1. #1
    Fluffy Kitten Wilderness's Avatar
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    Build for Photo Editing

    Budget - $1,000 tops, but under is always good.
    Resolution - 1080p I guess? No gaming involved, and I don't think 4K is going to be in her price range
    Games / Settings Desired - None
    Any other intensive software or special things you do (Frequent video encoding, 3D modeling, etc) - Photoshop
    Country - USA (microcenter nearby)
    Do you need an OS? Yes
    Do you need peripherals (e.g. monitor, mouse, keyboard, speakers, etc)? Monitor yes, the rest no.

    My mom is need of a new computer, and I'd like to help her out by putting it together for her. She's a part-time/hobbyist photographer but only stills, no video editing or anything more than photoshop. From a bit of research it looks like photoshop doesn't take much gpu power so it would probably be able to be covered by a chip that has an integrated gpu or a cheap stand-alone card, is that correct? Other than her photos, she just uses it for general web browsing and light computer activities, no gaming or anything else.

    Case is going to be tucked away under an end table, so form factor or aesthetics don't matter at all. She has a few external hdds that she backs up the majority of her pictures on, but she's about 700Gbs into the 1 TB hdd in her current laptop so I figure a 2TB hdd to go along with an SSD would be more than enough for the future.

    I don't know a lot about monitors in general, but even less about what would be useful features in a monitor for someone doing photo editing.

  2. #2
    Good day to you Wilderness. I put this build together let me talk a bit about it. It as no GPU the integrated graphics should do just fine here. I picked the 6600k because it's an APU and currently one of the best cpus on the market for it's price range. The monitor is really up in the air I would do some more research on monitors not my area of expertise, I read it was a fairly good photo editing monitor for a not insane price(price is around 300$). I included an SSD I don't know if you needed one or not, and a 2TB hard drive. 2k-4k monitors would be pushing the budget I'm already right at the line. I'm hoping someone else will come post with some better information about monitors. But here is the build.

    PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

    CPU: Intel Core i5-6600K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor ($219.99 @ Amazon)
    CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($24.89 @ OutletPC)
    Motherboard: MSI Z170-A PRO ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($79.99 @ Amazon)
    Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2400 Memory ($49.99 @ Newegg)
    Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($87.69 @ Amazon)
    Storage: Seagate Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($53.00 @ Amazon)
    Case: Corsair 200R ATX Mid Tower Case ($47.99 @ Micro Center)
    Power Supply: EVGA 500W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($29.99 @ NCIX US)
    Operating System: Microsoft Windows 10 Home OEM 64-bit ($83.89 @ OutletPC)
    Monitor: Asus PB248Q 24.1" 60Hz Monitor
    Total: $677.42
    Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
    Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-06-13 21:28 EDT-0400

  3. #3
    Deleted
    Wanted to add an aftermarket cpu cooler to make it silent but couldn't fit in the budget along with everything else. This is the one i had picked for it. The case is awesome for the money it is atm, you should grab it asap. I doupt your mom will overclock the cpu for any reason so i don't go for a 6600k/Z170 combo.

    PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

    CPU: Intel Core i5-6600 3.3GHz Quad-Core Processor ($215.99 @ SuperBiiz)
    Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-H170-GAMING 3 ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($77.98 @ Newegg)
    Memory: Kingston FURY 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2133 Memory ($53.99 @ SuperBiiz)
    Storage: Crucial MX200 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($79.99 @ Adorama)
    Storage: Seagate Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($53.00 @ Amazon)
    Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 950 2GB FTW ACX 2.0 Video Card ($110.80 @ Newegg)
    Case: Fractal Design Define R4 (Black Pearl) ATX Mid Tower Case ($69.99 @ NCIX US)
    Power Supply: EVGA 650W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply ($54.99 @ NCIX US)
    Operating System: Microsoft Windows 10 Home OEM 64-bit ($83.89 @ OutletPC)
    Monitor: Dell P2414H 23.8" 60Hz Monitor ($198.00 @ B&H)
    Total: $998.62
    Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
    Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-06-14 05:10 EDT-0400

  4. #4
    Fluffy Kitten Wilderness's Avatar
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    Thank you both for the replies. Unlikely to overclock anything but at the same time if the difference really is about $5 then it probably makes sense to just get the K version and have that option available.
    @Kostattoo - do you think the separate video card would be beneficial in this situation?

  5. #5
    Deleted
    Its not 5$ only to make it work. 5$ for the cpu only yes, but then you need a "Z" mobo to be able to overclock and on top of that an aftermarket cpu cooler. The "k" chips don't come with a stock cooler like they used to be, but they non "k" still come with one. So you are looking closer to a minimum of 80-100$.
    During 2D the cpu is doing all the work, but when you go 3d then the gpu starts working. So yeah depends what will you do with it.

  6. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by Kostattoo View Post
    Its not 5$ only to make it work. 5$ for the cpu only yes, but then you need a "Z" mobo to be able to overclock and on top of that an aftermarket cpu cooler. The "k" chips don't come with a stock cooler like they used to be, but they non "k" still come with one. So you are looking closer to a minimum of 80-100$.
    During 2D the cpu is doing all the work, but when you go 3d then the gpu starts working. So yeah depends what will you do with it.
    Yeah that's why I went with the K side, but yeah the non K would probably be better unless Wilderness is willing to do some overclocking. Is a 950 needed for photo editing? Or would the integrated graphics do fine.

  7. #7
    If you wanted to use an onboard GPU would Broadwell not be a better choice, or even an AMD APU?

  8. #8
    Fluffy Kitten Wilderness's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kostattoo View Post
    Its not 5$ only to make it work. 5$ for the cpu only yes, but then you need a "Z" mobo to be able to overclock and on top of that an aftermarket cpu cooler. The "k" chips don't come with a stock cooler like they used to be, but they non "k" still come with one. So you are looking closer to a minimum of 80-100$.
    During 2D the cpu is doing all the work, but when you go 3d then the gpu starts working. So yeah depends what will you do with it.
    Ah, I didn't realize the k chips don't have a stock cooler though, that's good to know. Mine did, but that was a couple of years ago at least. I wasn't including that cost since I figured we'd add on an aftermarket one if/when we actually overclocked it, and the 2 mobo's linked so far were about the same cost so that's where I got $5 difference from. But if they don't even come with a stock one that's an added cost now.

  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by Wilderness View Post
    Ah, I didn't realize the k chips don't have a stock cooler though, that's good to know. Mine did, but that was a couple of years ago at least. I wasn't including that cost since I figured we'd add on an aftermarket one if/when we actually overclocked it, and the 2 mobo's linked so far were about the same cost so that's where I got $5 difference from. But if they don't even come with a stock one that's an added cost now.
    Yeah they started doing that with Skylake's "k" line. The 6600k is definitely better if you're planning to overclock, otherwise i'd go with the 6600. Honestly I'd still use the Z170-a motherboard even with the non "k" cpu because I really like that board.

  10. #10
    Unless your software is utilising the GPU hardware, then it won't make a lot of difference in my opinion.
    I don't know photoshop that well to be able to say whether it does or not.
    Quote Originally Posted by DeadmanWalking View Post
    Your forgot to include the part where we blame casuals for everything because blizzard is catering to casuals when casuals got jack squat for new content the entire expansion, like new dungeons and scenarios.
    Quote Originally Posted by Reinaerd View Post
    T'is good to see there are still people valiantly putting the "Ass" in assumption.

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