Best DIY desktop computer for photography editing speed & image backup
Hi,
I'm Eduardo Machuca, from the internet. I'm a professional photographer, a photography teacher at a university, an engineer in electronics and telecommunications, and have been building my own PC's since around 1988.
If you are a photographer looking for a good computer for photo editing, you will find that most of the configurations sold or DIY info is targeted to the gamer’s market and needs. A gamer might need to overclock the CPU, superfast RAM, install two or four graphics cards, use liquid cooling, and add a final touch of flashing RGB color LEDs inside the computer, with a window on the side panel to awe everybody at your creation.
A photographer doesn’t need a gaming computer, but a realiable one, configured to be fast with the common tools used such as Lightroom, Capture One Pro, DXO OpticsPro, and of course, Photoshop.
Photography editing software has a different set of computing resources needs to work fast.
Also, the catalog should be backed up to a different physical drive for security.
One could get really paranoid with image backup strategies and some would recommed that besides having a mirror disk, one should also have another copy at a different location, in case some major accident happens to your house, apartment or office.
In addition, a backup in the cloud is also recommended, but it gets expensive.
Thus, for this PC configuration I have opted for a two drive mirroring backup in RAID 1 configuration. You might later on graduate to a Network Attached Storage (NAS) solution using the ZFS file system instead of RAID.
A NAS is practically another computer (motherboard, cpu, memory, case and its own operating system like FreeNAS), with only drives for storing your images and data.
In a RAID 1 configuration, you install two drives, say 2TB each, and then configure them either in BIOS or within Windows to act as one (say D:\).
Everytime you write something to this array (D:\) you pictures or documents get actually written twice, once at each phisycal drive. If one of your physical drives fails, you have the other one with mirrored data.
You can then swap the failed drive for a new one, and the array gets reconstructed.
However, this is not a backup in the sense that if you delete data from the D:\ drive array it will actually get deleted from both physical drives.
Therefore, diving into the paranoid camp, it would be advisable to also have an external USB hard drive where you can make incremental or differential backups and thus be able to go back in time and restore a version of your drive before deletion.
One may ask, why then is it necessary to use a 2-drive array with RAID 1? Why not use a single drive and attach an external USB drive for backups? Because, put simply, you won’t do the backups.
Even with automated tasks in backup software. Doing a backup of your data takes time. And yes, you may configure the task to run at Log In, or at Log Off, and Turn Off the computer after it finishes doing the backup, but still.
Disk mirroring with a disk array is immediate: the file is written to both drives at once, in real time.
The motherboard supports an M.2 NVMe 2280 PCI Express Gen 3 x4 SSD drive. Those drives have Read speeds of around 2500 MB/s and Write speeds of 1500 MB/s. It also supports a second M.2 SSD but a SATA III speeds of around 500 MB/s.
Be aware than in the proposed configurations I am not mirroring the C: drive. If it fails, you would need to reinstall the OS and application software. However, your images will be safe on the Mass Storage RAID 1 array (explained later on).
My recommendation is to never use the C: drive for storing your documents and images (and video and music), because if a virus or a faulty drive or any other kind of error happens, the drive is gone and so are your files. I don not mind reinstalling Windows and software, but I do mind losing all of my photos (and my religion too).
Also, with the proposed configuration, I do not advise to run the C: drive in a RAID 1 (mirroring) array, simply because the motherboard only supports one NVMe SSD, which read/writes at 2500/1500 MB/s. Any other SSD drive only has read/write speeds of around 500 MB/s, thus, becoming a bottleneck for a mirroring configuration.
The best route to recover from a drive C: failure and not having to reinstall Window 10 and all of your software apps, would be to make a System Image Backup to another drive, and then Restore the System Image from there. As you
won'tshouldn't be saving your documents and pictures to the C: drive, you would only need to make a new system image backup after you install a new software application that you consider important.
A 120GB drive can be enough to store around 200,000 previews at 1280px/1440px, but if you want to store 1:1 previews, or have more images, you’ll need a bigger drive.
You can also use this drive as a Scratch Disk for Photoshop (or setup a different SSD drive, F:\)
The motherboard supports a second M.2 2280 drive but only at SATA III speeds. Read/Write speeds are at around 500 MB/s.
