• Welcome to BirdForum, the internet's largest birding community with thousands of members from all over the world. The forums are dedicated to wild birds, birding, binoculars and equipment and all that goes with it.

    Please register for an account to take part in the discussions in the forum, post your pictures in the gallery and more.
ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

New computer - recommendations? (1 Viewer)

Nick Leech

Well-known member
United Kingdom
My old PC is log in the tooth. Does anyone have recommendations for a new computer for photographic use - cataloging and Post-Processing?

Will be using DPP4 and Lightroom etc. Want a machine that doesn't take forever to open files, process images etc!

Never used a Mac, so will probably stick to a Windows PC.

I presume I will get a faster more powerful Desktop than laptop for a given budget?

- what level of processor?
- how much RAM?
- separate graphics card - which one, how much on-board memory?

Any specific recommendations for models of PC?

Decent performance, without breaking the bank!

Thanks!
 
You could try a Dell XPS 15.6" which has an Intel i7-7700HQ processor, RAM: 16 GB / Storage: 512 GB SSD along with a Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050.

The 16GB RAM makes image download really quick, I can download 10GB of photos in just a few minutes. I have Lightroom, Photoshop CC, video editing software and its all very quick and far quicker than my current desk top, and as a laptop means its more versatile, I can sit in the front room editing photos rather than at a desk. I think PC world have these from around £1500, not cheap but as you get super fast RAM etc probably worth the investment.
 
I upgraded just under two years ago. My last computer was about 5 years old. I presumed that I'd notice a huge improvement due improved compter performance with time, as long as I didn't go for a dirt cheap one. Sadly I was wrong.

I can't really advise what to get but my i5 7400 with 8GB is annoyingly slow when using Paintshop Pro to manage photos so I would advise getting a better spec. than I did.
 
I went over to Apple 5 years ago and I have never looked back.You don't get bogged down with updates, the designs are beautiful too! I recently rediscovered Aperture for post processing and have been impressed.Opens up my1DX2 files no problem where I had to sign up for an expensive monthly plan with Adobe CC or convert the files to DNG's or TIFF's for using in CS6. I can't get on with DPP!
 
Hi Nick, I would certainly suggest you buy a computer that has an SSD (Solid State Drive) as the primary hard drive. The operating system should be installed on this and they are lightning fast. It doesn't need to be too large (the larger they are the more expensive they are). These computers often have a standard mechanical hard disk drive as the place to keep all your data. I've just built my new PC and used a 250gb SSD with a 1tb mechanical hard drive for data storage. I'm running Windows 10. I'm not sure if this arrangement is available in a laptop. You should be able to pick up a PC like this for less than £1000, possibly a lot less. When buying a PC or laptop the word cheap shouldn't be used in the same sentence with good, fast, and reliable. I'm presuming you already have monitor, keyboard, etc.

I'd probably be looking at either an Intel i5 or AMD Ryzen processor with at least 8gb of RAM.

Cheers

Dave
 
Last edited:
I upgraded just under two years ago. My last computer was about 5 years old. I presumed that I'd notice a huge improvement due improved compter performance with time, as long as I didn't go for a dirt cheap one. Sadly I was wrong.

My experience as well. PC speed improvement seems to have hit a plateau for the time being.
 
Besides the cpu and memory which imo should be at a min. an i5 or i7 with 8Gigs.

You need to look at the video adapter that's included. Unless a PC is designed for gaming and/or graphics included video adapters aren't always good enough for graphic intensive applications such as gaming, editing and manipulation of image and video files, etc.

Old PC's use older hardware architecture while newer PC usually have improve hardware architecture designs which effects the relationship between the motherboards PCI bus, CPU, memory and Video adapter.

Only upgrading one of the following i.e. memory, cpu, hard drive and video doesn't often doesn't make that much of an improvement unless an older motherboard is also upgraded.

You may want to look for a more recent PC system that's designed and built for graphics such as a mutli-media PC, perhaps a stripped down version without a stereo system with speakers, and other multi-media peripherals which you may or may not need?

