# Build your "dream" editing PC



## flameshots (Mar 5, 2012)

What would you put in your "dream" PC? What would be your hardware? I'm not trying to start an Apple vs PC debate. I really want to know about your requirements for an editing PC. I'm about to either buy one of the shelf or build one. I'm not an IT geek but I can hold my own with electronic hardware. (I worked as a Motorola repair tech in a previous life.) I have been using my Laptop for editing for the last few years and it has done "OK" but I really want to take my work to another level. It has become painfully obvious that I need more computing power and a PC with a dedicated graphics card appears to be a must. Thanks for the input and help.


----------



## matthewo (Mar 5, 2012)

you could build it yourself, or just find a place that you pick the components and build it for you. because computer technology and speed has come so far you really dont need a huge budget for a very fast photo editing computer.

i just spent $650 and built a 6 core 4.0ghz computer with 16 gigs of ram, etc... its way faster then i need it to be. it has no problem with any raw files. and will edit 1080p video with no problem.

but i really hate editing on a laptop. the screen, the keyboard, the mouse, just hate it. deffently build a desktop and spend some money on the monitor, i think thats where your going to get the most benefit, because $1000 worth of a computer right now should be excellent for any photo editing needs.

personnally i would just pick an off the shelf computer, unless you buy it from a place that doesnt skimp on a part or two to keep the price down.  places like best buy will skimp on power supplies and video cards, sometimes hard drive and ram, to keep the price down.  thats why its nice to have a place build a computer to your specs.

i just did a little research and purchased everything through newegg


----------



## flameshots (Mar 5, 2012)

Thanks matthewo, that's pretty much what I thought. I would love to hear the detailed specs of your $650 6 core PC. I really haven't found anything like that yet. Of course I haven't looked real hard yet. I know I want a graphics card but I have no idea which one or what to look for. I guess anything would be better than what I'm using now. I just want to get the most "bang for my buck". I already have a new IPS monitor and I'm very happy with it. I have just had a hard time getting my Laptop to adjust the color for this monitor. I think the monitor is too much for the integrated graphics on my laptop. Thanks for the input. 

Marc.


----------



## DorkSterr (Mar 5, 2012)

I have it. Just finished it last November cost me roughly around $8000 Cad including monitor keyboard, and its already outdated.


----------



## Foxx (Mar 5, 2012)

DorkSterr said:


> I have it. Just finished it last November cost me roughly around $8000 Cad including monitor keyboard, and its already outdated.



Mmmmm Filco cherry switch. I have a rosewill with cherry mx switches, absolutely love the typing experience.


----------



## 480sparky (Mar 5, 2012)

All I want for Christmas is a new main monitor.  I'm using a 23" now, with a 15" off to the side.  I wanna dump the 15, replace it with a 27-30" and make my current 23" my sidecar.


----------



## rexbobcat (Mar 5, 2012)

However many cores are possible, 6 gig of ram, nvidia 5xx GTS/GTX video card. The other stuff I couldn't care less about


----------



## fokker (Mar 5, 2012)

Why stop at just 6 gig?


----------



## LightSpeed (Mar 5, 2012)

There's not much out there that take advantage of hexacore processing.
The most graphically intense video game out there only uses 4 cores. I think.
It might only use 3. Most applications use 2 -4 threads.
A quad core processor, something like an AMDx4 975 which can easily be overclocked, 8 gigs of memory, a 500 gig hard drive with an external terabyte drive, would be more than enough.
I run a amd 6970 , 2gig of memory on board, 980 mhz video card. But I game.
I can't see where a video card like this is needed for editing images. It's big , expensive and won't fit in some ( most ) computer cases.
Windows 7 - 64 bit, as close to a perfect OS as I've ever used.
Some might recommend MAC = reduced instruction set chip/computer.
 Screw mac.


----------



## Ysarex (Mar 5, 2012)

If a "dream" editing PC doesn't start here:

ColorEdge | EIZO NANAO CORPORATION

or here:

LaCie - LCD Monitors

then, no matter what else you do, it's a failure.

Photography -- you either see it or you don't.

Joe


----------



## EchoingWhisper (Mar 6, 2012)

Wow, I'd love to edit my dreams with PCs! That way I'll always have happy dreams.


----------



## chuasam (Mar 6, 2012)

a Mac is a personal computer too..and hence a PC
let's see...

A Mac Pro with two 2.93 Ghz 6-Core Intel Xenon.
64GB of RAM 
2 512GB Solid State Drives (one for applications, one for virtual memory)
2 2TB 7200 HDD.
ATI Radeon 5870
Two Apple LED Cinema Displays

Wacom Cintq 24HD 

NERDGASM!!!


----------



## flameshots (Mar 6, 2012)

chuasam said:


> a Mac is a personal computer too..and hence a PC
> let's see...
> 
> A Mac Pro with two 2.93 Ghz 6-Core Intel Xenon.
> ...