If an M.2 SATA SSD drive is intalled on this second connector, the bus is shared with the 6th SATA port (so don’t install anything on SATA 6).
Documents/Images/Music/Video/Downloads to reside here and not on the C:\ drive.
This gives your documents the mirroring protection of the RAID 1 array.
Connect two 3.5” Hard Drives to the corresponding SATA 1 and 2 ports. In the BIOS, configure these drives to act as a disk array under RAID 1 mirror configuration.
Just remember, both drives must be equal and, if you install two 1TB drives, you will only have 1TB of available storage (same data on both drives).
This can be a 2.5” 120GB SSD drive connected to the SATA 3 port. (*If you have enough space on your catalog drive D:\, save money here and use that drive also as a scratch disk for Photoshop.)
A system with 8GB of RAM will just not work fast enough, especially when you have a large resolution photo and several layers. 16GB is the minimum.
You will find in the motherboard's compatibility list two types of memory: SS (Single-Sided) and DS (Double-Sided).
It simply menas that the memory stick will have all chips on one side (SS) or on both sides (DS). Do not confuse with Single-Ranked (SR), Double-Ranked or Quad-Ranked.
SR memory is much faster than DR or QR because the controller only has to access one address bank, instead of two or four. Also, the memory I have selected has alumnium heatsinks.
There are a few benchmark comparing Lightroom and Photoshop performance on both platforms, and again, Intel wins: a 4-core Intel Core i7 7700K is about 23% faster in all tasks than an 8-core AMD Ryzen 7 1700X.
In Lightroom tasks, Intel is about 30% faster, except for when exporting JPG files, where Ryzen is about 10% faster.
The reason might be that software is more optimized for Intel’s Multi-core and Multi-thread architecture. Thus, for executing Lightroom, Photoshop and Capture One Pro, the choice is Intel.
Liquid inside your computer calls for disaster. A gamer might lose a day’s play but a photographer would lose customer’s photos of a non-repeatable event or session.
Moreover, when the water pump fails, because it will fail, the cpu has no other way to dissipate heat. That’s why I have configured this equipment to use the regular and tested alumnium heatsink with a fan.
Even if the fan fails, because it will fail, the cpu can still dissipate heat through the aluminium piece.
Air from the other case fans will help to keep it working. In addition, most modern BIOS have an overheating protection that you can configure, so when the CPU temperature reaches 80° C, for instance, the BIOS will shutdown the PC.
Any GPU above the integrated graphics would suffice. This means that an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 8GB (~$550 USD) will not perform any better than an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 2GB (~$100 USD).
Yes, there are a especific actions like running Smart Sharpen in Photoshop where the GTX 1080 will perform 4 seconds faster than the GTX 1050, but for most of all other actions, they’re equal in performance.
Thus, double, triple or quad card configurations in SLI or CrossFire are not needed. So, save your money in GPU and buy a better lens, unless you plan to play games.
What we need is a silent PC, with sound absorbing material on the side panels, and silent fans, so we can work on editing the whole day without the annoying noise.
A gamer probably wouldn’t care much because he or she will most likely be wearing a gaming headset anyway.
One can spend a lot of time searching for the right computer case. The one I have selected below is compact, though some will criticize it because it doens't allow much room for cable management.
However, it does allow plenty of bays to install 3.5" hard drives, 2.5" hard drives and SSDs.
It supports full size GPU cards. It has sound absorbig materials on the side panels, and a SD card reader and USB 3.0 ports on the front panel.
I will present three configurations you can choose from, depending on your budget and actual or expected quantity of images.
*This page uses affiliate links to Amazon. Add items to your Amazon shopping cart to see the total sum of the components for the desired configuration.
Microsoft Windows 10 Pro 64 Bit System Builder OEM
Why micro-ATX and not ATX or smaller mini-ITX? I'm aiming for a compact system. ATX is too big and mini-ITX motherboards can only handle up to 32GB of memory because it only has two DIMM sockets (space limitation). Micro-ATX can have 4-DIMMs and handle up to 64GB of RAM.
