Build for Adobe Lightroom

[nvsravank]

I am a first time builder and looking for feedback for my first build.
I am a photographer and recently with the upgrade to my camera to a 22mp model with raw files (5d Mark III) and the Lightroom 4 upgrade I am having issues with the performance of my 6 year old Mac Pro. I do use photoshop, but don't tax it much.
I am thinking about switching out of Mac to windows and at the same time do a custom build which I always wanted to do.
I use this for photography and playing some games like Diablo III on a 1680x1050 monitor. I am not into uber high resolutions etc.
I do like noise free as noise bothers me, especially electronic noise.
So here goes my build, tell me if it makes sense for the build.

ASUS P8Z77-V LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard: What should i replace this with? Still looking to find out what are important in a MOBO.

Intel 3770k: will try overclocking to around 4.2ghz. Lightroom goes by CPU speed, but don't want to oc too high. Don't want it burn in a year.

Antec P280 case: noise dampened, and hopefully easy enough to build for a first time builder. Considered corsair 550d and silverstone ft02. Went away from silverstone as I think it is harder to build due to its rotation.

Seasonic X650: Based on feedback, moving from the 850W model to the 650 watt model. Not planning to do any crossfire or SLI and so should be sufficient for me. Also wanted modular to keep wire mess to a minimum. Hoping to run at 50% load with the rest of the components for best performance and noise characteristics.

Video Card - What to build up for?

G.SKILL Ripjaws Z Series 16GB (4 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) : Seems like this saves a lot and am being told memory OC helps but the cost of it is too much. This is more main stream $90.

Crucial M4 256 gb as my OS, Catalog, Previews and Cache. For both PS and Lightroom.

HDD: For apps and general stuff suggest HDD please - Looking to use two in Raid 1 configuration. Minimum capacity in my mind is 1 TB.

Looking to use my existing Drobo on Firewire800 for longer term storage

Blue ray writer LG wh12ls39: to write out home made 1080P movies. Cant use DVDs for 1080P as i send them to India for family to watch.

Scythe SCMG-3100 120mm Mugen 3 Rev. B CPU Cooler.

Rosewill PCIe 1394b Card 3 Ports Model RC-506E to connect my Drobo and my camcorder

External Card Reader: Lexar Professional.

Reusing existing monitor, keyboard, mouse. A anti static wrist strap, and some zip ties. My first build remember, so scared about frying the stuff

Any advice?

 

[rudder]

Yes, 860 watts is overkill... but if it is platinum rated and you don't mind spending the money go for it.

The Corsairs are very quiet so other than the video card I don't see the system making a whole lot of noise. I have the first generation corsair H50 and I keep all my system fans at 50% and the whole system is pretty quiet and keeps cool. I also went opposite of the corsair recommendation of pulling in air from the back and out the front.

As far as relying on drobo... obviously firewire 800 is not going to be as fast a transfer as going to a sata drive. Having only a 256gb SSD for data... it may get pretty tight pretty quick... especially with a few video projects in the works. I would throw a mirrored SATA (i am paranoid about drive failure) drive in there as a holding point between current projects and long term storage on the drobo.

 

[nvsravank]

Sorry didnt read the sticky and so here are the answers to the sticky.

1. What YOUR PC will be used for. That means what types of tasks you'll be performing.
Mainly Lightroom. A bit of Photoshop - every ten pics out of a 100 go to photoshop and I do close to 200 a week average.
Bit of Diablo 3, City of Heroes, and maybe a few other MMORPGs as i will back to PC worlds and can start playing them.

2. What YOUR budget is. A price range is acceptable as long as it's not more than a 20% spread
I would say 2K. I priced the components from New Egg and came out at $1800 odd. Looking for deals will hopefully cut it down a bit more.

3. What country YOU will be buying YOUR parts from.
USA.

4. IF YOU have a brand preference. That means, are you an Intel-Fanboy, AMD-Fanboy, ATI-Fanboy, nVidia-Fanboy, Seagate-Fanboy, WD-Fanboy, etc.
None. Just the most sensible options now.

