PC Component Questions

I'm upgrading my PC and am on the fence on a few components looking to get some thoughts from others.

Processor:  Intel vs. AMD
Is this kind of like Chevy vs. Ford?  I've always had an Intel but according to the PC builder I'm looking to go with AMD offers a lot of value.  They used Passmark as an example which I have looked at previously.  Is it as simple as the overall number or is there more to it?

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i9-9900K+%40+3.60GHz&id=3334
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=AMD+Ryzen+9+3900X&id=3493


Motherboard:  Asus ROG Strix Z390 H vs. [font=Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif]MSI Z390M Edge AC (Intel Z390 mATX)[/font]
They seem similar except the MSI allows for 128 GB Ram.  I'm only going with 64 now but for a similar price it seems like it might be nice to have the option to increase in the future.


Hard Drive:  WD vs. Seagate
I've had both with no issues.  Looking at 4TB and 6TB drives now Seagate seems to be reasonably cheaper for either option.  The builder though swears by WD and said he wouldn't go with Seagate.  I was looking at the Seagate Ironwolf drives.  (https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1526760-REG/seagate_6tb_ironwolf_7200_rpm.html).  Any thoughts on one brand vs. the other?

Video Card:  GeForce RTX 2060 Super
I'm running 2 monitors one 27" another 24" (soon to be upgrade to 27").  Both are non 4k.  Any thoughts on the card to much, to little?

M2 NVMe SSD Drive:
I'm considering putting a second M2 drive in addition to the main one with the operating system on it.  My thought was to keep the files on this drive that I'm working on more frequently.  Then eventually store them on the 3.5" drives.  On my current PC which is old when I'm working with 3-5GB files the load time is slow and the save time is really slow.  How much of this has to do with the PC being old vs. the speed of the drive?  Would a M2 drive substaintially speed up these processes?

Hi,

Processor:  Intel vs. AMD
I always use Intel.

Motherboard:  Asus ROG Strix Z390 H vs. MSI Z390M Edge AC (Intel Z390 mATX)
I feel it would be good to have the option to add more RAM. I always max out my RAM when I buy a computer. 

Hard Drive:  WD vs. Seagate
I've used both brands as external drives with no problems.

Video Card:  GeForce RTX 2060 Super
Unless you're gaming or editing videos, I wouldn't worry too much about this.

M2 NVMe SSD Drive:
The slowest item on your system will determine the speed of the entire system. This could be HD speed, total amount of RAM, how the RAM is configured, processor speed, and the settings for these. 


You can check your system's speed here https://www.xfinity.com/support/articles/determine-slow-computer-speeds

And use the free version of Speccy to see how well your system is running.  https://www.ccleaner.com/speccy

Have Fun,
Jeff

Aaron you might want to wait to make a decision till E.J. gets back from his trip to get his imput.

To get the best value for your dollars always consider what you will be using your PC for. Better benchmarks for one application do not translate to better benchmarks for all applications.

I just completed building a PC myself. A system that will be dedicated to Lightroom and Photoshop usage. Primarily Photoshop. I relied on benchmarks proved by Puget Systems. These benchmarks were conducted using Lightroom and Photoshop, so they are real world results for those specific applications.

It is stated very clearly that, a CPU that is theoretically more powerful is not always better since there is a limit to the number of cores that Photoshop can effectively take advantage of. In many cases, spending more money can actually result in worse performance so it is more important to get the right CPU over a more expensive one.

Personally, I have stuck with Intel for stability reasons. AMD and their new line of Ryzen processors do not have the track record for stability yet, they just have a lot of cores which at this time seem to make no noticeable different in an application like Photoshop.
I wanted to get the most I could for my money. I ended saving over $1500 by custom building what I wanted compared to having Puget Systems build it.

Spend some and go through the information that Puget Systems provides. They are a good company and really the only place I would consider building a system for me. Their prices were the only reason I choose to do it myself.

I am really happy with what I ended up building.

You might start here:
Recommended Systems For Adobe Photoshop

Processor - depends on the model of processor and which application you need the best performance in. here is a site that will help you decide:
https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/artic ... 2019-1620/

Motherboard, whichever one takes the CPU you choose and I would suggest one that will have USB C, Thunderbolt, and NVME capability

HD - whichever one has your capacity and which grade of drive you want, it isn't a brand question in my mind.

