Is this Windows system all I need for photos?

ADW02 said:

What makes all of this truly crazy is that for four years in a row the biggest selling home entertainment product has been 4k television. Today, 4k TVs can be quite inexpensive, and I would say comprise the vast majority of all TV sales in any particular store. So, with all of these 4k TVs in peoples' homes, where's all the 4k content? Go figure.

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Disney, Netflix, Amazon all stream in 4k, the latter two create content in 4k. Not as good as the discs, but still an improvement over bluray. And for those whose TV size or viewing distance is such that the resolution improvement is hard to see, the color improvement is not, esp with the OLEDs.

One element holding back 4k discs, aside from the general trend towards subscription models, is that quite a few movies are created in 2k to enable easy CGI, so their uplift to 4k is hardly different from the TV doing it on a bluray. Still the HDR gains, but people are reluctant to pay extra for the same effective resolution, and lots of websites named '4k real or fake' have emerged.

The older movies, filmed in actual film, have strongest potential. For newer, need to read those audophile type reviews.

And of course, if the movie is a rom com, HDR and resolution are kind of irrelevant. Just get the blu-ray. Me personally, can't slum it at DVD resolutions anymore.

kelpdiver said:

ADW02 said:

What makes all of this truly crazy is that for four years in a row the biggest selling home entertainment product has been 4k television. Today, 4k TVs can be quite inexpensive, and I would say comprise the vast majority of all TV sales in any particular store. So, with all of these 4k TVs in peoples' homes, where's all the 4k content? Go figure.

Click to expand...

Disney, Netflix, Amazon all stream in 4k, the latter two create content in 4k. Not as good as the discs, but still an improvement over bluray. And for those whose TV size or viewing distance is such that the resolution improvement is hard to see, the color improvement is not, esp with the OLEDs.

One element holding back 4k discs, aside from the general trend towards subscription models, is that quite a few movies are created in 2k to enable easy CGI, so their uplift to 4k is hardly different from the TV doing it on a bluray. Still the HDR gains, but people are reluctant to pay extra for the same effective resolution, and lots of websites named '4k real or fake' have emerged.

The older movies, filmed in actual film, have strongest potential. For newer, need to read those audophile type reviews.

And of course, if the movie is a rom com, HDR and resolution are kind of irrelevant. Just get the blu-ray. Me personally, can't slum it at DVD resolutions anymore.

Click to expand...

You've brought up some excellent points, but I'm not sure of some things. My understanding was the Netflix couldn't stream in true 4k because the bandwidth wouldn't allow for it. If I remember correctly, I believe I read that on weekend nights Netflix chews up two-thirds of the American broadcast energy grid. I find that hard to believe, but the usage may be such that there is just no way a full 4k signal could be streamed to customers. Even so, seeing Netflix "4k" on my brother's 65" LG OLED TV was indeed very good. I thought it was better than 1080p, and close to 4k, and I would guess that for most people that would be good enough. Certainly the picture would be a big improvement over 1080i. Myself, I've seen Disney's version of 4k on my own 2019 65" LG OLED, and it was really quite good. I would guess, then, that most people would be happy with streaming at its highest capability.

As for discs, I don't know how many of today's movies are upscaled 2K, which may be on about the level of streaming quality, but I think studios may be having second thoughts on what they're doing. On an increasing basis, it appears that older movies are being transferred from film to 8k digital, and being down-sampled to 4k, providing a stunning picture. Such movies include 'Spartacus' and 'Lawrence of Arabia'. And an increasing number of modern movies may also be resorting to 4k, perhaps in a last-ditch effort to compete with streaming.

But I think that ultimately streaming will win out, and with greater technology for delivering digital information it will reach the level of true 4k with HDR. And that can only be a good thing, in my opinion. Even if a rental cost is something like $5 for movie, that beats spending up to $32 to own it on disc, when most people will only watch the disc once or twice in their lifetimes.

[sarcasm]

Just buy a Mac!

Just buy a Mac!

They're just better!! OK?

They just ARE, OK? They just ARE!

They're the industry standard!

They're just better! They just ARE! So, just buy a Mac!!!!

Everyone in graphics uses a Mac!!!

WHY? WHY? Because they're the industry standard!

WHY? Because they're just better! They just ARE!!!

WHY? Ummmm, because viruses, and, They just ARE!! OK!?!?!?!?!?!

So, just buy a Mac!!!!!