5. If YOU intend on using any of YOUR current parts, and if so, what those parts are.
Video card - Radeon 5750 (From my Mac Pro)
Monitor - Samsung 1680x1050
Keyboard microsoft split keyboard form 6 years ago (If it works)
USB mouse

7. IF YOU plan on overclocking or run the system at default speeds.
Yes plan on Overclocking. More on the CPU side and memory side to speed up Lightroom. Not much on GPU side for now. But only modest overclocking. Most probably will use BIOS auto overclock options for the most part.

8. What resolution will you be using?
For now 1680x1050. Monitor upgrade is for next year.

9. WHEN do you plan to build it?
Note that it is usually not cost or time effective to choose your build more than a month before you actually plan to be using it.
As soon as 3770K is in stock in NJ micro center at the cheaper price.

 

[nvsravank]

Yes, 860 watts is overkill... but if it is platinum rated and you don't mind spending the money go for it.

I want a stable PSU for the overclocking. And to reduce noise. I dont mind the price, but if there is something better at a similar price point, then obviously i would go for it. I dont like downtime as I wont be having a back up machine other than my mac pro and so looking for good quality products.

I also went opposite of the corsair recommendation of pulling in air from the back and out the front.

Dont understand what you mean by this. Can you explain a bit more. I didnt know there is a front and back for the radiator. Or do you mean the case flow? Not understanding which side you consider back and which side you consider front.

As far as relying on drobo... obviously firewire 800 is not going to be as fast a transfer as going to a sata drive. Having only a 256gb SSD for data... it may get pretty tight pretty quick... especially with a few video projects in the works. I would throw a mirrored SATA (i am paranoid about drive failure) drive in there as a holding point between current projects and long term storage on the drobo.

I hate running without safety from drive failure and that is what i use the DROBO for. I am used to the speed in my Mac Pro and it is sufficient - not super fast, but sufficient for browsing old photos.

As for 256GB disk, I will run out of space on it with two photo projects easily. I plan on adding two hybrid drives with 2TB capacity when prices come down a bit for the HDDs. During the mean time I plan on storing the images on the Drobo first and then use the SSD to copy working images for work only.

 

[mfenn]

Ooook, there's a lot of issues with this build. The biggest one overall is that most of the parts fall into the "way too expensive for what they are" category.

Here's something that will perform and overclock to the same 4.2Ghz, but costs less:

i5 3570K $230 AP - no HT required for light PS
ASRock Z77 Pro3 $110
Scythe Mugen 3 Rev B $55
G.Skill DDR3 1333 8GB $38 - double this if you really think that you need 16GB
http://redirect.anandtech.com/r?url...duct.aspx?Item=N82E16814125419&user=u000006876870 $150 AR - I'm pretty sure Mac video cards have different BIOSes, but you are welcome to try it
Crucial M4 256GB $245
Lite-ON DVD Burner $18
XFX Core 650W $79 AR
Antec Three Hundred Two $70 - the P280 is fine too
Total: $995 AR AP

 

[nvsravank]

Ooook, there's a lot of issues with this build. The biggest one overall is that most of the parts fall into the "way too expensive for what they are" category.

Here's something that will perform and overclock to the same 4.2Ghz, but costs less:

i5 3570K $230 AP - no HT required for light PS
ASRock Z77 Pro3 $110
Scythe Mugen 3 Rev B $55
G.Skill DDR3 1333 8GB $38 - double this if you really think that you need 16GB
http://redirect.anandtech.com/r?url...duct.aspx?Item=N82E16814125419&user=u000006876870 $150 AR - I'm pretty sure Mac video cards have different BIOSes, but you are welcome to try it
Crucial M4 256GB $245
Lite-ON DVD Burner $18
XFX Core 650W $79 AR
Antec Three Hundred Two $70 - the P280 is fine too
Total: $995 AR AP

While I agree that some of the components are most probably over kill and am looking to reduce the cost, I am not sure of a few things.

