Rambling post about a new pc build...basically what mobo?

Soaptrail · Mar 21, 2023

philmar said:
My thinking on the SSDs is that my OS and programs should go on the best fast SSD (and it should be on the CPU connected slot). With the 2nd SSD I reasoned that 3rd gen SSD is imperceptibly slower but cheaper. It is never the bottleneck so this is a good spot to shave off money.

GPU: My thoughts are I may build it with my current Radeon RX 460 and see how it performs. If I need the increased GPU power I can add a new GPU. I just added the Sapphire to the list as a place holder. My usage with LR does not hold me back. I have GPU acceleration turned off and I am able to use the local adjustment tools without delay. A GPU would improve the export time...It takes 15 seconds to export a photo. I'll see how must faster it gets with the better CPU. I may not need to spend CDN$600 to shave a few seconds off of the export time. My time isn't THAT valuable now that I'm retired -LOL. But it is a decision I can make once I see how my new build functions.

PCPartPicker Part List: https://ca.pcpartpicker.com/list/XQCWk9

CPU: Intel Core i7-13700K 3.4 GHz 16-Core Processor
CPU Cooler: Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE 66.17 CFM CPU Cooler
Motherboard: Gigabyte Z790 AORUS ELITE AX ATX LGA1700 Motherboard
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws S5 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-6400 CL32 Memory
Storage: Samsung 980 Pro 1 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive
Storage: Crucial P3 2 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 3.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive
Video Card: Sapphire PULSE Radeon RX 6600 8 GB Video Card
Case: Lian Li O11 Air Mini ATX Mid Tower Case
Power Supply: NZXT C850 (2022) 850 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply

Wow, 4 M.2 slots. Can that board use them all at the same time? If so that is awesome.

For your GPU, definitely hold off until you can since prices are still so high and you don't need one for gaming.

Looks like a good build.

greenmanphoto · Mar 21, 2023

Philmar,

My only suggestion might be to increase the power supply to 1000W, just to provide a good cushion should you need it to drive other accessories and drives or coolers/fans.

Sam

philmar · Mar 21, 2023

Soaptrail said:
Wow, 4 M.2 slots. Can that board use them all at the same time? If so that is awesome.

For your GPU, definitely hold off until you can since prices are still so high and you don't need one for gaming.

Looks like a good build.

ONE of the M.2 slots shares resources with 2 of the 6 SATA ports.

So it can support 4 M.s + 4 SATA or 3 M.2 + 6 SATA

philmar · Mar 21, 2023

greenmanphoto said:
Philmar,

My only suggestion might be to increase the power supply to 1000W, just to provide a good cushion should you need it to drive other accessories and drives or coolers/fans.

Sam

Excellent suggestion - there is a Gen 5 PCIe slot. If Lightroom and Photoshop (or some yet as created photo editing program) requires more of the GPU then who knows what power a future powerful GPU will require in 5 years.

Craig Gillette · Mar 21, 2023

There's also, I think, been some forward movement in the power supply connector scheme/types. Might be worth looking into that and having the new form versus the older styles, especially looking at the possibility of PCIe Gen 5?

philmar · Mar 21, 2023

Craig Gillette said:
There's also, I think, been some forward movement in the power supply connector scheme/types. Might be worth looking into that and having the new form versus the older styles, especially looking at the possibility of PCIe Gen 5?

YAY! More research......thanks!

NOTE- I will be adding internal fans as well - I didn't take the time to add them to partpicker.

philmar · Mar 21, 2023

I picked the wrong case - I should have saved the Lian Li LANCOOL 216 PC Case instead of a mATX case.

BobKnDP · Mar 21, 2023

philmar said:
I picked the wrong case - I should have saved the Lian Li LANCOOL 216 PC Case instead of a mATX case.

I wondered about that.

However, the Lian Li O11 Air Mini ATX Mid Tower Case is spec'd to accept a full-sized ATX motherboard. It's not strictly a microATX/ITX case. I don't know whether you'd face any fit issues. PCPartPicker may have prevented any compatibility issues.