[/sarcasm] :-D

ADW02 said:

But I think that ultimately streaming will win out, and with greater technology for delivering digital information it will reach the level of true 4k with HDR. And that can only be a good thing, in my opinion. Even if a rental cost is something like $5 for movie, that beats spending up to $32 to own it on disc, when most people will only watch the disc once or twice in their lifetimes.

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If you're only going to watch a movie once or twice, you shouldn't buy it. Waste of money, waste of resources, clutter to deal with. Streaming services, even if it's pay per view, is the winner in nearly every regard.

When I buy a disc, I digitize it myself, and stream on the local network, at least at bluray resolution. (I need to button down a few things to get 4k ripped and streaming.) But I don't want to need a disc player at every TV, and I certainly don't want to have to keep track of 1000 discs. They're boxed in the garage. So legal (*DMCA not withstanding), but convenient. No issues with streaming services swapping broadcast rights, the occasional outages, or the unpredictable quality.

For the services, it's not really about 4k vs 2k (and 8k to come), it's bit rate. They can make economic decisions just like the airlines, where they measure the profit gain from subtracting one peanut from the snack. I find this unfortunate, because they the service, the movie industry, and the public all prefer streaming, albeit for very different reasons. Discs will follow the path of Laserdisc, just more slowly, I believe. Maybe some genius will figure out a practical model for ad hoc disc burns that will remove the capital costs of releasing a title and managing the inventory of product. But the studios don't want customers to own anything. It's not a technical problem, it's an economics one.

CAcreeks said:

CAcreeks said:

In the meantime I'm going to ask a DELL sales rep about CMR and SMR.

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Sorry, I don't understand the acronym CMR. Shingled magnetic recording only applies to HDD and as I recall you will order SSD.

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The OP is ordering a system that has both a M.2 PCIe SSD and a HDD. CMR vs. SMR might be an issue for the HDD.

Tom_N said:

CAcreeks said:

ADW02 said:

In the meantime I'm going to ask a DELL sales rep about CMR and SMR.

Click to expand...

Sorry, I don't understand the acronym CMR. Shingled magnetic recording only applies to HDD and as I recall you will order SSD.

Click to expand...

The OP is ordering a system that has both a M.2 PCIe SSD and a HDD. CMR vs. SMR might be an issue for the HDD.

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Yeah, I misremembered a post where somebody recommended, and ADW02 threatened to buy, a 2TB SSD.

I have no opinion on SMR.

On my laptop, admittedly Linux, lower performance of HDD is hardly noticeable. I would not pay $400 (approx.) for 2TB HDD at this time.

I'd still like to know what "Module: No FGABaseXPS MT 8940" means, but it's not important.

kelpdiver said:

Vunite said:

rickpoole said:

The two things that caught my eye are:

1. This only has a 500w power supply. The CPU and graphics boards at full use can pull pretty close to 400w. Add in the other parts and this power supply will be working pretty hard at times to power everything which could lead to strange crashes. I'd suggest upgrading one or two sizes bigger power supply if that is an option. Slightly bigger power supplies don't add much cost and they will run a little cooler.

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Sorry, that is just wrong. That CPU has a TDP of 65W and a 2060 pulls around 160W max. Even with all the other components in this system, the 500W is way, way enough, even overspecced.

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there's a lot of wrong here, as well. The 2060 Super is 175W, not 160. And the 65W TDP figure from Intel is at base speed. Their dirty little lie. When cores run at turbo, power draw steps up. So that 65W could be closer to 100 at its peak.

Throw in 25 for the MB (being optimistic), 40 for the 3 drives, and we'regetting into the mid 300s. 70% loading is efficient, but not a lot of margin for degradation over the years, and obviously a show stopper to installing a 3080 next spring.

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That feels a bit nitpicky, given we're still way under spec (yes I overread the "super" .. not a biggie, though). Yes, if you put a 3080 into the machine, you'll need a somewhat bigger PSU. But the system has more than enough power for what it is. Should the OP in the future want an upgrade, buy a bigger PSU (assuming Dells are ATX sized and can be simply replaced). If Dell doesn't put in cheap PSUs into their PCs (I will assume here they don't), then no degradation will endanger that system over the next 10+ years, either. I build my PCs since over 30 years and never ever had any PSU failure or issue whatsoever, and I don't overspec. But I also don't buy cheap noname components. If details on PSUs are needed, better check jonnyguru.com .. although I think they might have stopped, I'm not sure. but those people know PSUs.

