8 ms·

Building a Lightroom PC

272 points by chambo622 9y ago

striking 9y ago
N.B.: the "switch to Windows" is from macOS and not from Linux, just in case anyone was wondering. I think it's very interesting that the availability of Linux on Windows helped the author choose Windows.
- eksemplar 9y ago
  The switch stories are always either “from Mac-OS” or “to Linux”, the former being a “oh no you didn’t” and the latter being “I’m with cool birds now” narrative. It’s basically non-stories because your OS matters as little as what programming language you use. Pick the one that works for you, but don’t become a fucking missionary or tie your personality to your brand of choice.
  - jnsaff2 9y ago
    Yea, I made the jump from osx to Linux switch more than a year ago because of the hardware situation. I also have dual boot windows just for Lightroom. It was a bit of tinkering just because I decided to go for a bit esoteric distribution (NixOS) and also switch to tiling (i3 and sway). It’s different, I think it’s much better and tiling really keeps the clutter at bay. I am very happy with the setup and when I have to use OS X (still have the old MacBook pro for time on the road) I don’t enjoy it any more.
  - arca_vorago 9y ago
    >It’s basically non-stories because your OS matters as little as what programming language you use. >Pick the one that works for you, but don’t become a fucking missionary or tie your personality to your brand of choice. I do what I want and you can't tell me what to do! I think RMS was and is right and computing should not be viewed through a purely pragmatic lense, and I'm going to keep mentioning the importance of foss and copyleft to the future of computing and how it enables freedom for the user until I see fit to stop. I think OS choice greatly matters. I say this as a senior sysadmin who has had to support all 3 major OS's for over a decade. Windows 10 was the final straw for me and I went completely gnu/linux and haven't looked back since except to feel sorry for all the stockholm syndrome I see in those chained to those ecosystems.
    - digi_owl 9y ago
      The RMS message is different though. It is not about any specific OS or platform, it is about making sure the owner/admin is the final arbiter of what can or can't be done on that computer (now and into the infinite future).
      - arca_vorago 9y ago
        >it is about making sure the owner/admin is the final arbiter of what can or can't be done on that computer Which you can't do with Windows, and only to a certain degree with osx.
  - oliwarner 9y ago
    > but don’t become a fucking missionary That might work for you and your choices but when you talk to developers whose software doesn't support your choice because "nobody uses it", and there are no native alternatives, you quickly see the fight is real. The odd bit of platform evangelism is the reason we don't all have to use Windows. It's the reason we have a choice at all.
  - slantyyz 9y ago
    >> Pick the one that works for you, but don’t become a fucking missionary or tie your personality to your brand of choice. I find that people naturally tend to want others to be like them. It doesn't matter whether its politics, religion, OS, camera brand, camera sensor size, programming language, diet fad or whatnot. Maybe it makes them feel better about the choices they made?
    - digi_owl 9y ago
      More like people want external confirmation that they made the right choice.
- owenwil 9y ago
  As someone who made the same jump, Windows wasn't really a viable platform for non-dotNet developers until that happened. The state of Linux on the desktop is, frankly, a disaster — I spent months on trying to make it work, but wow, it's not worth the time.
  - joosebox 9y ago
    Linux on Windows is still a disaster? It's been something I want to play around with but haven't had the chance yet.
    - ranqet 9y ago
      The fact that there is a wall between the Linux stuff and Windows stuff (“You can't edit a file that originates from the Linux userland inside Windows.”) sounds very hacky to me.
      - walshemj 9y ago
        Just do a samba share from the Linux vm to windows
        tracker1 9y ago
        It's not a VM, it's like the inverse of WINE... it's a compatibility layer... and that one piece (not being able to edit files in the LSW from windows/gui) is what keeps me off of it.
        walshemj 9y ago
        Oh why not use windows pro and hyper-v then and run a Linux vm then that's assuming you don't run a small whitebox server to do your dev on?
        tracker1 9y ago
        I do.. and samba to use a GUI editor against files in the VM. That said, there's the overhead of a full VM... some of the same reasons one would use WINE instead of a full Windows VM.
vondur 9y ago
Looks like he built a really fancy and nice gaming machine. Makes sense to switch to Windows if you are a gamer.
- midnitewarrior 9y ago
  Good gaming PCs are good development and creative machines. All of these activities excel with more cores, ram and gpu cores.
gesman 9y ago
Dual 1TB Samsung 960 EVO M.2 SSDs ??? Real men use NVMe PRO :)
- PStamatiou 9y ago
  The performance difference was negligible for the cost, and I will likely upgrade to faster 3d xpoint SSDs in a year anyways.
ranqet 9y ago
So, the main reason he switched to a Windows machine was to use the latest/fastest hardware with Adobe Lightroom and Premiere, but then he goes on to say the Lightroom and Premiere don’t take advantage of many core CPUs, the fastest GPUs, fastest SSDs, etc... And Windows is fine after tweaking and adjusting dozens of settings. I’ll just stick with a Mac.
- PStamatiou 9y ago
  Premiere Pro definitely takes advantage of GPU and CPU very efficiently. Lightroom does not - which is why instead of going for some 18 core i9 7980XE build where it has more cores but a much lower clock per core, i opted for just 6 cores but with a very high clock.
  - vondur 9y ago
    I don't think that Premier does really take advantage of video cards. I saw a video where they had switched a really old GTX 660 vs a 1080ti and the render time was not changed between them.
    - PStamatiou 9y ago
      I did a bench of the Premiere Pro h264 benchmark ("PPBM") with CUDA acceleration and without (software): the difference was 7m 4sec without GPU and 48 seconds with GPU.
      - vondur 9y ago
        Sorry, I should have phrased it better, you don't have to have the latest and greatest video card for Premiere. But, yes, you are correct, having GPU acceleration does work.
    - bicubic 9y ago
      It's possible the operation bandwidth limited in which case at some point a faster card won't speed it up any more. But gpu acceleration vs software is an enormous difference in premiere
gt_ 9y ago
The first item in the ‘Tweaking Windows’ section is Disable User Account Control. Can someone share a clear explanation of what this means and the nature of the risks involved?
- shakna 9y ago
  Disabled the administrative confirmation popup e.g. [0]. Kinda like Windows' weaker version of sudo. When UAC is disabled, anything can run as administrative, but without confirmation or any real sign that it is, so a bit of a risk. Though not quite on the level of running Mac or Linux as root (Windows has another higher level priority, System), it is close to it. IIRC it also disables some security features of Edge, if you use that. It might also disable some security features in Office, which is a bit more of a concern. [0] http://images.ntwind.com/winsnap3/uac-unsigned.png http://images.ntwind.com/winsnap3/uac-unsigned.png
- dc3k 9y ago
  UAC limits software to user privileges, even if you're running an administrator account. If you're running an administrator account, you just click YES in a popup to grant elevated privileges when they're requested. If you're running a user account, you enter an administrator password. Disabling UAC lets anything you run use administrator privileges without alerting you. Similar to running a Linux box as root. It's a really stupid thing to disable.
  - krisdol 9y ago
    It’s also a popup that comes up several times every week or even day on windows. Really wish it was easier for apps on windows to run in user mode only and stick to it, but it seems like everything needs UAC on a regular basis for one reason or another.
    - pjmlp 9y ago
      That reason is developer incompetence. MSDN is full of posts and articles how to be a nice guy and run as user, unless of course the application needs to do some low system level calls. And even then, there are ways to split the architecture between privilege levels.
th0ma5 9y ago
Step 1. Be wealthy :P I am always enamored with the simplicity of one's living space being directly proportional to wealth. I try hard to not have much stuff, but my living options are seemingly always going to be working class style places with pretty much the antithesis of what is apparent in this photo. Of course the camera lies, and I shouldn't compare my insides to some else's outsides. There's probably a new puppy being paper trained just behind the camera, or a bunch of pocket change and random pens in a pile usually on that desk, but I do lament that I may never have such a simple, clean, and uncluttered living space. The spaces I may ever have will have things like unvaulted ceilings, windowsills, trim, standard door size passages between rooms, probably carpet heh... I do wonder if such things prevent clarity of thought.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- kylec 9y ago
  It's easy to get rid of stuff if it's no big deal to just buy it again. Less well-off people don't have that luxury.
- tlrobinson 9y ago
  "I have too much stuff. Most people in America do. In fact, the poorer people are, the more stuff they seem to have. Hardly anyone is so poor that they can't afford a front yard full of old cars." http://www.paulgraham.com/stuff.html http://www.paulgraham.com/stuff.html
  - icantdrive55 9y ago
    Yea, I got to, "I first realized the worthlessness of stuff when I lived in Italy for a year. All I took with me was one large backpack of stuff." 1. The old cars are usually project cars that offer hope to many people. They think one day I will be able to get that vechicle on the road again--if I can get sone disposable income. Reality is most won't, but I get it. 2. Rich guys and Brad Pitt can live out of backpacks. Loose the credit card for a few days and see what happens. You start to look at trash differently. 3. Yes--the peasants keep stuff. Yes--they need to cook, and they need that stuff to cook. Yes--they fix things when they break, so they can't throw away tools, and stuff. 4. When the tyranny goes, that old bike comes in handy. 5. I'm a little sensitive when rich people tell me what's valuable, or how to live a full life. I grew up with the wealthy, and their kids. They just are so disconnected, their advice only makes sense in their gated communities. Many claim they were poor when they were young, but 99% of the time, broke was only going out to dinner once a week during the tough times.
Arn_Thor 9y ago
A lot of the photos are great! And a lot of them..meh. Which is fine! I'm no star shooter, and far be it from me to judge someone wanting to show off their holiday. But he's spent an inordinate amount of time editing quite a bit of photos that surely could be left on the hard drive, or simply given a batch auto-touch-up by Lightroom in a matter of hours. And it's even stranger that the hobby would drive him to such a monumental and costly upgrade.
- titanomachy 9y ago
  Consider the possibility that he simply has a (relative) lot of money.
  - jacobush 9y ago
    And time!
    - PStamatiou 9y ago
      It's a project :) I get joy some going in depth with everything I'm passionate about. I do it with my photosets (spent a year editing the 11k+ photos and then designing/developing the 9 photosets): https://paulstamatiou.com/photos/new-zealand/ https://paulstamatiou.com/photos/new-zealand/ and other projects like my RasPi Frame: https://paulstamatiou.com/getting-started-raspberry-pi/ https://paulstamatiou.com/getting-started-raspberry-pi/ or documenting one of my design projects at work: https://paulstamatiou.com/twitter-video/ https://paulstamatiou.com/twitter-video/
07d046 9y ago
