I've always been a Windows desktop user, but until this point I've never built my own desktop from scratch. I finally decided to teach myself how to build the ultimate PC for video and photo editing and I'm bringing you along for the ride.
At the start of this article I will explain the basic process of choosing components for your desktop. The second half of this article will be about our specific build. We have created a video of the entire process and a list of each component we used.
How to Build Your Own Computer for Photo and Video Editing
The absolute best resource I have found for building a PC from scratch is PCPartPicker. This website allows you easily compare and purchase every possible component for your build while also warning you of any incompatibilities and finding you the best price for each part. You can use the tips I give you below to easily build a completely unique computer from scratch using PCPartPicker. Now let's get started.
Choose a Processor First
Every PC build should begin with choosing a processor. The processor socket size will determine your motherboard, and your motherboard will then determine which case and other components you buy as well. First, you'll need to decide what your computer will be used for. Some Adobe programs, like Premiere, can take advantage of multiple cores while other programs, like Lightroom, utilize more clock speed. If you're only going to be using your computer for photo editing, you may want to buy a chip like the Intel Core i7-7700K 4.2 GHz simply because it has a native 4.2 clock speed. If you're working in Premiere like we are, you may want to buy a chip with more cores and a slightly lower clock speed.
AMD vs Intel
AMD has recently released the "Ryzen" series of processors which are (at least on paper) more powerful and cheaper than the Intel competitors. Sadly, at the time that this article was written, Adobe software doesn't seem to be totally optimized with these processors. Puget systems has done a bench test with these new chips and Adobe Premiere and found that Intel may still have the edge. If you want to go the AMD route stay tuned for Adobe updates, these chips may be a far better choice than Intel in the future but they aren't necessarily today.
Choose a CPU Cooler
Your computer's case will have its own fans but each processor will need it's own heat sync and fan or a water cooling system. A fan is the cheapest option but water cooling will allow you to overclock your CPU if you want to get that deep into this (we won't be overclocking our machine). PCPartPicker will be able to show you which coolers are compatible with your processor.
Choose a Motherboard
After you've chosen a processor, you'll need to choose a motherboard with a compatible socket size. Make sure you consider how many DIMM slots for ram you will need, if the board has onboard Wi-Fi, how many SATA jacks are available for hard drives, SSDs, and optical drives, and other perks like USB C, Thunderbolt 3, USB 3.1, and Ethernet. If you want your computer to have more than one graphics card, you'll need a motherboard that is SLI capable.
Choose Your Memory or "RAM"
At this time, in 2017, you're probably going to either want 32 GB or 64 GB of RAM. We built ours with only 32 GB because we know it's an easy upgrade to 64 GB if we find that our computer is using 100 percent. RAM also has its own clock speed and different boards and processors allow for different speeds. Again, PCPartPicker will be able to help you with this.
Choose Your Storage
If you're building your own computer in 2017 you are going to want at least one solid state drive to house your operating system. SSDs are more expensive than standard hard drives but they are about three times faster, quieter, and more reliable. For our build we will be using two different SSD drives. One for the operating system and one for storage and to edit from.
M.2 is a new type of solid state storage that some motherboards accept. These cards can perform much faster than standard SATA SSDs and they may not necessarily cost more. In our build we didn't use our M.2 slot but we probably should have. I may end up replacing my 500gb main SSD for an M.2 SSD.
Choose a Video Card
Depending on what you are doing with your PC, a video card might be the most important piece of hardware or the least important. Playing current video games and editing in Adobe Premiere require high end video cards while Photoshop and Lightroom may not utilize the video card at all. If you're only interested in editing photos I would suggest a much cheaper video card like the GTX 1050 that can still push dual 4k monitors and is a quarter of the price of the one we put in our machine.
Choose a Case
Cases come in all shapes and sizes and after choosing the components above, PCPartPicker will help you to find the case that will hold them all. For me, I wanted to have a case that had USB 3 on the front and had a glass windowed side panel.
Choose an Optical Drive
I almost never use an optical drive but once every couple of years I might need one. It's also easier to install Windows with an optical drive if you have a disc. If you don't have an optical drive you'll have to create a bootable USB drive and it's very time consuming. I would suggest buying the cheapest optical DVD drive on the market if you don't plan on using one very often; they're only $20.