Cooler Master Silencio 352 micro-ATX case. This case has enough rooom for hard drives, can hold a full size GPU card, and also has an SD Card Reader on the front panel. It also has sound absorbing material on the side panels. Case suports CPU coolers up to 155mm / 6.1 inch tall.
Noctua NH-C14S. 142mm / 5.59 inch tall including the 140mm fan. Its design clear the memory bank and the PCI slot in micro-ATX motherboards. Rated for LGA1151 cpu's 95W & OC. Noctua's coolers consistently beat other brands in both lower temperatures and lower noise. MTTF greater than 150,000 hours and 6-years warranty.
(Qty: 2) - Noctua NF-F12 PWM Cooling Fan. Focused Flow (high static pressure) 120mm fan. Two units to be installed at the front of the case.
Noctua makes probably the most silent fans on the market and the most reliable, with a MTTF (Mean Time To Failure) greater than 150,000 hours and 6-years warranty. The fan includes a low noise adaptor to reduce fan speed (thus, noise) from 1500 RPM to 1200 RPM; a 4-pin Y cable to drive two fans from one PWM fan connector in the motherboard; 4 Vibration-Compensators, 30cm Extension Cable, and 4 screws.
SilverStone 500W SFX-L 80 PLUS GOLD Full Modular. This power supply has a 120mm fan (makes less noise than 80mm fans), and is 130mm deep (the case accepts full size ATX PSUs but you won't have much room for cable management). MTBF (Mean Time Bteween Failures) of 100,000 hours.
NOTE: Above PSU works fine for a fully configured system (i7, 64GB ram, etc.), unless you want to use a GTX 1070/1080 GPU. Then, you'll need to upgrade to a Silverstone 700W SFX-L power supply. Do remember, though, that for top performance on LR/PS/CO you only need a GTX 1050 GPU (see GPU section).
ARCTIC MX-4 Thermal Compound Paste, Carbon Based. I've seen tests where this paste can reduce CPU temperatures by 10° C (compared to other leading brands). Not only that, it will last for 8-years, acording to Arctic.
ASUS Geforce GTX 1050 Ti 4GB Dual-Fan Edition DVI-D HDMI DP 1.4 Gaming Graphics Card (PH-GTX1050TI-4G) Graphic Cards
Above card is all you need for top performance when using Ligthroom, Photoshop, Capture One Pro. You gain nothing by inserting a higher model GPU card.
In addtion to the base configuration, add the following:
In addtion to the base configuration, add the following:
CPU: Intel Core i5-8600K Desktop Processor 6 Cores up to 4.3GHz Turbo Unlocked LGA1151 300 Series 95W (BX80684i58600K). This CPU has 6 cores and consumes 95W. Unlocked.
32GB RAM (2x2x8GB): (Qty=2) Kingston HyperX Fury 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4 2400MHz DRAM CL15 1.2V DIMM (288-pin) Black HX424C15FB2K2/16. Order two units of this set of 2x8GB for a total of 4 memory sticks (32GB). This memory is in the motherboard's compatibility list.
In addtion to the base configuration, add the following:
CPU: Intel Core i7-8700K Desktop Processor 6 Cores up to 4.7GHz Turbo Unlocked LGA1151 300 Series 95W (BX80684i78700K). This CPU has 6 cores and consumes 95W. Unlocked.
ASUS PB278Q 27" WQHD 2560x1440 IPS DisplayPort HDMI DVI Eye Care Monitor, 100% RGB colors.
X-Rite i1 Display Pro and ColorChecker Passport Bundle - Black (EODIS3CCPP). This bundle includes the ColorChecker Passport that you can place in the image (when making pictures) and calibrate the colors from your camera within Lightroom/Photoshop, or adjust White Balance.
Cooler Master MasterKeys Pro S White Mechanical Gaming Keyboard, Cherry MX Brown Switches, Per-Key White LED Lighting, TenKeyless. White LED illumination, not RGB rainbow (RGB LEDs can't reach white, they give a blueish tone).
Logitech M331 SILENT PLUS Wireless Mouse with Nano Receiver Black Color -International Version-. 90% reduced click sound. Did I say it is a silent mouse?
