My New killer PC build for photographers

[Abitconfused]

Corsair 900D case, ASUS X99 Deluxe LGA 2011-v3 motherboard, Haswell-E Core i7-5930K 3.5GHz cpu, Noctua NH-U14S CPU cooler & thermal paste, Corsair 1200i power supply, Crucial 32GB memory, EVGA GeForce 970 video card, 12 TB storage with USB 3 external 4TB backup, nine fans.

What do you do with all this power...



Build panoramas in Photoshop or PTGUI of course...

[pnodrog]

Would go well with my old 9" CRT mono monitor circa 1981.... Go on tell us what monitor it is attached to.

[Acorn]

I am not over keen when forums are used as a vehicle for bragging.

[Abitconfused]

Oddly enough a 10 year old Apple Cinema 30" but I would like a monitor with a wider gamut. Anyway, I honestly think it is a good rig for photographers who need a lot of storage and a system with some horsepower. It certainty is a good place to start for a new system.

[HaseebM]

Those are impressive specs indeed. I am using Noctua NH D-14 which is a monster alongwith HAF 932 case.

[Adrian]

The things that I find a constraint with PCs or Macs is the ability to multi task effectively without lag, run video editing smoothly and run multiple screens. SSD has helped a lot in recent years. Operating systems, including Win 8 and Yosemite, seem to be a limiting factor as software houses try to monetize everything with bloatware (and with smartphones it is worse).

I am just starting to consider 4k screens in my office (the work one, not home one) so that will be my own next area of attention.

(Presently running a very high spec mac pro, just a couple of months old, and two large new mac screens. I use a lot of processing power for advanced mathematical modelling of financial instruments, so the photo use is just a side benefit. That said the photo and vid software noticeably slows things down. I have a sneaky suspicion that software is much more of a limiting factor than hardware).

[IzzieK]

Acorn..if you have just acquired a new killer PC, you would be proud to. If you do not like the topic, move on...I certainly am jealous of his set-up and soon, if Ed did not tell us right off what it is very soon someone like me will ask...

Ed -- 12 TB of working space is huge. 'am jealous... but in the meantime I will stick to what I have at the moment and be a better photographer first.

[John 2]

..................nine fans ! - and earmuffs? Adrian, your comments surprise me (not saying your wrong) because I run a W7 set up of a similar spec to that described except for the amount storage and I regularly multi task without any problems e.g. I regularly watch a TV programme or a recorded video whilst deep in the realms of CS6 (sad I know). Where I do come up short is in processing large multi Layer TIFF files (anything up to 1GB) but that's a memory shortfall I think (only 16GB at the moment).

[JR1]

I just spent £4k on a new gaming pc for my son, I have his old !!!!, one I bought him 7 months ago

He wanted two graphic cards for his three monitors, why......................

[tao2]

Hi Ed,

Ah'd ditch the Noctua and 9 fans will be operating against one another - ah'd water cool this system. Ah'd also put my OC'd Maximus Vl Impact up against it. Less bells n' whistles but then , bells n' whistles rob power...

[Mike Buckley]

I'm happy to be the first to comment about the photo. The perspective provided by the ferris wheel makes it!

[george013]

I don't understand, what's the influence of the pc on the shown photo?

George

[Abitconfused]

I fear water cooling because I have seen too many pipes leak.

The relationship to the image is this: The old computer took much longer to process photomerging and 3D renderings which i also do.

[TonyW]

My only comment about the computer specifications is that the storage seems a bit imbalanced. 12TB seems a little excessive and the external backup too small in comparison. A raid system would be good for backup.

I quite like the picture and especially the judicious amount of perspective and the sharpness and clarity. It doesn't look like a particularly interesting place to be though.

[ajohnw]

I'd be willing to bet my 3.6ghz 4 core 8 thread Xeon cost a lot less and also runs faster and came with 34months on site warentee when I bought it. Only 24gb memory but could hold rather a lot more and even has a cooling duct for it's parity ram. I put up with 3x232gb plus 120gb of storage as I am not keen on higher density drives. It also has several USB3 ports, card reader and the usual dvd drive etc. Fan's 2 so it's probably quieter too especially as the case is built like a tank. I don't run much of a graphics card because I have found there is little point for what I use it for so it's an nvidia clone that comes without a fan. These go by the name silent what ever usually made by Asus.

I used to build them but seriously these days I feel there is little point. It's even hard to get true workstation motherboards as well so best buy a machine with one in.

The heatsink is a through flow type so doesn't need cleaning out very often and the cpu runs fairly cool and doesn't reach max temperature with a very severe stress test running on all 8 cores.

Good shot though.

John
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[Abitconfused]

Yes, the Haswell-E motherboard does have lots of SATA 6Gb/s connections and USB 3 ports so speed is not the paramount concern, options are. The larger case and 10 SATA ports allow me to assemble a host of lost and misplaced hard drives under one roof. Granted, I bow before the Xeon chip.