Vunite said:

kelpdiver said:

Vunite said:

rickpoole said:

The two things that caught my eye are:

1. This only has a 500w power supply. The CPU and graphics boards at full use can pull pretty close to 400w. Add in the other parts and this power supply will be working pretty hard at times to power everything which could lead to strange crashes. I'd suggest upgrading one or two sizes bigger power supply if that is an option. Slightly bigger power supplies don't add much cost and they will run a little cooler.

Click to expand...

Sorry, that is just wrong. That CPU has a TDP of 65W and a 2060 pulls around 160W max. Even with all the other components in this system, the 500W is way, way enough, even overspecced.

Click to expand...

there's a lot of wrong here, as well. The 2060 Super is 175W, not 160. And the 65W TDP figure from Intel is at base speed. Their dirty little lie. When cores run at turbo, power draw steps up. So that 65W could be closer to 100 at its peak.

Throw in 25 for the MB (being optimistic), 40 for the 3 drives, and we'regetting into the mid 300s. 70% loading is efficient, but not a lot of margin for degradation over the years, and obviously a show stopper to installing a 3080 next spring.

Click to expand...

That feels a bit nitpicky, given we're still way under spec (yes I overread the "super" .. not a biggie, though). Yes, if you put a 3080 into the machine, you'll need a somewhat bigger PSU. But the system has more than enough power for what it is. Should the OP in the future want an upgrade, buy a bigger PSU (assuming Dells are ATX sized and can be simply replaced). If Dell doesn't put in cheap PSUs into their PCs (I will assume here they don't), then no degradation will endanger that system over the next 10+ years, either. I build my PCs since over 30 years and never ever had any PSU failure or issue whatsoever, and I don't overspec. But I also don't buy cheap noname components. If details on PSUs are needed, better check jonnyguru.com .. although I think they might have stopped, I'm not sure. but those people know PSUs.

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To comment myself: Dell has many options, so I'm not sure, but I do think this PC does not use ATX format for it's PSUs, but a tinier one, so going 3080 may be out of question (unless they use a rarer standard one could find a more powerful PSU for). So if you should be interested into going extreme on the GPU (which I don't see you going, since you're not into gaming and the impact on your Photo work by a GPU may be not that important anyway), you'd probably have to go with a standard component builder. But I really would question someones decision in buying a 3080 for photo editing.

Consider getting a Mac.

Photodog2 said:

Consider getting a Mac.

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You might want to back this up with a few reasons. Otherwise it just sounds like you try to instigate an OS flame war.

Vunite said:

Photodog2 said:

Consider getting a Mac.

Click to expand...

You might want to back this up with a few reasons. Otherwise it just sounds like you try to instigate an OS flame war.

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I'm not an IT person. I'm just a user who used Windows from the 80s to 3 years ago. Then I switched to Macs and its been a revelation in terms of having something that just works. I'll let the tech geeks argue about the technology.

Photodog2 said:

Vunite said:

Photodog2 said:

Consider getting a Mac.

Click to expand...

You might want to back this up with a few reasons. Otherwise it just sounds like you try to instigate an OS flame war.

Click to expand...

I'm not an IT person. I'm just a user who used Windows from the 80s to 3 years ago. Then I switched to Macs and its been a revelation in terms of having something that just works. I'll let the tech geeks argue about the technology.

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Yes, if you're opinion is based on what windows was in the 80ies, I get it. But we're not in Kansas anymore You can consider Macs, it's not wrong, but they're not the rulers in the media world anymore, just an alternative, if you like the OS and Apples way of handling its customers.

ADW02 said:

By the way, the price for the dark charcoal setup is the same as the crystal white, so I switched to that. And as for financing, it's just $38 a month on my credit card, so I'll probably go ahead with the purchase.

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Hmm, $1500 @ $40/mo...lets see, that's about 40 months to pay for it... how much interest are you paying your friendly neighbourhood bank?

Sure charge it, but pay it off at the end of the 1st month and spend the interest on something worthwhile...

You mention 2 internal drives, an SSD and a HD.

What is your backup strategy? Do you have duplicate copies of all data (and never, ever, put data on the boot drive)... Better, 3 copies with one stored off-site.

Spend the interest you save on a backup system (HDs, not SSD).

Richard

Vunite said:

Photodog2 said:

Vunite said:

Photodog2 said:

Consider getting a Mac.

Click to expand...

You might want to back this up with a few reasons. Otherwise it just sounds like you try to instigate an OS flame war.

Click to expand...

I'm not an IT person. I'm just a user who used Windows from the 80s to 3 years ago. Then I switched to Macs and its been a revelation in terms of having something that just works. I'll let the tech geeks argue about the technology.

Click to expand...