Choose a Power Supply
Once again PCPartPicker is going to be your best resource for choosing a power supply because it will keep track of the power draw of each of the components in your machine. A seasoned builder recently told me that he prefers to overpower his machines because he feels that the power supplies will last longer and give him the option of upgrading components in the future without buying a new power supply.
Choose Your Operating System
If you've never built a PC before you may not realize that you do actually have to buy Windows. B&H sells an OEM version of Windows 10 Pro for $139. Make sure that you buy the "Pro" version because other versions will not take advantage of our RAM.
Other Items to Buy
If your motherboard doesn't have Wi-Fi or Ethernet built in and you need those features, you'll need to either buy a USB adapter or a PCI card with those features. You'll also need to purchase monitors. We prefer 1080 or 1440 monitors for photo editing machines, and 4K for video editing and all around machines. You'll also need a mouse and keyboard. Our favorites are the Logitech K800 keyboard and Performance MX Mouse.
Now that you know the basics of building a PC, lets me show you what we chose to build and how we did it.
Our PC Build
We created a video that takes you through our entire build
Below I've created a list of every component that we used plus recommendations for cheaper and more expensive options. If you want to build our exact machine you can simply buy the parts and follow along with our video. If you want to customize your machine, each of your parts should be run through PCPartPicker to check for compatibility issues before purchasing.
Processor
Intel Core i7-6850K 3.6 GHz Six-Core
We purchased this chip because it has the perfect balance of extra cores and clock speed. We purchased it with Adobe Premiere in mind and if you aren't going to be working in Premiere very often, you won't need to spend this much.
For Photoshop and Lightroom: Intel Core i7-7700K 4.2 GHz Quad-Core
Budget Option: Intel Core i5-7600K 3.8 GHz Quad-Core
No Budget Option: Intel Core i7-6900K 3.2 GHz Eight-Core
CPU Cooler
Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO CPU Cooler
The CPU cooler we purchased may actually be a little underpowered for our build. Multiple people have commented that we might be wise to purchase a better cooler for both better performance and chip lifespan. You may want to splurge for the option below.
No Budget Option: Deepcool Captain 240 EX White Liquid CPU Cooler
Motherboard
ASUS X99-A II LGA 2011-v3 ATX Motherboard
This motherboard is relatively cheap but still comes with USB 3.1, USB C, 8 DIMM slots for RAM, and 6 SATA. My only wish is that this card had Wi-Fi.
No Budget Option: ASUS X99-DELUXE II LGA 2011-v3
This motherboard comes with Wi-Fi, and will accept a Thunderbolt 3 add-on card.
RAM
Corsair 16 GB Vengeance LPX DDR4 3200 MHz
This is extremely fast RAM that comes with two 8 GB chips. We purchased two packages for a total of 32 GB but you could buy four for a total of 64 GB of RAM.
No Budget Option: Patriot 32GB Viper 4 DDR4 3200 MHz (buy four for 128 GB)
Storage
Samsung 500 GB 850 Evo 2.5" SATA III SSD
Samsung 1TB 850 Evo 2.5" SATA III SSD
I failed to realize that the motherboard that I chose does in fact have an M.2 slot that can be used for a new type of SSD drive. This port allows for much faster speeds compared to the SATA SSDs that I used. I may end up switching my 500GB SSD for a 500GB M.2 SSD. Keep in mind this upgrade costs $70.
No Budget Option: Samsung 4 TB 850 Evo 2.5" SATA III SSD
You may also consider buying multiple drives and running them in RAID to get better performance and redundancy internally. You may also want to look into M.2 SSDs which can be far faster than SATA SSDs.
Graphics Card
ASUS Republic of Gamers Strix OC GeForce GTX 1070
This graphics card is currently considered the "best bang for your buck." It's not the top of the line but it's extremely powerful and allows 4K gaming and extremely fast video rendering in Premiere.
Budget Option: EVGA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti
No Budget Option: ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1080 Ti
Case
Cooler Master MasterCase Pro 5 Mid-Tower Case
This is a nice metal case with a windowed side panel. It gave us plenty of room to work and the fans are extremely quite. If you're building a cheaper computer you may not need a case this big and you could save a little money.