I just can't justify the added expense for a Mac. New Mac= new software= not affordable. It's kinda like making a change to Nikon from Canon. $3000. in glass is prohibiting me from changing.


----------



## cgipson1 (Mar 6, 2012)

Posted this in another thread.... it is pretty fast... opens a RAW in CS5 in well under 2 seconds... and no hesitation with any editing! Even the liquify tool with a large brush is real-time. Of course, I game on it too... 

I7 3.8 on air, running stable 4.2 ghz OC'd. 
Booting Win7 64 off a fast OCZ 512 GB SSD
6 Tb (3x 2 TB Black Label WD) in a Raid5 array.
2x EVGA GTX580's running in SLI (slight OC on these)
24 GB  DDR3 1600 Ram
3x 2 TB Esata External drives for backup
Dell U3011 30" monitor
Large Antec server case


----------



## Big Mike (Mar 6, 2012)

I just bought a new one.  Budget was a big concern, so I certainly couldn't build or buy a 'dream machine'.  But I did get an i5 processor and 8GB of Ram. 
I was really temped to get a solid state drive of the OS & programs.  The IT guy as work just built a new machine with an SSD and he said it boots up an opens his internet browser in 4 seconds.

My old machine, took 2-4 minutes to boot up, and if you clicked on Firefox, before everything else had settled down, it took another minute or two to open.  It actually ran LR and PS4 well enough.  I was even able to work on files from my 5DmkII.  It just took a long time to get going.


----------



## Village Idiot (Mar 6, 2012)

Duh...

Top of the line processor, board, GPU, PSU, etc... with max memory for said processor with cards for blue tooth, thunderbolt, etc... in my currect 10 bay case with 2 of the largest capacity SSDs and 8 2TB HDDs. The drives would be split 1 SSD and 4 HDDs each so that one SSD had Win7 on it with 4 drives formatted for it and the other had OS X on it with 4 drives.

That or the computer from the Enterprise. That ***** could make hot tea appear out of thin air!


----------



## Village Idiot (Mar 6, 2012)

Big Mike said:


> I just bought a new one.  Budget was a big concern, so I certainly couldn't build or buy a 'dream machine'.  But I did get an i5 processor and 8GB of Ram.
> I was really temped to get a solid state drive of the OS & programs.  The IT guy as work just built a new machine with an SSD and he said it boots up an opens his internet browser in 4 seconds.
> 
> My old machine, took 2-4 minutes to boot up, and if you clicked on Firefox, before everything else had settled down, it took another minute or two to open.  It actually ran LR and PS4 well enough.  I was even able to work on files from my 5DmkII.  It just took a long time to get going.



I bought a mid level Mac Mini strictly for image editing because I got tired of having the get OS X to run properly every time there was an OS update and having to switch between the Win7 partition and the OS X partition. It was something like $600ish refurbed and so far has proven to be a great little machine. It runs all my programs at 2560x1600 resolution on a 30" monitor (even though Apple's dual link DVI adapter blows angry goats) and fits nicely in a laptop bag so I can pull movies onto the computer from the server and take it to my friends' houses and have access to whatever I need.


----------



## flameshots (Mar 8, 2012)

Ok so I'm thinking the I7 with at least 16G of ram and a 2TB HD. I am thinking i'm going to start with an AZUS Gaming unit to get a Nvida graphics card. I will then build from there. I like the idea of a SSHD for the OS and periphrials. How many gigs are needed to run win-7 64-bit? You can find several on new egg for a reasonable price.


----------



## Big Mike (Mar 8, 2012)

Keep in mind that while a high end video card is great for gaming, it's not as useful for photo editing.  

Before PS CS (version 3 or 4), it didn't use the video card processor at all.  Since then, it now does use the power in the video card to help out.  Initially it was just to help speed up zooming  and smooth zooming (not terribly important).  I think it does a lot more than that now...but still, I don't think it's worth the price to get a high end video card, just for photo editing.  

For gaming or maybe video editing/playing...then yes.


----------



## flameshots (Mar 8, 2012)

Big Mike said:


> Keep in mind that while a high end video card is great for gaming, it's not as useful for photo editing.
> 
> Before PS CS (version 3 or 4), it didn't use the video card processor at all.  Since then, it now does use the power in the video card to help out.  Initially it was just to help speed up zooming  and smooth zooming (not terribly important).  I think it does a lot more than that now...but still, I don't think it's worth the price to get a high end video card, just for photo editing.
> 
> For gaming or maybe video editing/playing...then yes.



Good to know. I will be doing some GoPro editing with it also so I will probably still want the video card. Thanks for the information Mike.