Wacom Intuos Small, Bluetooth, Black ( CTL4100WLK0)
Still editing with your mouse? A tablet is way faster and more precise.
Do you realize that your desk surface color changes the colors you see in your monitor?
Artistic 17" x 24" Rhinolin II Ultra-Smooth Writing Pad Desk Mat with Exclusive Microban Antimicrobial Protection, Black.
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I'm Eduardo Machuca, from the internet. I'm a professional photographer, a photography teacher at a university, an engineer in electronics and telecommunications, and have been building my own PC's since around 1988.
If you are a photographer looking for a good computer for photo editing, you will find that most of the configurations sold or DIY info is targeted to the gamer’s market and needs. A gamer might need to overclock the CPU, superfast RAM, install two or four graphics cards, use liquid cooling, and add a final touch of flashing RGB color LEDs inside the computer, with a window on the side panel to awe everybody at your creation.
A photographer doesn’t need a gaming computer, but a realiable one, configured to be fast with the common tools used such as Lightroom, Capture One Pro, DXO OpticsPro, and of course, Photoshop.
Photography editing software has a different set of computing resources needs to work fast.
Don't want to read the Why's and only interested in the What? Go directly to the list of components for a DIY Computer for Photographers.
Computer for photo editing configuration goals
Image Catalog location
Catalog based RAW converters like Capture One Pro and Lightroom benefit from having the catalog located at a different physical drive than the one the software is installed (usually the OS drive or C:\).Also, the catalog should be backed up to a different physical drive for security.
Original images and backup
All photographers know that drives fail and that one should, must have the original images backed up at least on another drive.One could get really paranoid with image backup strategies and some would recommed that besides having a mirror disk, one should also have another copy at a different location, in case some major accident happens to your house, apartment or office.
In addition, a backup in the cloud is also recommended, but it gets expensive.
Thus, for this PC configuration I have opted for a two drive mirroring backup in RAID 1 configuration. You might later on graduate to a Network Attached Storage (NAS) solution using the ZFS file system instead of RAID.
A NAS is practically another computer (motherboard, cpu, memory, case and its own operating system like FreeNAS), with only drives for storing your images and data.
In a RAID 1 configuration, you install two drives, say 2TB each, and then configure them either in BIOS or within Windows to act as one (say D:\).
Everytime you write something to this array (D:\) you pictures or documents get actually written twice, once at each phisycal drive. If one of your physical drives fails, you have the other one with mirrored data.
You can then swap the failed drive for a new one, and the array gets reconstructed.
Backup
Having your data mirrored in a RAID 1 array protects you from a single-drive catastrophic failure (the kind that gives hearth attacks).However, this is not a backup in the sense that if you delete data from the D:\ drive array it will actually get deleted from both physical drives.
Therefore, diving into the paranoid camp, it would be advisable to also have an external USB hard drive where you can make incremental or differential backups and thus be able to go back in time and restore a version of your drive before deletion.
One may ask, why then is it necessary to use a 2-drive array with RAID 1? Why not use a single drive and attach an external USB drive for backups? Because, put simply, you won’t do the backups.
Even with automated tasks in backup software. Doing a backup of your data takes time. And yes, you may configure the task to run at Log In, or at Log Off, and Turn Off the computer after it finishes doing the backup, but still.
Disk mirroring with a disk array is immediate: the file is written to both drives at once, in real time.
Drives’ functions
Drive C:\ ─OS & Apps
─OS and application software such as Lightroom, Capture One Pro, Photoshop, etc. Not for storing your Documents/Images/Music/Video/Downloads. Under Windows, you can redirect those folders to the E:\ drive.The motherboard supports an M.2 NVMe 2280 PCI Express Gen 3 x4 SSD drive. Those drives have Read speeds of around 2500 MB/s and Write speeds of 1500 MB/s. It also supports a second M.2 SSD but a SATA III speeds of around 500 MB/s.
Be aware than in the proposed configurations I am not mirroring the C: drive. If it fails, you would need to reinstall the OS and application software. However, your images will be safe on the Mass Storage RAID 1 array (explained later on).
