My PC is turning 80...in computer years!

[framer]

I'd been using a 4 y/o Zenbook Pro w/ 4K touch and none of the light weight ones had a touchscreen and almost no 4K screens.  I wanted a light weight but could not compromise on raw power.  Thank the heavens that the wife's laptop was 10+ years old and a program she been using no longer will allow you to run it with Win7.  I offered her my laptop and she was thrilled to get the touchscreen.  That is how I justify getting a new one for myself. 

 

Stay healthy, hope to be able to cruise again.

 

framer

[DCB9]

On 3/16/2020 at 1:19 PM, pierces said:

 

It was sprinkled here and there with some additions and edits but there's the final list:

 

CPU - Intel 1-i7-9700K
RAM - 2-2x16GB kits for 64GB -Crucial Ballistix Sport LT 3200 MHz DDR4 DRAM 
Motherboard - Asus ROG Strix Z390-E Gaming Motherboard
GPU - ASUS ROG STRIX GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER Overclocked
SSD - 2x XPG GAMMIX 1TB S11 Pro 3D NAND PCIe NVMe Gen3x4 M.2 2280 SSD
(one for boot and one for working directories)
HD - Seagate BarraCuda 6TB Internal Hard Drive HDD 5400 RPM 256MB Cache
CPU Cooler - Thermaltake Floe Triple Riing RGB 360 TT Premium Liquid cooler
Power Supply - Seasonic FOCUS Plus 750 Platinum SSR-750PX 750W
Case - Thermaltake Core P3 ATX Tempered Glass Gaming Computer Case Chassis

 

Glad you got some use out of a year's worth of my rambling! 🙂

 

Dave

 

Thanks for all the info.  I am currently upgrading my computer that I built six years ago and will also be using the i7-9700K and a similar, but not the same Asus motherboard.  I have been debating on whether to go with 32 or 64GB of RAM and finally settled on 32GB as none of the benchmarks seemed to warrant very much benefit with more RAM for the software I use..  I am wondering if you are seeing a performance boost by going with the full 64.  The main software I am running is Adobe Lightroom, Photoshop, Premier, and After Effects. 

 

Thanks for sharing the information on your build,, I have enjoyed following this thread

Another Dave

[pierces]

6 hours ago, DCB9 said:

 

Thanks for all the info.  I am currently upgrading my computer that I built six years ago and will also be using the i7-9700K and a similar, but not the same Asus motherboard.  I have been debating on whether to go with 32 or 64GB of RAM and finally settled on 32GB as none of the benchmarks seemed to warrant very much benefit with more RAM for the software I use..  I am wondering if you are seeing a performance boost by going with the full 64.  The main software I am running is Adobe Lightroom, Photoshop, Premier, and After Effects. 

 

Thanks for sharing the information on your build,, I have enjoyed following this thread

Another Dave

 

To be honest, I can't tell a difference in day to day Photoshop use. I see a huge decrease in Photoshop and Lightroom load times, but the drive configuration and overall system speed are likely the prime movers there. Despite the lack of Photoshop benchmarks you mentioned, I went with 64GB because I planned on doing a bit more with video where the extra RAM can contribute and the 32GB kit went on sale again. Mostly the last. The choice was "just in case" rather than "I think I need".

 

 

Dave

[DCB9]

7 hours ago, pierces said:

 

To be honest, I can't tell a difference in day to day Photoshop use. I see a huge decrease in Photoshop and Lightroom load times, but the drive configuration and overall system speed are likely the prime movers there. Despite the lack of Photoshop benchmarks you mentioned, I went with 64GB because I planned on doing a bit more with video where the extra RAM can contribute and the 32GB kit went on sale again. Mostly the last. The choice was "just in case" rather than "I think I need".

 

 

Dave

 

Thanks, maybe I will add the additional 32GB and add a bit of future proofing.  I also debated whether to use i9-9900k instead of the i7-9700k because the i9-9900 supports 16 thread.  I had read an article that said in the future that would become more and more important, but ultimately I decided to stick to the i7-9700.  Anyway, thanks for your comments.

Dave

[framer]

Seriously don't over look the AMD 9 x3900 as prices have come down.  I am more than thrilled with it's performance.

 

framer

[bobmacliberty]

Dave - Now that it's been a couple of months, is there anything that you would have done differently?  I'm getting ready to pull the trigger.  The i7 10700K is only about $50 more than the i7 9700K (although out of stock at normal prices and only in stock at gouging price levels) and 1200 vs. 1151 motherboards are about the same price with similar features.  I'm thinking that the newer CPU is a no brainer. 

 

I was originally only thinking of an RTX 2060 to save some money but will probably pay a little more for a 2060 Super or the 2070 to get the extra 2GB of RAM and a little bit of future headroom.  I'm not a gamer, and much of what I've read says that the GPU isn't a huge help for photo/video editing.  I think I'd rather invest in the CPU than the GPU.  I'm also planning for a quiet rig and will therefore want to spend more on the case (Fractal Design Define R6) and cooling/fans.  I don't care about RGB but as you noted, it seems to be the default for higher end parts.  Definitely doing dual NVMe SSDs and likely 2 X 16GB for RAM (might bump to 2 X 32GB).  The Supply Chain is pretty depleted right now (try finding a good power supply!) so I'll need to wait a few weeks for some parts.