I can't imagine spending $6000 on a computer for editing photos and then saying "It also means I don't plan to buy and meticulously use a color calibration device". My computer might not be half as fast, but at least I know my blues are the shade of blue I think they are.
- PStamatiou 9y ago
  Fair point :) I should reconsider. The UltraSharp line is factory calibrated but yea that doesn't mean much as it varies between display.
  - Bromskloss 9y ago
    In what sense are they calibrated if things vary between displays?
    - PStamatiou 9y ago
      I am under the impression they do some basic tests that don't entirely accommodate for uniformity of illumination and consistency of color across the display. In other words - I think maybe they only test one part of the display.
    - Karunamon 9y ago
      ICS profile with the screen’s unique profile baked into the EDID? Just spitballing.
    - a012 9y ago
      Factory calibration is a thing in UltraSharp line, can't be compared to hardware calibration but works pretty well out-of-the-box. http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/reviews/dell_up2718q.htm#hardware_calibration http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/reviews/dell_up2718q.htm#hardwar...
    - AmVess 9y ago
      They do a base calibration. Do a Google search for Dell Calibration report. It shows what they calibrate. Keep in mind, it's still a pretty loose calibration. I've never once gotten two of the same models that look the same out of the box.
strictnein 9y ago
> PCPartPicker.com is one relatively new resource that I have found to be invaluable. Just the greatest site ever, if you're into building your own PCs. Fun to browse other builds, and then it makes it so simple to put together a system.
- qume 9y ago
  I second that - Anyone reading this thinking about building a PC, make sure you use this site. Can't stress that enough.
  - troylinn 9y ago
    Second that, it pulls data from a number of retailers and has localized sites with local retailers which is a nice touch. Something I noticed is that if the item price can’t be displayed you can search around the item options and enter your own pricing to get a feel of the price of the system if parts would be in stock
ranqet 9y ago
Question for Paul, if you could use a Windows machine for work, would you? If not, why?
- PStamatiou 9y ago
  For actual work I would miss two things: Sketch (design app) which I need to use because our Twitter design team has a lot of shared assets for it. There is Figma design but I can't use that in isolation. Then I also need Framer for prototyping which is currently mac only. Those would be some very significant hurdles to jump over if I was to use it for 100% of my work too.
  - kuon 9y ago
    I had the same problem, but affinity designer helped me move to windows.
riku_iki 9y ago
It was also a good investment. After recent spike in RAM and GPU prices he can sell it and make good money.
- PStamatiou 9y ago
  Yeah no kidding - price of the graphics card doubled since I got it.
ss248 9y ago
Really expected more when i read the title. It's a stretch to call this a "water-cooled machine", when it's just one all-in-one CPU cooler. Water-cooled machine should be a custom loop. It's a lot more hassle, but that's exactly why it's interesting. All-in-one systems are just like traditional air systems with big radiators, the only big difference is that you can move the radiator around.
- PStamatiou 9y ago
  Custom loops are such a hassle between leak testing, constantly changing the liquid, adding anti-algae additive. I've done many of them when I was really into PC building in the early 2000s (I was even on the FutureMark 3DMark Hall of Fame for a while for some extreme overclocks). The new AIO coolers are extremely performant and a no-brainer cost wise. No harm in trying out the new tech :)
  - ss248 9y ago
    You don't have to constantly change the liquid if you don't go for the looks and use the good coolant, instead of shampooie colored one. If you have build custom loops, you should really understand the difference. AIO are much closer to traditional air coolers, than to custom-loop water cooling. Keep an eye on VRM btw. Point of failure in your system right now.
- Ycros 9y ago
  I don't agree, it clearly fits the definition.
cheeze 9y ago
This seems like massive overkill, but it doesn't look like OP actually cared about money, given the $400 VESA mount and the $159 (wat) custom PSU cables. Also surprising that one would spend that much money only to get a little bose speaker. But if ya can afford it, more power to you.
- skeleton 9y ago
  In regards to speakers, I found over time I rarely use speakers and are thus happy with a rather basic set (maybe not quite as basic as OP). Headphones is where I prefer to put the majority of my audio budget.
  - cheeze 9y ago
    Totally fair, just surprising that one would splurge on literally everything else but not a decent pair of speakers. Although it looks like OP does know what he is talking about and gave options for higher quality speakers if one wanted them.
tabs_masterrace 9y ago
I've had similar a experience doing Android Development. I much prefer OS X over Windows 10 for doing work, but performance can be a real issue. Over time, and with every new yearly incremental software refresh, compile times on my MacBook getting slower and slower, it started to hurt productivity. So looking at options for new hardware, I realized I could either spend $3000 on a new Mac, that on paper might not even be that much faster then my current machine, or just throw together a PC from components for a bit over $1000 and get a much faster machine. There is just no good Mac option if you're looking for a simple i7, 32GB RAM, 256 SSD for a reasonable price.
- rozenmd 9y ago
  Some of the Thinkpad range fit your criteria, and can be tricked into thinking they are Macs...
Aloha 9y ago
Anyone can be an amazing photographer - but there is a distinction between a camera nut, and a photographer, to this end, Ken Rockwell makes a really interesting point: "You need to learn to see and compose. The more time you waste worrying about your equipment the less time you'll have to put into creating great images. Worry about your images, not your equipment." http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/notcamera.htm http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/notcamera.htm You can guess which category I feel this fellow falls into. I hope he got a great deal of pleasure building his system - it does look very impressive (if not downright pretty), but it doesn't make me think any more, or less of his photography.
- PStamatiou 9y ago
  I am definitely of the same mindset - but it's also my hobby and I do get some fun from building a bit of an overkill system (and documenting it in detail) :) I also viewed the build as its own project - I tend to do these very long blog posts about such projects in the 12 years I've been running my website. I started out with just the cheapest camera I could get my hands on, including working on my high school's yearbook staff in ~2000. Now that I've been working for over a decade and have some resources I pick up a few gadgets here and there for my hobbies.
  - Aloha 9y ago
    Awesome! I'm still a film guy when I want to go make pretty pictures - though I've taken some killer stuff on my iPhone of all things - I dont have a good digital camera, so all of my really good cameras are still film bodies - nothing to me beats the Ergonomics of an EOS-1 At the risk of giving myself the hug of death - https://leho.blastpuppy.com/~aloha/photos/ https://leho.blastpuppy.com/~aloha/photos/
- Sevrene 9y ago
  Interesting point! I admit that spending a lot of time worrying about equipment with little or no direct effect on the work or how you produce it is over the top — but worrying about equipment makes a lot of sense for any creator and especially in photography. Different lenses and different cameras will have a huge impact on your final photograph. Changing your tools affects your work flow and your final photograph as a result. Swapping cameras or lens will obviously affect your final image much more so than changing PC but it's still there and it is worth thinking about.
gharient 9y ago
What I want to know about is that lovely desk
- PStamatiou 9y ago
  It's a walnut humanscale float sit/stand desk: https://paulstamatiou.com/stuff-i-use/#desk https://paulstamatiou.com/stuff-i-use/#desk
farslan 9y ago
Not related to the blog post, but I think Paul has one of the best looking personal websites on the web. Simple and clear, but very delightful to read. Also he has amazing travel posts with nice photos. For example, his Japan post triggered me to travel to Japan three years ago. Keep up the good work Paul.
- PStamatiou 9y ago
  Thank you!! It's the very rare comments like this that bring me joy. While I mainly do the site and photosets just for myself (so so many times when I'm out to dinner with folks and am telling a story about some trip I can instantly pull up the set and show the journey) it's nice to see when others get some value from it, especially for something that has consumed countless nights and weekends over the years.
  - Kagerjay 9y ago
    I really like the blog as well, its one of the nicest I've seen. Are you using your own custom made jekyll site? Just curious about how you designed your blog and what components you use
- vondur 9y ago
  I agree, the design is great, and the animations on the maps is really nice.
- archagon 9y ago
  Agreed — never been to the site before, but had to add it to my "web design inspiration" bookmarks 5 minutes into reading. Delightful!
buro9 9y ago
Paul, did you consider buying an existing workstation like the HP Z840 ( http://store.hp.com/us/en/mdp/business-solutions/z840-workstation http://store.hp.com/us/en/mdp/business-solutions/z840-workst... ) or similar? I did this a number of years ago and never regretted it and dual-Xeon has really helped with DxO PhotoLab and Adobe Lightroom processing time (compared to all the other computers I had access to). Even years later I still believe that this is performing better than something I could've built myself. I think of computers like cars, in that if you upgrade 1 part significantly for performance (i.e. the engine) that it forces upgrades to everything else (i.e. brakes, chassis, cooling). A pre-built workstation balances all of these things to give one package where all of the potential is achievable.
- hugg 9y ago
  Looking at that, you can only get workstation graphics, which is something he did not want since he does occasionally play games.
  - buro9 9y ago
    Low spec the graphics card and replace just that one component. You'd still get a more RAM support (and ECC at that), heavy workload CPU support, and most importantly a motherboard designed to shove that much data back and forth between the CPU, RAM and other devices. What I realised with my gaming builds before is that the weakest link was just shifting the data around. The CPU was seldom maxed out, the RAM seldom straining under the workload, the storage not fully saturated... it was all constrained by how these bits fitted together and how the motherboard set the constraints on those components. e.g. the Core i7-8700k compared to a Xeon E5-2637 v4 https://ark.intel.com/compare/126684,92983 https://ark.intel.com/compare/126684,92983 the increased CPU cache, extra bus speed, more memory channels make a difference. I basically doubted my ability to build a gaming rig that balanced all of the components to give the best performance for the money spent (for the same use-case as Paul)... that could rival one of the big company workstations. And when I looked at the money I was spending, I saw that HP were delivering more for each $ I spent. In my case I purchased a standard HPZ800 (it's a few years ago!) and replaced the graphics card. It's great for gaming, and really strong for photo work (also have a Sony a7rii) and for video encoding. Both routes (self-build rig vs workstation) are valid, just curious whether Paul went through those considerations too.
BuckRogers 9y ago
