It's never too early to plan for your next PC...or is it?

[mz-s]

10 minutes ago, pierces said:

 

I actually copied the wrong line from Amazon... I had intended to do 48GB (down from the 64GB I have on the current build). A 12-image stack of files from the A7rV will drive usage up to 36GB-38GB, so 48 isn't out of the question. I once upon a time needed vast amounts of memory for SQL projects and am stuck in the more-is-better mindset for RAM, but I'm getting over it. Then again...I may want to try my hand at video and rendering takes a ton of RAM, so maybe I'll just leave that 96 number there for now. 😉

 

Dave

 

 

 

 

Operating systems today are good about using as much RAM as you can give them, but they'll happily live with far less. I'm sure your 12-image stack of files could be rendered with far less RAM. But there's not really a penalty to having too much RAM, aside from the initial purchase price obviously.

Edited January 5 by mz-s

[pierces]

42 minutes ago, mz-s said:

 

Operating systems today are good about using as much RAM as you can give them, but they'll happily live with far less. I'm sure your 12-image stack of files could be rendered with far less RAM. But there's not really a penalty to having too much RAM, aside from the initial purchase price obviously.

 

Each of the JPEGs from the new camera are 35mb - 43mb. Once decoded and loaded, they take up a lot of room when loaded as layers in Photoshop. Add undo history while processing and the memory usage can get ugly fast. Could probably get by with 32GB if I had to. That's what scratch disks and virtual memory are for, right? Thrashing a spinny drive with endless reads and writes to virtual memory was ok back in the day but using up the TBW limits on an SSD rather than spend a few dollars on more RAM doesn't make sense with memory being as relatively cheap as it is. I set the limit pretty high in the preferences and it makes complex adjustments and content-aware edits pretty perky.

 

 

To me it's like buying a couple extra 2x4s for a project. Better to have and not need...etc.

 

Computers are such fun and so very much cheaper than building fast cars.

 

Dave

 

Edited January 6 by pierces

[dwc13]

1 hour ago, pierces said:

 

Each of the JPEGs from the new camera are 35mb - 43mb. Once decoded and loaded, they take up a lot of room when loaded as layers in Photoshop. Add undo history while processing and the memory usage can get ugly fast. Could probably get by with 32GB if I had to. That's what scratch disks and virtual memory are for, right? Thrashing a spinny drive with endless reads and writes to virtual memory was ok back in the day but using up the TBW limits on an SSD rather than spend a few dollars on more RAM doesn't make sense with memory being as relatively cheap as it is. I set the limit pretty high in the preferences and it makes complex adjustments and content-aware edits pretty perky.

 

 

To me it's like buying a couple extra 2x4s for a project. Better to have and not need...etc.

 

Computers are such fun and so very much cheaper than building fast cars.

 

Dave

 

 

 

Wait -- you're shooting JPEG with your new a7rV? Oh, the horror. I'm surprised the camera even allows that setting. Must be AI taking over... 🤣

 

In your revised BOM, you listed a working storage SSD (Crucial T500 2TB Gen 4 NVMe) as well as a 12GB legacy drive for rotational storage and a Crucial T700 1GB Gen 5 NVMe boot drive. TBW for the Crucial 2TB drive is 1200TB. Since you probably will not be mining crypto or operating a server with 24x7 continuous writes of huge files to that drive, I think you'll be okay. Just a hunch. I know I won't come close to exceeding the TBW on mine. That being said, I do understand your rationale -- which I agree with, especially given the speed of RAM. DDR5 prices should continue to come down in the future and modules with faster speeds will become available in volume as production ramps up. I'll probably upgrade my 3700X build to 64GB RAM (from 32GB) but that can wait until I get a new GPU.

 

Edited January 6 by dwc13

[pierces]

8 minutes ago, dwc13 said:

Wait -- you're shooting JPEG with your new a7rV? Oh, the horror. I'm surprised the camera even allows that setting. Must be AI taking over... 🤣

 

Yeah, yeah...real photographers only shoot RAW. 🙂

I will shoot RAW when it is applicable, but with near magical exposure analysis and incredible dynamic range along with Camera Raw in Lightroom and Photoshop able to perform all the same corrective functions on a jpeg file, the need is just not there like it used to be (unless one really, really screws up the exposure somehow). Especially with the excellent jpeg engine in the Sony cameras.

 

I wrote an article on the subject a few years ago if you're interested:

https://pierce324.com/raw-vs-jpeg/

 

Dave

[dwc13]

4 hours ago, pierces said:

 

Yeah, yeah...real photographers only shoot RAW. 🙂

 

I will shoot RAW when it is applicable, but with near magical exposure analysis and incredible dynamic range along with Camera Raw in Lightroom and Photoshop able to perform all the same corrective functions on a jpeg file, the need is just not there like it used to be (unless one really, really screws up the exposure somehow). Especially with the excellent jpeg engine in the Sony cameras.

