New Computer Build

tcole1983

Well it took me a little while to collect parts as I saw them for decent prices.

23" viewsonic ips led monitor
New Logitech z323 speakers
Asrock z97 oc formula motherboard
I7-4790k cpu
16 gb 1866 (14900) ram
HD7870 2gb graphics card
Blu ray drive
2x 2TB hard drives
Still using an older 1 TB internal, 1 TB and 500 GB externals.

Still to come 500 GB ssd internal.

kanuck

Another great/useful topic. I am very close now to finally getting a new system for my Nikon pig D810. Does this sound like enough juice to start flying through file processing?

I7-4710 HQ
16 GB possibly 24 GB here?
1 TB SSD Samsung 850 EVO External Memory ($600 deal that I picked up already)
1 TB Installed Internal Memory.
2.50-3.30 GHZ
Graphics Controller NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980M
Video Memory Installed Size 4 GB


MSI, ASUS or custom built possibly in Seoul. These are the specs I am shooting for and I can get it done for about $1500-$1800, which is a great deal I think. I want this system to eat up my D810 files, but I also want it to be relevant for the next 5 years as well. Should I be safe do you think?

funtagraph

@kanuck Is the internal Memory also SSD? My PC is now 4 years old and still handling D800 / D810 files pretty good with 12 GB RAM, maybe 1GB video, 120 GB internal SSD for OS and all applications + 3 TB internal but no SSD of course, just normal HD. The only thing which is not fluent is the pretty crappy Sigma PhotoPro software which doesn't benefit of multicore and openGL (at least not without warning and eventually crashing).

And it's an iMac

Made me smile, the reasoning of the PC guys. "Macs of CEO under hidden attack" - you think it would be any better if it were Windows PCs with tons of apps eating up processing power just to prevent some - but never all - of these attacks?

Thanks also @killerbob and @haroldp for giving some excellent hints, just what I was looking for as I am up to update my Mac this year. And I just guess I'm not far away from an Retina 4k iMac. Stunning to see D810 files on it Lots of fun with your system, @tcole, just stay away of those viruses.

Killerbob

Those 5K iMacs are certainly nice. They are fast and they are stable. Buy it with as much RAM and internal SSD as you can afford from the get-go. I know with all bells and whistles it easily comes to USD3.500,- but it is marvelous machine.

If I was buying today, I might pick the 4GHz i7/32GB RAM/1TB Internal SSD/Radeon M295 combination over my Mac Pro... It is almost as expensive, it has 2 cores less, and "only" one graphics card, but it has a 5K monitor... It is simply gorgeous... I would still get an external TB2 PCIe expansion box, in order to have 2TB more of super fast storage.

funtagraph

Just read HP is also offering a 185dpi monitor (Z24s) with IPS panel. The downside of the gorgeous looking iMac is the lack of expansion. I could not run a SSD and a HD, it has to be one hybrid drive and I'm not very convinced of them. But for my purposes the 27" iMac would be enough for another couple of years.

Killerbob

That's resolved with Thunderbolt2... I would buy the iMac with the fastest internal SSD possible, which is the 1TB PCIe SSD. That's the fastest solution available, and 1TB is enough for OSX, apps, etc. Then I would get the Sonnet Echo Express III-D box http://www.sonnettech.com/PRODUCT/echoexpress3d.html. That is a Thunderbolt2 connected box which can hold 3 PCIe cards, like for instance 1 Sonnet Tempo Pro (w. 2x1TB SSDs in Raid0), and a 1TB Accelsior card. That's the combo I have in mine and that is super fast.

funtagraph

Sorry for the lack of information. On my phone late last night. I am in the process of getting my new computer up and running, but I will see what I can do for the images. Shooting RAW.

