Gaming and photoshop PC

[neigoo]

Hello,

My intention is to replace my current PC with something capable of running games or photoshop / lightroom for a long time. I suspect that it's over specified for my use, but who doesn't want te best they can afford?

I suppose the core design for photoshop is:

• Fast processer
• Lots of Ram
• multiple fast storage devices.

The last one is based on my recent research where 3 or 4 fast drives are recommended:
1 Operating system - M.2
2 Photoshop / lightroom installation and scratch disk - SSD
3 Data - SSD

The theory is that the photoshop runs it's own memory manager (and the lightroom catalog) are separate from the Operating system / OS memory manager, so they don't bottleneck.


https://photographylife.com/the-ultimate-pc-build-for-photography-needs

http://www.imagescience.com.au/kb/q...+for+Photoshop+and+other+imaging+applications

Games / other programs will probably go onto #1 or #2 as I'm not sure they need to be separate from the OS.

Long term storage / music will go onto my NAS.

I think my main uncertainty is with regard to the motherboard. At the moment I'm sort of going, "i7, DDR4, anything that isn't the cheapest must be good enough...."

Any comments are welcomed.

Cheers

N
Case
InWIN GT1 BLACK GAMING CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Processor i7-6700 (3.4GHz) 8MB Cache
Motherboard
ASUS® Z170 PRO GAMING: ATX, LG1151, USB 3.1, SATA 6GBs
Free Item
ASUS ROG Sica Gaming Mouse PROMO (£29)
Memory (RAM)
32GB HyperX FURY DDR4 2133MHz (4 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
4GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 960 - DVI, HDMI, 3 x DP - 3D Vision Ready
Free Item
FREE RISE OF THE TOMB RAIDER with NVIDIA GeFORCE GTX 960 GPUs!
1st Hard Disk
500GB Samsung 850 EVO 2.5" SSD, SATA 6Gb/s (upto 540MB/sR | 520MB/sW)
Free Item
FREE TOM CLANCY'S: THE DIVISION with select SAMSUNG SSD's!
2nd Hard Disk
500GB Samsung 850 EVO 2.5" SSD, SATA 6Gb/s (upto 540MB/sR | 520MB/sW)
Free Item
FREE TOM CLANCY'S: THE DIVISION with select SAMSUNG SSD's!
M.2 SSD Drive
256GB SAMSUNG SM951 M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 2150MB/R, 1260MB/W)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Power Supply
CORSAIR 650W CS SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET (£69)
Processor Cooling
INTEL STANDARD CPU COOLER
Thermal Paste
STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Wireless/Wired Networking
WIRELESS 802.11 AC1900 1,300Mbps/5GHz, 600Mbps/2.4GHz PCI-E CARD (£49)
USB Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Operating System
Genuine Windows 10 Home 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79)
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft® Office® 365
Anti-Virus
BullGuard™ Internet Security - Free 90 Day License inc. Gamer Mode
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 6 to 8 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £1,406.00 including VAT and delivery.

 

[jerpers]

You can drop the motherboard down to the one below, still keeping USB 3.1. If it's only for OS, the m.2 only needs to be 128gb. I would definitely get at least the titan cooler for noise and if you can, the 970 GPU will greatly improve gaming.

 

[Oussebon]

the i7 6700k will offer better performance:
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1554?vs=1543
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article1481-page4.html

If going for the 6700k, take the Hyper 212 Evo cooler over the Titan as it would open the option for some overclocking.

Faster RAM would also help performance a little, and @32gb the step up is £13 for 2666MHz:
http://www.legitreviews.com/ddr4-me...finding-the-best-ddr4-memory-kit-speed_170340
http://www.hardwareunboxed.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1570
http://www.techspot.com/news/62780-ddr4-better-performance-value-skylake-put-test.html

A GTX 970 is about as powerful as a pair of 960s, so as well as being more powerful it's also better performance per £ in that sense.
https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_960_SLI/16.html

But if that's out of budget range (and I really would recommend prioritising the CPU, cooler, and RAM upgrades as it's easier and gives more returns to replace a GPU in future anyway) then you might want to drop down to a 2gb version of the GTX 960. The advantages of the 4gb version are situational at best:
http://www.gamersnexus.net/guides/1888-evga-supersc-4gb-960-benchmark-vs-2gb
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2015-nvidia-geforce-gtx-960-2gb-vs-4gb-review

 

[neigoo]

Thanks, I'll have another look.

Apart from the obvious speed increase of the M.2, Are there any benefts of increasing the capacity at 512 to allow some thing to go on it (and not the SSD)? Ram Drive?

Overclocking is unlikely. (My current PC is about 9 years old and running Vista with no hardware upgrades....).

The obvious upgrade future would be to add HDD for storage, but it may inherit one of the 2TB drives from the NAS (with the other going into a external backup caddy).

 

[jerpers]

With my M.2, I have noticed faster load times, particularly on cut scenes in games such as Need for Speed. I did some testing with my VR and a friends 970 GPU. The M.2 did smooth out and improve performance in a few intensive games but with my 980ti, there was no noticeable difference installing them on M.2 as opposed to my SSD. I do kinda wish I went for the 512Gb but instead I'll get another SSD down the line for storing my photos if needed.

 

[Oussebon]

A RAM drive is where you make Windows treat part of your RAM as storage and doesn't have much to do with your SSD capacity or speed. If that's what you were asking?
http://www.howtogeek.com/171432/ram...ey-are-and-why-you-probably-shouldnt-use-one/

Just a word on OCing. You can usually get the motherboard/ bundled software to overclock for you. The utilities/software have got quite good in the last few years, and can have various modes including quite conservative ones that nevertheless give a bump to performance.
http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/foru...2-asus-z97-lga1150-motherboard-review-15.html
http://techreport.com/review/28737/asus-z170-a-motherboard-reviewed/4
Intel even have their own tool, which is supposed to be decent: https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/24075
My point isn't that you absolutely must overclock. It's more that you're spending the money on the kit needed for overclocking anyway (a -k CPU, a high end mobo, after market cooler, a good PSU, a decent case, etc) so it's probably worth at least preserving the option.

 

[jerpers]

+1 to overclock. Mine from PCS failed for some reason, I found some tutorials online (I haven't dabbled in overclocking for nearly 20 years) it was dead easy. I used the auto boost overclock using the motherboard software first then tried the settings myself and ended up having my CPU running not only faster but also cooler with less voltage than stock settings.