For the use of FireWire 800 and ssd, I am going by this review. It is one of the most exhaustive I found on the subject and show that having the application, cache and previews on the ssd will improve performance.
http://www.computer-darkroom.com/blog/will-an-ssd-improve-adobe-lightroom-performance/
I actually came to it from adobe help documentation - http://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom/kb/optimize-performance-lightroom.html

That is why I opted for a two ssd build. I am looking for one ssd which will host the applications and the boot drive. The second one is for cache. In my mind the first ssd - read performance is most important, second consistent performance on non compressible data and high write cycles are important. I am hoping I picked the right ones for both purposes. Which should I replace with the M4? Also I don't want both SSD with the same controller. Trying to play with different controllers for different jobs.

As for using i7 series, actually lightroom is more multithreaded than ps and exports are hugely impacted by having multiple cores. On my current mac pro all actual and virtual cores are used to spawn multiple threads when exporting and rendering standard previews.
http://forums.adobe.com/thread/806048

My workflow is to open Lightroom, when needed, open file in ps for further editing, running nik plugins and onone software one the ps file, getting to around 8 to 12 layers(100 mb files) before saving and going back to Lightroom. I need space to run all this and a browser concurrently and so looking for more RAM to ensure I am not starving anything. That is why looking to fill up all slots to maximize bandwidth. That is on the total memory side.
Coming to speed, should I overclock the memory to higher speed or should I aim for faster timings? I see that the timings are at 9-9-9 for 1600 vs 11-11-11 for 2400. Which is better?

For the video card, I think Lightroom 4 has no use of the video card. Mercury engine is ps6 only and am not going there for some time.
So might stick to the onboarding video and use my Mac pro for diablo III if the card doesn't work on the new build.

So the things left are mobo, case, power supply, cooler. Can you explain the rationale for the changes? Also I am not brand specific. Seems like you used the brands I used in my test build. I am ok moving away from the brands if it makes sense.
I think I am over the color scheme. I will pick a case with no windows for silent operation and so no big deal on color.
I prefer to have onboard FireWire 800 but can't seem to find one with it. Might add a bit for an extra pci express card for it.

What is the power draw for the build? And is gold rating more Useful than bronze?

I expect the PSU to see me through at least a couple of LR versions and hope to see significant gpu usage in LR by then.
So planning for a good gpu upgrade in two years. A good monitor upgrade next year to a 27 inch model which would again need a good video card right?

 

[aaksheytalwar]

Honestly if the build op has suggested is in his budget then it is pretty good. Just get a 7850 along with it

Op= original poster

 

[DarkRogue]

Wow.

I do tons of Lightroom and Photoshop and even I agree with everyone else - your choices are a bit overkill in some areas.

Particularly, there is absolutely no reason to be getting that PSU unless you plan on doing SLI/Crossfire, or get an absolutely killer deal for it somehow. You say you want to run at 50% load, which would still be over 400W, which would require your CPU and a fairly beefy GPU to be running near maxed. For all intents and purposes, your normal usage with just the CPU is likely going to be in the area of the 150-200W range, with your CPU being pushed hard.

For reference, I am building a new IVB build myself for Lightroom and Photoshop, among other things, and I am confident my X650 will more than do the job well, even with a 7950 and 3770K in there.

Otherwise, for your mobo, aesthetics doesn't really matter unless you plan on gazing at your PC's internals more than your photos. Get something that has the features you need, and don't be taken away by all the marketing. I personally would gravitate toward Gigabyte or ASUS. I'm leaning toward ASUS for my build purely because of its absolutely crazy awesome fan controls.

As far as the RAM goes, I believe 1600 was still the sweet spot for performance/price. 2400 RAM seems excessive for not too much gain. LR and PS will probably benefit from it nonetheless, but that extra cost makes it tough to justify unless I was being paid for these shoots and I absolutely needed every second of editing time. Otherwise, more is better than faster. I'd go with a 2x8 or 4x8GB kit so LR and PS never have to complain about RAM.