This was from that thread: - See more at: http://forum.nikonrumors.com/discussion/3888/picture-quality-at-extreme-dynamic-ranges#sthash.inosBIeD.dpuf

I don't want to make you angry, @tcole1983 but this sounds pretty much like a great windows experience. Had that, too. 10 years ago, before I got my first Mac Mini. I somehow don't miss the hunt for drivers, updates, weird settings, motherboard fixes… Best luck for you - no sarcasm intended

tcole1983

Oh I am fine. I don't mind it. I should have waited for the solid state drive (should be arriving any time now) and I was being lazy and not wanting to reinstall everything. Just plugging my old hard drive in didn't work. With the ssd it shouldn't take me much time to get everything up and running. I built my last computer so I know what goes into it. I have the computer running but because I plan on putting Windows on the ssd I am not bothering messing with everything yet. Mostly wanted to get the computer on and make sure everything was working.

manhattanboy

I don't want to make you angry, @tcole1983 but this sounds pretty much like a great windows experience. Had that, too. 10 years ago, before I got my first Mac Mini. I somehow don't miss the hunt for drivers, updates, weird settings, motherboard fixes… Best luck for you - no sarcasm intended

From experience I will tell you that taking apart the Mini is often more difficult than a PC!!!
You seem to be like a Mac expert so I am going to ask for your help... one of the things I have been struggling with is how to secure via firmware a self-encrypting drive that is not the boot drive on a Mac. What I want is the system to boot regularly and then require a firmware password when desired to gain access to a second SED. I am not wanting FV2...but rather a mechanism to control the drive's own self-encryption mechanism.
Thank you!!!!!!!!!!!

manhattanboy

That's resolved with Thunderbolt2... I would buy the iMac with the fastest internal SSD possible, which is the 1TB PCIe SSD. That's the fastest solution available, and 1TB is enough for OSX, apps, etc. Then I would get the Sonnet Echo Express III-D box http://www.sonnettech.com/product/echoexpress3d.html. That is a Thunderbolt2 connected box which can hold 3 PCIe cards, like for instance 1 Sonnet Tempo Pro (w. 2x1TB SSDs in Raid0), and a 1TB Accelsior card. That's the combo I have in mine and that is super fast.

The link is not click-able. Try clicking here

That is an awesome set-up, but also one that requires deep pockets. Jealous that this is your set-up, but for me and my humble life, I will get there four years down the road LOL.

Ironheart

I don't want to make you angry, @tcole1983 but this sounds pretty much like a great windows experience. Had that, too. 10 years ago, before I got my first Mac Mini. I somehow don't miss the hunt for drivers, updates, weird settings, motherboard fixes… Best luck for you - no sarcasm intended

From experience I will tell you that taking apart the Mini is often more difficult than a PC!!!
You seem to be like a Mac expert so I am going to ask for your help... one of the things I have been struggling with is how to secure via firmware a self-encrypting drive that is not the boot drive on a Mac. What I want is the system to boot regularly and then require a firmware password when desired to gain access to a second SED. I am not wanting FV2...but rather a mechanism to control the drive's own self-encryption mechanism.
Thank you!!!!!!!!!!!

My WD drive behaves exactly like this on my Mac. After I encrypted it, it now pops up a screen asking for a password after a reboot. I can also set it to remember the password. This is using the WD encryption software and driver.

JonMcGuffin

I'd say spend money on the display unit (27"+ 4K) and I second the storage recomendation and go reasonable on CPU, Video Card but then spring for RAM. 32Gb of RAM will go further. The brand new i7 CPU's look nice, but buy the less expensive one perhaps.

If you're the kind of person who can't tell the difference between an iPad w/Retina and one without, disregard my comment above. I for one can very easily see it immediately and the difference between the 5K iMAC and the other displays is astonishing. 4K when viewed at 12" - 18" distances on a 27" display is a must for us photo peeps IMO.

kanuck

So 32 GB of RAM to be on the safe side then? Geez that is going to be costly. Units are still selling with 8 GB and 16 if you are lucky. The upgrade option is done right in the shop and there are many build your own shops nearby as well. Funtagraph, ufortunately to keep the price down the internal drive is not an SSD. I already bought the external drive at the maximum of 1 TB for a great deal I thought at $600. I am hoping this will give me the speed I need. I would love to run the operating system, and all my adobe software off the external drive. How nice would that be? The speed would be shocking I wont know what to do with myself. I have been killing myself for over 2 years slogging through each processed image taking at least 20-30 minutes just to do a few layers. Awful..

