Upgrade current PC or build/buy new???
RJ Bradbury Photography Studio said, 1731718626
I went the DIY route on my two desktops.
Main Rig. Built in 2020.
AMD Ryzen 3900X 12 Core 24 Thread
GIgabyte X570 Elite MOBO
750w Gold PSU Thermaltake I think.
Fractal Design Case
96GB DDR4 RAM XMP Profiles Enabled
1TB Corsair MP600 NVME
4TB Crucial SSD Project Drive. Also holds a steam game library.
8TB Seagate HDD
Asus NVIDIA RTX 3060TI 8GB
2x BenQ PD2700PD Monitors.
Wish I went for a higher end MOBO that had 2.5GBE but hey ho.
Studio Desktop / Server - used as off site backup and rendering machine.
AMD Ryzen 5700X 8 Core 16 Thread
MSI MOBO
64GB DDR4 RAM
2TB NVME OS Drive
Multiple HDD and External HDD making up the 64TB storage pool.
NVIDIA RTX 3060 12GB GPU
BenQ PD2700PD Monitor.
Also run a HP OMEN AMD Ryzen Laptop for tethering and on location work. Had to migrate the OS drive recently to a larger one. 500GB OS drive is just not large enough.
Pretty sure I will self build going forward with the exception of laptops.
TheFuntographer said, 1731747499
I've never had a home-built PC fail on me. The only bit I've ever had problems with is getting the audio connectors on the correct pins on the mobo (can be very fiddly). You also get to choose exactly what bloatware gets installed.
Huw said, 1731750970
Refurbished HP Z440 Workstation Intel Xeon E5-1603 v3 [Quad] 2.80GHz NVIDIA Quadro M4000, 64GB of RAM, 1TB NVME system disk with Win 10 pro probably cost me around £600 to set up.
Original cost new would have been around £6,000 - £10,000.
Carries 2 x 4TB SSDs and 2 x 8TB old type disks.
Huw said, 1731752572
Next upgrade on the HP z440s would be new graphics cards, but they are handling PS AI stuff fine for now. (I actually have two, one for work, and one for my own photography…. Second one built from leftover bits).
In theory it won’t run Win 11, but it will probably be possible to work around that.
Bob @ Fatbloke said, 1731760902
I was a big Scan Computers fan until the last couple of times, when they have let me down badly on delivery dates. I started using Novatech, and I can't see myself moving back to Scan any time soon.
StuArtful2 said, 1731767245
Update : I've discovered my son's 'old' gaming pc which has a MSI b450m pro-vdh max motherboard, a Ryzen 5 2600 processor and an amd rx 570 8GB gpu. It'll take upto 128GB of ram too. I figure all I need to do is just move my drives over.
Gothic Image said, 1731772373
Huw said
Next upgrade on the HP z440s would be new graphics cards, but they are handling PS AI stuff fine for now. (I actually have two, one for work, and one for my own photography…. Second one built from leftover bits).
In theory it won’t run Win 11, but it will probably be possible to work around that.
Yes indeed - writing this on my Z440 which has been running Windows 11 for several months now. No issues at all, including several Windows updates.
Gothic Image said, 1731772528
Reiterating Huw's point, there's a lot to be said for buying a decent refurbished machine that's a couple of years behind the bleeding edge. New PCs depreciate as much as new cars!
StuArtful2 said, 1731774002
Great news. All I had to do was move my ssd boot drive across to the other machine and everything is working as it should. Just updated Photoshop. Now all I need to do is move the other drives over and get me some more ram. Happy days :)
Huw said, 1731774434
Yep, they just work.
I run four of the z440s, one as a server which might get switched off once a year.
Built for hard work back in 2014.
Still a good basis for a gaming machine.
The Ghost said, 1731783195
Huw said
Next upgrade on the HP z440s would be new graphics cards, but they are handling PS AI stuff fine for now. (I actually have two, one for work, and one for my own photography…. Second one built from leftover bits).
In theory it won’t run Win 11, but it will probably be possible to work around that.
Last time I checked PS's AI stuff was all cloud based, not running locally. Part of the reason for that being the uplift in minimum specifications for running local AI.
Huw said, 1731786383
The Ghost said
Huw said
Next upgrade on the HP z440s would be new graphics cards, but they are handling PS AI stuff fine for now. (I actually have two, one for work, and one for my own photography…. Second one built from leftover bits).
In theory it won’t run Win 11, but it will probably be possible to work around that.
Last time I checked PS's AI stuff was all cloud based, not running locally. Part of the reason for that being the uplift in minimum specifications for running local AI.
Daughter’s z440 has a K4200 video card.
One model back from the M4000 fitted to my machines.
PS refused to run the latest AI stuff, but otherwise works fine.
The Quadra cards aren’t directly comparable to the standard NVidis cards. Bit slower for gaming, but different instruction sets and at least as good for normal PS work.
Allesandro B said, 1731787149
The Ghost said
Huw said
Next upgrade on the HP z440s would be new graphics cards, but they are handling PS AI stuff fine for now. (I actually have two, one for work, and one for my own photography…. Second one built from leftover bits).
In theory it won’t run Win 11, but it will probably be possible to work around that.
Last time I checked PS's AI stuff was all cloud based, not running locally. Part of the reason for that being the uplift in minimum specifications for running local AI.
Not any more unfortunately latest PS is not compatible with one of my machines.
Huw said, 1731787572
My personal thinking has changed a bit recently. Probably going too update laptops from now on.
My Dell XPS15 is about 4 years old, maxed out (64GB of RAM, 2 and 4 TB NVME drives, astonishingly good screen, fast enough video card - NVidia 3050), and it still runs LR and PS very effectively, both at the same time, using the laptop screen plus two external monitors.
OK, work use paid for the laptop, and is far more demanding than PS, but I’d execute st least another few years out of it. It just works. Might get ten years use out of it.
I also use a Lenovo gaming laptop (supplied by a company for use with their software). NVidia 3060 card, 32GB of RAM, 1 plus 4 TB NVME drives. Probably under £2,000. Match it with a decent calibrated monitor, and it’ll cope with most PS needs effortlessly.
Same goes for my daughter’s Dell gaming laptop. Big, ugly, fast, and relatively cheap. Add a decent monitor and it just works.