The setup is nice but I'm long over the tower on the floor. I actually wanted to go back to the start of my computing journey (Commodore128, then 286, etc) and get a desktop[0] again. It's very unfortunate that while Intel was still probably the right call for Adobe software, the I/O impact on from Intel's Meltdown patches are going to be significant on that machine. Once it all settles down and is finalized in a few months that is. As well, the watercooling thing was pretty neat back in at the turn of the millenium. That's when the Celeron 300A and custom machined watercooling was big. I lost interest once CPUs became mostly no longer thermally limited (exception for Intel's current CPUs with the +~18C IHS issues). In general I prefer air cooling because I tend to always go for simplicity. A fan on a chunk of metal is pretty easy to troubleshoot and repair upon failure and reliable. I did get my 80's form factor desktop again. I built a Ryzen system[1] back in March 2017, the first new computer I put together since 2008 and I love it. I get by at least. [0]Back in the day, horizontal desktops were referred to as desktops and towers were towers. [1]https://i.imgur.com/JpgeAje.jpg https://i.imgur.com/JpgeAje.jpg
- yemich 9y ago
  I can tell you are a computer wizard with the perfectly aligned windows and task manager open. How long did it take you to prepare for that photo?
omgtehlion 9y ago
[offtopic] show me a 1080ti for $799 and I'll buy it on the spot. Effing miners devoured everything even for twice the price...
- PStamatiou 9y ago
  Unfortunately yea that was the price when I purchased it - I got it shortly after launch and built the pc later
parski 9y ago
Great article. I have almost the exact same components and I'll definetly get use of the overclocking segment when I get around to it. Why did you go with a water cooler?
patrickg_zill 9y ago
Paul (and anyone else who uses Sony cameras) I would like to suggest that you test out Capture One for processing your RAW files. I have found it does a better job of handling the Sony files than just about anything else. Also is GPU accelerated. My experience is based on the Sony RX10 files, and a friend of mine who uses it for handling his A7Rii files. A free version is available for use with Sony RAWs; or you can upgrade to the full version of the software at a low price. Just a happy user, I have no financial interest in the company.
- nicolaslem 9y ago
  Lightroom is plain bad with Fujifilm X-Trans raw files so I tried to find an alternative but I couldn't. The Lightroom workflow really is what makes the difference. I feel at home with Lightroom. So I keep exporting jpegs that look like garbage until Adobe decides to have decent support for the Fuji X line.
  - ropiku 9y ago
    Try Capture One since they have specific support for X-Trans since version 10. Or if you want to continue Lightroom you can bulk transfer the raw files with Irident X-Transformer then import them in Lightroom. Only worth it if you really want the best quality.
bob2001 9y ago
I love the detail that the author goes into, it's a nice change of pace from the normal articles on the web. His travel photography is also stunning, almost makes me want to do something with my travel photos as well, but once I see how much time he puts in, I think I'm not going to do it until I'm well retired. At any rate, I'm glad he enjoys what he's doing and shares i with the world, the photography really gives an effect of how he saw it, which is all to rare with people's vacation photos.
cageface 9y ago
I'm leaning in the same direction myself. My 2017 MBP Pro has been a disappointment. The touch bar is a nuisance. The excessively large trackpad leads to a lot of phantom taps, and I'm still using adapters to plug things into it. Since I'm wrapping up the last of my iOS client work there's nothing really tying me to macOS any more and a PC seems to provide way more bang for the buck for the things I care about - Android Studio, VS Code, Ableton Live, ZBrush, and a bit of gaming here and there. Apple's hardware playbook for the last few years seems to consist entirely of making things thinner for thinness' sake and making piecewise upgrades harder and harder.
- josephg 9y ago
  2016 MBP with touchbar reporting in. I have the 13” model without a dedicated graphics card, and I made the mistake of getting an external 4K display. The laptop can use the display, but everything is remarkably sluggish for a computer I paid $3000aud for. Especially safari with a few tabs open. The most embarrassing part is that I sort of got used to it and stopped noticing, until I spent time on my Windows gaming pc. The difference is night and day. I’ve recently ordered an external thunderbolt GPU enclosure, and I’m hoping I can solve the performance issue that way. But in the long run ... I’m not really sure what I want to run on my next computer. To be honest all the answers seem a bit bad. Macs are overpriced and underpowered. Linux on a laptop still seems like an endless stupid time hole - I had the Ubuntu installer reliably kernel panic on me the other day. And windows ... does windows support smooth scroll yet? Can you turn off the telemetary and pre-installed games in the start menu? Will I be able to install and try out the database or exotic programming language of the week on Windows, or will it be more fighting? Is it just me or did computers stop feeling better with each generation? When did we lose our way?
  - slantyyz 9y ago
    I think your problem is more related to the fact that your MBP is using a U-class CPU than not having dedicated graphics. I used the built-in GPU on my desktop with a 4K monitor and outside of gaming, it did not affect the UI snappiness at all. I would suspect that if you had the 15" MBP with the quad core CPU and turned off the discrete graphics that you would notice that the Intel HD graphics 4k performance is pretty good.
ternaryoperator 9y ago
This is a brilliant post. The ability to navigate around the article easily and then parachute into a section and revel in detail is beautifully executed. Using links to add asides is another excellent touch. When scowls complain that the Web is crap, this is where you take them to see what the Web could in fact be.
- REALiSTiC 9y ago
  Can anyone shed some light on how some blog posts of his are done (coded, styled, built)? (For example, https://paulstamatiou.com/photos/new-zealand/ https://paulstamatiou.com/photos/new-zealand/ and https://paulstamatiou.com/photos/new-zealand/auckland/ https://paulstamatiou.com/photos/new-zealand/auckland/. They're simply marvelous!)
  - Terribledactyl 9y ago
    https://paulstamatiou.com/responsive-retina-blog-development-part-1/ https://paulstamatiou.com/responsive-retina-blog-development... Jekyll, and a whole lot of attention to detail.
petepete 9y ago
I believe Capture One Pro will take better advantage of all that hardware than LightRoom.
alkonaut 9y ago
Word of caution 4K@27" is still pretty terrible in Windows. It's fine if you stay in specific apps for 99% of the time (such as a cad workstation or a Lightroom machine as in this case) but 27 requires scaling and many apps simply don't scale well. The "simple" solution is to run 4K at 32" or larger where you can run att 100% scaling. Unfortunately, if you want a screen with decent color you are adding serious money to get to 4k@32".
- altano 9y ago
  Why is this said in every discussion of high-dpi displays? I've been using high-dpi displays on Windows for longer than Retina was a thing and it's totally fine with only the extremely rare app/dialog not supporting it. My main display right now is 4k@27" with scaling on. Most apps are built properly and Windows now even supports fringe features like multi-monitor setups with different scaling ratios (a feature I was eagerly awaiting). It's not perfect and I'll occasionally come across some old utility that was built 10 years ago and renders poorly, but never a commonly used or modern one. The level of inconvenience doesn't even register. What do you want to use that doesn't work? Please be specific!
  - alkonaut 9y ago
    I definitely use lots of apps that aren't rebuilt in the last decade which is pretty common in the enterprise (in house stuff). But among the "new" and "widely used" apps on my desktop right now that don't scale well (i.e. bitmap scale) are e.g. Skype, McAffee, Cisco AnyConnect (it seems about 50% of the apps on my desktop are not properly DPI aware, but simply bitmap scaling). That's not the bad part though, I can learn to live with a few blurry bitmap scaling apps (and the odd miniature one that doesn't scale at all for some reason), but the bigger problem is apps that partially scale so they become unusable. Here is a screenshot I just took, of JetBrains DotTrace (a profiler) at 2x scaling (At a laptop with 15" @ 4K): http://prntscr.com/i4tpmb http://prntscr.com/i4tpmb It not only looks terrible, but some things are actually unusable. The bad thing about that kind of bug is that when an app is unusable, even if it's only one app of 100 that you use, you have no choice but to change scaling or resolution just to do that task which is a terrible interruption, especially for scaling that might require a logout to take effect. Edit: I don't consider multi monitor with different DPI's a fringe feature, since the high DPI is very common on laptops so any setup with a laptop plus an external screen will often be using different scaling for the laptop screen and the external screen.
stef25 9y ago
Isn't this a good use case for the iMac Pro?
- t0mislav 9y ago
  I guess at the time of building this PC, iMac Pro stil wasn't announced. It would be great to hear what author thinks now about iMac Pro.
  - PStamatiou 9y ago
    It was - but iMac Pro can't be upgraded. You want a new motherboard/CPU for the next gen that comes out in 9 months? Can't just go out and swap the parts out over the weekend. Also the Vega GPU in it is not as performant.
PuffinBlue 9y ago
> I wanted to place the more active drive that I would install the OS on there, and leave the less active Lightroom scratch drive in the standalone M.2 slot. > I couldn't quickly ascertain how each slot was identified in the UEFI and I didn't want to mistake installing Windows on the wrong drive. To solve this I only installed the SSD under the heatsink first and would install the other one after I had Windows up and running. I've found this to be the best way to install Windows whatever the circumstance as it will often install the bootloader on whatever the BIOS says is attached to slot 0 and then the rest of the operating system to the disk you specified. By only having one disk installed you save the hassle of sorting it out later.
anfractuosity 9y ago
I use Lightroom in VirtualBox which seems to work ok for me (I don't really do that much fiddling with the photos though). The photos are actually stored on my Linux filesystem and provided to Windows via VirtualBox's file sharing feature. And then I just rsync the photos to a backup computer.
- unhammer 9y ago
  How's performance on that, have you compared with plain Windows or wine?
  - anfractuosity 9y ago
    I think I tried and failed to get lightroom to run in wine quite a while ago. Maybe the situation with that has improved now? I haven't used it on plain Windows I'm afraid. I don't do anything that intensive though, just brightening images and tagging which seems to work fine for me.
msh 9y ago
Is it really worth using 6K on a non work PC, even if you have the extra cash? I think, personally, I would prefer a 3K machine that I replaced twich as often.
dingo_bat 9y ago
The only issue I have with this glorious build is the totally inadequate Apple keyboard. It doesn't have so many keys I need to be productive. Not to mention it's simply too small to use. Also it fits in with the rest of his setup like an apple in a bucket of oranges. Also, OP should take a look at VS code. It integrates very well with GNU/Windows.
saiya-jin 9y ago