No Budget Option: Corsair Crystal Series 570X RGB Mid-Tower Case
Optical Drive
LG Internal SATA 14x Super Multi Blu-ray Disc Rewriter
I'm not sure how much I will use this but since it was only $55 I decided to throw it in.
Budget Option: ASUS DRW-24B1ST Internal SATA 16X DVD Disc Rewriter
Power Supply
We put a 650 watt power supply in our computer but an expert builder recommended that we suggest the 750 watt version instead for a longer lifecycle. It's only $20 more.
Operating System
Microsoft Windows 10 Pro (64-bit, OEM DVD)
Make sure that you buy Windows Pro and not Windows Home as it will not take advantage of all of our RAM. If you don't put an optical drive in your machine you will still need to buy this DVD and use the product key. To install windows 10 you will need to create a bootable USB thumb drive using another Windows computer.
Monitor
Dell P2415Q 24" Ultra HD 4K Monitor
These are our favorite 4K monitors. At $369 they are relatively affordable and the color and clarity is fantastic for the price. Keep in mind that if you are looking for the fastest Lightroom performance, you may not want to buy a 4K monitor. If budget is important, I personally would much rather have two, cheaper monitors, rather than one nicer monitor. After working with dual monitors, you'll never want to go back to just one.
Budget Option: Dell U2415 24" Widescreen LED Backlit IPS
No Budget Option: Dell UP3216Q 31.5" 16:9 UltraSharp 4K
Keyboard and Mouse
Logitech Performance Combo MX800 Wireless
This is our favorite keyboard and mouse by far. The mouse specifically is the best I have ever used. I think we own around 10 of them.
Speakers
Polk Audio TSi100 Bookshelf Speakers
Sony STRDH130 2-Channel Stereo Receiver
Polk Audio PSW10 10-Inch Powered Subwoofer
This speaker system is the best sound for the money that we have ever heard. We did an entire post about this system here.
External Storage
Synology DiskStation DS1515+ 30 TB
We have been running six computers off of this NAS for the last few years and it has never let us down. Now that we are moving to 4K video we are starting to see some lagging in Premiere and so we are about to upgrade to the 10 Gbps option.
Total Cost
Desktop Cost: $2,500
Dual 4k Monitors: $740
Mouse and Keyboard: $115
Speaker System: $380
Total cost for our build: $3,735
Conclusion
Up until this point I have purchased almost exclusively Alienware desktop computers. These computers have worked well for us in the past but recently our building was hit by lighting and many of the components on these PCs were destroyed. Repairing these computers was very difficult in some cases and impossible for two of them because many of the proprietary parts were either unavailable or wildly expensive.
As I was choosing the parts for our build it didn't feel like I was going to build an ultra expensive machine but when you add everything together, the whole setup was over $3,300 which is higher than I expected. I tried to build out a similar Alienware machine and although I wasn't able to choose identical components, our build was hundreds of dollars cheaper. If you buy a cheaper processor, SSD, graphics card, and monitors, your build should easily be $1,500-$2,000 cheaper than ours.
Although it can take an hour or two to build one of these computers by hand, I really appreciated the ability to actually choose every single component myself and I have gained a new understanding of how computers work. Inevitably in the future we will have hardware failures again and I feel far more confident about finding the parts and repairing this machine myself. From now on, all of our computers will be built in house.
This is the first time we have covered this sort of thing on Fstoppers. If you appreciate this content please let us know in the comments below and we will continue to update you guys on the hardware that we build in use in our office.
As a rebuttal, we need to also take into consideration the ambient environment, case fan setup, as to whether or not an air cooler in addition if the user is overclocking or not.
For the standard user using their workstation within the advertised specifications, with a well ventilated case, in a region of the world that does not regularly break into low 90s Fahrenheit then an air cooler can do fairly well even if the user doesn't. But a smaller case with less fans and/or a substantial overclock I wholeheartedly agree, but the with a stipulation. Water coolers are great at removing more heat from the chip, but if the ambient environment cannot absorb the extra heat then the effect is weakened or possibly nullified in a worst case scenario. A well ventilated or air conditioned room may still be needed depending on the region of the world and time of year.
The take away is much like camera equipment, there is no one size fits all CPU cooler. The best advice is to aggregate the appropriate information from experienced builders as well as working professionals with similar workflows and climates to reach the correct conclusion for oneself.