Though 8GB potentially is enough memory there's plenty of new PCs that come with 16GB and more memory that are better designed for multi-media applications.

e.g. here's a factory refurbished HP Envy 750 for $509.39

https://www.ebay.com/itm/HP-Envy-75...175059&hash=item5456df526e:g:KQUAAOSwRUhY~ivw

or a HP Omen Gaming Desktop PC Core i5-7400 for $899.99 (brand new, non refurbished)

https://www.ebay.com/itm/HP-Omen-Ga...284047?hash=item2ccecfc58f:g:ahkAAOSw8i9aZ6cl

HP store > http://store.hp.com/us/en/mdp/desktops/hp-omen-870

i5 vs i7 > https://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2404674,00.asp

i5 vs i7 > https://www.laptopmag.com/articles/core-i5-vs-i7

It can be difficult searching as there's so many available with new prices started at around $300.00 - $400.00

Myself I prefer named brand PCs such as HP, Lenovo, Dell, etc. However there are many other brands out there I'm uncertain how their quality compares to the more well known name brands.

e.g. after purchasing a new Thinkcenter something went wrong and a Lenovo tech came out to where I was many miles from a suburban urban area to and replaced the motherboard free of charge.

Just make certain the PC your purchasing is covered by a manufactures new warranty which should be at least a year or longer. Some are three to five years, etc.

After talking with HP I found their HP 870 only comes with a one year warranty, however you can purchase extended warranty for up to three years. Also some places such as Amazon and eBay offer in house warranties, such as Square Trade and others.

Some manufactures have reduced their manufacture warranty, as I noticed products that use to have three year manu. warranty, have been reduced to one year. So when purchasing a new PC one may need to purchase an extended warranty.
 
Last edited:
Just get a mac. You won't regret it and if you do you can install Windows on it anyway. Mine is dual boot and Windows runs better than my son's supposedly more powerful machine.
 
Most tests and articles, and there are many, show that PC's are far better QPR than Macs for photo processing, which shouldn't be a surprise as it's the same hardware underneath at different prices. I'm still a Mac fan for other reasons, but I don't do much photo processing and if your goal is optimizing performance for cataloging and PP, a PC is going to be your friend. Rather than get a high end i7 processor with lots of cores, go for the highest clock speed you can, get a fair amount of memory (16gb or more), and get an SSD or a hybrid SSD drive. Video card is less important. That was my takeaway from several articles. You can get all that on a Mac as well of course, but you're paying a premium and whether that premium is worth it to you is separate from the issue of best QPR for photo processing.
 
Thanks for replies so far.

I don't do much video work - so not an issue for me.

I found these two Desktop PCs on Ebay. Similar spec, but the second one has a more powerful graphics card.

In both cases I would go for:

i7 processor
16GB RAM
240GB SSD plus 2TB HDD
Windows 10

First one at £532, has nVIDIA Quadro 2000 graphics card

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Build-Yo...var=601258058906&_trksid=p2055119.m1438.l2649

Second one at £742, has Geforce GTX 1050Ti 4GB graphics card

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Gaming-D...var=492428948667&_trksid=p2055119.m1438.l2649

What do people think of these options for stills PP work?
 
Last edited:
Those appear to good options as their already configured and upgraded how you want and both PCs come with Windows 10 OS already installed.

(used/refurbished) HP Compaq Elite 8200 Tower Workstation , or a HP Z210.

Another option would be to find a used PC and upgrade the system yourself, I'm uncertain perhaps could save a few dollars?

You pay the refurbisher to create a system to your specifications with an OS installed. Also some refurbishers are licensed by MS to install different versions of Windows onto multiple PCs.

However there's many used (same or similar) PC systems available for much less (~$100.00) however most often they don't come with an OS installed and may not have the desired SDD, HD and memory.

As an individual, I'm not certain the options for installing Windows 10 onto a OEM PC with COA without any OS media.

If purchasing one of the refurbed HP systems, I would recommend backing up the entire OS onto some sort of media for restore purposes, in case the refurbisher's installed OS becomes corrupted for some reason. * Unless the refurbisher has installed a restore partition or provides some sort restore media.

You may want to e-mail the seller and ask if they have or offer any options to re-install the Windows 10 OS in case their OS install becomes corrupted, etc.