Considering many pros are properly pissed off with Adobe and its approach to Lightroom forcing it to be only cloud-enabled (CC) and generally not giving a f*ck about what customers actually want, it might be a strange approach to invest so much in hardware for this specific use case. As you can see it is poorly implemented, not using many CPU cores (I read somewhere that > 6 are not used, and even those only for few specific operations). GPU usage is a joke too. Concept of perpetual fees just to have the option to edit your own photos just feels wrong. Competition is catching up fast, and Adobe will lose some customers. Actually with their greedy decision they created good opportunity for competition. Horrible performance of Lightroom is not necessity of working with RAW, but pure lame engineering, other tools are easily 2-3x faster (especially if you work with panoramas). Use for example latest Autopano giga 2, and it creates panoramas blazingly fast from RAWs. On top of that, it has much better algorithms for stitching images together, where Lightroom simply fails or messes up image beyond recognition, Autopano performs very well. It never happens the other way around. Let the market work its way and hopefully we customers will get superior products at the end, without bleeding cash continuously like Adobe would want.
virtualritz 9y ago
I use both Lightroom and Darktable regularly. While DT has a bit more bumpy UX, it makes up for that by being more flexible than LR and really fast on Linux with a good GPU with OpenCL support. And there is nothing that LR can do that DT can't. I.e. you don't need to shell out 6k for new box to make LR run fast. Just bite the bullet and learn another RAW editing app. If you have thousands (or ten thousands, in my case) worth of RAWs processed in LR, just keep editing them in LR if you still have to. I often hear this as a reason why people don't want to switch. I switched to DT in 2011. Everything before is LR. I use LR when I get images from friends who use LR and want me to do some advanced stuff for them or when I have to touch one of my pre-2011 RAWs. It is always slow on the same machine, compared to DT, but it's quite ok if you use it occasionally. :)
- thomnottom 9y ago
  Any reqs for a GPU? I have not gotten a handle on my photo archive/workflow since switching to Linux, but want to get familiar with DT.
- saiya-jin 9y ago
  The whole article is a bit strange - so much effort into research and putting it all together to have OC monster (which itself is really great read), and on the end simple realization that - Lightroom is unoptimized piece of shit of an app, it doesn't get fast no matter what hardware you run it on. For gaming-only purposes, this would not be optimal build for given money. - Maybe, just maybe the whole workflow of his should be addressed more, like selecting only few worthy photos for proper post-process (and thus slashing whole time spent in LR much much more) Since we talk about Windows, for example super simple Irfan View with RAW module (tiny amazing app, super fast to work with) can do this pre-screening faster than anything else. Plus at least some parts of LR are truly bad - their panoramas are super slow, and regularly don't stitch things properly where other software performs just fine (Autopano Giga 2, which is also easily 2-3x faster).
- adamweld 9y ago
  Lightroom is slow as fuck in my experience. Just bought a new laptop with a top of the line i7 CPU, SSD, 32GB RAM, 1050 GPU, etc. and it tears through video editing, solidworks CAD work, etc. But even still LR lags constantly working with a small collection of photos from my M4/3 camera. Like I can't scroll through a collection without it hanging. I assume this is caused by poor GPU utilization, but it's very frustrating whatever the cause.
pmlnr 9y ago
Both me and my wife recently realized something: the JPEG produced by the Pentax cameras we own are 90% of the time better than what we achieve with hours of raw conversion tweaking. Given that I'm not doing retouching most of the time, dealing with raw files becoming more and more a pain, without an actual gain. Had anyone else thought about this?
- hultner 9y ago
  I usually shoot to JPEG and RAW simultaneously. Most times I never touch the RAW file but in case I ever want they're there. Disk space is cheap nowadays so redundancy isn't a real problem for me anymore. Haven't used a Pentax expect for my trusty K1000 so I don't know if they support that.
  - pmlnr 9y ago
    The higher end ones can - they even have an option to choose between PEF and DNG for RAW format. This is what I'm doing as well, but the DNG files take 20-30MB of space, even at pathetically low 16MP (/s, high quality 2MP was enough for A4 prints...) resolution, and disk space is not THAT cheap once you want local and offsite backups as well.
- slantyyz 9y ago
  >> the JPEG produced by the Pentax cameras we own are 90% of the time better than what we achieve with hours of raw conversion tweaking Canon, Fuji and Olympus OOC JPEGs also have great reputations. >> Given that I'm not doing retouching most of the time, dealing with raw files becoming more and more a pain, without an actual gain. If you're not retouching, there probably is no point for you to edit RAW. I use RAW myself mainly to correct color temp and high iso noise reduction. The noise reduction in particular is useful for me because I prefer to use smaller sensor cameras.
pcunite 9y ago
I have little use for any of the features included in Windows 10 Pro Except securing it with Software Restriction Polices.
pcunite 9y ago
Then I installed my essentials: Atom text editor (Give vsCode a try too). Also look at FileSearchEX, the proper way to find files.
duke360 9y ago
very nice and informative... i also think you like to write a lot :D
aneutron 9y ago
One thing to keep in mind: Disabling UAC is a VERY BAD IDEA. No matter how you look at it. Look at it this way, if you do that, then any moderately smart ransomware will be able to do wonders on your PC. That's reminiscent of a 4chan post where the user downloads a program, tries to execute, is then warned by Firefox, but ignores it, warned by the AV Software, but disables it, warned by Defender, and disabled, and finally warned by UAC and disables it, only to get it infected and flame away because Windows sucks.
- PStamatiou 9y ago
  Agreed - I mention that in the post as well. It can allow for any automatic software to take over. Known risk, especially for when I was setting everything up and installing 100 different things and getting the UAC full screen takeover so often.
maxx 9y ago
There are lot and lot of advices in this article you SHOULD PRECISELY NOT FOLLOW when you build an editing PC. > Watercooling Watercooling addicts will try to argue that you can achieve a better cooling performance than with aircooling. The truth is that watercooling is at best only 1 or 2 degrees cooler than a proper aircooling system, or even worse in some tests. Then they will argue that watercooling provide a better performance/silence ratio, which also falls short when you consider that top aircooling systems are basically dead silent. You really don't want to deal with water in your PC (even with all-in-one systems) for nothing to gain. > Not using a calibration device I don't even understand how you can come up with the idea of writing an article about building a PC for photography/video editing while you don't already use and don't even plan to use a calibration device. The point is not even if you plan to publish, print or whatever, what is at stake is the way you view your own images. And there is ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE in buying a top of the line monitor if you don't calibrate it. > Buying the best performing components For 60-70% of the price of the top of the line product, you will get 95-99% of the performance of it. The same best performing product will anyway be "obsolete" (compared to the new best performing product) in a couple months and its price will drop 20-30%. This has always been true and will always be true for any PC building. This is even more true for an editing station since the top of the line will not even give you the 1-5% performance benefit you should expect. > Buying a gaming video card Particularly the top of the line. Your editing software will never use the processor and the memory that comes with such a gaming video card. And only pro cards will provide you 10-bit workflow, which is what you need if you bought an editing monitor with 10-bit panel and 99-100% Adobe coverage. You can buy an entry-level pro card, it will be more than enough for Lightroom/Capture One/Photoshop/Premiere/etc. IF you don't buy a pro card, then why do you buy such a monitor? > Bothering with huge overclocking or with RAM latencies (!) I agree it's quite easy now to do some overclocking, but you should not aim for the extreme. It's your work machine, you want stability. > Delidding your CPU What?! Just don't that. Let's be serious a minute.
- PStamatiou 9y ago
  I think you are misinformed about the current state of watercooling (even AIO). I'm running a very hot overclocked machine running extra voltage than normal. A 280mm radiator is an improvement over even the largest copper hsf. As for the gaming card - it's not top of the line (that would be Titan Xp and Titan V) - but yes it's very high-end. So why did I opt for that? Why not? I do a ton of 4K gaming and VR as well. Definitely not the primary goal but a nice side benefit. I mention some of the games I play in the setup section. As for the pricing - obviously monetary concerns were not much of an object with this build but the price of my graphics card has doubled since I purchased it. And RAM has gone up another $100. But yes - it will get outdated in just a few weeks. The benefit of the PC is that I can just swap out an upgrade to the next high-end thing over a weekend when I want. I already did that once - this build started out as a 7700K cpu/mobo and I swapped them out for an 8700K before publishing this.
JepZ 9y ago
Well, if you think water cooling is cool, try passive cooling. A few years back I build my current PC: - Core i7-4770S (Haswell, so you see its not that new anymore) - 32GB RAM - SSD 840 EVO 1TB (not that new either) - some passive PSU Last year I added an - AMD Radeon 460 So the whole thing is completely passively cooled. So no noise at all and I am pretty happy with the performance. I don't know what 'instant' performance in Lightroom means, but so far my experience with Darktable was just fine (actually, I was wondering why some options have a 'slow' or 'fast' suffix). That said, I am just a casual Darktable user, so I take all my photos in RAW and JPG and view them most of the time in the JPG version, but when I would like to create a photo calendar of some sort I use Darktable to get the most out of the pictures. The only downside is that hardware doesn't age that good :-/ $ grep -m1 bugs /proc/cpuinfo bugs : cpu_meltdown spectre_v1 spectre_v2
- digi_owl 9y ago
  Passively cooling 65W TDP?
  - JepZ 9y ago
    Apparently ;-) Actually, I bought the CPU, mainboard and cooler assembled together from mifcom, so they did the testing that everything runs stable and smooth. Just looked up some other details: - Mainboard: ASUS Z87-Deluxe - Case: Xigmatek - Asgard Pro - PSU: 500W - FSP Aurum Xilenser - CPU Cooler: Thermalright Macho HR-02 passive [1] As you can see that cooler is pretty big. The case isn't too fancy but it does the job and venting slots on the upper side. Interestingly dust doesn't seem to be a problem, in fact I never had so little dust in any previous pc. [1]: http://media.bestofmicro.com/N/G/460924/gallery/Thermalright-HR-02-Macho-Zero-13_w_600.jpg http://media.bestofmicro.com/N/G/460924/gallery/Thermalright... [2]: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Xigmatek+-+Asgard+Pro&t=ffab&iax=images&ia=images https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Xigmatek+-+Asgard+Pro&t=ffab&iax=i...
    - digi_owl 9y ago
      Now that is a brick of a cooler.
balls187 9y ago
Great write up, and incredibly impressed with your post on New Zealand. I recently upgraded from a 5d2 to a Mark4, and the integration with the iphone made for an interesting workflow. As I shoot, I take mental notes about what type of adjustments I'll make in post processing, and with Lightroom Mobile, I was able to take a handful of shots, and share them via social media. I'm considering switching a workflow from my heavy duty gaming rig, to using something like a Surface Pro.
jccalhoun 9y ago
This is really interesting. Reminds me to a degree of John Siracusa's OSX reviews. I am struck by how customizable windows is. Is it possible to customize osx to such a degree?
- mikewhy 9y ago
  I'm not sure, but much of this was to get Windows to function as baseline macOS anyways.
- digi_owl 9y ago
  > Reminds me to a degree of John Siracusa's OSX reviews Lacks the pixel counting...

