Workstation specification: reverting to a PC from an iMac

I'm about to replace a 27" iMac (circa 2012) and am thinking of reverting back to a pc and Windows. I'd appreciate comments on the basic specification below:

CPU AMD Ryzen 5 2600 Six Core CPU
Motherboard ASUS® PRIME A320M-K: Micro-ATX
RAM 16GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 2933MHz (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card1GB NVIDIA GEFORCE 710 - DVI, HDMI, VGA
M.2 SSD Drive 256GB ADATA SU800 M.2 2280 (560 MB/R, 520 MB/W)
DVD/BLU-RAY Drive16x BLU-RAY WRITER DRIVE, 16x DVD ±R/±RW
Power SupplyCORSAIR 550W TXm SERIES™ SEMI-MODULAR 80 PLUS®
Windows 10 Professional 64 Bit

The pc will be used for office work and some photo-editing, but not gaming. In time I'll be adding extra storage drives that will be migrated from another computer hence the over capacity on the power supply.

I may want to dual boot the system between Win 10 and Linux Mint. I'm undecided whether to install both operating systems on the M2 SSD, or whether to install each OS to its own SSD that can be interchanged by using a caddy system such as an Icy Dock. Thoughts on that idea would be appreciated too. I see the downside as being lower speed, but the plus side that the tow systems shouldn't ever corrupt each other as they are physically separate and never in the pc at the same time.

HDDS or SSDs take very little power, so no need to get a bigger PSU for adding drives later. I assume that mobo will take two m2 drives, so you could have one for the Linux and one for the other thing that way, if you are worried about them not playing well together you could always disconnect one drive when installing the other system then have both connected, there should not be a problem after that.

I dismissed the idea of having two separate M2 drives as I wasn't sure that they would boot successfully: wouldn't the OS system on the default boot drive always be the one to fire up and never the second? With physically removable SSDs, only one OS would ever be present.

What are people's thoughts regarding the graphics card option ? Would something a little better be more suitable or are more expensive graphics cards only necessary for gaming?

Providing you have fast boot disabled i would not think there would be much of a problem. If you have the most used OS at the head of the boot order all you have to do when going to the other is go into the boot order once you power up, f7 on a lot of machines or f2 for the BIOS and select the boot drive that way.
Not sure about a better GPU, a quick search has not shown either GIMP or Photoshop requiring anything much but it may well depend on exactly what sort of editing.

Maybe I am over thinking the graphics card issue, it's always easy to think one needs to have something better ! I was originally going down the path of a Ryzen 2700 X CPU but then realised I would probably be better off going with the R5 and spending the saving on faster memory and M2 drives.

I'm not sure if the chosen motherboard takes two M2 drives, I'll have to go and look into that. If it doesn't, what would be a good alternative?

For photo editing a good CPU is needed, so I would check carefully about that. I have little knowledge of the Ryzen series, unfortunately years of AMD seemingly being happy to make second-rate stuff put me off them and I got used to intel, although I realise the Ryzen and threadrippers are great CPUs I cannot see me changing, especially as i have just bought a rig with an i9 in.

The details specs for the mobo should be on the config page, otherwise hopefully someone like Oussebon will answer for you, I am fairly new to the desktop world again (before my i9 rig my last desk top was when XP was new) so not clued up enough in some areas.

I'll have another look at the CPU too, maybe Ryzen 7 is back on the menu.

Does anyone know if the lifetime of a M2 SSD is something that should give cause for concern if used to host the OS? I tend to keep my computers for many years

stripey said:

I'll have another look at the CPU too, maybe Ryzen 7 is back on the menu.

Does anyone know if the lifetime of a M2 SSD is something that should give cause for concern if used to host the OS? I tend to keep my computers for many years

Click to expand...

M2’s have pretty much the same lifetime as HDD’s now.

Well, I think I have settled on two M2 hard drives, probably the ADATA 256 Gb types, but am still pondering the CPU and motherboard. I'm trying to convince myself that i don't need the Ryzen 7 2700X and 470X chipset mobo. Am I correct, or just deluding myself for the sake of saving a few pounds in the short term ?

stripey said:

Well, I think I have settled on two M2 hard drives, probably the ADATA 256 Gb types, but am still pondering the CPU and motherboard. I'm trying to convince myself that i don't need the Ryzen 7 2700X and 470X chipset mobo. Am I correct, or just deluding myself for the sake of saving a few pounds in the short term ?

Click to expand...

I wouldn't recommend the ADATA ones, there the same speeds as an old SATA SSD, but more expensive, literally pointless.

They transfer at around 550mbs, whereas most NVME M2 drives like the samsungs/Intels transfer at around 4 times those speeds for the same cost (roughly)

Suggestions on a suitable motherboard would be very much welcomed: online reviews of Ryzen 2nd gen motherboards seem to be few and far between and not always useful...

I'm torn between a full size ATX board or a mini-ITX, though if the latter then it should have the capacity to handle 2 M2 drives. An option I am considering is setting up the system without M2 drives initially, using interchangeable SSDs in an ICY Dock unit to house the OS. M2 drives could be added at a later stage once I understand them better and the price / performance ratio improves.