Working with RAWs from my T2i and I frequently need more RAM; the 5d3's RAWs are much bigger still.

Your SSD idea is okay, but limited. I run both my catalog and cache on my single M4, and it does well. These two actually aren't really the limiting factors to speed in LR, because caching a preview is only done once on import for most photos. Otherwise, the Catalog is small enough that you can stick it on your main SSD with no real ill effects.

More importantly, in my experience, general responsiveness while editing photos is tied to where the photos themselves are actually stored, because the changes get written to the XMP sidecar files, which are stored right next to the photos. I don't know about you, but I have terabytes of photos, so It's not feasible to load them all into the SSD.

The alternative, since you seem to be able to afford to do it, is to simply have that second SSD host your "currently processing" batch of photos, along with their XMP, then simply move them back to the main storage HDD(s) when finished.

Otherwise, I feel there's little point in dual SSD's. Both SSD's will do very well, and you'd be hard pressed to actually tell the difference in speeds between the two. Furthermore, OCZ drives have a.....less than stellar reputation for reliability. It will work, but there are many more complaints about problems with them than other companies.

LR may not use the graphics card, but PS does. Anything that makes sense to offload to the GPU for drawing, PS will try to do so. That said, it's all 2D stuff anyway, so it shouldn't matter too much.

For your Firewire, you will have to buy an add-in card. Every z77 mobo comes with a VIA firewire chip this round, if at all, which sucks. It will probably work, but they're unusable for me. Here is the one I was looking at:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16815166027
It's an inexpensive Rosewill PCI-e card, but it uses a TI chip.
Besides that, for simple drive access, USB3 should be sufficient. Worst case, you can use eSATA.

Finally, for the cooler, the Scythe Mugen that was suggested is a capable and quiet air cooler. Honestly, the heatsink choice is dependent on what you're looking for, be it cooling, noise, efficiency, etc. H100 is not bad either if you want a simple water cooling setup, but keep in mind with any water cooling setup, you have two sources of noise - the fan cooling the radiator fins, as well as the pump. I'm quite sensitive to noise, which is why I'm looking at efficient heatsinks that do well with low airflow fans.

Sorry I haven't compiled an actual build list for you, but I hope it helps nonetheless.
If I have some time after work I can help with that, but there are a few nice builds thrown out for you already; just pick and choose based on your priorities.

 

[aaksheytalwar]

I agree that you should avoid ocz for anything

 

[nvsravank]

More importantly, in my experience, general responsiveness while editing photos is tied to where the photos themselves are actually stored, because the changes get written to the XMP sidecar files, which are stored right next to the photos. I don't know about you, but I have terabytes of photos, so It's not feasible to load them all into the SSD.

I do not write out the sidecar files. I just backup my catalog after every session. Works better as it optimizes the catalog in that process. I reduced one SSD to a more reasonable 128 GB drive. I will check my current apps folder to figure out how much space i need ona boot drive with all apps and page file. I am not sure 128 GB will be enough. Should i reduce the second SSD to 128 GB and add two HDDs in Raid 1 for the apps? If so which MOBO is best for it?

LR may not use the graphics card, but PS does. Anything that makes sense to offload to the GPU for drawing, PS will try to do so. That said, it's all 2D stuff anyway, so it shouldn't matter too much.

That is why i am still using my Mac Pro card if it works. It works in the mac with PS and speeds it up well. NIK uses GPU as well.

Sorry I haven't compiled an actual build list for you, but I hope it helps nonetheless.
If I have some time after work I can help with that, but there are a few nice builds thrown out for you already; just pick and choose based on your priorities.

It was actually very helpful and have updated the build on the top with the feedback.
Brought it down $1500.

I think I can reduce the Mobo to something more mainstream, and maybe add to HDDs. I am totally confused here. If I go ASUS seems like the price will go up and not come down. I keep reading that sabertooth is better, but then it is similar price to the fatal1ty pro.