272 points by chambo622 9y ago

N.B.: the "switch to Windows" is from macOS and not from Linux, just in case anyone was wondering. I think it's very interesting that the availability of Linux on Windows helped the author choose Windows.

eksemplar 9y ago
The switch stories are always either “from Mac-OS” or “to Linux”, the former being a “oh no you didn’t” and the latter being “I’m with cool birds now” narrative. It’s basically non-stories because your OS matters as little as what programming language you use. Pick the one that works for you, but don’t become a fucking missionary or tie your personality to your brand of choice.
- jnsaff2 9y ago
  Yea, I made the jump from osx to Linux switch more than a year ago because of the hardware situation. I also have dual boot windows just for Lightroom. It was a bit of tinkering just because I decided to go for a bit esoteric distribution (NixOS) and also switch to tiling (i3 and sway). It’s different, I think it’s much better and tiling really keeps the clutter at bay. I am very happy with the setup and when I have to use OS X (still have the old MacBook pro for time on the road) I don’t enjoy it any more.
- arca_vorago 9y ago
  >It’s basically non-stories because your OS matters as little as what programming language you use. >Pick the one that works for you, but don’t become a fucking missionary or tie your personality to your brand of choice. I do what I want and you can't tell me what to do! I think RMS was and is right and computing should not be viewed through a purely pragmatic lense, and I'm going to keep mentioning the importance of foss and copyleft to the future of computing and how it enables freedom for the user until I see fit to stop. I think OS choice greatly matters. I say this as a senior sysadmin who has had to support all 3 major OS's for over a decade. Windows 10 was the final straw for me and I went completely gnu/linux and haven't looked back since except to feel sorry for all the stockholm syndrome I see in those chained to those ecosystems.
  - digi_owl 9y ago
    The RMS message is different though. It is not about any specific OS or platform, it is about making sure the owner/admin is the final arbiter of what can or can't be done on that computer (now and into the infinite future).
    - arca_vorago 9y ago
      >it is about making sure the owner/admin is the final arbiter of what can or can't be done on that computer Which you can't do with Windows, and only to a certain degree with osx.
- oliwarner 9y ago
  > but don’t become a fucking missionary That might work for you and your choices but when you talk to developers whose software doesn't support your choice because "nobody uses it", and there are no native alternatives, you quickly see the fight is real. The odd bit of platform evangelism is the reason we don't all have to use Windows. It's the reason we have a choice at all.
- slantyyz 9y ago
  >> Pick the one that works for you, but don’t become a fucking missionary or tie your personality to your brand of choice. I find that people naturally tend to want others to be like them. It doesn't matter whether its politics, religion, OS, camera brand, camera sensor size, programming language, diet fad or whatnot. Maybe it makes them feel better about the choices they made?
  - digi_owl 9y ago
    More like people want external confirmation that they made the right choice.
owenwil 9y ago
As someone who made the same jump, Windows wasn't really a viable platform for non-dotNet developers until that happened. The state of Linux on the desktop is, frankly, a disaster — I spent months on trying to make it work, but wow, it's not worth the time.
- joosebox 9y ago
  Linux on Windows is still a disaster? It's been something I want to play around with but haven't had the chance yet.
  - ranqet 9y ago
    The fact that there is a wall between the Linux stuff and Windows stuff (“You can't edit a file that originates from the Linux userland inside Windows.”) sounds very hacky to me.
    - walshemj 9y ago
      Just do a samba share from the Linux vm to windows
      - tracker1 9y ago
        It's not a VM, it's like the inverse of WINE... it's a compatibility layer... and that one piece (not being able to edit files in the LSW from windows/gui) is what keeps me off of it.
        walshemj 9y ago
        Oh why not use windows pro and hyper-v then and run a Linux vm then that's assuming you don't run a small whitebox server to do your dev on?
        tracker1 9y ago
        I do.. and samba to use a GUI editor against files in the VM. That said, there's the overhead of a full VM... some of the same reasons one would use WINE instead of a full Windows VM.

vondur 9y ago

Looks like he built a really fancy and nice gaming machine. Makes sense to switch to Windows if you are a gamer.

midnitewarrior 9y ago
Good gaming PCs are good development and creative machines. All of these activities excel with more cores, ram and gpu cores.

gesman 9y ago

Dual 1TB Samsung 960 EVO M.2 SSDs ??? Real men use NVMe PRO :)

PStamatiou 9y ago
The performance difference was negligible for the cost, and I will likely upgrade to faster 3d xpoint SSDs in a year anyways.

ranqet 9y ago

So, the main reason he switched to a Windows machine was to use the latest/fastest hardware with Adobe Lightroom and Premiere, but then he goes on to say the Lightroom and Premiere don’t take advantage of many core CPUs, the fastest GPUs, fastest SSDs, etc... And Windows is fine after tweaking and adjusting dozens of settings. I’ll just stick with a Mac.

PStamatiou 9y ago
Premiere Pro definitely takes advantage of GPU and CPU very efficiently. Lightroom does not - which is why instead of going for some 18 core i9 7980XE build where it has more cores but a much lower clock per core, i opted for just 6 cores but with a very high clock.
- vondur 9y ago
  I don't think that Premier does really take advantage of video cards. I saw a video where they had switched a really old GTX 660 vs a 1080ti and the render time was not changed between them.
  - PStamatiou 9y ago
    I did a bench of the Premiere Pro h264 benchmark ("PPBM") with CUDA acceleration and without (software): the difference was 7m 4sec without GPU and 48 seconds with GPU.
    - vondur 9y ago
      Sorry, I should have phrased it better, you don't have to have the latest and greatest video card for Premiere. But, yes, you are correct, having GPU acceleration does work.
  - bicubic 9y ago
    It's possible the operation bandwidth limited in which case at some point a faster card won't speed it up any more. But gpu acceleration vs software is an enormous difference in premiere

gt_ 9y ago

The first item in the ‘Tweaking Windows’ section is Disable User Account Control. Can someone share a clear explanation of what this means and the nature of the risks involved?

shakna 9y ago
Disabled the administrative confirmation popup e.g. [0]. Kinda like Windows' weaker version of sudo. When UAC is disabled, anything can run as administrative, but without confirmation or any real sign that it is, so a bit of a risk. Though not quite on the level of running Mac or Linux as root (Windows has another higher level priority, System), it is close to it. IIRC it also disables some security features of Edge, if you use that. It might also disable some security features in Office, which is a bit more of a concern. [0] http://images.ntwind.com/winsnap3/uac-unsigned.png http://images.ntwind.com/winsnap3/uac-unsigned.png
dc3k 9y ago
UAC limits software to user privileges, even if you're running an administrator account. If you're running an administrator account, you just click YES in a popup to grant elevated privileges when they're requested. If you're running a user account, you enter an administrator password. Disabling UAC lets anything you run use administrator privileges without alerting you. Similar to running a Linux box as root. It's a really stupid thing to disable.
- krisdol 9y ago
  It’s also a popup that comes up several times every week or even day on windows. Really wish it was easier for apps on windows to run in user mode only and stick to it, but it seems like everything needs UAC on a regular basis for one reason or another.
  - pjmlp 9y ago
    That reason is developer incompetence. MSDN is full of posts and articles how to be a nice guy and run as user, unless of course the application needs to do some low system level calls. And even then, there are ways to split the architecture between privilege levels.

th0ma5 9y ago

Step 1. Be wealthy :P I am always enamored with the simplicity of one's living space being directly proportional to wealth. I try hard to not have much stuff, but my living options are seemingly always going to be working class style places with pretty much the antithesis of what is apparent in this photo. Of course the camera lies, and I shouldn't compare my insides to some else's outsides. There's probably a new puppy being paper trained just behind the camera, or a bunch of pocket change and random pens in a pile usually on that desk, but I do lament that I may never have such a simple, clean, and uncluttered living space. The spaces I may ever have will have things like unvaulted ceilings, windowsills, trim, standard door size passages between rooms, probably carpet heh... I do wonder if such things prevent clarity of thought.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
kylec 9y ago
It's easy to get rid of stuff if it's no big deal to just buy it again. Less well-off people don't have that luxury.
tlrobinson 9y ago
"I have too much stuff. Most people in America do. In fact, the poorer people are, the more stuff they seem to have. Hardly anyone is so poor that they can't afford a front yard full of old cars." http://www.paulgraham.com/stuff.html http://www.paulgraham.com/stuff.html
- icantdrive55 9y ago
  Yea, I got to, "I first realized the worthlessness of stuff when I lived in Italy for a year. All I took with me was one large backpack of stuff." 1. The old cars are usually project cars that offer hope to many people. They think one day I will be able to get that vechicle on the road again--if I can get sone disposable income. Reality is most won't, but I get it. 2. Rich guys and Brad Pitt can live out of backpacks. Loose the credit card for a few days and see what happens. You start to look at trash differently. 3. Yes--the peasants keep stuff. Yes--they need to cook, and they need that stuff to cook. Yes--they fix things when they break, so they can't throw away tools, and stuff. 4. When the tyranny goes, that old bike comes in handy. 5. I'm a little sensitive when rich people tell me what's valuable, or how to live a full life. I grew up with the wealthy, and their kids. They just are so disconnected, their advice only makes sense in their gated communities. Many claim they were poor when they were young, but 99% of the time, broke was only going out to dinner once a week during the tough times.

Arn_Thor 9y ago

A lot of the photos are great! And a lot of them..meh. Which is fine! I'm no star shooter, and far be it from me to judge someone wanting to show off their holiday. But he's spent an inordinate amount of time editing quite a bit of photos that surely could be left on the hard drive, or simply given a batch auto-touch-up by Lightroom in a matter of hours. And it's even stranger that the hobby would drive him to such a monumental and costly upgrade.

titanomachy 9y ago
Consider the possibility that he simply has a (relative) lot of money.
- jacobush 9y ago
  And time!
  - PStamatiou 9y ago
    It's a project :) I get joy some going in depth with everything I'm passionate about. I do it with my photosets (spent a year editing the 11k+ photos and then designing/developing the 9 photosets): https://paulstamatiou.com/photos/new-zealand/ https://paulstamatiou.com/photos/new-zealand/ and other projects like my RasPi Frame: https://paulstamatiou.com/getting-started-raspberry-pi/ https://paulstamatiou.com/getting-started-raspberry-pi/ or documenting one of my design projects at work: https://paulstamatiou.com/twitter-video/ https://paulstamatiou.com/twitter-video/

07d046 9y ago

I can't imagine spending $6000 on a computer for editing photos and then saying "It also means I don't plan to buy and meticulously use a color calibration device". My computer might not be half as fast, but at least I know my blues are the shade of blue I think they are.