If you like the look of the Lian Li O11 Air Mini, but want something larger, you could consider the Lian Li O11 Dynamic EVO Mid-Tower Case. It includes no fans, though. It also has no fan hub, so you'd need to buy one separately if you wanted to run more fans than you have headers on your motherboard. (I'm using that case, with 7 fans, not counting the 3 in my Corsair AIO water cooler. Which has its own fan controller.)

The 011 Dynamic Evo has an optional front mesh (like the Air Mini) at extra cost, but I'm not using one.

Craig Gillette · Mar 21, 2023

When I got mine since I was making the buy during the Black Friday Sales, some of my motherboard choices came and went for availability. So the MB I'd wanted went out of stock and the similar one was a little more expensive but also required an E-ATX case. Which cut back on the options they had available there, too.

greenmanphoto · Mar 21, 2023

philmar said:
Craig Gillette said:

There's also, I think, been some forward movement in the power supply connector scheme/types. Might be worth looking into that and having the new form versus the older styles, especially looking at the possibility of PCIe Gen 5?

Click to expand...

YAY! More research......thanks!

NOTE- I will be adding internal fans as well - I didn't take the time to add them to partpicker.

All the more reason for that larger PS!

Sam

Soaptrail · Mar 22, 2023

philmar said:
greenmanphoto said:

Philmar,

My only suggestion might be to increase the power supply to 1000W, just to provide a good cushion should you need it to drive other accessories and drives or coolers/fans.

Sam

Click to expand...

Excellent suggestion - there is a Gen 5 PCIe slot. If Lightroom and Photoshop (or some yet as created photo editing program) requires more of the GPU then who knows what power a future powerful GPU will require in 5 years.

I would go to a more efficient PSU over more wattage, I got a 80+ Titanium at only 650 watts and I do play games with an AMD RX 6800 GPU. You not gaming means you have no need for 1000 watts. Get Titanium or Platinum in a less than 1000 watts, Titanium is the the best.

BobKnDP · Mar 22, 2023

Soaptrail said:
philmar said:

greenmanphoto said:

Philmar,

My only suggestion might be to increase the power supply to 1000W, just to provide a good cushion should you need it to drive other accessories and drives or coolers/fans.

Sam

Click to expand...

Excellent suggestion - there is a Gen 5 PCIe slot. If Lightroom and Photoshop (or some yet as created photo editing program) requires more of the GPU then who knows what power a future powerful GPU will require in 5 years.

Click to expand...

I would go to a more efficient PSU over more wattage, I got a 80+ Titanium at only 650 watts and I do play games with an AMD RX 6800 GPU. You not gaming means you have no need for 1000 watts. Get Titanium or Platinum in a less than 1000 watts, Titanium is the the best.

Maybe.

But PSUs are such that getting one rated gold (or platinum or titanium) gives a pretty good efficiency even if run well below their rated power.

80 Plus - Wikipedia

I'm not sure what accessories would need hundreds of watts extra. An absurd graphics card (nVidia RTX 4090) can want up to 600W, all by itself.

philmar · Mar 23, 2023

Craig Gillette said:
When I got mine since I was making the buy during the Black Friday Sales, some of my motherboard choices came and went for availability. So the MB I'd wanted went out of stock and the similar one was a little more expensive but also required an E-ATX case. Which cut back on the options they had available there, too.

Newegg, Can Computers, MemExpress all seem to be very low on component stock be it CPU fans, PSUs, mobos, RAM ect. It's almost as if they still have a lot of Z690 mobo and crappy RAM that they want people to settle for first....either that or there are still major supply chain issues with computer components.

philmar · Mar 23, 2023

So sad to read the site is going down soon. Tragic news.

One last question about SSD configuration as I've read conflicting information.

I have an old Samsung SATA SSD that I will import to me new rig and I'll also have two new NVMes on the M.2 slots.

Is it best to have your OS and apps on the fastest NVMe, or is it best to have the image files on which you are currently working on the fsatest NVMe? or is the LR catalogue best to be on the fasted NVMe?