 

[DarkRogue]

Glad it helped.

A couple more points I'd like to make, though.

How big is your catalog?
My LR 3.6 catalog (Can't make the switch to LR4 until they fix the outstanding issues with it.) contains over 14,000 photos and it hasn't broken 200MB yet. The cache/preview folder, though, is almost 20GB. Maybe because I'm writing my changes to XMP sidecar files, my catalog file size is reduced.

I'm struggling to figure out why you necessarily need 2 SSD's for this purpose. I mean, if you can afford it and justify it, great; but LR and PS are more CPU and RAM bound than storage-bound. One SSD will easily fit the apps and the page file. The page file should normally only ever be hit when you run out of system RAM, which is easily alleviated by just throwing in 32GB of RAM. PS does use scratch space regardless of RAM (at least it seems to on my system) but again, it should not be eating away at it heavily if you have enough RAM.

Furthermore, I don't see the reason to separate the page file from any other temporary scratch disk and such. This is not like an HDD where you wanted to split up tasks so they could run them in parallel and speed up the overall speed. SSD's are inherently very parallel devices, so it will maintain a great level of performance no matter how many things are using it.

There is an argument about wearing down the life of your SSD, but honestly - what's the point of getting an SSD to not use it? From a previous thread where people posted their SSD writes and stuff, I compared my SSD with others under a similar time frame.
I put my page file, scratch disk, temp files, ACR cache, LR cache, and pretty much everything else I can think of on my SSD. Since I only have 4GB RAM, I also use my page file quite a lot. As a result, I've written something like 9x more data to my drive than most other people. Does it matter? If I wanted maximum life, then yes. But by the time my drive dies, it would've been obsoleted anyway - it'd still last me over 10 years at this usage.

As far as your mobo considerations, again, go by features you need, and not marketing.
Virtually every mobo should be able to handle a basic RAID setup using the onboard SATA controllers. Unless you're a heavy gamer, or heavy OC'er, you don't really need those top end motherboards such as the Sabertooth or Fatality Pro unless they actually offered features you needed and were definitely going to use.

ASUS is more expensive, and I'd like to complain about that too, but for me personally, its Fan Xpert 2 functionality simply does not exist on any other motherboard, or even software. In my case, that alone is worth the cost difference, as I'd have to buy a separate fan controller and other stuff if I went with a cheaper mobo, which would negate the cost savings anyway.

What apps, and how many, are you planning on installing and actively using?
I know my Adobe CS4 installed TONS of apps and ate a crapload of space, but in the end, I found I only ever used Dreamweaver, Lightroom and Photoshop, so those three were the only ones I installed.

 

[DarkRogue]

Oops, a couple more things I forgot to add..

Looking over your build and other stuff, if you're only going to use CF card, I'd suggest this:
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produc...Dual_Slot.html

The Lexar UDMA readers are very well received (I have the USB2 version) and are usually one of the fastest in terms of transferring data off of your CF cards. This is dependent on a few other variables, such as the speed of your CF cards, though.

Since it uses USB3, it might be helpful to grab either an Asrock or ASUS mobo to take advantage of their USB3-speed-boosting technologies.

I usually check Rob Galbraith's site occasionally, since he has compiled a list of benchmarks for various cards and readers, among other things:
http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/reader_report_multi_page.asp?cid=6007-9392

Finally, one point I would like to make about the X650.
I love it, and at idle the fan shuts off, so there's zero noise from it.

However, I am dubious about the usefulness of full modular, lol.
When I assembled it (this was my first modular PSU, so maybe that added to the confusion) I had no idea what harness was supposed to go where. After some trial and error (some harnesses seemed to be able to hook onto multiple slots) I wound up using almost all the slots anyway, because I needed so many cables. The way the connectors were laid out (SATA power and molex, mainly) I still wound up with unused connectors, most of the harnesses used, and it actually takes up more space because they're not neatly crammed into one hole out the back.