 

I wrote an article on the subject a few years ago if you're interested:

https://pierce324.com/raw-vs-jpeg/

 

Dave

 

Just had to give you a hard time about shooting JPEG since you are a professional photographer. JPEG is good enough for me unless I'm taking "once-in-a-lifetime" shots...like a UFO, the Loch Ness Monster or the Indians, er, Guardians celebrating a Game 7 World Series win.  

 

Your article on RAW vs. JPEG was interesting and informative. Did you use Ami Pro to write the article? That word processor went the way of 1-2-3, dBASE, WordPerfect, WordStar, Quatro Pro, Netware, ProComm Plus <queue sounds of a modem dialing a phone number>, and SimCity (RIP, Maxis). FYI, the link for how the JPEG algorithm compresses files in your article is broken.

[pierces]

4 hours ago, dwc13 said:

Did you use Ami Pro to write the article?

 

No, but I still bear the scars of converting all my useful docs written in it to Word with the only available method...ctrl+A - ctrl+C - alt+tab - ctrl+V. Sort of like converting slides, prints or negatives to digital. 🙂

 

To my knowledge, no camera company that offers a RAW option has orphaned a format and I doubt any will. Digital photography has come a long way since I switched back in 2001 and with amazing things like full-frame global shutter, R&D departments still have a purpose. 

 

Fun discussion!

 

Dave

[dwc13]

I started off with Freestyle, then WordStar before migrating over to WordPerfect. WP5.1 for DOS was one of the greatest programs ever written for the PC. Right up there with SimCity. The printer support and formatting capabilities WordPerfect 5.1 for DOS had in the pre-Windows era was mind-boggling. Even today there are legions of users who continue to use WP5.1 for DOS on Windows 10. 

 

https://mendelson.org/wpdos/ 

 

Here's the capacity rust drive you should get for your new build:

https://slickdeals.net/f/17217304-22tb-western-digital-ultrastar-dc-hc570-3-5-7-2k-rpm-sata-6-0-gb-s-internal-hard-drive-370-free-shipping?src=category_page

 

Do you have a large format Epson / Canon / HP printer for printing out your digital images?

[donaldsc]

1 hour ago, dwc13 said:

I started off with Freestyle, then WordStar before migrating over to WordPerfect. WP5.1 for DOS was one of the greatest programs ever written for the PC. Right up there with SimCity. The printer support and formatting capabilities WordPerfect 5.1 for DOS had in the pre-Windows era was mind-boggling. Even today there are legions of users who continue to use WP5.1 for DOS on Windows 10. 

 

https://mendelson.org/wpdos/ 

 

Here's the capacity rust drive you should get for your new build:

https://slickdeals.net/f/17217304-22tb-western-digital-ultrastar-dc-hc570-3-5-7-2k-rpm-sata-6-0-gb-s-internal-hard-drive-370-free-shipping?src=category_page

 

Do you have a large format Epson / Canon / HP printer for printing out your digital images?

 

A comment with regard to DOS.  There are things that you can do with file handling that are still much easier with DOS than you can do w Windows.  The selective DIR command and the selective COPY commands were wonderful.

 

DON

[pierces]

1 hour ago, donaldsc said:

 

A comment with regard to DOS.  There are things that you can do with file handling that are still much easier with DOS than you can do w Windows.  The selective DIR command and the selective COPY commands were wonderful.

 

DON

 

I still use a command line window for certain functions. Part of my job entails scanning through 17k or 18k image file names for anomalies. Very easy to do with the DOS search or DIR to text file. Part of my quarterly function requires I document which database records have identifying photos associated with them. DIR to text and load into a Postgres table does the job. I never gave up on DOS and never will.

 

Dave

[pierces]

3 hours ago, dwc13 said:

Here's the capacity rust drive you should get for your new build:

 

Capacities are getting ridiculous! I think they are folding space-time or something. I'll be going with the 12TB spinner for internal archive and a 24TB RAID5 NAS on a 2.5gb Ethernet backbone to backup everything.

 

Dave

[dwc13]

On 1/6/2024 at 7:14 PM, pierces said:

 

Capacities are getting ridiculous! I think they are folding space-time or something. I'll be going with the 12TB spinner for internal archive and a 24TB RAID5 NAS on a 2.5gb Ethernet backbone to backup everything.

 

Dave

 

C'mon, 10GigE fiber ring...