--
-----------------
Phil M. - Toronto, Canada
Time to kill? Then have a look at a few of my photos: https://www.flickr.com/photos/phil_marion/albums
You will NOT be disappointed.

Craig Gillette · Mar 24, 2023

philmar said:
So sad to read the site is going down soon. Tragic news.

One last question about SSD configuration as I've read conflicting information.

This is not a surprise.

philmar said:
I have an old Samsung SATA SSD that I will import to me new rig and I'll also have two new NVMes on the M.2 slots.

Is it best to have your OS and apps on the fastest NVMe, or is it best to have the image files on which you are currently working on the fsatest NVMe? or is the LR catalogue best to be on the fasted NVMe?

I don't know really. I didn't populate the faster socket. It's Gen 5 capable but so far only Gen 4 devices are available. There can be sharing issues with Gen 5 slots and sockets even only using Gen 4 devices. Although things still run Gen 4 speeds. There could be several considerations. I think backup and/or restore might be easier if the OS or OS and programs are separate from working or storage data.

With LR I believe the catalog should be fast but images can be stored on slower devices. I don't know if you have 2 equally fast devices if it makes a difference if on the same or separate devices. It may have been better separate on spinning drives? It may also be that with really fast NVME ssds, there is a difference but most won't actually notice or keep up.

I haven't moved everything yet but will put more storage on hard drives as big ssds are still expensive.

PMB · Mar 24, 2023

philmar said:
So sad to read the site is going down soon. Tragic news.

One last question about SSD configuration as I've read conflicting information.

I have an old Samsung SATA SSD that I will import to me new rig and I'll also have two new NVMes on the M.2 slots.

Is it best to have your OS and apps on the fastest NVMe, or is it best to have the image files on which you are currently working on the fsatest NVMe? or is the LR catalogue best to be on the fasted NVMe?

I can't say what is best - "best" can mean different things to different people. My interest is photography and choosing components and assembling PCs is a sidetrack from my primary interest. So "best" for me is what makes my digital photography experience more enjoyable - less annoying.

My recent build of this year I have a 1TB M.2 NVMe SSD as my boot device, and also where the binaries of all my applications reside. This enable faster booting and loading of applications. Next I have a 4TB SSD that sits on SATA (6Gb/s) where I keep various documents and a secondary storage for image files coming off my camera. My next tier is an external RAID box with 2 mirrored 8TB 7200 rpm spinners hanging off USB 3.10 (10Gb/s). This is where I keep all my image file and my post processing files and my print ready files. I browse these folders with Adobe Bridge.

from Macrium Reflect 8 backup program, driver performance report

And above is from the backup tool I use. It shows the relative performance (derived from running backups) of C: (1TB M.2 boot drive) and D: ( 4TB SSD on SATA) and F: (external RAID on USB). [I: is an internal 10TB 7200 rpm spinner which holds my online backup images] . As you can see the NVMe on PCIe is much faster than SATA.

For me this configuration is very acceptable and my new PC performs well in that respect.

Peter

philmar · Mar 24, 2023

Craig Gillette said:
philmar said:

So sad to read the site is going down soon. Tragic news.

One last question about SSD configuration as I've read conflicting information.

Click to expand...

This is not a surprise.

Craig Gillette said:

I have an old Samsung SATA SSD that I will import to me new rig and I'll also have two new NVMes on the M.2 slots.

Is it best to have your OS and apps on the fastest NVMe, or is it best to have the image files on which you are currently working on the fsatest NVMe? or is the LR catalogue best to be on the fasted NVMe?

Click to expand...

I don't know really. I didn't populate the faster socket. It's Gen 5 capable but so far only Gen 4 devices are available. There can be sharing issues with Gen 5 slots and sockets even only using Gen 4 devices. Although things still run Gen 4 speeds. There could be several considerations. I think backup and/or restore might be easier if the OS or OS and programs are separate from working or storage data.

With LR I believe the catalog should be fast but images can be stored on slower devices. I don't know if you have 2 equally fast devices if it makes a difference if on the same or separate devices. It may have been better separate on spinning drives? It may also be that with really fast NVME ssds, there is a difference but most won't actually notice or keep up.