YMMV of course, depending on how many harnesses you need. Otherwise, it's a fine PSU, and if I'm not mistaken, there's a sale on the X650 right now.

 

[nvsravank]

My Catalog is around 20K now, but growing more rapidly than before. Added 8K last year vs 4K the year before.
I stopped using windows after XP and so dont really know how windows 7 is behaving with respect to memory.
Adding another SSD is not too hard after the fact. Maybe i just go with one SSD in which case i will be more comfortable with 256 GB and see how it performs. If so should i go Samsung or Crucial?

Does this seem like a good Mobo? Got hooked to the Wifi Go marketing now .
ASUS P8Z77-V LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

Apps - I will install the adobe creative premium. Use illustrator for work sometimes.
Lightroom 4, Photosshop, NIK and OnOnesoftware. Most probably will install adobe premiere pro and something to write out the Blue ray disks. most probably a Panorama maker - PS panorama maker never works for me well.

Will also be installing Diablo III and City of Heroes games for sure and a couple of other games as fancy takes me.

 

[DarkRogue]

How big is the catalog physically on the disk? 20k images I would imagine is probably somewhere around 300MB? That's not too big to stick onto an SSD.

I'm pretty happy with my Crucial, but I haven't felt the need to upgrade it, so I haven't kept up much with the latest SSD's. As far as I remember, Samsung is also a great SSD, so I'd probably just get whatever is cheaper. You can't really go wrong with Intel, either. I am seeing quite a lot of deals lately for the Crucial drives to bring them under $1/GB.

That mobo seems fine; it's the "standard" model for the ASUS lineup. Still, $200 seems like a lot for a sort of "entry level" board. I'd check to see if any of the other boards have an alternative to this WiFi-Go thing. Otherwise, it should fill all your current requirements just fine.

That doesn't sound like too many programs, so you can probably fit it comfortably on a 128-256GB drive. Just don't go overboard installing everything. Some programs respond better to an SSD than others. I have no idea how other OS's handle memory management and stuff, though. I imagine someone experienced with Macs can chip in, unless Adobe somehow started releasing Linux versions of their programs.

I do hope you have a good IPS monitor and calibration device available to take advantage of all of this, though.

 

[mfenn]

Overall, I agree with DarkRogue's reasoning. I think that my list as is would serve your purposes very well. As for your specific questions:
- Mobo: The only thing important in a mobo is that is has the features you need. You don't need any thing esoteric, so there's no reason to spend $200 on a motherboard.
- SSD : If you're paging, you're dead anyway in terms of performance. The solution to that is to buy more RAM. There's no reason to worry about the performance impact of your page file as it should never ever be read or written to. Hence, 1 SSD.
- PSU: With a light load like what you've got, an X650 is huge overkill. Hell, the 650W XFX that I recommended is overkill. You would honestly be fine with a 430W PSU.
- GPU: With the amount of money you're spending, I'm not sure why you're so worried about spending $150 on a proper GPU. Keeping a really old Mac Pro around just for one purpose seems silly to me.

 

[nvsravank]

Mobo - Like the DLNA concept of the ASUS, but that board is mighty costly.

SSD i will do one for now. Looking to do Crucial M4.

PSU - Want a good one since i think it will last me some time in the future as well.
GPU - With the money saved, i think i can spend some for a GPU. I saw a 7770 for $129
http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0385358
Is the 6800 series better than the 7700 series?

I checked my Catalog size - It is 1 GB. The number of photos is actually 30K not 20K as i said before. I did close to 12K photos last year.

The previews is 20 GB currently as i set it to 20 GB in preferences.

My total apps and OS currently is at 400GB. (on a Mac so dont know if that makes a difference). Apps itself is only 50GB. General video files are at 70 GB. Library is 50 GB. Pictures (Not my lightroom pictures) is 50GB. Dont know where the rest is coming from. On a new install with the bloat gone, i am hoping 256 GB M4 is sufficient for boot volume and apps.

This seems to me that i need a HDD to cover all this junk (For lacck of a better term). Which HDD should I add?

