Which Desktop

[Ticker]

Hello,
Although reasonably knowledgeable as regards photography generally but, as far as computers are concerned, I'm a lost babe in the woods!
I have had my present D/T for about 10 years and it is beginning to have a series of minor failures. It was built for me by a computer engineer who was also a keen photographer - now gone.
As to price I would rather not go above £1500, (and preferably less!!)
Any technical help or pointers would be really appreciated.

 

[VidThreeNorth]

Can you describe the "minor failures"? Also, how much hard drive space is remaining?

The question is not so much what you know as "how much do you want to know"? If you don't want to learn much, I'd say to buy a used Mac. Say, about 3 years old. I'm not sure what BP1500 is worth, but I think you might find something.

 

[Ticker]

Thank you very much for your reply, I do appreciate it.
I use a desk top for all my photographic work so would not be looking for a Laptop. I process quite a lot of highly detailed images so need a speedy processor and Graphics Card plus Storage of at least 1TB.

 

[smoke665]

I've found there's a lot of similarities in gaming and editing. My last desktop I went with HP Omen, with a few add on options, cheaper than a custom build and works great. Here's an example https://www.hp.com/us-en/shop/pdp/o...-tile_desktops_6_b73mmaa_omen-16l-gaming-desk

 

[KJ_North]

I mean obviously there are a million ways to go but this is what I bought last year for my system.

Specs are as follows...
Processor i7-12700
Ram 32 GB
1 TB SSD
GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16GB

 

[Ticker]

I've found there's a lot of similarities in gaming and editing. My last desktop I went with HP Omen, with a few add on options, cheaper than a custom build and works great. Here's an example https://www.hp.com/us-en/shop/pdp/o...-tile_desktops_6_b73mmaa_omen-16l-gaming-desk

Thanks very much for your time and reply!
Sounds like a good idea. I'll follow it up.

 

[Ticker]

I mean obviously there are a million ways to go but this is what I bought last year for my system.

Specs are as follows...
Processor i7-12700
Ram 32 GB
1 TB SSD
GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16GB

You are very close to the way I am goung! Many thanks!

 

[Ticker]

Apologies for tha typo!

 

[Rickbb85 1]

As far as brands go, I'm a fan of HP. Other brands are good too, but I'm retired IT guy and HP gave us the best use case and lowest failure rate. Over the past 25 years or so I bought and managed several thousand systems, low failure rates were very important.

We only purchased business class PC's, no consumer/gamer models.

A PC with gamer specs would be what you need to look for.
Fast processer,
lots of RAM, (you cannot get enough RAM),
at least 1TB SSD drive, 2 or 3 would be better and an external SSD for backups as well.

One brand I'd never recommend is Dell, a lot of people like them but after 5 or 6 hundred with double digit failure rates, (almost 1/3), I swore them off, forever.

 

[Ticker]

That's a lot of really useful information. Thank you! I did look at Dell but decided against it - I don't why! I'm going to have one made up. I decided that 32GB was probably enough RAM(?). I,m betwixt 1 or 2TB

 

[KJ_North]

I find my system works great. I find each of the areas max out at brief times but overall the balance between CPU, Ram and Video RAM is very well balanced. No one area seems to constantly be the bottleneck.

 

[Ticker]

Certainly the specs look great!

 

[smoke665]

I can't speak for others but NVIDIA has been great with the GPU and studio drivers. Same day Adobe updates, there's an update to the driver (if required). That's such an important thing now, as all the AI functions rely so much on the GPU processing capabilities.

 

[Gardyloo97 51]

I flirted with the idea of getting a pre-made gaming PC from one of the bazillion sources one can see on Amazon, eBay and their ilk, but most of them were physically massive and the assemblers seemed more interested in LED whiz bang spinning stuff below a transparent case than functionality. Meh.

So with price and performance (in that order, sadly) in mind, I went with what to me seemed as a strange solution but one that after a year is still running strong.

-GMKtec K8 minicomputer, Ryzen 7 CPU, 32GB RAM, 1 TB SSD. Cost $530.

-Minisforum Oculink external GPU base plus appropriate power source, total around $135.

-Used Nvidea 3060 graphics card, 12GB memory. Cost $280 from eBay with money back guarantee.

So for under $1000 - around 740 quid - I got a very powerful and very compact rig. My game of choice is MS Flight Simulator 2024, which is a notorious video memory hog, but it flies briskly (ha ha) with this system. The key is the Oculink connection - way faster than USB 4.

As far as photo editing goes, it's lightning quick and delivers 4K imaging with no problems.

So I'm happy. YMMV of course.

 

[Ticker]

I've gone with NVIDIA I can't remember off hand which model.
Gardyloo - you seem to have ingeniously assembled a good package - congratulations!.
By the way - like the monica. As I recall reading from childhood "Gardyloo" was what occupants in higher rooms in medaeval streets shouted before throwing out the "waste" from their overnight chamberpots! It is a verbal corruption of "on guard below"!