I haven't moved everything yet but will put more storage on hard drives as big ssds are still expensive.

There is a somewhat more detailed answer in the Adobe forum but it must be taken in to account that non-of the respondents are Adobe employees.

Lightroom save photos SSD vs. HDD

Hello, what storage would you choose for RAW files when working in Adobe Lightroom in terms of photo editing speed? NAS, external drives, HDD, SSD. What is your experience? Thank you

community.adobe.com

I will have 3 SSDs in my new system: 2 NVMe SSDs (one Gen. 4 and one Gen.3) and an old SATA 2.5" SSD. So my programs and O/S will be on the fastest drive. My LR catalogue and PS scratch will be on a separate dedicated drive and my current working files will reside on the 3rd SSD. I suspect that even if my SSD configuration is not optimal I probably would notice much difference even if it were.

From some of the benchmark Youtube vids I have seen there doesn't seem to be much perceived difference between Gen.3 and Gen.4 LR workflow because the SSD isn't the bottleneck in the workflow. Faster Gen.4 SSDs shave little time off of creator tasks over Gen.3 SSD workflow.

Currently my LR catalogue is on a dedicated SATA Samsung 850 EVO 250GB. I'll include it in my new build. If it improved my experience by moving it to my NVMe Gen. 3, I could do that.I may be over-analysizing this. Too much free time now that I am recently retired.

Jeez, I forgot about my current OS drive SATA SSD: Samsung 840PRO 250 GB. I will have that to play with too in he new build.

philmar · Mar 24, 2023

PMB said:
My recent build of this year I have a 1TB M.2 NVMe SSD as my boot device, and also where the binaries of all my applications reside. This enable faster booting and loading of applications. Next I have a 4TB SSD that sits on SATA (6Gb/s) where I keep various documents and a secondary storage for image files coming off my camera. My next tier is an external RAID box with 2 mirrored 8TB 7200 rpm spinners hanging off USB 3.10 (10Gb/s). This is where I keep all my image file and my post processing files and my print ready files. I browse these folders with Adobe Bridge.

Peter

Upon which drive does your LR catalogue reside? or do you use ACR?

PMB · Mar 24, 2023

philmar said:
PMB said:

My recent build of this year I have a 1TB M.2 NVMe SSD as my boot device, and also where the binaries of all my applications reside. This enable faster booting and loading of applications. Next I have a 4TB SSD that sits on SATA (6Gb/s) where I keep various documents and a secondary storage for image files coming off my camera. My next tier is an external RAID box with 2 mirrored 8TB 7200 rpm spinners hanging off USB 3.10 (10Gb/s). This is where I keep all my image file and my post processing files and my print ready files. I browse these folders with Adobe Bridge.

Peter

Click to expand...

Upon which drive does your LR catalogue reside? or do you use ACR?

Yeah, I don't use Lr. But my external RAID drive holds all my raw files, PSD files, print ready files. It's where I do my post processing. Works fine for me.

Peter

Soaptrail · Mar 28, 2023

philmar said:
So sad to read the site is going down soon. Tragic news.

One last question about SSD configuration as I've read conflicting information.

I have an old Samsung SATA SSD that I will import to me new rig and I'll also have two new NVMes on the M.2 slots.

Is it best to have your OS and apps on the fastest NVMe, or is it best to have the image files on which you are currently working on the fsatest NVMe? or is the LR catalogue best to be on the fasted NVMe?

I still use a HDD for my photos but a few years ago I added a second NvMe drive to my system, the first NvMe drive has my OS and was only 256GB so too small to use for photos. This second NvMe drive is 1Tb and the only thing I use it for is photo developing. So my new work flow is photos to be processed go on NvMe and then get moved to the HDD. I noticed this added speed to developing photos considering RAW files are 30MB or more these days and NvMe or any SSD drive is so much quicker than a HDD. But comparing my NvMe to an SSD may not show any differences.

Rambling post about a new pc build...basically what mobo?

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