC build questions follow up (arrived)


Mr Mouse wrote:
For many years my rule of thumb has been spend 1500 to 2500 for a machine. Get a yesterday's top the line machine. You pay too much of a premium for the current bleeding edge hardware where within a year that price will drop quite a bit. A refurbished open box machine will save an additional 20 to 30% and include service.

That's not a bad policy. I know you tend more towards buying full workstations based on the Xeon CPU, which i personally feel are overpriced at the single socket end of the market. I prefer to "roll my own", and then just upgrade the individual bits of hardware as and when i want.


It uses to be the case that a machine became outdated within three years. IMO that changed years ago a good new machine should serve you well for 5 to 7 years now. For 2K you can get very good workstation stay away from Laptop they cost too much get a low-cost tablet or a low-end surface for travel light work unless Travel is where you do all your work.


It used to be the case that a machine became outdated within 12 months. I remember those days well. Nowadays Intel is dragging out 5% improvements every CPU iteration, so i would agree that a 5 year lifespan is totally reasonable. Indeed my current desktop is a 4.5 year old Ivy Bridge i5, and i'm not planning to upgrade it yet. Maybe late 2017, when the Skylake X and Kaby Lake X hit the market...



Dec 31, 2016 at 12:41 PM
ben egbert
Offline
• • • • • •
Upload & Sell: Off
p.2 #14 · p.2 #14 · PC build questions follow up (arrived)


Mr Mouse wrote:
For many years my rule of thumb has been spend 1500 to 2500 for a machine. Get a yesterday's top the line machine. You pay too much of a premium for the current bleeding edge hardware where within a year that price will drop quite a bit. A refurbished open box machine will save an additional 20 to 30% and include service.

It uses to be the case that a machine became outdated within three years. IMO that changed years ago a good new machine should serve you well for 5 to 7 years now. For 2K you can
...Show more

I have spent a lot of time on the Dell home and work outlet. Home is usually a blank and work is mostly Xeon which is not bad, but there is no options, you take what is offered.

It appears that Dell sells basic configurations and then has resellers that make more options. For example, Dell says for new builds, 16GB is tops and memory is sold separate, but there are many Dells for sale at Amazon by resellers with 64GB. The one in my opening post is one. It is close to what I am specing from ASA and very near the same price. But I don't get to spec the PS or HD or Video card.

I am pretty much following your philosophy in that I am not overclocking, or going with the fastest Ram or using M2 SSD. But I do get to customize a bit and have it all warranted.








Dec 31, 2016 at 12:44 PM
15Bit
Offline
• • • • •
Upload & Sell: Off
p.2 #15 · p.2 #15 · PC build questions follow up (arrived)


Ben,

I see you are beginning to suffer a little "feature creep", with corresponding "price creep". If you want to keep the price a little more in check, you could "downgrade" the PSU from a Snow Silent (which are undoubtedly superb PSU's) to a S12G-750 (which are still excellent). That would save you 70 bucks. Given that you don't need modular cable arrangements (cos you aren't building it yourself), and the S12G goes silent below 50% load, i would personally get the S12G in your position (i actually bought X-series for myself, so a Snow Silent is rather better than i have ). Dropping from an i7 to an i5 would save you a further 120 bucks, but then we are back to the i5 vs i7 debate.

Otherwise i'd say you're looking good.



Dec 31, 2016 at 12:51 PM
ben egbert
Offline
• • • • • •
Upload & Sell: Off
p.2 #16 · p.2 #16 · PC build questions follow up (arrived)


I choose the PS because it was the only Seasonic 750 I found on the option list. I will look again.

I am willing to go 17. Don't forget I have $150 for the Win 10 Pro and about the same for Office here, not included in some previous lists.

I also went with 2 SSD and one very large internal. I like to have access to my Raws, going back to the year 2000. Most are on old drives that are full and backed up on DVD. But I have what I call keepers on one external HD. I clean out the internal every year with only the raw keepers stored internally. I only need 2TB inside, so 4TB is overkill.