I prefer to buy a maxed out iMac
Ok Lee this isn't fair, so from tomorrow I'm gonna start making photography tutorials... Just joking, considering it's not your job you did good. The power supply switch moment was hilarious. I have only one tip for you DON'T EVER trust drivers that Windows installs when you click on "Update drivers" just go to the manufacturer website and download the latest versions. Use Windows suggested drivers ONLY if it's you last resource.
How is your system running? Personally, this is the combo I'd pick: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/tVqQnn
Now, the two Motherboards listed will not work for the i7-7700k and i5-7600k. Both of those CPUs are 1151 pin processors not 2011 pins as the above MOBOs are.
I just went through this process, though originally I specked out a Hackintosh, but finally gave up on that as I couldn't get the graphics card to work. I do work on a mac during the day, so I remapped the command and control key on the PC, so now most key commands are the same and then I remapped most of the key commands in Premiere to be the same. Projects open from Mac to PC so far without missing a beat!
With regard to dual video cards: First, Photoshop and Lightroom totally don't care. Second, although Adobe claims Premiere Pro will use dual cards for rendering, tests conclude that a second card makes little or no difference (in one YouTube test, two cards were actually slower than one). My own test showed zero difference with two cards. Finally, if you do use two cards, you do NOT use SLI. Just insert both cards and Premiere Pro will see them and do what little it does with them--SLI will cause errors.
When you say: "Make sure that you buy the "Pro" version because other versions will not take advantage of our RAM", this is simply not true. I think what you were trying to distinguish between was 32-bit (x86) and 64-bit (x64) versions of Windows.
Windows comes in basically 4 flavors, Windows 10 Home and Windows 10 Pro, available in both 32-bit and 64-bit options. There is no reason whatsoever for a person to install 32-bit Windows 10 unless they are using an ancient, decade old system that doesn't even have 4GB of RAM. Both Windows 10 Home AND Windows 10 Pro can easily support a computer that is running 32GB or 64GB of RAM.
A Photographer isn't necessarily going to gain any benefit at all from running Windows 10 Pro rather than Windows 10 Home. Both are fine, but going with the Home version will save them about $40 if they're pinching pennies. But if they buy Windows 10 Pro, it might save them a little bit in the future if for instance Windows 11 comes out and they upgrade. Otherwise they could find themselves paying a little more in the future if they decide they want to upgrade from Windows 10 Home to "Windows 11 Pro" for instance. But either way, whenever you purchase Windows 10, it typically comes with both 32-bit and 64-bit versions and you choose which one you want to use at the beginning of the installation process, otherwise, just always make sure you select 64-bit when buying a Windows 10 DVD.
So if you're a photographer building your first ever desktop PC, make sure that you install the 64-bit version of either Windows 10 Home or Pro, or else you won't be able to take advantage of faster, more powerful 64-bit applications like Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects etc. Virtually all software nowadays comes in 64-bit versions, and in some cases, ONLY 64-bit.
Any 64-bit OS can run both 64-bit and 32-bit applications, but a 32-bit version of Windows will not be able to run 64-bit applications at all.
Everyone keeps saying M.2 is faster than SSD. First, M.2 is an SSD. Second, there are 2 types of M.2. There's M.2 SATA that uses the same SATA bus as the SSD drives most are familiar with. And then there is M.2 NVMe. This uses the PCI express bus which is mucho faster. You need to make sure that your motherboard utilizes the NVMe M.2 drives if you want to go that way.
I just built my pc with an M.2 NVMe for boot drive, a 2nd SSD i had already for my lightroom catalog, a 1TB WD Blue for all my image files, and (2) 3TB WD Red HD's in a raid for backup of the other 3 drives. My images also reside in dropbox on my WD blue for added backup as well as cloud access. And everything is backed up to the cloud via CrashPlan.
As Im still an amateur photographer... I don't have any external servers.... Yet.
Whilst you say that you use Premiere Pro, that is only a tiny part of the decision making. You don't stipulate the native material you're editing. 2K? 4K? Colour sampling: 4:2:2 or 4:4:4? How many video tracks do you typically use? Do you dynamically link to After Effects? Do you use a single audio track or link to Audition?
