Building PC for Gaming and Photo Editing

[luciferlf]

(TL;DR included at the bottom)


Hello!

I have a friend (we'll call them Artist) who is very good at digital drawing (character designer, scene illustrator, painter), Artist currently has 5 year old laptop and it is unable to run Photoshop CS7 which forces Artist to stick with SAI drawing tool that somewhat works but may crash if canvas size exceeds 2600x2600 pixels size.

Problem is that clients usually ask for much bigger size (at least 6000x6000) and Artist is unable to provide that.

Artist also loves to play games (Team Fortress 2 and mostly all other Valve games) and their laptop barely runs the games at around 40fps and most of the time crashes.

We decided to support our friendly Artist so they can improve their skills and create more epic stuff so we are going to help build their own PC.

Currently the build we have listed is:
- i7 7700
- ASUSTek PRIME B250-PLUS
- ADATA XPG Z1 2400MHz 2x8GB
- MSI GTX 1060 3GB GDDR5
- Seagate 1TB 7200rpm
- SSD ADATA III 240GB
- Cougar Panzer Max case
- Aerocool 800W Retail
- DeepCool THETA 15 PWM 4pin (CPU cooler)
- Philips 243V5LSB 23.6' 5ms
- Total Price: 82036 rubles (1117€ or $1297)


This build is affordable but will take some time to save up the money.

We know that going the AMD path may be much cheaper but non of us knows much about AMD stuff, so here's where we need help.

We would like to see suggestions of a PC build that could be easily upgraded in the future, like buying the cheapest stuff needed to start as soon as possible and when more money will be saved to upgrade certain components.

As far as I understand computers the motherboard must be chosen once and it should be able to support cheaper components and in the future upgrade much newer components. I've heard that AMD motherboards and their CPU's have that ability to be upgraded.

[TL;DR]
We need a PC build for Artist that uses Photoshop CS7 and plays Valve games, the build must have ability to be upgraded in the future without investing too much money into re-buying components.

Will be waiting for your suggestions, thank you!

 

[camieabz]

i7 7700 and Ryzen 7 2700x prices should be similar. The Ryzen is faster in multi-core stuff, while the i7 is a little faster in single core stuff, so perhaps consider that.

If you want a lower budget option with a view to future upgrades, consider a cheaper Ryzen 5 (e.g. 1600) for now, and then move to a Ryzen 7 later, when prices are lower.

See an example of the German Euro Ryzen prices (no idea if this is the same as your pricing) - https://de.pcpartpicker.com/products/cpu/#X=100,386497&s=62,60,59&sort=price&page=1

If considering Ryzen, the B450 and X470 chipsets are most recent, and good for all current Ryzen CPUs (Ryzen 3 1200 - Ryzen 7 2700x). Some of the B450 motherboards are very affordable.

 

[luciferlf]

i7 7700 and Ryzen 7 2700x prices should be similar. The Ryzen is faster in multi-core stuff, while the i7 is a little faster in single core stuff, so perhaps consider that.

If you want a lower budget option with a view to future upgrades, consider a cheaper Ryzen 5 (e.g. 1600) for now, and then move to a Ryzen 7 later, when prices are lower.

See an example of the German Euro Ryzen prices (no idea if this is the same as your pricing) - https://de.pcpartpicker.com/products/cpu/#X=100,386497&s=62,60,59&sort=price&page=1

If considering Ryzen, the B450 and X470 chipsets are most recent, and good for all current Ryzen CPUs (Ryzen 3 1200 - Ryzen 7 2700x). Some of the B450 motherboards are very affordable.

I see, thank you for this information!

Currently we added AMD Ryzen 5 1600 OEM and ASRock X470 Master SLI and total prices dropped by 2418 rubles (There's no b450 motherboards in our country at all)

What could you offer from AMD's video cards? Anything that also could be upgraded in the future and what X470 could support?

EDIT: What do you think about RX 560 4GB?

 

[camieabz]

Personally, I recommend Nvidia cards on price vs performance (and range of choice). The exception is if you want Freesync, if G-Sync is too expensive.

Your choice of 1060 3GB is pretty good. It's a medium card at a reasonable price. See some price vs performance chart I did in June (prices may have changed):





Notice the 1060 3GB green bars (price vs performance). Prices on the chart are UK GBP. However, if you can get an RX570 or X580 for less than a 1060 3GB, it might be worth it.

 

[luciferlf]

Personally, I recommend Nvidia cards on price vs performance (and range of choice). The exception is if you want Freesync, if G-Sync is too expensive.

Your choice of 1060 3GB is pretty good. It's a medium card at a reasonable price. See some price vs performance chart I did in June (prices may have changed):





Notice the 1060 3GB green bars (price vs performance). Prices on the chart are UK GBP. However, if you can get an RX570 or X580 for less than a 1060 3GB, it might be worth it.

I see.

Sadly RX570 and RX580 are 20-40% more expensive than GTX 1060, we'll stick with GTX 1060 then.

Anything you could suggest on RAM? Is it a must to buy 2 RAM sticks? Or could we buy one stick of 8GB for start and then upgrade in the future? Also, will it be enough 800W for all of this new build? Or can we go lower?

 

[camieabz]

1 DIMM will work, but in single channel, which is slower than dual channel. I recommend 2 DIMMs. My personal preferences are Corsair LPX or G.Skill Flare memory. Prices can be higher though.

For power supply, I recommend 1.5x estimated load as a general rule, but you'll need to estimate the future likely load (Ryzen 7 CPU, larger graphics card, more drives later). I would recommend minimum of 650W to allow for future plans (guess 400-500W later with 1.5x for load).

Also in power supplies, I recommend minimum of Bronze 80+ rating.

 

[geofelt]

I would go with new gen intel.
I5-8600K performs about the same as the 7700K and is cheaper.
Most any Z370 motherboard is suitable.
For gaming, 8600K is as good as it gets.
The 8th gen K processors will usually oc to near 5.0 levels.
That is what most games need.

Ryzen is very good value for a app that can use many threads.

Read this article on building a photoshop workstation.
https://www.pugetsystems.com/recommended/Recommended-Systems-for-Adobe-Photoshop-CC-139

Based on this, one can come to several conclusions.
1. Photoshop does not use many threads. Any of the 8th gen K processors are good.

2. A nvidia graphics card is helpful, but GTX1060 is the most that is useful for photoshop.
It is the number of CUDA cores that can help processing.
The amd cards are more for gaming since they do not use the same CUDA technology.
For gaming, you could go stronger.

3. They recommend a minimum of 16GB of RAM for 500MB documents or smaller, 32GB for 500MB-1GB, and 64GB+ for even larger documents.


The cooler you listed is insufficient for any overclocked processor.
The minimum should be a tower type air cooler with a 120mm fan like the scythe kotetsu.
The very best would be a dual tower air cooler like the noctua nh-d15s.

For a hard drive, wd or hitachi seem to be a bit more reliable.
Here is a nice article on the wd rainbow:
https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Understanding-the-WD-Rainbow-674/

On the ssd, I would buy Samsung evo. I think Samsung is more reliable and performs a bit better.
No need for the PRO versions.

You will only need about 550w for a psu.
I do not know about the quality of the aerocool psu, and 800w is more than you need.
I like the Seasonic focus line. The 550w unit would be perfect.