Yes, if you're opinion is based on what windows was in the 80ies, I get it. But we're not in Kansas anymore You can consider Macs, it's not wrong, but they're not the rulers in the media world anymore, just an alternative, if you like the OS and Apples way of handling its customers.

Click to expand...

I hope I'm not getting into the middle of what might turn out to be a flame war (I thought those things had long ago faded into extinction), but I can't see the sense of changing just for the sake of changing. My current DELL XPS, which is at least six years old, hasn't had a problem in all the time I've owned it, and I've put it through a lot of strain with photographic manipulation. I can't recall a single crash or slowdown when using the software that was current for its day.

In my previous posts I'd mentioned that I thought something was indeed wrong with my computer, as the new filters I'd bought were running quite slowly. But a tech agent ran it through its paces and declared that it was in perfect condition for using the software it was designed for; it simply couldn't keep up anymore. He strongly recommended against trying to install new hardware, as the motherboard was just too old.

That being said, there is no doubt in my mind that Apple makes great computers, but how they may be superior to PCs now I can't imagine. The days of crashing every five minutes when a person would put the slightest strain on a PC died out at least 65 million years ago, along with the dinosaurs.

Even so, if there is a problem with the new DELL I have sufficient time to return it for a refund, and then maybe I'll look more closely at what a Mac has to offer.

Richard James said:

ADW02 said:

By the way, the price for the dark charcoal setup is the same as the crystal white, so I switched to that. And as for financing, it's just $38 a month on my credit card, so I'll probably go ahead with the purchase.

Click to expand...

Hmm, $1500 @ $40/mo...lets see, that's about 40 months to pay for it... how much interest are you paying your friendly neighbourhood bank?

Sure charge it, but pay it off at the end of the 1st month and spend the interest on something worthwhile...

You mention 2 internal drives, an SSD and a HD.

What is your backup strategy? Do you have duplicate copies of all data (and never, ever, put data on the boot drive)... Better, 3 copies with one stored off-site.

Spend the interest you save on a backup system (HDs, not SSD).

Richard

Click to expand...

Richard, you are indeed correct about the payment strategy of a new PC, as was my Credit Union. Paying the minimum wage to the end of the note would be about as dumb as possible, and I believe would mean paying about twice what the computer first sold for. The reason I mentioned that, however, was to find out if I would have any trouble paying the minimum due amount if an emergency suddenly hit. I don't foresee anything, as I have a nice pension, social security and great lifetime insurance coverage, but one never really knows. I could actually pay it off immediately, and I suppose I should, but I thought I'd wait until tax return time.

And I always like to think ahead. When I bought my 2015 Chevy Malibu three years ago, I also purchased an additional 100,000-mile bumper-to-bumper warranty. So far, with just 43,000 miles on it (the warranty is in effect for 125,000 miles or 96 months), I've had a thousand dollars of repairs done, despite the fact that I baby my car. As I have diabetes, my doctor has me strictly quarantined, but when a vaccine is approved and available for the coronavirus, I'll put a lot of miles on the car. That extended warranty might be the best thing I ever bought.

And yes, an external backup drive is important. I have a Western Digital 4TB external drive, which runs at 3.0, so for the moment I think I'm covered. But that would mean storing my pictures on the 2TB internal HD and 4TB external drive. I'd think that would be okay for now, but I wonder if another external drive might also be a good idea.

Thanks for your input; I really appreciate it.

ADW02 said:

Richard James said:

ADW02 said:

By the way, the price for the dark charcoal setup is the same as the crystal white, so I switched to that. And as for financing, it's just $38 a month on my credit card, so I'll probably go ahead with the purchase.

Click to expand...

Hmm, $1500 @ $40/mo...lets see, that's about 40 months to pay for it... how much interest are you paying your friendly neighbourhood bank?

Sure charge it, but pay it off at the end of the 1st month and spend the interest on something worthwhile...

You mention 2 internal drives, an SSD and a HD.

What is your backup strategy? Do you have duplicate copies of all data (and never, ever, put data on the boot drive)... Better, 3 copies with one stored off-site.

Spend the interest you save on a backup system (HDs, not SSD).

Richard

Click to expand...

Richard, you are indeed correct about the payment strategy of a new PC, as was my Credit Union. Paying the minimum wage to the end of the note would be about as dumb as possible, and I believe would mean paying about twice what the computer first sold for. The reason I mentioned that, however, was to find out if I would have any trouble paying the minimum due amount if an emergency suddenly hit. I don't foresee anything, as I have a nice pension, social security and great lifetime insurance coverage, but one never really knows. I could actually pay it off immediately, and I suppose I should, but I thought I'd wait until tax return time.