All these need to be taken into consideration when choosing processor; ram; graphics card etc, etc.
Hmm, it seems I can't find this motherboard on the list. Any other good suggestions? I won't overclock it.
Great article & video. It reminds me of my last years work. As my laptop could not work properly for my photoediting work, I had to build a PC myself. Last year I have built a PC with cooler master master case pro 5, asus z 170 deluxe mother board (wifi), intel i 6700k, WD black 2 TB two drives in RAID 1 configuration for storage, samsung 950 pro M.2 memory (256gb) for the system, 32 gb corsair vengeance LPX 3000mhz RAM, NVIDIA K620 QUADRO GPU, cooler master nepton 240M liquid cooler, dell up2516d monitor & windows home. It works super fast for my photo editing purposes.
Cool article Lee, cheers
who want to save some money, don't buy those super duper kinda cool 3000/3200mhz rams, just 2400 and you won't feela ny differnece. Differnece will be 2-4%, and look at differnece of the price.
Can you elaborate on this? I am trying to tweak this computer now and notice that the RAM was actually running at 2100mhz. I turned on the XMP file in the bios and now have it running at 2400mhz. I've read that this particular RAM Lee bought can only hit 3200mhz speeds when overclocked or might require the processor to be overclocked to open up the full speed.
If 2400mhz is the fastest you can run this RAM on this motherboard without overclocking everything, you might want to buy this RAM instead since it is $100 cheaper. https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820233854&cm_re=C...
if i have any questions about computers, i always watch this guy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_Yt4vSZKVk&t=476s
about RAM's i will check
Try to run Memtest first. Enable XMP first then proceed on adjusting the DRAM freq, voltage and timings as spec on the label. BCLK to 100 as well.
I almost downloaded Memtest but it looked like the results it spits out would be something way over my head. I might just settle with the 2400mhz we are getting. I'm scared :)
I have seen some posts on internet, that people have same problems with another Asus motherboards too. I think yoou have to read some forums or topics and just give a try :) just don't rice voltage too high, ~1.35 for beginning.
Great info, thinking of switching to PC myself from Apple.... also you look like Tom Brady in this video man... not sure if that was intentional or not haha
Really great piece Lee - I've been wanting to do this for a while. You've given me the inspiration. How tough was it to reinstall the Adobe suite and plugins and all the other extra programs you accumulated over the years from your old computer's OS drive?
Well this is something Patrick and I were just arguing about. I find that I don't have much to reinstall at all. Adobe CC makes installing all the software super easy and automated. Other than that I download Googled Chrome and maybe just a couple of plugins. Other than that I don't use that many other programs.
Nice article, however you forgot about NVMe drives that offer even faster write and read speeds. I'd also consider the AMD RX480 as a budget oriented graphics card. Now, I don't remember the support on adobes side of AMD cards which may be why it was left out.
I'd also invest in high quality fans to keep the noise down, and overpowering your PSU by too much is just a waste and it is not as efficient. Its most effecient quite close to its max load, like 70-80% if I remember, so if your system needs like 550W I wouldn't go higher than a 650W. And new tech only draws less power so you shouldn't be too worried about maxing out your PSU.
great article! Thanks Lee
Similar build to what I put together for photo editing about six months ago. I don't use Premiere so went with higher clock speed Core i7 6700K (4.0GHz native but OC to 4.9GHz), water cooling, 32GB DDR4 RAM, Fractal Design R5 case (nice and quiet), Asus R9 390 GPU.
I went with an M.2 Samsung 960 EVO SSD for Windows/Apps. It crushes the 850 EVO in performance, you should really check it out.
For the rest of the storage, I used Windows Storage Spaces. I have 5 HDD drives and 2 SSD drives (Samsung 850 EVO) in a tiered storage pool. Windows manages the files on the tiers and shuffles things into SSD storage that you use frequently. I still have my Lightroom catalog, page file, and Adobe scratch space on the super fast 960 EVO, but photos and other files come of the storage pool. It is very fast and fault tolerant (can stand either SSD or any HDD failing) without losing any data. In Win10 takes some manual setup with the Powershell, but there are tons of tutorials online. With this setup, I have a 10TB fault tolerant "drive" with 80% of the performance of an SSD for most tasks.