 

[dwc13]

On 1/5/2024 at 2:50 PM, dwc13 said:

Nvidia is expected to announce additions to the RTX 40 series GPUs at CES on January 8th. I'll put you down for a 4080 Super.  

 

Now that the RTX 4080 Super has officially been announced, you can get ready to order it. The good news is at 246 watts AGP, it will likely use less power than that 14th Gen Intel CPU you're planning on buying.

 

[pierces]

Memory is supposed to be in short supply starting soon with prices rising accordingly. The Gen4 SSD drive from Corsair that I had on the list appeared in a bundle with a 48GB DDR5 6000 (2x24GB) memory package at a worthwhile discount.

 

Trigger pulled.

 

The 2024 build has officially begun.

 

Dave

[pierces]

I picked up a new-build installation USB stick for Windows 11 Pro today. I briefly considered trying the free Linux operating system but laid down until the feeling passed. 

 

I also finished my go/no-go research on an i9 CPU vs an i7. The i9 is definitely faster, but just not $150 faster. The i7 is at least twice as fast as the one in my current machine and the 3%-5% bump in benchmarks for the i9 wouldn't give me much more than bragging rights.

 

I'll use the difference to augment my graphics card budget. 😉

 

I have also been working to decide which NAS (Network Attached Storage) system to put together. I want something that will allow easy and secure remote access since I plan on sunsetting my PPTPhoto.com site next year. The 24GB configuration mentioned above seems to be a good compromise between size and cost. Now I have to decide which offering has the best remote access support.

 

I'm hesitating on the Gen5 boot disk since Crucial is releasing their new T705 drive in a couple of weeks, and it shows a lot of promise if the price premium isn't too steep.

 

I found that the Asus Z790-e motherboard on the list has four Gen4 drive slots in addition to the single Gen5 slot. I'm now thinking of adding another Gen4 drive just for the catalogs and miscellaneous support files.

 

So many choices.

 

 

Dave

[pierces]

Well, that didn't take long. 

 

PC World posted a pretty comprehensive real-world test of the new T705 and though it did set a new record for reading data in one category, it was only "really good" in most of the others. The tests were centered on file transfers and such without the endless tests with various games that clutter most reviews and ended up pointing out that the older T700 is the best bang-for-the-buck choice for my use. This in no way indicates that the T705 is not a better drive (and a fantastic peek into the future of the technology), but as with the i9 vs. i7 CPU comparison, the increase in performance is not worth the price premium for me.

 

Looks like the 1TB T700 is going to be my boot drive.

 

 

Dave

[pierces]

Almost time to pull the trigger. Most decisions have been made and parts ordered. Thermaltake released an improved version of the P3 case, so I decided to upgrade. This means my current computer will remain intact, making data transfers much easier and will be a much prettier hand-me-down than originally planned. I bumped up the cooler (part of the new case decision) and since the second storage SSD I decided to add was still available bundled with a RAM kit, I bumped the RAM too. The Graphics card choice changes almost daily and I'm still waffling over the size and brand of the NAS storage unit, but it looks like a 4-bay unit from either Asustor or QNAP are the current finalists. 

 

Tracking spreadsheet:

 

Despite all the research and fuss, I still enjoy building my own PCs. I only have to deal with it every 4 years or so and I get exactly what I want. I also end up spending a lot less than buying a ready-made custom unit. 

 

Fun stuff.

 

Dave

[pierces]

Well, that's that.

 

The CPU and power supply will be here Monday and the switch will get flipped...or pushed.

 

I spent yesterday installing the motherboard, SSD drives, memory and the (gigantic) cooler and organizing all of its fiddly little wires. The rotational drive will get installed last since it is still plugged into the USB adapter mirroring the current archive storage drive and it's 3TB of files. The graphics card will arrive today along with the riser cable for the vertical mounting option. The riser cable was the only surprise so far. The last case of this type came with one, but the new case didn't. Since there are now cards on the market with two different generations of motherboard connections, it looks like they decided to simplify their catalog and stock the case and cable separately. Glad I decided to pre-assemble some stuff. That would have been frustrating to discover on a marathon "Assembly Day".

 

I'm happy with the decisions so far. Even partially assembled, it looks pretty cool. All black and looking like it fell out of the future and not at all like the cheese grater-esque Mac Pro that costs 3x as much. 

 

Now comes the finger crossing part. Will all the little bits do their thing and light up the monitor when power is applied? It's never not happened to me, but the possibility of a DOA component always just hangs there until the button is pushed.

 

Wish me luck! 🙂

 

 

Dave

[mz-s]

My last build the PCIe SSD came DOA. Thankfully B&H was able to overnight me a brand new one. That was the first DOA part I've had in quite some time.