PStamatiou 9y ago
Fair point :) I should reconsider. The UltraSharp line is factory calibrated but yea that doesn't mean much as it varies between display.
- Bromskloss 9y ago
  In what sense are they calibrated if things vary between displays?
  - PStamatiou 9y ago
    I am under the impression they do some basic tests that don't entirely accommodate for uniformity of illumination and consistency of color across the display. In other words - I think maybe they only test one part of the display.
  - Karunamon 9y ago
    ICS profile with the screen’s unique profile baked into the EDID? Just spitballing.
  - a012 9y ago
    Factory calibration is a thing in UltraSharp line, can't be compared to hardware calibration but works pretty well out-of-the-box. http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/reviews/dell_up2718q.htm#hardware_calibration http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/reviews/dell_up2718q.htm#hardwar...
  - AmVess 9y ago
    They do a base calibration. Do a Google search for Dell Calibration report. It shows what they calibrate. Keep in mind, it's still a pretty loose calibration. I've never once gotten two of the same models that look the same out of the box.

strictnein 9y ago

> PCPartPicker.com is one relatively new resource that I have found to be invaluable. Just the greatest site ever, if you're into building your own PCs. Fun to browse other builds, and then it makes it so simple to put together a system.

qume 9y ago
I second that - Anyone reading this thinking about building a PC, make sure you use this site. Can't stress that enough.
- troylinn 9y ago
  Second that, it pulls data from a number of retailers and has localized sites with local retailers which is a nice touch. Something I noticed is that if the item price can’t be displayed you can search around the item options and enter your own pricing to get a feel of the price of the system if parts would be in stock

ranqet 9y ago

Question for Paul, if you could use a Windows machine for work, would you? If not, why?

PStamatiou 9y ago
For actual work I would miss two things: Sketch (design app) which I need to use because our Twitter design team has a lot of shared assets for it. There is Figma design but I can't use that in isolation. Then I also need Framer for prototyping which is currently mac only. Those would be some very significant hurdles to jump over if I was to use it for 100% of my work too.
- kuon 9y ago
  I had the same problem, but affinity designer helped me move to windows.

riku_iki 9y ago

It was also a good investment. After recent spike in RAM and GPU prices he can sell it and make good money.

PStamatiou 9y ago
Yeah no kidding - price of the graphics card doubled since I got it.

ss248 9y ago

Really expected more when i read the title. It's a stretch to call this a "water-cooled machine", when it's just one all-in-one CPU cooler. Water-cooled machine should be a custom loop. It's a lot more hassle, but that's exactly why it's interesting. All-in-one systems are just like traditional air systems with big radiators, the only big difference is that you can move the radiator around.

PStamatiou 9y ago
Custom loops are such a hassle between leak testing, constantly changing the liquid, adding anti-algae additive. I've done many of them when I was really into PC building in the early 2000s (I was even on the FutureMark 3DMark Hall of Fame for a while for some extreme overclocks). The new AIO coolers are extremely performant and a no-brainer cost wise. No harm in trying out the new tech :)
- ss248 9y ago
  You don't have to constantly change the liquid if you don't go for the looks and use the good coolant, instead of shampooie colored one. If you have build custom loops, you should really understand the difference. AIO are much closer to traditional air coolers, than to custom-loop water cooling. Keep an eye on VRM btw. Point of failure in your system right now.
Ycros 9y ago
I don't agree, it clearly fits the definition.

cheeze 9y ago

This seems like massive overkill, but it doesn't look like OP actually cared about money, given the $400 VESA mount and the $159 (wat) custom PSU cables. Also surprising that one would spend that much money only to get a little bose speaker. But if ya can afford it, more power to you.

skeleton 9y ago
In regards to speakers, I found over time I rarely use speakers and are thus happy with a rather basic set (maybe not quite as basic as OP). Headphones is where I prefer to put the majority of my audio budget.
- cheeze 9y ago
  Totally fair, just surprising that one would splurge on literally everything else but not a decent pair of speakers. Although it looks like OP does know what he is talking about and gave options for higher quality speakers if one wanted them.

tabs_masterrace 9y ago

I've had similar a experience doing Android Development. I much prefer OS X over Windows 10 for doing work, but performance can be a real issue. Over time, and with every new yearly incremental software refresh, compile times on my MacBook getting slower and slower, it started to hurt productivity. So looking at options for new hardware, I realized I could either spend $3000 on a new Mac, that on paper might not even be that much faster then my current machine, or just throw together a PC from components for a bit over $1000 and get a much faster machine. There is just no good Mac option if you're looking for a simple i7, 32GB RAM, 256 SSD for a reasonable price.

rozenmd 9y ago
Some of the Thinkpad range fit your criteria, and can be tricked into thinking they are Macs...

Aloha 9y ago

Anyone can be an amazing photographer - but there is a distinction between a camera nut, and a photographer, to this end, Ken Rockwell makes a really interesting point: "You need to learn to see and compose. The more time you waste worrying about your equipment the less time you'll have to put into creating great images. Worry about your images, not your equipment." http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/notcamera.htm http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/notcamera.htm You can guess which category I feel this fellow falls into. I hope he got a great deal of pleasure building his system - it does look very impressive (if not downright pretty), but it doesn't make me think any more, or less of his photography.

PStamatiou 9y ago
I am definitely of the same mindset - but it's also my hobby and I do get some fun from building a bit of an overkill system (and documenting it in detail) :) I also viewed the build as its own project - I tend to do these very long blog posts about such projects in the 12 years I've been running my website. I started out with just the cheapest camera I could get my hands on, including working on my high school's yearbook staff in ~2000. Now that I've been working for over a decade and have some resources I pick up a few gadgets here and there for my hobbies.
- Aloha 9y ago
  Awesome! I'm still a film guy when I want to go make pretty pictures - though I've taken some killer stuff on my iPhone of all things - I dont have a good digital camera, so all of my really good cameras are still film bodies - nothing to me beats the Ergonomics of an EOS-1 At the risk of giving myself the hug of death - https://leho.blastpuppy.com/~aloha/photos/ https://leho.blastpuppy.com/~aloha/photos/
Sevrene 9y ago
Interesting point! I admit that spending a lot of time worrying about equipment with little or no direct effect on the work or how you produce it is over the top — but worrying about equipment makes a lot of sense for any creator and especially in photography. Different lenses and different cameras will have a huge impact on your final photograph. Changing your tools affects your work flow and your final photograph as a result. Swapping cameras or lens will obviously affect your final image much more so than changing PC but it's still there and it is worth thinking about.

gharient 9y ago

What I want to know about is that lovely desk

PStamatiou 9y ago
It's a walnut humanscale float sit/stand desk: https://paulstamatiou.com/stuff-i-use/#desk https://paulstamatiou.com/stuff-i-use/#desk

farslan 9y ago

Not related to the blog post, but I think Paul has one of the best looking personal websites on the web. Simple and clear, but very delightful to read. Also he has amazing travel posts with nice photos. For example, his Japan post triggered me to travel to Japan three years ago. Keep up the good work Paul.

PStamatiou 9y ago
Thank you!! It's the very rare comments like this that bring me joy. While I mainly do the site and photosets just for myself (so so many times when I'm out to dinner with folks and am telling a story about some trip I can instantly pull up the set and show the journey) it's nice to see when others get some value from it, especially for something that has consumed countless nights and weekends over the years.
- Kagerjay 9y ago
  I really like the blog as well, its one of the nicest I've seen. Are you using your own custom made jekyll site? Just curious about how you designed your blog and what components you use
vondur 9y ago
I agree, the design is great, and the animations on the maps is really nice.
archagon 9y ago
Agreed — never been to the site before, but had to add it to my "web design inspiration" bookmarks 5 minutes into reading. Delightful!

buro9 9y ago

Paul, did you consider buying an existing workstation like the HP Z840 ( http://store.hp.com/us/en/mdp/business-solutions/z840-workstation http://store.hp.com/us/en/mdp/business-solutions/z840-workst... ) or similar? I did this a number of years ago and never regretted it and dual-Xeon has really helped with DxO PhotoLab and Adobe Lightroom processing time (compared to all the other computers I had access to). Even years later I still believe that this is performing better than something I could've built myself. I think of computers like cars, in that if you upgrade 1 part significantly for performance (i.e. the engine) that it forces upgrades to everything else (i.e. brakes, chassis, cooling). A pre-built workstation balances all of these things to give one package where all of the potential is achievable.

hugg 9y ago
Looking at that, you can only get workstation graphics, which is something he did not want since he does occasionally play games.
- buro9 9y ago
  Low spec the graphics card and replace just that one component. You'd still get a more RAM support (and ECC at that), heavy workload CPU support, and most importantly a motherboard designed to shove that much data back and forth between the CPU, RAM and other devices. What I realised with my gaming builds before is that the weakest link was just shifting the data around. The CPU was seldom maxed out, the RAM seldom straining under the workload, the storage not fully saturated... it was all constrained by how these bits fitted together and how the motherboard set the constraints on those components. e.g. the Core i7-8700k compared to a Xeon E5-2637 v4 https://ark.intel.com/compare/126684,92983 https://ark.intel.com/compare/126684,92983 the increased CPU cache, extra bus speed, more memory channels make a difference. I basically doubted my ability to build a gaming rig that balanced all of the components to give the best performance for the money spent (for the same use-case as Paul)... that could rival one of the big company workstations. And when I looked at the money I was spending, I saw that HP were delivering more for each $ I spent. In my case I purchased a standard HPZ800 (it's a few years ago!) and replaced the graphics card. It's great for gaming, and really strong for photo work (also have a Sony a7rii) and for video encoding. Both routes (self-build rig vs workstation) are valid, just curious whether Paul went through those considerations too.