My recommendation is to never use the C: drive for storing your documents and images (and video and music), because if a virus or a faulty drive or any other kind of error happens, the drive is gone and so are your files. I don not mind reinstalling Windows and software, but I do mind losing all of my photos (and my religion too).
Also, with the proposed configuration, I do not advise to run the C: drive in a RAID 1 (mirroring) array, simply because the motherboard only supports one NVMe SSD, which read/writes at 2500/1500 MB/s. Any other SSD drive only has read/write speeds of around 500 MB/s, thus, becoming a bottleneck for a mirroring configuration.
The best route to recover from a drive C: failure and not having to reinstall Window 10 and all of your software apps, would be to make a System Image Backup to another drive, and then Restore the System Image from there. As you
Drive D:\ ─Catalog
─Use this drive for storing the Image Catalog from applications like Lightroom or Capture One Pro. The image catalog disk size requirements depend very much on how many images you have and the size of the Previews that would be stored inside the catalog.A 120GB drive can be enough to store around 200,000 previews at 1280px/1440px, but if you want to store 1:1 previews, or have more images, you’ll need a bigger drive.
You can also use this drive as a Scratch Disk for Photoshop (or setup a different SSD drive, F:\)
The motherboard supports a second M.2 2280 drive but only at SATA III speeds. Read/Write speeds are at around 500 MB/s.
If an M.2 SATA SSD drive is intalled on this second connector, the bus is shared with the 6th SATA port (so don’t install anything on SATA 6).
Drive E:\ ─Mass Storage
─Use this drive(s) for Mass Storage. Meaning, copy here your photo files. Also, under Windows you can redirect user folders:Documents/Images/Music/Video/Downloads to reside here and not on the C:\ drive.
This gives your documents the mirroring protection of the RAID 1 array.
Connect two 3.5” Hard Drives to the corresponding SATA 1 and 2 ports. In the BIOS, configure these drives to act as a disk array under RAID 1 mirror configuration.
Just remember, both drives must be equal and, if you install two 1TB drives, you will only have 1TB of available storage (same data on both drives).
Drive F:\ ─PS Scratch Disk
─Use this drive for Photoshop’s Scratch Disk.This can be a 2.5” 120GB SSD drive connected to the SATA 3 port. (*If you have enough space on your catalog drive D:\, save money here and use that drive also as a scratch disk for Photoshop.)
RAM Memory
Most photo editing software is RAM memory hungry. Photoshop allocates around 70% of your system’s memory to it. So, you may chose to work with 16GB, 32GB or even 64MB or RAM, if the motherboard supports it.A system with 8GB of RAM will just not work fast enough, especially when you have a large resolution photo and several layers. 16GB is the minimum.
You will find in the motherboard's compatibility list two types of memory: SS (Single-Sided) and DS (Double-Sided).
It simply menas that the memory stick will have all chips on one side (SS) or on both sides (DS). Do not confuse with Single-Ranked (SR), Double-Ranked or Quad-Ranked.
SR memory is much faster than DR or QR because the controller only has to access one address bank, instead of two or four. Also, the memory I have selected has alumnium heatsinks.
CPU Architecture
The final, or first, decision is whether to go with Intel CPUs or AMD’s, especially now with all the buzz about Ryzen. Well, the majority of benchmarks are done for, guess, gamers. Still, Intel CPUs win.There are a few benchmark comparing Lightroom and Photoshop performance on both platforms, and again, Intel wins: a 4-core Intel Core i7 7700K is about 23% faster in all tasks than an 8-core AMD Ryzen 7 1700X.
In Lightroom tasks, Intel is about 30% faster, except for when exporting JPG files, where Ryzen is about 10% faster.
The reason might be that software is more optimized for Intel’s Multi-core and Multi-thread architecture. Thus, for executing Lightroom, Photoshop and Capture One Pro, the choice is Intel.
CPU Cooling
Liquid cooling, a hot trend in the gaming pc comunity, is also not needed for a computer devoted to photography editing. One is aiming for a stable system. Liquid cooling is most useful, though not absolutely necessary, for overclocking the CPU.Liquid inside your computer calls for disaster. A gamer might lose a day’s play but a photographer would lose customer’s photos of a non-repeatable event or session.