Click to expand...

With time payment, the key thing is "The Future Value of a Series of Payments", which is a standard calculation that you can look up. Bad news is that after 40 months, you easily have paid out $2500 for a computer that has depreciated to $500 value.

ADW02 said:

And I always like to think ahead. When I bought my 2015 Chevy Malibu three years ago, I also purchased an additional 100,000-mile bumper-to-bumper warranty. So far, with just 43,000 miles on it (the warranty is in effect for 125,000 miles or 96 months), I've had a thousand dollars of repairs done, despite the fact that I baby my car. As I have diabetes, my doctor has me strictly quarantined, but when a vaccine is approved and available for the coronavirus, I'll put a lot of miles on the car. That extended warranty might be the best thing I ever bought.

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I tend to avoid additional warranties, as they usually lock you into expensive and mandatory regular services. Unless you do a lot of miles, 2-yearly services are OK.

ADW02 said:

And yes, an external backup drive is important. I have a Western Digital 4TB external drive, which runs at 3.0, so for the moment I think I'm covered. But that would mean storing my pictures on the 2TB internal HD and 4TB external drive. I'd think that would be okay for now, but I wonder if another external drive might also be a good idea.

Click to expand...

You will get all sorts of inappropriate advice on backup on the forum, but usually, making two copies of important stuff is OK.

You won't need to do it, but I see no problem in storing data on the boot drive. I have a Dell laptop with a single 512Gb SSD with data in a shared folder on the boot drive that acts as a network server. OK, there's only 30Gb or thereabouts, but if I followed the "Never Ever" mantra, I'd be scratching my head.

Good luck with your new Dell.

I scanned the first 10 post then randomly scanned several more to the end. I was wondering why no one suggested Mac. Then I scrolled back to the top and saw the forum is PC Talk, not Open talk.
My apology for sounding like a troll.
.
While I use Window OS computer (Table top and laptop), I purchased an Apple MacBookPro in July 2009 at the suggestion of a very close friend who is a highly successful Pro Photographer and Photo editor. His recommendation is based on, at the time, Apple Photo Processing Software. Sorry for crashing your forum.

ADW02 said:

I'm looking at buying a new Windows 10 desktop for photo editing only (no games or video editing), and I'm wondering if the following system from DELL would be adequate. I don't care if it might be a little more powerful than I might need right now in certain ways, only that it can smoothly and quickly run Photoshop, On1 RAW, Luminar 4 and Topaz without hiccups.

Click to expand...

BrownieVet said:

BrownieVet wrote:
.
While I use Window OS computer (Table top and laptop), I purchased an Apple MacBookPro in July 2009 at the suggestion of a very close friend who is a highly

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Personally, the last thing I'd buy is a thin notebook (notably the Air ones) with cooling system that can't even remotely cool the builtin CPU and immediately throttles after a mere seconds of running a high powered app (benchmarks, 3D rendering, video converting etc). It is pointless to pay that money for high spec gear you can't even use. This is a (deliberate) design flaw Apple has in many of its recent thin systems (usually the Air ones), but also applies to a few, but not all Windows based ones. Strangely, this is usually defended by saying that it doesn't happen with "normal use". But I find that a rather weak argument, if the makers put in a high end CPU ... a small, power saving thing would have been enough then. It's like putting a giant engine into a car, with a gearbox that immediatly falls apart if you'd really hit the pedal.

General comment, to no specific poster:

If this becomes a Mac vs. PC quarrel, this otherwise peaceful and constructive thread will need to be locked. :-(

A better forum for that discussion might be Open Talk. If someone has a compelling need to revisit this often-rehashed subject...

ADW02 said:

And I always like to think ahead. When I bought my 2015 Chevy Malibu three years ago, I also purchased an additional 100,000-mile bumper-to-bumper warranty. So far, with just 43,000 miles on it (the warranty is in effect for 125,000 miles or 96 months), I've had a thousand dollars of repairs done, despite the fact that I baby my car. As I have diabetes, my doctor has me strictly quarantined, but when a vaccine is approved and available for the coronavirus, I'll put a lot of miles on the car. That extended warranty might be the best thing I ever bought.

Click to expand...

Almost all of my cars since 2007 needed very little maintenance other than oil change and some routine tune-up. The cost of ownership is very low and I never bought extended warranty. My 2007 had >200K when it was 10 years old (still running great) and I traded it in for a new 2017 model. I hate having the car in a shop even if I don't have to pay for it.