BuckRogers 9y ago

The setup is nice but I'm long over the tower on the floor. I actually wanted to go back to the start of my computing journey (Commodore128, then 286, etc) and get a desktop[0] again. It's very unfortunate that while Intel was still probably the right call for Adobe software, the I/O impact on from Intel's Meltdown patches are going to be significant on that machine. Once it all settles down and is finalized in a few months that is. As well, the watercooling thing was pretty neat back in at the turn of the millenium. That's when the Celeron 300A and custom machined watercooling was big. I lost interest once CPUs became mostly no longer thermally limited (exception for Intel's current CPUs with the +~18C IHS issues). In general I prefer air cooling because I tend to always go for simplicity. A fan on a chunk of metal is pretty easy to troubleshoot and repair upon failure and reliable. I did get my 80's form factor desktop again. I built a Ryzen system[1] back in March 2017, the first new computer I put together since 2008 and I love it. I get by at least. [0]Back in the day, horizontal desktops were referred to as desktops and towers were towers. [1]https://i.imgur.com/JpgeAje.jpg https://i.imgur.com/JpgeAje.jpg

yemich 9y ago
I can tell you are a computer wizard with the perfectly aligned windows and task manager open. How long did it take you to prepare for that photo?

omgtehlion 9y ago

[offtopic] show me a 1080ti for $799 and I'll buy it on the spot. Effing miners devoured everything even for twice the price...

PStamatiou 9y ago
Unfortunately yea that was the price when I purchased it - I got it shortly after launch and built the pc later

parski 9y ago

Great article. I have almost the exact same components and I'll definetly get use of the overclocking segment when I get around to it. Why did you go with a water cooler?

patrickg_zill 9y ago

Paul (and anyone else who uses Sony cameras) I would like to suggest that you test out Capture One for processing your RAW files. I have found it does a better job of handling the Sony files than just about anything else. Also is GPU accelerated. My experience is based on the Sony RX10 files, and a friend of mine who uses it for handling his A7Rii files. A free version is available for use with Sony RAWs; or you can upgrade to the full version of the software at a low price. Just a happy user, I have no financial interest in the company.

nicolaslem 9y ago
Lightroom is plain bad with Fujifilm X-Trans raw files so I tried to find an alternative but I couldn't. The Lightroom workflow really is what makes the difference. I feel at home with Lightroom. So I keep exporting jpegs that look like garbage until Adobe decides to have decent support for the Fuji X line.
- ropiku 9y ago
  Try Capture One since they have specific support for X-Trans since version 10. Or if you want to continue Lightroom you can bulk transfer the raw files with Irident X-Transformer then import them in Lightroom. Only worth it if you really want the best quality.

bob2001 9y ago

I love the detail that the author goes into, it's a nice change of pace from the normal articles on the web. His travel photography is also stunning, almost makes me want to do something with my travel photos as well, but once I see how much time he puts in, I think I'm not going to do it until I'm well retired. At any rate, I'm glad he enjoys what he's doing and shares i with the world, the photography really gives an effect of how he saw it, which is all to rare with people's vacation photos.

cageface 9y ago

I'm leaning in the same direction myself. My 2017 MBP Pro has been a disappointment. The touch bar is a nuisance. The excessively large trackpad leads to a lot of phantom taps, and I'm still using adapters to plug things into it. Since I'm wrapping up the last of my iOS client work there's nothing really tying me to macOS any more and a PC seems to provide way more bang for the buck for the things I care about - Android Studio, VS Code, Ableton Live, ZBrush, and a bit of gaming here and there. Apple's hardware playbook for the last few years seems to consist entirely of making things thinner for thinness' sake and making piecewise upgrades harder and harder.

josephg 9y ago
2016 MBP with touchbar reporting in. I have the 13” model without a dedicated graphics card, and I made the mistake of getting an external 4K display. The laptop can use the display, but everything is remarkably sluggish for a computer I paid $3000aud for. Especially safari with a few tabs open. The most embarrassing part is that I sort of got used to it and stopped noticing, until I spent time on my Windows gaming pc. The difference is night and day. I’ve recently ordered an external thunderbolt GPU enclosure, and I’m hoping I can solve the performance issue that way. But in the long run ... I’m not really sure what I want to run on my next computer. To be honest all the answers seem a bit bad. Macs are overpriced and underpowered. Linux on a laptop still seems like an endless stupid time hole - I had the Ubuntu installer reliably kernel panic on me the other day. And windows ... does windows support smooth scroll yet? Can you turn off the telemetary and pre-installed games in the start menu? Will I be able to install and try out the database or exotic programming language of the week on Windows, or will it be more fighting? Is it just me or did computers stop feeling better with each generation? When did we lose our way?
- slantyyz 9y ago
  I think your problem is more related to the fact that your MBP is using a U-class CPU than not having dedicated graphics. I used the built-in GPU on my desktop with a 4K monitor and outside of gaming, it did not affect the UI snappiness at all. I would suspect that if you had the 15" MBP with the quad core CPU and turned off the discrete graphics that you would notice that the Intel HD graphics 4k performance is pretty good.

ternaryoperator 9y ago

This is a brilliant post. The ability to navigate around the article easily and then parachute into a section and revel in detail is beautifully executed. Using links to add asides is another excellent touch. When scowls complain that the Web is crap, this is where you take them to see what the Web could in fact be.

REALiSTiC 9y ago
Can anyone shed some light on how some blog posts of his are done (coded, styled, built)? (For example, https://paulstamatiou.com/photos/new-zealand/ https://paulstamatiou.com/photos/new-zealand/ and https://paulstamatiou.com/photos/new-zealand/auckland/ https://paulstamatiou.com/photos/new-zealand/auckland/. They're simply marvelous!)
- Terribledactyl 9y ago
  https://paulstamatiou.com/responsive-retina-blog-development-part-1/ https://paulstamatiou.com/responsive-retina-blog-development... Jekyll, and a whole lot of attention to detail.

petepete 9y ago

I believe Capture One Pro will take better advantage of all that hardware than LightRoom.

alkonaut 9y ago

Word of caution 4K@27" is still pretty terrible in Windows. It's fine if you stay in specific apps for 99% of the time (such as a cad workstation or a Lightroom machine as in this case) but 27 requires scaling and many apps simply don't scale well. The "simple" solution is to run 4K at 32" or larger where you can run att 100% scaling. Unfortunately, if you want a screen with decent color you are adding serious money to get to 4k@32".

altano 9y ago
Why is this said in every discussion of high-dpi displays? I've been using high-dpi displays on Windows for longer than Retina was a thing and it's totally fine with only the extremely rare app/dialog not supporting it. My main display right now is 4k@27" with scaling on. Most apps are built properly and Windows now even supports fringe features like multi-monitor setups with different scaling ratios (a feature I was eagerly awaiting). It's not perfect and I'll occasionally come across some old utility that was built 10 years ago and renders poorly, but never a commonly used or modern one. The level of inconvenience doesn't even register. What do you want to use that doesn't work? Please be specific!
- alkonaut 9y ago
  I definitely use lots of apps that aren't rebuilt in the last decade which is pretty common in the enterprise (in house stuff). But among the "new" and "widely used" apps on my desktop right now that don't scale well (i.e. bitmap scale) are e.g. Skype, McAffee, Cisco AnyConnect (it seems about 50% of the apps on my desktop are not properly DPI aware, but simply bitmap scaling). That's not the bad part though, I can learn to live with a few blurry bitmap scaling apps (and the odd miniature one that doesn't scale at all for some reason), but the bigger problem is apps that partially scale so they become unusable. Here is a screenshot I just took, of JetBrains DotTrace (a profiler) at 2x scaling (At a laptop with 15" @ 4K): http://prntscr.com/i4tpmb http://prntscr.com/i4tpmb It not only looks terrible, but some things are actually unusable. The bad thing about that kind of bug is that when an app is unusable, even if it's only one app of 100 that you use, you have no choice but to change scaling or resolution just to do that task which is a terrible interruption, especially for scaling that might require a logout to take effect. Edit: I don't consider multi monitor with different DPI's a fringe feature, since the high DPI is very common on laptops so any setup with a laptop plus an external screen will often be using different scaling for the laptop screen and the external screen.

stef25 9y ago

Isn't this a good use case for the iMac Pro?

t0mislav 9y ago
I guess at the time of building this PC, iMac Pro stil wasn't announced. It would be great to hear what author thinks now about iMac Pro.
- PStamatiou 9y ago
  It was - but iMac Pro can't be upgraded. You want a new motherboard/CPU for the next gen that comes out in 9 months? Can't just go out and swap the parts out over the weekend. Also the Vega GPU in it is not as performant.

PuffinBlue 9y ago

> I wanted to place the more active drive that I would install the OS on there, and leave the less active Lightroom scratch drive in the standalone M.2 slot. > I couldn't quickly ascertain how each slot was identified in the UEFI and I didn't want to mistake installing Windows on the wrong drive. To solve this I only installed the SSD under the heatsink first and would install the other one after I had Windows up and running. I've found this to be the best way to install Windows whatever the circumstance as it will often install the bootloader on whatever the BIOS says is attached to slot 0 and then the rest of the operating system to the disk you specified. By only having one disk installed you save the hassle of sorting it out later.

anfractuosity 9y ago

I use Lightroom in VirtualBox which seems to work ok for me (I don't really do that much fiddling with the photos though). The photos are actually stored on my Linux filesystem and provided to Windows via VirtualBox's file sharing feature. And then I just rsync the photos to a backup computer.

unhammer 9y ago
How's performance on that, have you compared with plain Windows or wine?
- anfractuosity 9y ago
  I think I tried and failed to get lightroom to run in wine quite a while ago. Maybe the situation with that has improved now? I haven't used it on plain Windows I'm afraid. I don't do anything that intensive though, just brightening images and tagging which seems to work fine for me.

msh 9y ago

Is it really worth using 6K on a non work PC, even if you have the extra cash? I think, personally, I would prefer a 3K machine that I replaced twich as often.

dingo_bat 9y ago

The only issue I have with this glorious build is the totally inadequate Apple keyboard. It doesn't have so many keys I need to be productive. Not to mention it's simply too small to use. Also it fits in with the rest of his setup like an apple in a bucket of oranges. Also, OP should take a look at VS code. It integrates very well with GNU/Windows.

saiya-jin 9y ago

Considering many pros are properly pissed off with Adobe and its approach to Lightroom forcing it to be only cloud-enabled (CC) and generally not giving a f*ck about what customers actually want, it might be a strange approach to invest so much in hardware for this specific use case. As you can see it is poorly implemented, not using many CPU cores (I read somewhere that > 6 are not used, and even those only for few specific operations). GPU usage is a joke too. Concept of perpetual fees just to have the option to edit your own photos just feels wrong. Competition is catching up fast, and Adobe will lose some customers. Actually with their greedy decision they created good opportunity for competition. Horrible performance of Lightroom is not necessity of working with RAW, but pure lame engineering, other tools are easily 2-3x faster (especially if you work with panoramas). Use for example latest Autopano giga 2, and it creates panoramas blazingly fast from RAWs. On top of that, it has much better algorithms for stitching images together, where Lightroom simply fails or messes up image beyond recognition, Autopano performs very well. It never happens the other way around. Let the market work its way and hopefully we customers will get superior products at the end, without bleeding cash continuously like Adobe would want.