Moreover, when the water pump fails, because it will fail, the cpu has no other way to dissipate heat. That’s why I have configured this equipment to use the regular and tested alumnium heatsink with a fan.
Even if the fan fails, because it will fail, the cpu can still dissipate heat through the aluminium piece.
Air from the other case fans will help to keep it working. In addition, most modern BIOS have an overheating protection that you can configure, so when the CPU temperature reaches 80° C, for instance, the BIOS will shutdown the PC.
GPU
Again, contrary to the recommendations found for gamers, a high end Graphics Card is not needed.Any GPU above the integrated graphics would suffice. This means that an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 8GB (~$550 USD) will not perform any better than an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 2GB (~$100 USD).
Yes, there are a especific actions like running Smart Sharpen in Photoshop where the GTX 1080 will perform 4 seconds faster than the GTX 1050, but for most of all other actions, they’re equal in performance.
Thus, double, triple or quad card configurations in SLI or CrossFire are not needed. So, save your money in GPU and buy a better lens, unless you plan to play games.
Computer Case Selection
A photographer’s computer doesn’t need a side panel window to awe at the insides and see those flashing RGB LEDs.What we need is a silent PC, with sound absorbing material on the side panels, and silent fans, so we can work on editing the whole day without the annoying noise.
A gamer probably wouldn’t care much because he or she will most likely be wearing a gaming headset anyway.
One can spend a lot of time searching for the right computer case. The one I have selected below is compact, though some will criticize it because it doens't allow much room for cable management.
However, it does allow plenty of bays to install 3.5" hard drives, 2.5" hard drives and SSDs.
It supports full size GPU cards. It has sound absorbig materials on the side panels, and a SD card reader and USB 3.0 ports on the front panel.
Best computer for Photoshop | Lightroom | Capture One Pro : Component list
Finally, the list of components to buy and make your own computer configured for photography editing using software such as Photoshop, Lightroom, Capture One Pro, DXO PhotoLab, and may others.I will present three configurations you can choose from, depending on your budget and actual or expected quantity of images.
*This page uses affiliate links to Amazon. Add items to your Amazon shopping cart to see the total sum of the components for the desired configuration.
Base Configuration:
Items used on all three of the proposed configurations.Operating System
Motherboard micro-ATX
- ASUS ROG Strix Z270G Gaming Motherboard. ASUS has a reputation for quality: Apple and the Sony Playstation use their motherboards. That said, this motherboard supports up to 64GB RAM DDR4 (4-DIMMs) with up to 4133(O.C.), Socket 1151, has the Z270 chipset, 2-M.2 sockets, 6 x SATA 6Gb/s ports, USB 3.1, Audio, Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac 2.4/5 GHz included, and dual GPU support in SLI or CrossFireX (if you want to game). 3-year warranty.
- Important note: if you change motherboard model or brand, you will need to check the RAM memory compatibility list for that motherboard.
Computer Case micro-ATX
CPU Cooler
Case Fans
Remove the factory's case fans and install these:Noctua makes probably the most silent fans on the market and the most reliable, with a MTTF (Mean Time To Failure) greater than 150,000 hours and 6-years warranty. The fan includes a low noise adaptor to reduce fan speed (thus, noise) from 1500 RPM to 1200 RPM; a 4-pin Y cable to drive two fans from one PWM fan connector in the motherboard; 4 Vibration-Compensators, 30cm Extension Cable, and 4 screws.
(Qty: 1) - Noctua NF-S12A PWM Cooling Fan. High Airflow 120mm fan. One unit to be installed as rear fan. Same accessories as above fan.
Power Supply
NOTE: Above PSU works fine for a fully configured system (i7, 64GB ram, etc.), unless you want to use a GTX 1070/1080 GPU. Then, you'll need to upgrade to a Silverstone 700W SFX-L power supply. Do remember, though, that for top performance on LR/PS/CO you only need a GTX 1050 GPU (see GPU section).