Gforce graphics are not important for editing then I take it. Most units here have 840 or the 850. A few can be had with the new 975 card.

funtagraph

From experience I will tell you that taking apart the Mini is often more difficult than a PC!!!

Why would I want to tear it apart? the more "modern" a Mac is, the less "easy to tear apart". I'm not happy about this development of Apple design. I managed to put a SSD in my iMac (model 2010) and after 3 years, change the HD from 1 TB to 3 TB. I also managed to add a SSD in my "new" MacBook (model 2012!) which I preferred over the Retina type because here I could change RAM and add a SSD to the HD. But ask me to do so on a modern iMac or MacBook and you see my "Changing what???" face. As I said, I'm not a fan of this "Glue everything together, if one wants to change the configuration tell him the way to the next Apple store."

You seem to be like a Mac expert so I am going to ask for your help... one of the things I have been struggling with is how to secure via firmware a self-encrypting drive that is not the boot drive on a Mac. What I want is the system to boot regularly and then require a firmware password when desired to gain access to a second SED. I am not wanting FV2...but rather a mechanism to control the drive's own self-encryption mechanism.
Thank you!!!!!!!!!!!

Using a Mac for 10 years neither does make me a Mac Expert (I'll stay away from the console as far as I can) and especially nor an encryption expert, so I'm sorry to disappoint your expectation for my help but from a paranoid view I'd say nothing is more attractive to break in than an encrypted drive. Why do you not trust others not to steal your secret data but trust a manufacturer to help you with an encryption which has no backdoor? As I said I'm not an encryption expert but if I'd be interested in other people's secrets I'd found some brands for encryption hard- and software and offer the best tech at reasonable prices. Honeypot principle. I think best way to keep secrets is storing them in public.

tcole1983

Got 500 GB Samsung 850 evo installed yesterday. Getting hard drives all setup like I want. Shouldn't be too much longer and it will all be done.

Lighting fast so far. Total restart is like 30 seconds and I could make it quicker.

manhattanboy

Using a Mac for 10 years neither does make me a Mac Expert (I'll stay away from the console as far as I can) and especially nor an encryption expert, so I'm sorry to disappoint your expectation for my help but from a paranoid view I'd say nothing is more attractive to break in than an encrypted drive. Why do you not trust others not to steal your secret data but trust a manufacturer to help you with an encryption which has no backdoor?

Security is always best in layers. Someone can usually penetrate one layer with an exploit easily but getting through multiple layers is much tougher. I agree with you 100% about the back doors and hence relying on only software encryption like FV2 or bitlocker is weak.

In the end it may not matter as the newer rootkits basically have screwed security for everyone, https://trmm.net/Thunderstrike_31c3

PB_PM

New Logitech z323 speakers

Just picked up a set of these and it's a good choice! Maybe not super high end, but good enough for most uses! Just watch the base volume level, it has a real kick!

kanuck

Nice to hear tcole1983. So you are going with a 1 TB Internal and 500 GB external SSD drive right now then? The speed is decent with 16GB of RAM? This is very similar to what I am shooting for although 1 TB internal/1 TB External with as much RAM as I can afford. I am trying to swing for 32 GB if I can. Nice to hear its very fast for you. I bet you are pleased

Snowleopard

Before I get "hate" messages from Mac lovers, I learned photoshop on a Mac years ago back when MS-DOS exisited...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bhf8q3THToI

I am talking the days of a "real" mac. Mac Plus, Mac SE30, Mac Classic, Mac LC, Mac IIcx, and ci, Mac IIfx

But since that time, especially with Windows 7 and 8, there is no advantage to a Mac.

2 years ago, I needed to replace my full tower pc. I was faced with building another pc which I have done, going with a hex core, 64gb system that I built from buying parts.