virtualritz 9y ago

I use both Lightroom and Darktable regularly. While DT has a bit more bumpy UX, it makes up for that by being more flexible than LR and really fast on Linux with a good GPU with OpenCL support. And there is nothing that LR can do that DT can't. I.e. you don't need to shell out 6k for new box to make LR run fast. Just bite the bullet and learn another RAW editing app. If you have thousands (or ten thousands, in my case) worth of RAWs processed in LR, just keep editing them in LR if you still have to. I often hear this as a reason why people don't want to switch. I switched to DT in 2011. Everything before is LR. I use LR when I get images from friends who use LR and want me to do some advanced stuff for them or when I have to touch one of my pre-2011 RAWs. It is always slow on the same machine, compared to DT, but it's quite ok if you use it occasionally. :)

thomnottom 9y ago
Any reqs for a GPU? I have not gotten a handle on my photo archive/workflow since switching to Linux, but want to get familiar with DT.
saiya-jin 9y ago
The whole article is a bit strange - so much effort into research and putting it all together to have OC monster (which itself is really great read), and on the end simple realization that - Lightroom is unoptimized piece of shit of an app, it doesn't get fast no matter what hardware you run it on. For gaming-only purposes, this would not be optimal build for given money. - Maybe, just maybe the whole workflow of his should be addressed more, like selecting only few worthy photos for proper post-process (and thus slashing whole time spent in LR much much more) Since we talk about Windows, for example super simple Irfan View with RAW module (tiny amazing app, super fast to work with) can do this pre-screening faster than anything else. Plus at least some parts of LR are truly bad - their panoramas are super slow, and regularly don't stitch things properly where other software performs just fine (Autopano Giga 2, which is also easily 2-3x faster).
adamweld 9y ago
Lightroom is slow as fuck in my experience. Just bought a new laptop with a top of the line i7 CPU, SSD, 32GB RAM, 1050 GPU, etc. and it tears through video editing, solidworks CAD work, etc. But even still LR lags constantly working with a small collection of photos from my M4/3 camera. Like I can't scroll through a collection without it hanging. I assume this is caused by poor GPU utilization, but it's very frustrating whatever the cause.

pmlnr 9y ago

Both me and my wife recently realized something: the JPEG produced by the Pentax cameras we own are 90% of the time better than what we achieve with hours of raw conversion tweaking. Given that I'm not doing retouching most of the time, dealing with raw files becoming more and more a pain, without an actual gain. Had anyone else thought about this?

hultner 9y ago
I usually shoot to JPEG and RAW simultaneously. Most times I never touch the RAW file but in case I ever want they're there. Disk space is cheap nowadays so redundancy isn't a real problem for me anymore. Haven't used a Pentax expect for my trusty K1000 so I don't know if they support that.
- pmlnr 9y ago
  The higher end ones can - they even have an option to choose between PEF and DNG for RAW format. This is what I'm doing as well, but the DNG files take 20-30MB of space, even at pathetically low 16MP (/s, high quality 2MP was enough for A4 prints...) resolution, and disk space is not THAT cheap once you want local and offsite backups as well.
slantyyz 9y ago
>> the JPEG produced by the Pentax cameras we own are 90% of the time better than what we achieve with hours of raw conversion tweaking Canon, Fuji and Olympus OOC JPEGs also have great reputations. >> Given that I'm not doing retouching most of the time, dealing with raw files becoming more and more a pain, without an actual gain. If you're not retouching, there probably is no point for you to edit RAW. I use RAW myself mainly to correct color temp and high iso noise reduction. The noise reduction in particular is useful for me because I prefer to use smaller sensor cameras.

pcunite 9y ago

I have little use for any of the features included in Windows 10 Pro Except securing it with Software Restriction Polices.

pcunite 9y ago

Then I installed my essentials: Atom text editor (Give vsCode a try too). Also look at FileSearchEX, the proper way to find files.

duke360 9y ago

very nice and informative... i also think you like to write a lot :D

aneutron 9y ago

One thing to keep in mind: Disabling UAC is a VERY BAD IDEA. No matter how you look at it. Look at it this way, if you do that, then any moderately smart ransomware will be able to do wonders on your PC. That's reminiscent of a 4chan post where the user downloads a program, tries to execute, is then warned by Firefox, but ignores it, warned by the AV Software, but disables it, warned by Defender, and disabled, and finally warned by UAC and disables it, only to get it infected and flame away because Windows sucks.

PStamatiou 9y ago
Agreed - I mention that in the post as well. It can allow for any automatic software to take over. Known risk, especially for when I was setting everything up and installing 100 different things and getting the UAC full screen takeover so often.

maxx 9y ago

There are lot and lot of advices in this article you SHOULD PRECISELY NOT FOLLOW when you build an editing PC. > Watercooling Watercooling addicts will try to argue that you can achieve a better cooling performance than with aircooling. The truth is that watercooling is at best only 1 or 2 degrees cooler than a proper aircooling system, or even worse in some tests. Then they will argue that watercooling provide a better performance/silence ratio, which also falls short when you consider that top aircooling systems are basically dead silent. You really don't want to deal with water in your PC (even with all-in-one systems) for nothing to gain. > Not using a calibration device I don't even understand how you can come up with the idea of writing an article about building a PC for photography/video editing while you don't already use and don't even plan to use a calibration device. The point is not even if you plan to publish, print or whatever, what is at stake is the way you view your own images. And there is ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE in buying a top of the line monitor if you don't calibrate it. > Buying the best performing components For 60-70% of the price of the top of the line product, you will get 95-99% of the performance of it. The same best performing product will anyway be "obsolete" (compared to the new best performing product) in a couple months and its price will drop 20-30%. This has always been true and will always be true for any PC building. This is even more true for an editing station since the top of the line will not even give you the 1-5% performance benefit you should expect. > Buying a gaming video card Particularly the top of the line. Your editing software will never use the processor and the memory that comes with such a gaming video card. And only pro cards will provide you 10-bit workflow, which is what you need if you bought an editing monitor with 10-bit panel and 99-100% Adobe coverage. You can buy an entry-level pro card, it will be more than enough for Lightroom/Capture One/Photoshop/Premiere/etc. IF you don't buy a pro card, then why do you buy such a monitor? > Bothering with huge overclocking or with RAM latencies (!) I agree it's quite easy now to do some overclocking, but you should not aim for the extreme. It's your work machine, you want stability. > Delidding your CPU What?! Just don't that. Let's be serious a minute.

PStamatiou 9y ago
I think you are misinformed about the current state of watercooling (even AIO). I'm running a very hot overclocked machine running extra voltage than normal. A 280mm radiator is an improvement over even the largest copper hsf. As for the gaming card - it's not top of the line (that would be Titan Xp and Titan V) - but yes it's very high-end. So why did I opt for that? Why not? I do a ton of 4K gaming and VR as well. Definitely not the primary goal but a nice side benefit. I mention some of the games I play in the setup section. As for the pricing - obviously monetary concerns were not much of an object with this build but the price of my graphics card has doubled since I purchased it. And RAM has gone up another $100. But yes - it will get outdated in just a few weeks. The benefit of the PC is that I can just swap out an upgrade to the next high-end thing over a weekend when I want. I already did that once - this build started out as a 7700K cpu/mobo and I swapped them out for an 8700K before publishing this.

JepZ 9y ago

Well, if you think water cooling is cool, try passive cooling. A few years back I build my current PC: - Core i7-4770S (Haswell, so you see its not that new anymore) - 32GB RAM - SSD 840 EVO 1TB (not that new either) - some passive PSU Last year I added an - AMD Radeon 460 So the whole thing is completely passively cooled. So no noise at all and I am pretty happy with the performance. I don't know what 'instant' performance in Lightroom means, but so far my experience with Darktable was just fine (actually, I was wondering why some options have a 'slow' or 'fast' suffix). That said, I am just a casual Darktable user, so I take all my photos in RAW and JPG and view them most of the time in the JPG version, but when I would like to create a photo calendar of some sort I use Darktable to get the most out of the pictures. The only downside is that hardware doesn't age that good :-/ $ grep -m1 bugs /proc/cpuinfo bugs : cpu_meltdown spectre_v1 spectre_v2

digi_owl 9y ago
Passively cooling 65W TDP?
- JepZ 9y ago
  Apparently ;-) Actually, I bought the CPU, mainboard and cooler assembled together from mifcom, so they did the testing that everything runs stable and smooth. Just looked up some other details: - Mainboard: ASUS Z87-Deluxe - Case: Xigmatek - Asgard Pro - PSU: 500W - FSP Aurum Xilenser - CPU Cooler: Thermalright Macho HR-02 passive [1] As you can see that cooler is pretty big. The case isn't too fancy but it does the job and venting slots on the upper side. Interestingly dust doesn't seem to be a problem, in fact I never had so little dust in any previous pc. [1]: http://media.bestofmicro.com/N/G/460924/gallery/Thermalright-HR-02-Macho-Zero-13_w_600.jpg http://media.bestofmicro.com/N/G/460924/gallery/Thermalright... [2]: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Xigmatek+-+Asgard+Pro&t=ffab&iax=images&ia=images https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Xigmatek+-+Asgard+Pro&t=ffab&iax=i...
  - digi_owl 9y ago
    Now that is a brick of a cooler.

balls187 9y ago

Great write up, and incredibly impressed with your post on New Zealand. I recently upgraded from a 5d2 to a Mark4, and the integration with the iphone made for an interesting workflow. As I shoot, I take mental notes about what type of adjustments I'll make in post processing, and with Lightroom Mobile, I was able to take a handful of shots, and share them via social media. I'm considering switching a workflow from my heavy duty gaming rig, to using something like a Surface Pro.

jccalhoun 9y ago

This is really interesting. Reminds me to a degree of John Siracusa's OSX reviews. I am struck by how customizable windows is. Is it possible to customize osx to such a degree?

mikewhy 9y ago
I'm not sure, but much of this was to get Windows to function as baseline macOS anyways.
digi_owl 9y ago
> Reminds me to a degree of John Siracusa's OSX reviews Lacks the pixel counting...