Video Card - that one is fine but if you want true 10 bit out you will need a Quadro card not a GEForce card

NVMe is a good choice.

bradmangas wrote:To get the best value for your dollars always consider what you will be using your PC for. Better benchmarks for one application do not translate to better benchmarks for all applications.

I just completed building a PC myself. A system that will be dedicated to Lightroom and Photoshop usage. Primarily Photoshop. I relied on benchmarks proved by Puget Systems. These benchmarks were conducted using Lightroom and Photoshop, so they are real world results for those specific applications.

It is stated very clearly that, a CPU that is theoretically more powerful is not always better since there is a limit to the number of cores that Photoshop can effectively take advantage of. In many cases, spending more money can actually result in worse performance so it is more important to get the right CPU over a more expensive one.

Personally, I have stuck with Intel for stability reasons. AMD and their new line of Ryzen processors do not have the track record for stability yet, they just have a lot of cores which at this time seem to make no noticeable different in an application like Photoshop.
I wanted to get the most I could for my money. I ended saving over $1500 by custom building what I wanted compared to having Puget Systems build it.

Spend some and go through the information that Puget Systems provides. They are a good company and really the only place I would consider building a system for me. Their prices were the only reason I choose to do it myself.

I am really happy with what I ended up building.

You might start here:
Recommended Systems For Adobe Photoshop

Thanks, Brad.  I did look at the Puget website but didn't come across the page you linked, lots of good information there.

E.J. Peiker wrote:Processor - depends on the model of processor and which application you need the best performance in.  here is a site that will help you decide:
https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/artic ... 2019-1620/

Motherboard, whichever one takes the CPU you choose and I would suggest one that will have USB C, Thunderbolt, and NVME capability

HD - whichever one has your capacity and which grade of drive you want, it isn't a brand question in my mind.

Video Card - that one is fine but if you want true 10 bit out you will need a Quadro card not a GEForce card

NVMe is a good choice.

Thanks, EJ.  So in the article Brad referenced on Puget they say that 10 bit support came to the RTX in July 2019.  The link does not work though.

"[font=Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif]Photoshop works great with a Quadro card, but since 10-bit display support was [/font][url=http://yes%2C%20all%20our%20photoshop%20workstations%20do%20support%2010-bit%20displays%21%C2%A0in%20the%20past%2C%20you%20needed%20to%20use%20an%C2%A0nvidia%20quadro%20video%20card%20or%20a%20blackmagic%20decklink%20card%20to%20enable%2010-bit%20support%2C%20but%20as%20of%20july%2029th%2C%20the%20geforce/][font=Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif]added for GeForce in late July 2019[/font][/url][font=Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif], the main advantage of Quadro is the larger VRAM and slightly higher reliability."[/font]

It isn't true 10 bit under all software conditions, it is only 10 bit under certain conditions. Your mileage may vary

Your cutting and pasting is leaving behind weir tags. If you cut and paste, use the full reply button at the top of the thread, not the quick reply button and then click on the little piece of paper icon before pasting.

Digging a bit deeper it does look like the GEForce cards are now supporting 10 bit for many software titles so it may be OK now. They still ahve the problem of reverting to 8 bit every time the driver updates though it seems. So you need to change it back to 10 bit.

EJ you often times suggest a pretty decent video card (higher than I prefer to spend, haha), however the puget article seems to suggest the video card is not all that important for Photoshop. Can you help me understand your recommendations better. I'm sure there are other good reasons for this.

I mainly use the computer for Photoshop/photo editing. I don't currently do much with photo stacking for depth of field but would like to do that more.

Based on the article I think I may drop from the 2060 super to just the 2060. Probably would stay with the newer RTX technology.

Basically there's more to life than Photoshop - there are many other apps we photographers use that perform dramatically better with a good video card, such as all of the Topaz products, virtually any video rendering program, Capture One, etc, etc. Also, it is likely as Photoshop goes forward, it will become more and more dependent on the video card. There's nothing at all wrong with the 2060 though and it will serve you very well!

Just watch the case size with video cards. I just put a RTX 2070 Super in mine this past weekend. I use it for gaming and CS and LR. I have a full tower case and it is still a close fit due to the length of the card. The card was also so heavy that it came with a support so it would not sag.