Thermal Paste
GPU
Above card is all you need for top performance when using Ligthroom, Photoshop, Capture One Pro. You gain nothing by inserting a higher model GPU card.
Starting Pro or Advanced Amateur Configuration
In summary: Core i3-8350K, 16GB RAM, 250GB OS drive M.2 PCIe NVMe, 250GB Catalog/Scratch drive M.2 SATA III, 2TB mass storage 3.5" NAS grade drives in RAID 1.In addtion to the base configuration, add the following:
CPU: Intel Core i3-8350K 4.20 GHz FCLGA1151 300 Series Desktop Processor (BX80684i38350K). This CPU has 2 cores and 4 threads, runs at 4.0 GHz and consumes 95W. It is a contender for the older but popular Core i7-2600K.
16GB RAM (2x8GB): Kingston HyperX Fury 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4 2400MHz DRAM CL15 1.2V DIMM (288-pin) Black HX424C15FB2K2/16. This memory is in the motherboard's compatibility list.
M.2 250GB OS Drive: Samsung 960 EVO Series - 250GB PCIe NVMe - M.2 Internal SSD (MZ-V6E250BW). To hold the Windows OS and application software. Your documents and pictures would be saved, after configuration, to the mass storage drive.
2TB Mass storage: (Qty:2) WD Red 2TB NAS Hard Disk Drive - 5400 RPM Class SATA 6 Gb/s 64MB Cache 3.5 Inch - WD20EFRX. Two units of this hard drive to configure it in RAID 1 (mirroring), to hold your documents and RAW/JPG images. This is a NAS grade hard drive tested for 24x7 reliability and 3-year limited warranty.
M.2 250GB for LR/CO Catalog and PS Scratch Disk: Samsung 850 EVO - 250GB - M.2 SATA III Internal SSD (MZ-N5E250BW). Motherboard supports two M.2 connectors but only one is NVMe PCIe (used for the OS above). The other is SATA III (used as catalog/scratch here).
Or leave above drive for your image catalog only, and add a dedicated scratch disk for Photoshop: Samsung 860 EVO 250GB 2.5-Inch SATA III Internal SSD (MZ-76E250B/AM).
Working Pro
In summary: Core i5-8600K, 32GB RAM, 500GB OS drive M.2 PCIe NVMe, 500GB Catalog/Scratch drive M.2 SATA III, 6TB mass storage 3.5" NAS grade drives in RAID 1.In addtion to the base configuration, add the following:
32GB RAM (2x2x8GB): (Qty=2) Kingston HyperX Fury 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4 2400MHz DRAM CL15 1.2V DIMM (288-pin) Black HX424C15FB2K2/16. Order two units of this set of 2x8GB for a total of 4 memory sticks (32GB). This memory is in the motherboard's compatibility list.
M.2 500GB OS Drive: Samsung 960 EVO Series - 500GB NVMe - M.2 Internal SSD (MZ-V6E500BW). To hold the Windows OS and application software. Your documents and pictures would be saved, after configuration, to the mass storage drive.
6TB Mass storage: (Qty:2) WD Red 6TB NAS Hard Disk Drive - 5400 RPM Class SATA 6 Gb/s 64MB Cache 3.5 Inch - WD60EFRX. Two units of this hard drive to configure it in RAID 1 (mirroring), to hold your documents and RAW/JPG images. This is a NAS grade hard drive tested for 24x7 reliability and 3-year limited warranty.
M.2 500GB for LR/CO Catalog and PS Scratch Disk: Samsung 860 EVO 500GB M.2 SATA Internal SSD (MZ-N6E500BW). Motherboard supports two M.2 connectors but only one is NVMe PCIe (used for the OS above). The other is SATA III (used as catalog/scratch here).
Or leave above drive for your image catalog only, and add a dedicated scratch disk for Photoshop: Samsung 860 EVO 250GB 2.5-Inch SATA III Internal SSD (MZ-76E250B/AM).
Yoda Master
In summary: Core i7-8700K, 64GB RAM, 1TB OS drive M.2 PCIe NVMe, 1TB Catalog/Scratch drive M.2 SATA III, 8TB mass storage 3.5" NAS grade drives in RAID 1.In addtion to the base configuration, add the following:
64GB RAM (4x16GB): Kingston HyperX FURY Black 64 GB Kit CL15 DIMM DDR4 2400 MT/s Internal Memory (HX424C15FBK4/64). This memory is in the motherboard's compatibility list.