Things have changed over the years so I'm not up on OS licensing details for upgrading or building your own PC.
 
I have had some conflicting advice as regards graphics cards.

For stills only (no video editing), is it important to have a powerful graphics card with, say 4GB of dedicated memory? Or is a more modest graphics card adequate for stills editing as long as you have say 16GB RAM and an i7 processor?
 
Won't be doing video editing. Just stills photo editing.

So my query is to do with whether a good graphics card is necessary for still photo editing in Lightroom, DPP4 and Photoshop.

Starting to think a GTX 1050 would be adequate for stills work.
 
Last edited:
Won't be doing video editing. Just stills photo editing.

So my query is to do with whether a good graphics card is necessary for still photo editing in Lightroom, DPP4 and Photoshop.

Starting to think a GTX 1050 would be adequate for stills work.

Professionals who edit image and video files normally have more than a built-in video card. However the image and video editor such as Photoshop doesn't utilize video ram (perhaps editing 3D where huge OpenGL textures will be loaded into card memory)

Video ram is mainly used for gaming. GTX 1050 and other GeForce cards are designed primary for gaming.

Nvidia Quadro cards on the other hand are designed for CAD and CAD related applications. Engineering and architectural design applications.

GeForce cards will outperform Quadro cards when playing games where Quadro cards will outperform GeForce running CAD and similar applications.

For video editing I'm not certain the best cards as people use both GeForce and Quadro cards.

You don't need alot of video ram for editing image and video files.

I picked up used Nvidia Quadro K4000 with 3GB for $115.00. The only problem is often when installing a larger video adapter with 3-4+ GB ram one needs to update the PSU to a higher wattage.

1 and 2 GB video cards usually operate on a lower wattage, under 75 watts which is a max. wattage for pci-e standards.

So if you find e.g. a 80 to 100+ watt video card the card will use the 75 watts from the pci-e slot and the remainder wattage comes directly from a pci-e plugin connection from the video card to the PSU (many psus have a pci-e plug connector(s) which can be 4, 6 possibly 8 pin, etc). The pci-e plug may differ from one psu to another. 6-pin pci-e plug is popular, however I've found psu with only a 4-pin aux. pwr plug which won't fit many video cards, so one need to make certain the psu has a pci-e plug that matches a higher wattage video adapter.

E.g. the K4000 is an 80 watt card which works ok with a 450 watt PSU, but won't work with an Lenovo OEM 280 watt psu. So one would need to upgrade the PSU while upgrading the video adapter.

There are other video cards such as the GeForce 1050 that requires even more PSU wattage to operate. I think the 1050 single fan requires a min. 300 watt psu where the dual fan version has a higher PSU requirement. Some video cards require a 500 to 600+ watt min. PSU. That's why many gaming PC's are installing 1000+ watt psu as the wattage demands are constantly going up for gaming PC's

To determine PSU size for your machine there are PSU calculator.

I find this one from Seasonic PSU calculator to be fairly accurate.

https://seasonic.com/wattage-calculator

From what I've gathered about building a PC for image and video editing the video card and PC's memory isn't as important as having fast drives such as SDD drives.

Normally video, imaging editing software doesn't usually need and use more than ~8GB main memory and doesn't really utilize much video ram.
 
Last edited:
Normally video, imaging editing software doesn't usually need and use more than ~8GB main memory and doesn't really utilize much video ram.

I am not sure what you mean by "much video ram". My ACDSee is reported to run poorly on machines with less than 2 gb.

Niels
 
I am not sure what you mean by "much video ram". My ACDSee is reported to run poorly on machines with less than 2 gb.

Niels

I'm going on what a person who works for Microsoft for more than 20 years video and image editing. . He built himself a better more powerful video / image editing PC for the work he does at Microsoft.

I remember him stating that 8GB PC memory is enough to edit videos and images as his editing software doesn't normally utilize memory over 8GB and barely utilizes video ram. He knows some technical details about editing software and how it utilizes both memory and cpu.

