New PC

robp

robp

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Good morning,

I need to update my ancient and very slow pc.

I currently use Photoshop and Premiere Elements, which aren't particularly demanding on my current system, but I intend to progress to Premiere Pro and After Effects. I see that After Effects, in particular, is very demanding on RAM (16GB min and 32GB recommended). The pc also gets used for general home computing but not for gaming.
I want to build in a bit of future proofing but not go for overkill.
Would I be correct in assuming that I will need a custom build, rather than going to places such as Curry's?
If so, could you please recommend some companies who will do this.
Also, what sort of spec should I be aiming for?

I'm not a complete computer novice but would like to have some idea what I'm talking about.

From online research I have been looking at something along the following lines, but have no idea if it is adequate, overkill, or anything else! lol

Ryzen 5
Corsair 32GB RAM (although I am wondering if I should settle for 16 and accept that After Effects may render a bit more slowly)
Seagate Maxtor 960GB ssd
Seagate secondary drive (is a secondary drive necessary?)
Not too sure what I need for the GPU (I will inevitably be moving on to 4K video editing sooner rather than later. is 4GN vram adequate?)


Any advice would be very much appreciated.

Thank you.
 
All I can suggest is do what I did, I went to CCL (https://www.cclonline.com/pc/ ) told them what I wanted it for and let them spec it ( with a couple of tweaks from me) .
Its about 4 years old , based around an i5 quad core , 16gb DDR4 ram ,2* 250gb SSD +1TB HDD and it runs LR and PS fine, but I do not use it for gaming ( I would need upgraded graphics for that)
 
Do you not have the confidence to do a self build ??? Buy the parts needed and build it yourself.

I have just about finished building mine, nothing else to do with the lockdown, just specced up the parts, ordered online from Scan, CCL and Overclockers, and gradually built it up.
TBH it is a great feeling and complete self satisfaction when you do it yourself, there is loads of guides on youtube and frankly it is dead easy to do. Oh, and it is a damn sight cheaper if you shop around, there are some amazing bargains to be had.
 
You might want to look at this PC from Aldi. Well specified and has 16Gb RAM upgradeable to 32Gb. Quite a bargain and actually a fair bit cheaper than a self-build using the same components. No pretensions to be a gaming PC but has a decent processor plus 500Gb SSD and 1 Tb HDD with facility to do hot-swappable drives.

Medion Desktop PC
 
I got some really good advice here on building a computer and ended up with what could reasonably be described as a beast.

One thing I know about video rendering is that a fast hard drive is going to be really handy. Somebody else can advise you on memory (I don't do much video so ended up with 32GB) but a quick scratch drive will speed things up no end. Look at a quick NVME drive and if you can get a decent one for your scratch.

If funds allow I'd be thinking 3 drives - an SSD for boot, an NVME for scratch and a spinning metal for storing your home movies when they are done.

BTW if you buy a board with free slots you can always put in more memory later. In general, memory prices fall over time so it's cheaper to add later than buy too much now.
 
Mountkeen said:
You might want to look at this PC from Aldi. Well specified and has 16Gb RAM upgradeable to 32Gb. Quite a bargain and actually a fair bit cheaper than a self-build using the same components. No pretensions to be a gaming PC but has a decent processor plus 500Gb SSD and 1 Tb HDD with facility to do hot-swappable drives.

Medion Desktop PC
Click to expand...
Unless there's some board limitations, that system should support up to 128Gb and a 4GHz i9 if you're into upgrading.
I noticed in the customer reviews:
Bud95 said:
Looked good but

Had to return because there was no port for printer
Click to expand...
If they're referring to a parallel printer port, that's 50 year old tech; you won't find that on an 18-month old PC.
 
I have used PC Specialist. I have a friend who always insist on building his own PC. It always costs more than buying from a company like PC Specialist. As my PC is about 6 years old, I may need to think about a replacement in the next couple of years.

Dave
 
I built my own last September, did as other have and shopped around for parts.

I ended up with a silly spec but I had money from my insurance company as my original pc was destroyed in a house fire last September.

32mb of RAM is pretty much the norm now and well worth spending the money on. A Ryzen 5 is a good choice but I went with a Ryzen 9 3900.

I got a board that takes M.2 drives they are the latest technology and I got the latest 4gb/s versions, 2x 1TB

For video I went with an MXI Radion 2070ti

My spec is stupid for what I need so you'd need far less. Remember if you want a machine that will cope with 4k video then plan ahead with specifications. It's no good putting together a machine that will need loads of upgrades to get where you want to be in 12 months, I decided to spend once and spend big so I have a machine that will last me quite a few years and still meet my needs.

To be fair, Adobe products have become bloated and Photoshop 2020 is as slow as a dog even on my machine, I've read many pro's complaining the same so I've gone back to 2019 and now its positively quick.
 