What mother board did you go with?
ASUS Z170-A ATX LGA1151
Similar build here, but I don't waste money on archive SSDs. New HDDs can read/write at 200MB/s - good enough, and you can buy bajillion HDDs for the cash of those 850.
LR, catalog, and current pics are on M.2 drive, once I am done, I export images as well as whole catalog to slower HDD. Blazing fast.
I use a Windows Storage Pool with SSD and HDD tiers. Best of both, speed from SSD and size from HDD one one huge volume I don't have to mess with.
this one is better as budget option monitor https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1197315-REG/dell_p2416d_24_widesc...
Intel 7700K is good for gamming, as for productivity and almost for the same price Ryzen is a better choice. Optimizations are already here and every benchmark, when it comes to Video encoding show's that Ryzen 7 1700X is on par with the i7 6900K.
But other than that, it's nice to see an article like this :)
http://cpu.userbenchmark.com/
You are vastly overselling Ryzen 1800X.It's on par with i6700k. And even though it has more cores, it has way worse performance per core, and that's most apps strive for.
I couldn't care what label is on CPU, this is not a brand war or anything, but base your comments on actual tests.
http://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core-i7-6700K-vs-AMD-Ryzen-7-...
Don't me wrong, I am happy that AMD pulled their head out of... some dark place, and started to compete, it's just early start, a lot overjoyed reviews out there, perfect, new and fresh, but hard data always puts that enthusiasm down. I'm a terrible person...
M.2, or PCI-E memory makes SUCH a difference. Those puppies can be 3-5x faster than fastest SSD on SATA, and M.2 ones are tiny, taking almost zero space. Nice and clean. For a very long time HDD/SSD was a huge bottleneck for any PC. Now it's closing the gap very fast. Couldn't live with PC that isn't based on those.
Can you speak a little more about this? I've been reading that in the real world, nobody can actually see an difference in using M.2 drives. is this not true?
Everything depends on M.2 slot in question. If you skimp on your motherboard, it will not be 'full' PCI-E x4 gen 3 slot. Those 'full' slots have capacity up to 32Gb/s [which is enough for M.2 memory, it uses a fraction of this theoretical limit ATM]. I have bought MSI Gaming5 Z170A, which has 2 M.2 slots, and 2 slots have full bandwidth, enabling me to actually pair 2 dies in RAID. When enabled it has 64Gb/s bandwidth. So all in all you can use full speed of M.2 device if you have fully working [not capped, or older] slot. 960 series from Samsung on my device, paired in RAID gives me about 6000MB/s read and 3000MB/s write [fluctuating, because it is my OS drive, so things happen even if PC is idle]. But even one 960 die reaches 3200/1800 MB/s as promoted.
Oh and I may have worded my initial comment wrongly. Well, clarification incoming: I was stating that using PCI-E SSD OR M.2 SSD makes a huge difference, as opposed to standard SATA based SSD [850 pro - about 500MB/s max due to SATA limitations]. So all in all I agree, there is no performance difference between PCI-E and M.2 because it is really the same technology, M.2 is using PCI-E lines. The only argument I had on PCI-E vs M.2 is that M.2 memory is so tiny and doesn't clutter your PC, and PCI-E devices are always going to be 'sticking out' from the motherboard, this can be problem when using multiple GPUs and such, but other than that, there's no arguing that for now those are basically the same.
So TL;DR: I meant that PCI-E or M.2 are far superior to SATA based SSD, not that M.2 is superior to PCI-E. I hope that cleared things up, English isn't my native language, I may construct my sentences in a confusing manner sometimes, sorry for the trouble. If you feel like I didn't explain everything, or something isn't clear - feel free to ask away, I build PCs on daily basis, got a lot hardware going thru my hands, and the necessary experience to actually know what am I doing, ha.
Hey, Lee, I really like the post, I have a question it's not cheaper to buy another Alienware machine from DELL or have a DELL Precision? also, have the Complete Care service from DELL save you money in the long run?
I say this because in 2014 I lost all my Computer equipment from the flood of the Hurrican Odile, but I have my Complete Care Service for 1 more year, I call DELL and send me New systems without paying a penny. They cover any accidental damage or burn or even coffee spill on laptops, for me, Dell just cover my needs, and Precision systems always you can upgrade with any other brand components.