See the updaed build on top.

 

[DarkRogue]

Ah, right; You don't have the XMP files, so your catalog is indeed quite a bit larger. However, it's not likely to eat up 200GB anytime soon.

PSU, the X650 is a good choice if you're looking to pick one up for $99 from Newegg right now. Otherwise, look toward PSU's by SeaSonic, Corsair, and Antec. Those are the ones I'd trust. I would echo that a good quality 400~500W unit will be more than sufficient. You could go lower, but that starts limiting future expansion. Going too large will also penalize you in terms of efficiency, as it becomes harder to hit 20% minimum load where efficiency starts ramping up.

GPU, I have no idea. Sorry.

It's the preview cache that will eat everything up, but that can be mitigated somewhat by being more aggressive with how often you tell LR to clean out the full-sized previews.

Otherwise, there seems to be a ton of miscellaneous data that shouldn't really be on a boot/system drive. I'd invest in a couple of 1TB or so HDD and just stick all that data in there. What type of HDD is up to you. As all of my HDD's happen to be WD's, I do WD Blue's in my PC (or server/NAS/wherever, really) and then a bunch of WD Greens as pure external backup. If you need the speed boost, you can put some of the "working set" files onto the SSD for a brief boost, finish your editing routine, then put them back onto the HDD's. This was about the only scenario I could come up with where a dual SSD system was preferable, but otherwise, it's tough to justify considering SSD's are not quite at the point where we can just buy 5 of them and stick them into our PCs like they were HDD's.

As far as the mobo goes, I'm pretty sure ASUS gave their entire lineup several of those features. Do any of the lower end boards (LX, LE, LK, etc.) have the features you need from the standard -V?

 

[the_meatloaf___]

PSU - Want a good one since i think it will last me some time in the future as well.

Buying a psu with more watts, does not mean it will last longer. That is a good psu you have chosen, but there is no reason for it. Buy a 400-500 watt from a reputable name, and pocket the extra $50.

 

[IntoxicatedPuma]

I've got two builds I use for photography, one is an OC'd 2500K and recieves use as a light gaming machine. The other is a HTPC machine with a 3450S, even with the 2500K and HD6850, I have a 650W Corsair Enthusiast PSU, and I feel that is quite a bit of overkill for what I do. I would definitely look just for a PSU with great reliability ratings, I don't think you'll be using much more than 300W at full load. So anything 500W or around there with great reliability should be good. Also, with photoshop or light room, its mostly CPU intensive so the video card won't make a huge deal of difference since it won't be doing 3D rendering. I use the HD6850 because it was the best performance for the value at the time, I think the 6870 can be had for under $150 now, would definitely recommend that. Asus P8z77 is a great motherboard, wish I had used it on my newest build but the ITX version wasn't out yet

 

[mfenn]

Mobo - Like the DLNA concept of the ASUS, but that board is mighty costly.

DLNA is just software that ASUS is packing in, the mobo hardware has nothing to do with it. There's a ton of free server software out there.

PSU - Want a good one since i think it will last me some time in the future as well.

The XFX I recommended is built by Seasonic, it is definitely quality.

GPU - With the money saved, i think i can spend some for a GPU. I saw a 7770 for $129
http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0385358
Is the 6800 series better than the 7700 series?

A 7770 is a horrible value, avoid unless you're paying sub $100. You can get the more powerful 6850 for $110 AR.

 

[Hugo Drax]

You dont need to overclock, 3770K stock is more than enough for Lightroom. I use a 2600K build stock, huge RAW library and its fast.

I use a 560W Seasonic

 

[nvsravank]

What brand video card is good? I am ok for 6870 from a price point of view.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814150561
Is this good? Liked the looks

 

[mfenn]

XFX is a good brand and $150 AR is about the going rate for a 6870. I'd say that it is a fine choice. So fine in fact, that I linked it in post #5.

 

[kbp]

Do you use any calibration equipment?

 

[nvsravank]

Nope, but why do I need calibration equipment?