Question Photography Build - Do I have this straight?

[rumplestilts]

From what I'm reading up here, if I'm building a machine for photography purposes (I use Alien Skin Exposure which can use up to 8 cores - so they allege - but doesn't really take advantage of high-end GPUs), I should spend my $$ on a strong, efficient power supply, a fast multi-core CPU, fast storage (for both system and data which I plan to separate), and then a decent GPU like an Nvidia 1080(?). Alien Skin says they are starting to add GPU-offloading (if that's the proper phrase) which would speed up their software.

So I'm thinking a quiet case ("quiet is in the brand name but I don't remember the model), a 750W 90% PSU, an AMD Ryzen 9 3900X, 32GB of RAM (you can never have too much RAM), M.2 boot drive, SSD data drive, and the above-mentioned 1080 GPU. I might prefer an "all-AMD" solution with a Radeon GPU simply because it seems more likely I'll not have issues if the CPU/GPU are from the same "family", so to speak. I was thinking the Ryzen 7 3800X would be more efficient but at a slight cost in speed. The 750W PS might seem overkill but I might want to add more internal drives so why not be prepared?

I'll mention that the machine I'm coming from is an HP Envy 750 with a Core i7-4690 (might be 4790), 16GB of RAM, and a Samsung 850 Pro SSD boot drive. (No M.2 available with this older Kaili2 motherboard.)

Suggestions gratefully accepted. I rarely do any video editing (and only then for a few home videos - nothing Pro-level in any manner) and I do -no- gaming of any sort. This machine will be doing photo-editing and a bit of web-surfing/eMail.

Thanks!
Barry

 

[Lutfij]

You could work with an RTX 2070 to keep yourself up to speed on technology. Samsung's 970 Evo Plus can be a drive meant for purchase though there are other contenders.

You're also going to have to include a budget so we can start laying down some builds for your intended usage.

 

[rumplestilts]

Firstly: Thanks for your kind reply.

Re: Budget - I was thinking that about $1600 or so would provide enough $$ for such a build. Here's a parts list I crafted:

Component		Selection	Price
CPU		AMD Ryzen 9 3900X 3.8 GHz 12-Core Processor	$499.00
Motherboard		Gigabyte X570 AORUS ELITE ATX AM4 Motherboard	$199.99
Memory		G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory	$149.99
Storage		Samsung 970 Evo Plus 500 GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive	$109.89
Video Card		MSI GeForce RTX 2070 8 GB Video Card	$429.99
Case		Phanteks Enthoo Pro ATX Full Tower Case	$99.99
Power Supply		EVGA SuperNOVA G3 750 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply	$119.99
Total:	$1608.84

I saved it as a "private" build but if it would be helpful to make it public, please let me know.
Some reasons I chose what I did:
CPU - I figured the 3900X, as the top of the line, seemed right; why have to upgrade from a lesser CPU later when this is available now?
Motherboard - Frankly, I don't have a clue which one would be best.
Memory - you can't have too much. I did read somewhere that DDR4-3000 was all this CPU could handle so I'm a bit confused.
Storage - Anything wrong with the Samsung? I have plenty of 2.5" SSDs that would find their way into this build. Also have a couple of 8TB HDs that could be dropped in.
Video Card - Taking Lufij's advice here.
Case - plenty of internal and external bays; good reviews.
Power Supply - 750 watts is overkill (according to the PCPartsPicker page) but it will handle whatever stuff I toss inside the case.
(Windows license - have one already.)

I'll note that I'm not necessarily married to the concept of building this myself; if a company like "ibuypower", etc. was able to craft such a machine for me, I'd probably prefer that. (Any "builder" suggestions are welcomed, too.)

Thanks very much.

Barry