Desktop for photo editing

[steve1905]

Hi all,

Looking for advice and I know there's plenty of photographers on here.

I'm looking for a desktop computer to edit photos.

Can I have some ownership experiences / recommendations or specs I should be looking for?

I know I'll need a large amount of RAM( 8gb plus I believe).

Not sure that I want to go Apple for this due to expense and lack of expansion opportunities.

I use the ipad for browsing etc so I'm looking for a focused image processor and a good quality monitor.

Thanks for your help

Steve

 

[tomscott]

Depends how serious you are and what camera you use really. If you have big files then its more processor intensive. Anything with an i5 would be sufficient 8gb ram too, SSD speed everything considerably use one as a boot and have a redundant drive for everything else. Depends whether your serious about printing. but most monitors can be calibrated pretty easily. No need to spend a fortune.

Space is more an issue I have an 8Tb array and it was a fortune but makes sure all my work is safe. 4TB externals are cheap now sure I saw one in PC world last week for £130 and it was a seagate too.

Apple is my choice depends on what your preference of operating system is. Myself I cant stand windows, windows 8 is better but still not mac OSX. Been using macs for 8 years and never had one crash but you pay for the privilege. Windows machines comparable will be 30% if not cheaper. But at the same time you get beautiful screens, very reliable and they look beautiful.

Again depends what you want. I use a Mac Pro 2008 8 core 2.8ghz it has 10g ram 8 tb array 128gb SSD and I have two 23" cinema displays. Although old it is very fast and ive had no need to upgrade it yet. Benches about 13k with these specs and I use it professionally.

I know the 2.8ghz quad i7s perform around the same. Its getting to the point for photography where the machines more than powerful enough. Most of my 5DMKIII files end up being 400mb after editing (thats 22mp) an i5 or i7 will have no problem with that at all. Its more ram intensive as the images sit in your available ram for faster access. 16gb is so cheap might as well. Its more video where the specs are important really you cant have a machine powerful enough to crunch video. Mine has ECC ram which costs a fortune too which is why ive left it at 10gbs but ive only run it out a few times with massive panos.

TBF you could build a good rig for £600 add another £300 for a high quality display.

Hope this helps

 

[steve1905]

Thanks for the advice Tom.

I've recently traded my kit in to move over to the Nex platform. I take it your staples are 1D's/5D?

I bought a Nex 6 with kit zoom and 35mm 1.8. Nothing professional but perfect for shooting RAW for future travels. It gets used a lot more use than the DSLR for recent/future travels etc due to size. It lacks focus speed but there's always a price to pay when things get smaller.

I might reconsider and take a look at Apple.

Your advice is not good for the bank balance!

Cheers

 

[Stuart Truman]

Avoid windows 8 like the plague unless you get a touch screen system. The whole OS is optimised for touch. The Windows all in one systems are a bit of a compromise as ideally you'll want to mix a decent GPU with CPU and memory.

Windows Blue/8.1 is due shortly and will be a free upgrade and I believe will reintroduce the start button. Personally I'm sticking with Windows 7 until I've had a good chance to play with 8.1.

As Tom said, the monitor is everything, Dell Pro and HP pro monitors can't be beaten, underneath the plastic they both use the best panels available, bar none. The only way to beat them is go to one of the pro monitors like Eizo, but then you're into serious money

Graphics cards, I have an nVidia pro card attached to my Dell pro monitor but I'd recommend the AMD cards for their drivers which respond better to calibration (on windows anyway)

Memory is cheap, so stuff as much in as possible. Likewise hard disks.

SSDs are a great idea, but avoid cheap ones.