But I also wanted a mobile editing solution. I looked at Apple, Dell, HP, Lenovo, all the major players people could think about.... but then it dawned on me, In my case I wanted something that would last 4-8 years and still keep up. That is a tough sell in a laptop.

So I looked at the most expensive Macbook Pro I could order from Apple, loaded, all the bells and whistles... It came out to about $6400 and that was for a loaded 15 inch Macbook because they stopped making the 17inch ones.

I am a photographer, Why do I want a tiny screen?

Then I got serious. For that type of money I started looking at Alienware, Clevo, Eurocom, Origin (The guys that sold Alienware to Dell started Origin).

You can get laptop's from these guys for as little as $1500, or as expensive as $8000 depending on what you want.

I settled on a Alienware M17xR4 (A 17 inch Alienware Laptop. $3500 included a 4 year, spills, theft, etc full coverage warranty.

The laptop has an i7, 4 core processor with 8mb cache, 32gb of ram, 2 hard drive bays that I run in raid, an mSATA port, blu-ray burner.

This laptop has no issues opening files from a D810 and does it fast with 2 year old technology. I have a dedicated video card also.

That is almost half the price of the Macbook Pro, it has a larger screen, double the ram, and potentially double the storage space,

When I bought it, I saved money by going with 750gb hard drives for 1.5TB in internal storage space. Now that SSD's are getting cheaper, I have been looking at putting a 1TB mSATA SSD in it for Windows, and two 1TB Samsung SSD's in raid 0 for storage of current projects I am working on.

So the next point is, what do I do when projects are done, I need a backup solution. In the past I have used external hard drives, but that has burned me when the drives eventually fail. Some of them are worse than others.

This left me with one other choice. A NAS. Well, if you want the best protection against hard drive failures, you need a NAS that supports raid 5 or 6. Raid 5 lets 1 drive fail and you can still recover the files. Raid 6 lets 2 drives fail and you can still recover the files.

Considering the size of the files these days, and the fact that I do a little 4k video editing, the 2 different NAS solutions I looked at where a Sysology Station DS1815+ (8 drives) 48 TB total with 6TB per drive, or a QNAP TS-879 Pro, which also takes 8 hard drives.

I'll put it this way, I have not had a hard drive fail in my NAS, but when 1or 2 of the drives do fail, all I have to do is pull them out, pop in new ones, let the image rebuild and I am still in business.

funtagraph

...I am talking the days of a "real" mac. Mac Plus, Mac SE30, Mac Classic, Mac LC, Mac IIcx, and ci, Mac IIfx
But since that time, especially with Windows 7 and 8, there is no advantage to a Mac.

I think you have your reasons to see it that way and I also think with each OS X since 10.6 we gonna find more bugs and malfunctions, including plain lack of quality in programming but in general I'm not the only one disagreeing. From the moment Apple went Unix, a lot of things improved. And from the moment Steve Jobs came back to Apple a lot of things sped up. He's gone and so is quality and ability to evolve. As Apple user I see them only chewing old gras these days, innovations don't happen the way Steve did.

"Since that time" and you're including the whole OS X story (and all crappy Windows versions from 95, ME, Vista) only shows me you live on a very different planet. Old school experiences on MacIntosh are the same as if you'd talk about MS DOS. I'm not defending a company which is bleeding money and focussing on cellphones but I'm grateful not having to deal with malware, bad drivers, corrupt fonts and just lousy interfaces for the last 10 years.

Snowleopard

...I am talking the days of a "real" mac. Mac Plus, Mac SE30, Mac Classic, Mac LC, Mac IIcx, and ci, Mac IIfx
But since that time, especially with Windows 7 and 8, there is no advantage to a Mac.

I think you have your reasons to see it that way and I also think with each OS X since 10.6 we gonna find more bugs and malfunctions, including plain lack of quality in programming but in general I'm not the only one disagreeing. From the moment Apple went Unix, a lot of things improved. And from the moment Steve Jobs came back to Apple a lot of things sped up. He's gone and so is quality and ability to evolve. As Apple user I see them only chewing old gras these days, innovations don't happen the way Steve did.