I am 76 and this is likely my last computer. It gets hard to stay abreast of things. I don't do tablets or thumb texting or smart phones. I hate laptops even though I have had several.




Dec 31, 2016 at 01:08 PM
newhaven
Online
• • •
Upload & Sell: Off
p.2 #17 · p.2 #17 · PC build questions follow up (arrived)


Power Supply Options:

Seasonic G Series - I believe it is the same as the S12G series but is semi modular and costs only a few dollars more.
EVGA Supernova G2 550 (650, 750) - Top rated by many reviewers and fully modular. The prices at AVA are a little lower than Seasonic.

You don't really need a 750W psu with an i7-6700 and GTX 1050 Ti - a 550W or 650W would be fine.
Tech Report System Guide



Dec 31, 2016 at 02:00 PM
ZhanMing12
Offline
• •
Upload & Sell: Off
p.2 #18 · p.2 #18 · PC build questions follow up (arrived)


ben egbert wrote:
I choose the PS because it was the only Seasonic 750 I found on the option list. I will look again.

I am willing to go 17. Don't forget I have $150 for the Win 10 Pro and about the same for Office here, not included in some previous lists.

I also went with 2 SSD and one very large internal. I like to have access to my Raws, going back to the year 2000. Most are on old drives that are full and backed up on DVD. But I have what I call keepers on one external HD.
...Show more

One thing I would recommend is getting the Office 365 subscription with Onedrive. This gives you a terabyte of online storage for backups (which you can sync to the HDD) along with the entire office suite.



Dec 31, 2016 at 02:04 PM
15Bit
Offline
• • • • •
Upload & Sell: Off
p.2 #19 · p.2 #19 · PC build questions follow up (arrived)


ben egbert wrote:
I choose the PS because it was the only Seasonic 750 I found on the option list. I will look again.

It's the option at the top when you filter for "seasonic". Also the cheapest.

I also went with 2 SSD and one very large internal. I like to have access to my Raws, going back to the year 2000. Most are on old drives that are full and backed up on DVD. But I have what I call keepers on one external HD. I clean out the internal every year with only the raw keepers stored internally. I only need 2TB inside, so 4TB is overkill.

As someone told me when i bought a 3GB (yes, GB) drive some years ago and stated that it would be the last drive i'd need for a while - "Nature Abhors a Vacuum". He was not wrong. You'll find use for that 4TB.


I am 76 and this is likely my last computer. It gets hard to stay abreast of things. I don't do tablets or thumb texting or smart phones. I hate laptops even though I have had several.

I'm just over 40 and struggle to keep abreast of things . I somehow doubt this will be your last computer too - if you're still spry enough to be getting out and taking pictures then you probably have a good 10 years or more left.

My dad, who's now 83 and totally computer illiterate, got himself an iPad a little while back and uses that almost exclusively. Don't knock the tablets. Laptops are a necessary evil for many of us still working. I actually quite like mine, but it's a decent (i.e. expensive) lightweight model and i have a powerful desktop at home for photo editing etc.



Dec 31, 2016 at 02:38 PM
ben egbert
Offline
• • • • • •
Upload & Sell: Off
p.2 #20 · p.2 #20 · PC build questions follow up (arrived)


newhaven wrote:
Power Supply Options:

Seasonic G Series - I believe it is the same as the S12G series but is semi modular and costs only a few dollars more.
EVGA Supernova G2 550 (650, 750) - Top rated by many reviewers and fully modular. The prices at AVA are a little lower than Seasonic.

You don't really need a 750W psu with an i7-6700 and GTX 1050 Ti - a 550W or 650W would be fine.
Tech Report System Guide


I respecced this earlier today and got $200 off by choosing a different Seasonic, but still 750W. I also dropped to a 2TB HD. I will take a look at 650.



Dec 31, 2016 at 03:59 PM
1      
2
       3              5       6       end




FM Forums | Post-processing & Printing | Join Upload & Sell

1      
2
       3              5       6       end
    
 

You are not logged in. Login or Register

Username       Or Reset password



This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.