Hi all, Looking over most of the build guides out there they mostly all focus on bang for the buck gaming. However, I'm. Trying to build a PC for my father who has zero interest in games and just wants photoshop load in less than 5 mins ( he currently has a core 2 duo and a 5400 rpm drive!) I'm happy with disks/ram/case/psu etc but I just don't know what cpu / mobo would be the best thing to go for (and or intel etc) Any help would be appreciated! Thanks, Buz
You'll need to replace the RAM, but there are some stellar bargains on Gen 1 & 2 Ryzen CPUs, which will only get better when the next gen launches next month. The CPU with a motherboard, 16GB RAM and decent sized SSD can easily be had for well under £500 - I'd seriously consider replacing the PSU too, if it's age is comparable to the rest of his current rig.
you're looking at something in the general area of this - https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/7HFwLJ Gives you £100 to play with if you need more storage, new case/psu, better cooler... or go for the 2600 [if you can't/don;t want tot wait to see what 3rd gen ryzen brings] if you can source a suitable gpu to go with. EDIT: Semi-related, as of v1903 Windows 10 does support certain types of RAW image in explorer - linky
Hey both, thanks for the awesome feedback! This was what I was thinking of before I put this thread up - https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/BjZ9bX (looks semi similar to RedFlames) - but I guess it needs a GPU as there's no integrated graphics yet on the 3 series AMD chips? RAM wise - does it make much of a difference going between 2400 and 3200 (there doesn't actually seem to be much in it price wise)
For IGPU you will need either the 2200g or 2400g. From memory replacements have been announced as part of the refresh but I can't recall the details. For non gaming the difference in RAM speed may be less obvious (in the context of what the op's father is coming from), but given the relative small price different I would go for the faster RAM every time. It might be worth going for a 2600 over a 2400g and picking up a cheap GPU from CeX or online if the CPU's can be had for similar budgets.
Does any of his photo applications use GPU acceleration or benefit from multicore? That push you down a certain road, I know some use CUDA, so will use internal intel GPU etc.
Lightroom and photosop both use them - but it's not massivly important so i think an iGPU would be fine?
I only have experience with lightroom and I think the GPU usage is restricted to some of the tools in the develop module only. The main thing is the RAM (lightroom will eat up as much as you give it) and the CPU. For tasks like importing, creating previews and exporting it'll use all the cores / threads you have. For the actual process of editing images it works best with higher clock speeds. I think it's still the case that Intel beats out AMD for lightroom so if it was a rig purely for lightroom then maybe Intel would be the way forward but personally I would probably still go with AMD for the budget.