Agree with Chris about Photoshop, it is a bit of a dog and I too have a fast CPU and 32gig DDR4. Never thought I would see the day when an app would be nearly 3 gig in size. When I first started using Photoshop, think it was 2.5 it actually came on 5 floppy disks :)
 
Nikon f1.8 said:
Agree with Chris about Photoshop, it is a bit of a dog and I too have a fast CPU and 32gig DDR4. Never thought I would see the day when an app would be nearly 3 gig in size. When I first started using Photoshop, think it was 2.5 it actually came on 5 floppy disks :)
Click to expand...

I am glad others are finding that I thought it was something wrong with my PC but it would appear not
 
Dave Canon said:
I have used PC Specialist. I have a friend who always insist on building his own PC. It always costs more than buying from a company like PC Specialist. As my PC is about 6 years old, I may need to think about a replacement in the next couple of years.

Dave
Click to expand...

That depends what make the components are.
People who have built there own for years tend to be fussy about the components they use.
Some use very cheap power supplies where someone building their own PC will happily pay £50+ for a power supply.
Personally I will not touch a motherboard unless it's made by either Gigabyte or Asus as I'v never had a fault with either of those.
In a previous life I use to build PC's for a living and I had no control over the specifications and it was never a surprise when a PC would fail within the warranty.
Too be fair I expect the other motherboard manufacturers have come a long way since I used them but I stick with what I know.
 
troutfisher said:
All I can suggest is do what I did, I went to CCL (https://www.cclonline.com/pc/ ) told them what I wanted it for and let them spec it ( with a couple of tweaks from me) .
Its about 4 years old , based around an i5 quad core , 16gb DDR4 ram ,2* 250gb SSD +1TB HDD and it runs LR and PS fine, but I do not use it for gaming ( I would need upgraded graphics for that)
Click to expand...

Big thumbs up for CCL. I used to deal with him years ago when he sold components from the back of his parents phone card shop.
Still use them now. Excellent.
 
hashcake said:
That depends what make the components are.
People who have built there own for years tend to be fussy about the components they use.
Some use very cheap power supplies where someone building their own PC will happily pay £50+ for a power supply.
Personally I will not touch a motherboard unless it's made by either Gigabyte or Asus as I'v never had a fault with either of those.
In a previous life I use to build PC's for a living and I had no control over the specifications and it was never a surprise when a PC would fail within the warranty.
Too be fair I expect the other motherboard manufacturers have come a long way since I used them but I stick with what I know.
Click to expand...

But that is exactly why I used PC Specialist because you could choose your own components. They are from a limited list but offer a range of performance and Quality. I did choose an ASUS motherboard. They do check your configuration to ensure the combination you choose is compatible. When the check was complete, they informed me that my choice was fine but the power supply I had chosen was well over spec so I could use one at about half the price. You will not be surprised that it was no accident that I went for a higher spec power supply. In fact I had received a tip (from a different forum) that by choosing it, they would automatically supply a better case with more cooling which they did. I have had no problems and will be happy to go back to them when I eventually need a new PC but not necessary just yet.

Dave
 
Thank you so much for taking the time to offer advice, guys.

I have been pondering on and off for a couple of months whether to do a self-build, but will probably not go down that route due to available time...along with a dose of self-doubt!

I will certainly check out PC Specialist and CCL.
 
I have just done this on PC Specialist and would appreciate your views on the following:

Am I working along the right lines for 4k video editing and running After Effects?

Before my original post I had considered the Ryzen 9 but thought that was too much overkill so went for the 5 but am now wondering if the 7 is about right.
Is the motherboard good enough or does it need to be faster?
Is the SSD adequate?

Thank you again for your time.

20200611_161044.jpg
 
Nice graphics card you got there for games

That's the minimum PSU wattage for the GTX1660S though, I'd go to 500 or 600W.
 
Just upgraded my system, keeping my workhorse Antec NSK6580 case. New ASUS Prime B365M-A mobo with Intel i5-9400 processor with stock Fan, 16gb Corsair DDR4 memory. Kept my Be-Quiet 500w PSU and ASUS DVDRW. Drives = 500 M.2 WD Black for Windows and programs + 500 2.5" SSD for working files + 4 *2Tb Barracuda for storage. Happy with onboard Intel HD Graphics as I do not play games. Spoilt myself with 2 new ASUS 23.6 monitors. Very happy with performance with LR + PS. Will upgrade to 32Mb memory when budget allows.
 
I would be inclined to go for larger disk drives. My system is 6 years old and my first drive is 500G Byte and 2nd is 3T Byte and both are half full now. I would also be inclined to go for 32Gb RAM from the outset.