M.2 1TGB OS Drive: Samsung 960 EVO Series - 1TB PCIe NVMe - M.2 Internal SSD (MZ-V6E1T0BW). To hold the Windows OS and application software. Your documents and pictures would be saved, after configuration, to the mass storage drive. If you don't use way too many programs, the 500GB version is enough to hold LR/PS, Office and the most common applications.
8TB Mass storage: (Qty:2) WD Red 8TB NAS Hard Disk Drive - 5400 RPM Class SATA 6 Gb/s 128MB Cache 3.5 Inch - WD80EFZX. Two units of this hard drive to configure it in RAID 1 (mirroring), to hold your documents and RAW/JPG images. This is a NAS grade hard drive tested for 24x7 reliability and 3-year limited warranty.
M.2 1TB for LR/CO Catalog and PS Scratch Disk: Samsung 850 EVO - 1TB - M.2 SATA III Internal SSD (MZ-N5E1T0BW). Motherboard supports two M.2 connectors but only one is NVMe PCIe (used for the OS above). The other is SATA III (used as catalog/scratch here). Select 1TB capacity if you plan on doing 1:1 catalog previews. If instead you plan for 1280px/1440px previews, you may opt for the 500GB version.
Or leave above drive for your image catalog only, and add a dedicated scratch disk for Photoshop: Samsung 860 EVO 250GB 2.5-Inch SATA III Internal SSD (MZ-76E250B/AM).
Peripherals
Monitor
The monitor is you interface to you images. The following monitors can display 100% sRGB colors and 99% Adobe RGB colors.
BenQ 27 inch 2K Photographer Monitor (SW2700PT), 2560x1440 QHD, 99% Adobe, 100% RGB, Hardware Calibration, 14-bit 3D LUT, HDMI 1.4, OSD Controller , 60Hz refresh rate.
Calibrate you monitor and your camera's colors
X-Rite ColorMunki Display. Save some money and get similar color calibration performace but with reduced features.
X-Rite ColorChecker Passport Photo. Calibrate your camera's colors inside Lightroom, and Photoshop.
Mechanical Keyboard
- Best things are made for gamers. A mechanical keyboard just feels better than a membrane one.
- TenKeyLess (TKL) means it doesn't has the numeric keypad, so the keyboard is more compact and allows you to have the mouse closer.
- MX Brown switches have a tactile bump (feedback) and no audible click when pressing the key. FYI, MX Blue have an audible click, and MX Red are linear (no bump) and completely silent (like a membrane switch, but still better tactile response).
Mouse
Photo Editing Tablet
Still editing with your mouse? A tablet is way faster and more precise.
Black Desk Pad
Artistic 17" x 24" Rhinolin II Ultra-Smooth Writing Pad Desk Mat with Exclusive Microban Antimicrobial Protection, Black.
How to build a desktop PC for photography editing
Assembling a PC is really easy. If you played with Legos you have all the skills needed. Things can only fit one way.Tools needed
- A magnetic tip #1 or #2 hex screwdriver or this one
- Zip ties
- Wire cutter
DIY photo editing computer video tutorials
If you have never built a pc before, you may want to check out these tutorials on YouTube:- Beginners Guide: How to Build a Computer by Jayz TwoCents
- How To Build a Computer - Part 2 - The Build by Newegg TV
Documentation
In case you want to read manuals and datasheets.- Intel Processors
- ASUS ROG STRIX Z270G GAMING Motherboard, user guide/installation and memory compatibility
- ASUS NVIDIA GPUs
- Kingston memory
- CPU case Cooler Master Silencio 352
- Noctua case fans and CPU Coolers
- WD Red Pro NAS Hard Drive
- Samsung SSD 960 EVO NVMe M.2
- Samsung SSD 850 EVO SATA M.2
- Silverstone SFX form factor PSU
- Power supply calculator
- Camera color profiling and white balance correction
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