----------



## Fox_Racing_Guy (Mar 8, 2012)

Here is a good article (& free software) on how to use a lower end Nvidia GTX GPU's with CS5 acceleration  Adobe Premiere CS5 and Premiere CS5.5 Video Cards with CUDA Acceleration Mercury Playback Unlock Enable MPE Hack Mod Tip 
Definitively go Intel for processing power, just read the above article for CPU rendering alone. Don't waste your money on a 980X system, it was 2 generations old back in Nov and it will soon be 3 generations old. A $180 i5 2500K can keep pace with it and a $280 i7 2600K surpasses it in PS.  









For SSD's Intel and Samsung are known for reliability, I use a Mushkin because they are assembled here in the USA.


----------



## Demers18 (Mar 8, 2012)

Why waste time building it when you just need Mac.


----------



## jake337 (Mar 8, 2012)

Well dream PC.....hmmm this should easy.  Whatever is the latest in greatest in every department possible from monitor to software!


----------



## OscarWilde (Mar 8, 2012)

I actually just finished building my computer!

CPU: Intel i7 2600k (3.4gHz)
Motherboard: Gigabyte P67 6gb/s USB 3.0
Video Card: EVGA GeForce 560
RAM: Crucial 8gb (2 x 4gb) DDR3 1600
HDD: WD 2 tb internal + 1 tb external
SSD: Crucial 60gb internal (Running my OS and a few programs)
OS: Windows 7 64-bit
PSU: Corsair 650w
Disk Drive: Sony Optiarc CD/DVD Burner
All in a beautiful steel  Cooler Master HAF advanced case!

Cost about 1500 with all the shipping and taxes... 

Photoshop runs like a dream for me now... (it runs off the SSD with windows) I can't remember the last time I even had to wait for it to do something... it's like it just happens! Especially compared to my old pc!


----------



## table1349 (Mar 8, 2012)

Well since you said dream, here it is:

Mac Pro with: 
Two 2.93GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon Westmere (12 cores)
64GB (8x8GB) DDR3 ECC SDRAM
Mac Pro RAID Card
Hard Drive 1 512GB solid-state drive
Hard Drive 2 2TB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s hard drive
Hard Drive 3 2TB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s hard drive
Hard Drive 4 2TB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s hard drive
Two ATI Radeon HD 5770 1GB each
Two 18x double-layer SuperDrives
Apple LED Cinema Display (27" flat panel)
Apple LED Cinema Display (27" flat panel)
Apple Magic Mouse + Magic Trackpad
Apple Wireless Keyboard Intuos5 touch Large Pen Tablet


With this you can edit to your hearts content, play Mass Effect 3 and control the Hubble all at the same time.   Ok, maybe you couldn't control the Hubble, at least not without an up link.  :mrgreen: :lmao:


----------



## Hickeydog (Mar 8, 2012)

Demers18 said:


> Why waste time building it when you just need Mac.



Because not everyone feels like dropping $1000 more than they really have to.


----------



## 480sparky (Mar 8, 2012)

gryphonslair99 said:


> .........   Ok, maybe you couldn't control the Hubble, at least not without an up link.  :mrgreen: :lmao:



You don't need an uplink to the HST.  There's already one available.

You can buy time on HST if you have the funds and can convince the powers that be of the scientific usefulness of your request.


----------



## jake337 (Mar 8, 2012)

Hickeydog said:


> Demers18 said:
> 
> 
> > Why waste time building it when you just need Mac.
> ...



Some don't feel like building one themselves, just using it.


----------



## Demers18 (Mar 8, 2012)

jake337 said:
			
		

> Some don't feel like building one themselves, just using it.



Insert me here


----------



## pharmakon (Mar 8, 2012)

I used to build my own pc's, then I got tired of spending 1500-2k all the latest s### just to see it outdated 2 months later. Now I just settle for cheaper off the shelf pc's and just add a couple things that matter to me (more RAM, better GPU and additional HD).  Currently I just have an HP PC for daily use and a Mac Mini for app development (because they force you to). Neither is blazingly fast, but they are both adequate for what I need them to do.

I did finally invest in a decent IPS monitor.

And just for the record after having used both PC and Mac a while I still don't know what you mac fanatics are raving about. (other than the magic trackpad, I do love that thing. haha)


----------



## Vipor (Mar 9, 2012)

Not sure if the OP (Flameshots) has made a decision yet or not but...

For off-the-shelf Apple systems, which of these would fit the bill?

27" iMac   ($1,699)

2.7GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i5
4GB (two 2GB) memory
1TB hard drive[SUP]1[/SUP]
AMD Radeon HD 6770M with 512MB
27" iMac   ($1,999)

3.1GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i5
4GB (two 2GB) memory
1TB hard drive[SUP]1[/SUP]
AMD Radeon HD 6970M with 1GB
15" MacBook Pro   ($2,199)

2.4GHz quad-core 
Intel Core i7 
4GB 1333MHz 
750GB 5400-rpm[SUP]1[/SUP] 
Intel HD Graphics 3000 
AMD Radeon HD 6770M with 1GB GDDR5


----------