Dave
 
If I were building a video editing machine I would make sure I had
  1. Fastest possible i/o sockets. I don't know if they are just mislabelling them on the spec but I'd want USB 3.1 over USB 3.0 - it's twice as fast and will let you use cheapish fast external drives like the Crucial X8 and SanDisk Extreme. These make transporting files a joy.
  2. A hot swap hard drive bay. You can either get a case with one built in or add a Startech adapter to a suitable case for 40 quid. It's a bit old school but it means you can just keep a stack of really cheap hard drives and swap them in and out for projects for near infinite cheap storage.
  3. Spare slots. Looks like the motherboard has you covered - I'd rather put 32 GB on a board that can take 64 than cheap out on a 32gb board or spend money on loading it with 64. You can always add memory if there's space. Same goes for hard drives.
And I'm amazed nobody has yet mentioned how much you can save by installing Windows yourself :) Here are my thoughts on getting CCL to build my machine for me https://www.talkphotography.co.uk/t...-other-ways-before.706577/page-2#post-8617377 - not an unqualified "OMG they are amazing!" but if I needed another machine I'd almost certainly choose them again.

troutfisher said:
I am glad others are finding that I thought it was something wrong with my PC but it would appear not
Click to expand...

Yeah, it's fine on my machine ;)
 
Dave Canon said:
But that is exactly why I used PC Specialist because you could choose your own components. They are from a limited list but offer a range of performance and Quality. I did choose an ASUS motherboard. They do check your configuration to ensure the combination you choose is compatible. When the check was complete, they informed me that my choice was fine but the power supply I had chosen was well over spec so I could use one at about half the price. You will not be surprised that it was no accident that I went for a higher spec power supply. In fact I had received a tip (from a different forum) that by choosing it, they would automatically supply a better case with more cooling which they did. I have had no problems and will be happy to go back to them when I eventually need a new PC but not necessary just yet.

Dave
Click to expand...

I've heard good things about them over the years and they are a rare company offering so many options,
My post wasn't aimed at them directly, just some other companies.
Do they offer the option of NVME SSDs?
 
Nice selection of parts, a couple of changes I would make is deffo the PSU, don't skimp on that. Get a 550-600W Bronze at least.
Also I would possibly change the case, I just bought the Thermaltake S300 and it is an absolutely brilliant case, loads of room for expansion, it is built like a tank with proper thick metal construction, not like your everyday case, and it is cheaper than the Coolermaster in your spec so the money saved would go to the power supply.

Have a look at this review from Mike, he is a pretty honest chap with his reviews, and he is english as well.

LINKY
 
robp said:
I currently use Photoshop and Premiere Elements, which aren't particularly demanding on my current system, but I intend to progress to Premiere Pro and After Effects. I see that After Effects, in particular, is very demanding on RAM (16GB min and 32GB recommended). The pc also gets used for general home computing but not for gaming.
I want to build in a bit of future proofing but not go for overkill.
Click to expand...

Regardless of what you use it for, it is always best to try to aim for higher amount of RAM as you can afford. I always suggest to people to make sure they have a minimum of 8GB of RAM, and always try to go as high as they can, depending on their budget.

It is not an overkill to aim for more RAM, even if you don't use it for gaming. If you want 16GB, fine, it's your choice. But if you can afford it, then go for 32GB.


robp said:
Would I be correct in assuming that I will need a custom build, rather than going to places such as Curry's?
If so, could you please recommend some companies who will do this.
Also, what sort of spec should I be aiming for?
Click to expand...

No, you do not have to go for custom built. You can buy any computers, either off-the-shelf or custom built, just as long as you aim for more RAM. Some websites could let you upgrade some parts of the machine, like adding more RAM, when you order online.


robp said:
Ryzen 5
Corsair 32GB RAM (although I am wondering if I should settle for 16 and accept that After Effects may render a bit more slowly)
Seagate Maxtor 960GB ssd
Seagate secondary drive (is a secondary drive necessary?)
Not too sure what I need for the GPU (I will inevitably be moving on to 4K video editing sooner rather than later. is 4GN vram adequate?)
Click to expand...

It does not matter, most computers nowadays are capable of doing any job. Any cars can go from A to B regardless of if they use 1.4, 1.6, or 1.8 engines. Computers are similar, they can do almost any job as long as you got more than the minimum required hardware, specially and most important of all, as much RAM as you can afford.

Computers are like cars. It is not their chips or engines that does the job, it is the user just like the driver.

How fast the computer types the words in a word processor really depends on how fast you type, not how fast the computer's CPU is.

Second drive is fine, if you want it. Most people tend to use a smaller SSD (250GB, 500GB, 1TB) for Windows and all application software only. With a second but larger drive (either HDD or SSD) of 2TB, 3TB, 4TB, for their own personal files and photos they created.

I have a 250GB SSD for Windows and the Adobe software I needed, plus a 4TB HDD for my own files. That's enough for my needs, it does the job fine for me. If you are going to be doing video editing, and use Adobe After Effects, I would advise you do need a larger secondary drive for the video files.
 
Thank you so much for the additional advice.

It's probably become rather apparent that I'm not too clued up on all this stuff, so everyone's collective input has been invaluable, thank you.

So, I need to upgrade the PSU and storage on my PC Specialist example.

Yes, it did cross my mind that a PC is only going to work as fast as I can make it, Major Eazy, but since my current PC is years old and runs Windows 8.1 with 4GB RAM, I'm guessing any upgrade is going to seem super-speedy to me!
 
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