I remember when I was back in college the 4 year protection plan was a fantastic deal by dell. Recently the cost has gone up so high for our alienware machines that we couldn't justify buying it. It's also pretty rare that a desktop will break within 4 years anyway. So no, I don't think it's cheaper to buy a pre built machine but it may be cheaper to buy a refurbished machine. We got all our alienware stuff refurbished and they have worked well for us.
Great article Lee. I did a similar build last year for the same reason, editing photo and video. I wish this was available then, it would have been an excellent guide.
very useful article ...
i thought my 24GB X58 Asus mobo system + a 22" 1920x1200 Lenovo ThinkVision monitor was really soemthing when i built it in 2010 ... was a thing back in the day of course, but now ... :)
Lee, I'm going to do this exact same build. Thanks for giving me the confidence to do it. Two questions. 1- you must have gotten the same pcpartspicker warning I'm getting, right? It says "Some Intel X99 chipset motherboards may need a BIOS update prior to using Broadwell-E CPUs. Upgrading the BIOS may require a different CPU that is supported by older BIOS revisions." I'm going with the intel processer too. Per your comment, I'm getting the m.2 960 Samsung EVO SSD. Q2-anything else I should change before I order? My partspicker is here https://pcpartpicker.com/list/JGwN7h.
Hi, you can call the dealer and tell them to perform the BIOS update for you, 90% chance that they will have zero problems with that. Other than that, might I ask why do you need 1050 AND 1070 GPUs? Seems weird. Also, this motherboard supports only one M.2 device, so if you ever wanted to expand this fast storage, your only option would be to go U.2 or PCI-E [but with 2 GPUs, it can be crowded in there]. I didn't mean to intrude, so feel free to discard this comment if you are confident with your decisions etc.
Oh and remember the order in which you put in RAM sticks, most people are just sticking them at random, basically halving the performance. Cheers!
Mateusz Antonowicz thanks for the advice. I am trying to decide between those two graphics cards. I won't be getting both.
I think I do remember that warning but I haven't had any issue. You may want the better CPU cooling and larger power supply.
I am using regular fans for OC [i6700k from 4 to 5GHZ], have no idea if this is sold overseas, but so far so good here, and really, really quiet. Only downside is this:
It covers about 1/3 of the motherboard, but RAM and everything fits. I'll just leave a name if anyone in future would be curious.
SilentiumPC-Grandis-XE1236v2
Oh and they should be like 30-40 bucks, last time I used some ASUS coolers, and I think Cooler Master, but after some temp just started to raise, cleaning, new thermal paste, bells and whistles, nothing worked. This piece of junk works flawlessly though, they didn't have my brand, so I grabbed one on random, not knowing it's so huge. @5GHZ stress test shows 50C per each core, and about 40C for motherboard. I have no idea why am sharing so many facts of my life here... Oh well.
100% make sure you get a m.2 x4 NVME SDD something like a Samsung 960 pro or Samsung SM951, use it for your OS, your important apps and as your photo scratch for lightroom/photoshop. Be amazed with sub 10 second boot times and 1000+ MB/s transfer speeds.
Currently lightroom / photoshop can only use 2 cores, so you could get away with an i5 and spend the money on ram and fast storage with i think is important. Videoediting is really where hyperthreading comes into play and that point might as well build a dedicated xenon or zen multicore rig for rendering. You could even go with an i5 7600k and OC it if you get a z270 mobo.
also 16gb ram minimum and save some money for a decent IPS display (BenQ SW2700PT) and a i1 display pro (or borrow one)
I also like to use a tablet for the brush tool in LR/PS: i recommend the wacom intuos pro small (a bunch of used ones out there, I got mine for $100)
GREAT article Lee! Will you be updating your article with any new info? I'm new to this and will be building my new PC using this article as a guide, very soon... would love to hear about any new "better" options... Thanks! Keep up the great work at Fstoppers!
I don't plan to update this post but we may do another build soon. AMD released their threadripper chip and intel just released some super expensive chips. We may do a build with one of those.
AWESOME... Do you know an approx. time frame you might have something up?
I wouldn't wait for it. It may be a while.
From a first-time builder, thanks for this. I'm now confident that I can handle the task coming up in a month or so.