 

Anything that you would do differently if you were to do it again?  Thanks again for this thread.  HUGELY helpful to me since I have not done a DIY in almost a decade and things have changed tremendously.

[pierces]

7 hours ago, bobmacliberty said:

Dave - Now that it's been a couple of months, is there anything that you would have done differently?  I'm getting ready to pull the trigger.  The i7 10700K is only about $50 more than the i7 9700K (although out of stock at normal prices and only in stock at gouging price levels) and 1200 vs. 1151 motherboards are about the same price with similar features.  I'm thinking that the newer CPU is a no brainer. 

 

I was originally only thinking of an RTX 2060 to save some money but will probably pay a little more for a 2060 Super or the 2070 to get the extra 2GB of RAM and a little bit of future headroom.  I'm not a gamer, and much of what I've read says that the GPU isn't a huge help for photo/video editing.  I think I'd rather invest in the CPU than the GPU.  I'm also planning for a quiet rig and will therefore want to spend more on the case (Fractal Design Define R6) and cooling/fans.  I don't care about RGB but as you noted, it seems to be the default for higher end parts.  Definitely doing dual NVMe SSDs and likely 2 X 16GB for RAM (might bump to 2 X 32GB).  The Supply Chain is pretty depleted right now (try finding a good power supply!) so I'll need to wait a few weeks for some parts.

 

Anything that you would do differently if you were to do it again?  Thanks again for this thread.  HUGELY helpful to me since I have not done a DIY in almost a decade and things have changed tremendously.

 

So far, no regrets. The cooling is amazing and the decision to skip PCIE 4 for the drives is unnoticeable with very fast boot and eyeblink program loading. The wall mounted, open Thermaltake case suits the location just fine and looks like art and tech had a pretty baby. I haven't even bothered to enable the reportedly awesome auto-overclocking of the Asus board. At this moment in time, I might go with the latest generation of i7 but nothing else.

 

Good luck on your build.

 

 

Dave

 

 

[SpotA]

Although I don't remember the topic you're talking about I can say with confidence that my computer is older than yours. I know it's nothing to be proud of but this old man still works as well as Mac. I bought it a long time ago, about 19 years ago, and during this time I never wanted to buy another one, even though it also had problems. For example, two months ago, he didn't want to open any program, not even a browser. This problem became global for me because I didn't finish one job order at that time and I urgently needed Internet access. I called the computer repairman and he told me what to do. It turned out that there was too much system garbage in the internal memory and therefore some functions did not work. In order for this to never happen he advised https://thinkmobiles.com/blog/best-registry-cleaner-tools/. This useful tool helps you deal with similar problems

[pierces]

Computers may be ageing faster than before...

 

 

Samsung's ne 980 Pro now pushes the PCIe 4.0 bus to 7000 Mb/s read and 6000 Mb/s write. That's double the top of the PCIe 3.0 offerings and way better than the 30% or so improvement offered by the earlier PCIe 4.0 drives. With intel soon moving to PCIe 4.0 built into the chipset, Nvidia will likely follow AMD's lead and offer 30x0 series cards in 4.0 bus versions.

 

I still maintain that my computer isn't obsolete until it won't do what I want it to do, but when the 3-4 year replacement cycle rolls around, it looks like parts shopping is going to be really, really fun!

 

And yes, my PC is still fast enough...for now. I almost picked up a game or two for it since the graphics card is pretty hefty, but the Xbox Series X just exploded onto the scene with some really remarkable specs and priced at $499, which is less than a decent graphics card upgrade. That's a screaming deal for a casual gamer.

 

Tech is really interesting these days.

 

Now if they would only announce the A7rV so I can have another upgrade path and cost/benefit balance to fret over! 🙂

 

Happy computing/shooting!

 

Dave

[masterdrago]

Totally agree "isn't obsolete until it won't do what I want it to do". I recall when a 24MB file from Lowell.edu took 20 minutes to fetch. Now the same file is ~200MB and only takes a few seconds. It can still be about raw processor power. It took near 30 minutes to import the orbital elements of 3500+ comets and using todays elements evolve all of them to the positions they were in 1977 using the gravitational influence of all the planets, moons and major asteroids as gravitational perturbers. My main desktop pc is still running W7Pro64 with 16GB RAM with an Intel core i5 and a 2gig Quadro K620 video card. Still works for me, although I did upgrade to a W10 laptop w32GB RAM - top of the line at the time - to edit H265 video files.

 

And cameras.... not long ago picked up a Sony RX100VI. Wishing now I had waited for the VII

[pierces]

I guess it's time to close the book on this thread. I learned a lot researching the content and ended up with a really nice computer that has exceeded my expectations. I hope this helped others navigate the techno maze of available options where computers are concerned.

 

Next cycle starts in H2 2022 with component collection and assembly in Q1 2023.

 

Probably...

 

🙂

 

Happy computing!

 

Dave