He said one can install 16+GB memory however most editing software isn't designed to utilize memory over 8GB. There are other technical details in how different facets of editing software utilize memory and the cpu. Also certain types of video / image editing can utilize 16GB+ but that sort of editing isn't normally performed very often.

But with these technologies continually changing who knows? In the future this may all change and more memory will be desired for video / image editing. 4k is becoming much more popular, files sizes keep increasing, perhaps more ram will be desired?

He and other people who have built PCs for video and image editing have said the same thing and noted what's more important than memory for editing is your CPU. Video and image editing utilizes the cpu so the most powerful cpu one can afford would be desired. There are different cpus that may be better suited for editing because of the difference in how the cpu cores are utilized by the software.

Having a SSD drive(s) will increase speed required to copy, save and open image and video files.

He also added lots of additional hd space to regularly back files stored on his SSD drives.

He seemed like he new what he was talking about as he's been video / image editing for MS for more than 20 years.

I've been into computers for more than 35 years, first started using a PC back in 1981 and have owned dozens of PCs. However I'm learning new things everyday as new technologies come onto the market. I recently upgraded my old PC to a P300 Thinkstation and also a M93p Thinkcentre (both have a 4th generation i7 4770 cpus. Not really powerful PCs in comparison to modern PCs, but is good enough for my current home, non-pro use of computers.

Even though PC's are built for multitasking and have become very powerful I find having two PCs allows one to divide tasks between two PCs, where one PC is free to perform other tasks that would slow down a single more powerful PC.

People who have lots of memory and high end graphic cards with 4+ GB video ram probably do because they also play video games which require lots of ram.

Anyway that's my 2 cents about it as I haven't really thought much about it and only plan to edit some wildlife photos taken with my Nikon DSLR. I recently spent over a grand for a 150-600mm Sigma lens plus a Sigma 1.4x converter. It's adequate but not all that good compared to other more powerful long lenses that usually run from two or three grand to 25,000 - 35,000+ dollars.
 
Last edited:
I am not sure what you mean by "much video ram". My ACDSee is reported to run poorly on machines with less than 2 gb.

Niels


System Requirements for ACD Photo Studio Standard

Hardware

Intel® Pentium® 4 or AMD Athlon® 64 processor (2 GHz or faster)
2 GB RAM (6 GB RAM recommended)
1024 x 768 display resolution (1920 x 1080 recommended)
2GB of available hard disk space

There are other photo and video editing people who claim much higher memory needs such as

How much RAM

8GB of RAM: Only if you are editing smaller than 1080p projects or are ok with closing down other Programs that are using up precious RAM in the background.

16GB of RAM: Good for editing 1080p – 4K 8bit Projects, with minor usage of Background Programs

32GB of RAM: Good for any type of editing with heavy use of background hogs, such as after effects or editing large images in photoshop.

64GB or more: This is recommended if you are editing 8K footage in 10bit or more and rely heavily on having several RAM hogging Programs open at once.

https://www.cgdirector.com/ram-video-editing/

another site Recommended Photoshop and Video Editing Setup | Photo Video ...

https://silentpc.com/articles/photo-and-video-editing-setup

So I think things keep changing. With 4k becoming more popular perhaps more ram is needed.

I'm ok with 16GB and an i7 4770 cpu as I only edit perhaps a few files most of which I just leave alone.

Years ago I use to perform quite extensively photo editing as there were no digital camera and all my photography was done using a Nikon F2 where I developed and printed from my own dark room.

I haven't yet really become accustomed yet to editing digital media. One complaint about some of the editing software is I'm not able to change the fonts used by the applications and have a difficult time using the software.

Important to me is everything is legible enough to actually create and perform. It's just not the same editing digital media as it was with film.
 
Last edited:
To be honest with you, I am not sure the blurb on the ACDSee homepage is up to date. My statement about discussions about it making a difference if you have 2 or more gb of video ram came from discussions in the user discussion forum. That does not mean that you cannot make the program work with less - but it means that 2 gb does make a difference.

I have no experience (yet) with 4k video - but it will likely be in my future.

Niels
 
Warning! This thread is more than 6 years ago old.
It's likely that no further discussion is required, in which case we recommend starting a new thread. If however you feel your response is required you can still do so.

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top