I am a photogrpaher, not a PC techie. So I may appear to ask dumb questions.
My 11 year old i7 3700K build was great, and it still serves me well. When I built it, I took the time to understand the needs of a photo editing rig and the components that were available. Accordingly I have spent the last month studying the current components needed for a new photo-editing rig (heck I'd never heard of a NVMe drive). I only process one raw photo at a time using Lightroom and Photoshop, no large event photography batches, no video and no gaming. For years I have been using the ASUS bios auto-overclock feature in my ASUS P8Z77 mobo and that has helped me get more performance from the build. I was even able to survive with only the onboard graphics until I purchased a second 1440p monitor. However I am noticing that it is now slowing me down in Lightroom & Photoshop when I make use of the newer adjustment mask features...and also when I occasionally use Topaz Suite (which taxes my Radeon RX460). I have recently retired so I have plenty of free time now to monetize my hobby. I post on Facebook neighborhood groups and get weekly requests for prints from neighbors. I am going to buy a printer soon and also create photo books so I think the whole experience will be better on a snappier machine. My budget will be around US$2250 ....I have to purchase my components in inflated CDN dollars though.
I definitely will go with a i7 13700K though a i5 is probably the sweet spot. My decision is based on the fact that i7 has great single core performance and that is what is important in photo editing which simply 2D pixel pushing, not multi-core 3D gaming. Furthermore, I have the funds to buy a better CPU and if this rig can last a decade like the last one it will be wise to go with the more powerful one.
I had been agonizing over a costlier Z790 mobo with DDR5 vs. a cheaper mobo with DDR4.
But I have narrowed the selection down to 3 lower tier Gigabyte boards:
A) GIGABYTE Z790 UD AC
B)GIGABYTE Z790 GAMING X AX
C) GIGABYTE Z790 AORUS Elite
I can't really tell what differences they bring. I assume since I won't be OC'ing the i7 13700 that the VRMs while different are all sufficient.
WHY would people purchase the Elite over the UD AC. Is the Elite going to give better performance or logevity. Does the Elite have thicker board, better copper wiring, better capacitors/diodes or memory regulators?
I believe all three satisfy my i/o and M.2/SATA requirements
I plan to purchase two new NVMe SSDs and a new 8-12GB SATA HDD spinner as well as include 4 drives from my current build: My C:drive which is a Samsung 840 pro SATA 600, a Samsung 850 pro SATA 600 drive that I use as Lightroom catalogue/scratch drive and also 2 SATA HDD spinners with data.
I am happy to even spend the money to get a ASUS Strix-F if I felt it gave me better performance than these Gigatbyte borads but for my usage I don't think it will. Any insight from big brained techie people would be appreciated.
My 11 year old i7 3700K build was great, and it still serves me well. When I built it, I took the time to understand the needs of a photo editing rig and the components that were available. Accordingly I have spent the last month studying the current components needed for a new photo-editing rig (heck I'd never heard of a NVMe drive). I only process one raw photo at a time using Lightroom and Photoshop, no large event photography batches, no video and no gaming. For years I have been using the ASUS bios auto-overclock feature in my ASUS P8Z77 mobo and that has helped me get more performance from the build. I was even able to survive with only the onboard graphics until I purchased a second 1440p monitor. However I am noticing that it is now slowing me down in Lightroom & Photoshop when I make use of the newer adjustment mask features...and also when I occasionally use Topaz Suite (which taxes my Radeon RX460). I have recently retired so I have plenty of free time now to monetize my hobby. I post on Facebook neighborhood groups and get weekly requests for prints from neighbors. I am going to buy a printer soon and also create photo books so I think the whole experience will be better on a snappier machine. My budget will be around US$2250 ....I have to purchase my components in inflated CDN dollars though.
I definitely will go with a i7 13700K though a i5 is probably the sweet spot. My decision is based on the fact that i7 has great single core performance and that is what is important in photo editing which simply 2D pixel pushing, not multi-core 3D gaming. Furthermore, I have the funds to buy a better CPU and if this rig can last a decade like the last one it will be wise to go with the more powerful one.
I had been agonizing over a costlier Z790 mobo with DDR5 vs. a cheaper mobo with DDR4.
But I have narrowed the selection down to 3 lower tier Gigabyte boards:
A) GIGABYTE Z790 UD AC
B)GIGABYTE Z790 GAMING X AX
C) GIGABYTE Z790 AORUS Elite
I can't really tell what differences they bring. I assume since I won't be OC'ing the i7 13700 that the VRMs while different are all sufficient.
WHY would people purchase the Elite over the UD AC. Is the Elite going to give better performance or logevity. Does the Elite have thicker board, better copper wiring, better capacitors/diodes or memory regulators?
I believe all three satisfy my i/o and M.2/SATA requirements
I plan to purchase two new NVMe SSDs and a new 8-12GB SATA HDD spinner as well as include 4 drives from my current build: My C:drive which is a Samsung 840 pro SATA 600, a Samsung 850 pro SATA 600 drive that I use as Lightroom catalogue/scratch drive and also 2 SATA HDD spinners with data.
I am happy to even spend the money to get a ASUS Strix-F if I felt it gave me better performance than these Gigatbyte borads but for my usage I don't think it will. Any insight from big brained techie people would be appreciated.