"Since that time" and you're including the whole OS X story (and all crappy Windows versions from 95, ME, Vista) only shows me you live on a very different planet. Old school experiences on MacIntosh are the same as if you'd talk about MS DOS. I'm not defending a company which is bleeding money and focussing on cellphones but I'm grateful not having to deal with malware, bad drivers, corrupt fonts and just lousy interfaces for the last 10 years.

I agree that Steve Jobs is what made Apple, and from a software release/update standpoint, the QA on their updates just isn't the same.

I am not sure if you have heard about "Next Step" or "Open Step". Next Computer was created when Steve Jobs left Apple the first time and is the pre-curser to the current Mac OS X. I actually play around with Open Step Mach for Intel in a virtual machine.

It is a great piece of almost forgotten history. I have been trying to get my hands on a Next Cube also; It's not going to run Photoshop, but it would be allot of fun and a conversation piece.

tcole1983

Nice to hear tcole1983. So you are going with a 1 TB Internal and 500 GB external SSD drive right now then? The speed is decent with 16GB of RAM? This is very similar to what I am shooting for although 1 TB internal/1 TB External with as much RAM as I can afford. I am trying to swing for 32 GB if I can. Nice to hear its very fast for you. I bet you are pleased

Well I actually have lots of drives now ;-)

Main C: is 500 GB Samsung 850 EVO SSD
Internal Secondaries are 2 x 2TB hitachi HDD, 1 x 1 TB Seagate HDD
External Secondaries are 1 x 1 TB HDD and 1 x 500 GB HDD

I haven't fully tested out everything, but it all seems quick. Programs open much faster, lightroom doesn't stutter at all when using sliders and photo export was almost instant. Restart is around 30 second on the slowest settings. I could have added another 16 GB RAM for $120ish which I might still do, and I can get another identical graphics card for $115 which would put them in crossfire around the geforce gtx titan which is a very expensive card...and would only have put me out $230. I can also overclock everything, but I haven't had time since I just got everything re installed and running.

New Logitech z323 speakers

Just picked up a set of these and it's a good choice! Maybe not super high end, but good enough for most uses! Just watch the base volume level, it has a real kick!

They sound good...I have them on right now. They replaced some cheap ~10 year old speakers so I am happy and I picked them up for $30 or so.

manhattanboy

I also think with each OS X since 10.6 we gonna find more bugs and malfunctions, including plain lack of quality in programming but in general I'm not the only one disagreeing.

The Mac is really frustrating right now... after all of the "Mac is great" posts here I bought one... tried to update the system software last night and it corrupted the hard drive... had to do some over the Net software re-installation of the OS (lost everything btw). AND I have a stick of ram malfunctioning...not sure why everyone loves the Mac, thus far my re-experience has been crappy software and hardware. That's not to say that the PC is without troubles though... the problem is all those bad people and states out there on the Net...

funtagraph

In my eyes, the Mac experience tends to come closer to "normal" PC experience. And after all, it was not wizardry which made those systems great, just a very strong aiming for perfection which no other hard- or software manufacturer had. At Steve's time. These days most of the magic is fading away (so maybe it WAS wizardry?)

@manhattanboy keep in mind lots of us Mac adorers fell in love with it a couple of years ago. There were unboxing ceremonies and Mac-forums were just so much more fun than the ones of PC victims. Currently, I have three of them. Still like the main beast but got some more grey hairs when Apple went grey (speaking of OS).

"Lost everything"? Well, "backup" is the right word for any OS, sorry. I admit, I won't recommend Mac these days for each person asking me about which PC to get. Windows 7 is very stable and hardware is cheap (it also looks cheap, sorry to say that)

manhattanboy

@funtagraph I did not lose all the important stuff, just frustrating to spend so much time properly setting up the Mac to have to do it all over again... the Mrs is already wondering why I bought one so this isn't helping the cause LOL. I also would not recommend Windows 7 to anyone; 8.1 Pro is more secure.