Looking to get into the Photography Business. Need to build.

[speedy2]

I have a Celeron Laptop and it is nowhere near beefy enough for editing RAW images. Much less large JPG's. Camera will probably be a Canon 60D. So, the possibility of Video Editing is there, but probably not that important.

1. What YOUR PC will be used for. That means what types of tasks you'll be performing. Photo Editing. Average RAW File size is 25MB or so. Possible HD Video editing. Plenty of internet use as well. No Gaming

2. What YOUR budget is. A price range is acceptable as long as it's not more than a 20% spread. $800-$1,000. Maybe a little more as I get closer to the actual build time.

3. What country YOU will be buying YOUR parts from. USA - Preferably Newegg.com

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, if the performance is there. Or if staying within my budget is impossible with intel.

5. If YOU intend on using any of YOUR current parts, and if so, what those parts are. Nothing, except maybe an old HDD with previous images.

6. IF YOU have searched and/or read similar threads. None. I haven't been on here in quite a few months.

7. IF YOU plan on overclocking or run the system at default speeds. Default. I would possibly OC if cooling and adjusting was simple/cheap and well worth the effort.

8. What resolution YOU plan on gaming with. I've had 1680 x 1050 and I know that I don't want to go below that.

9. WHEN do you plan to build it? Could be as long as 4-6 months



Other notes:

I would love to get an SSD. The speed I've seen and heard about would be awesome.

I will obviously need a large storage drive. Or maybe 2. I have the old one mentioned but it's about full already.

I have Photoshop CS3 a friend gave me(not a pirated copy, a legit original.) So, the savings there should be a big help.

If it was possible to connect to a Panasonic TC-P42GT25 Plasma TV. Maybe even wirelessly....That would be awesome. Not exactly to use as a monitor, but more like a family photo viewing screen and/or media PC. Wired might work since this PC will be in the same room about 10ft away.

If I can think of any other needs I will add them.

 

[Zap]

Here's a rough overview of something that will probably work fine. Price are in ranges due to various choices and recent sales/deals. Why only a rough overview and not many exact recommendations is due to you saying "4-6 months" before you will be getting this. That is an eternity - new stuff will be coming out, prices will have altered, some current stuff may be unavailable (EOL or even just temporarily sold out) and many more things...

Basically the best advice I can give you right now is to save your money towards your $800-1000 goal, and ask for specifics on what to buy a week before you actually buy it.

Intel Core i5-2500K CPU $180-225
random halfway decent aftermarket CPU cooler $20-30
random halfway decent micro ATX Z68 chipset motherboard that has onboard HDMI and DVI $120-180
16GB 1.5v DDR3 RAM (4x4GB) $60-100
1TB 7200RPM HDD $150
60GB SSD (for boot/software) $60-120
Windows 7 $80-100
Antec NSK3480 case with Earthwatts power supply $80-100
cheap DVD writer $16-25

Notes:

Hard drives are expensive right now due to flooding in Thailand (many HDD brands and HDD component makers have factories there). Try to "get by" with as little as possible, and plan to upgrade when prices come back down, maybe as soon as a couple months, or in a year.

Just use a long HDMI cable for your HDTV. Wireless adds cost, complexity and another layer of "stuff that can go wrong."

Do overclock. You will get very straightforward gains in performance with a few simple steps and near zero risk. Here are the many and complex steps you have to take to overclock a 3.3GHz Core i5-2500K.
1) Go into motherboard BIOS.
2) Increase Turbo multiplier (might be a single setting, or one per core) to 40x.
3) Save and exit BIOS.
4) Profit.
You can likely go higher, but 4GHz is almost a "gimme."

Use onboard video unless you find you are often using a Photoshop filter that uses CUDA or OpenGL. Worry about a graphics card then.

If you live anywhere near a Micro Center, you can score most of your deals there. They have the CPU for $180, and recently they've given a straight-up $60 discount if you buy a Z68 chipset motherboard with the CPU.

 

[philosofool]

Now is an expensive time to build from a cost perspective. However, in the world of business, delaying your start up may be more expensive than paying a large amount per TB for HDDs.

I'm not an expert on this sort of build, but I would think that you would want at least 2 and probably three 2TB HDDs; put two in a redundant RAID configuration so that if hardware fails, everything is totally backed up. Then have a third HDD that backs up nightly; this protects you for a dumb user end error that over-writes a bunch of pics. (Note, 1TB = 40,000 RAW images; you may eventually need more storage space, but not terribly soon.)

This is business, and you cannot afford to lose your clients photos. Spending $500 for this never to happen is worth it because it can be terrible for your business if it does happen; or you could just have to reshoot a bunch of stuff, costing you a day or more of work. Think of it as paying a 1 time insurance premium.

 

[mfenn]

Now is an expensive time to build from a cost perspective.

Not at all. You can get RAM absurdly cheap, i5s are coming down in price, Z68 is around $100, high-end GPUs are $250, 120GB SSDs are regularly under $200, and HDDs are even coming back to ~$70.

Anyway, I agree with Zap, 6 months is an eternity. You can certainly build something decent with $800, so come back a week or so before you intend to buy and we can give you specific recommendations.

 

[speedy2]

Thanks guys for your input. Sorry for the 6 month time frame. But, this thread can at least give me an idea of what type of components I need to be running for what I want to do with it. I hope to get more ideas and get back to you guys closer to the time I will buy.

Thanks.

Also, philosofool, you make a good point. I wonder if there is any type of cloud/online backup I could also use. Although, our DSL line is totally not up to the task. 1.5mbps down/ 256kbps up(more like half that in bandwith tests.) We're in a small town, and outside the city limits. Internet here is crappy and way overpriced!!!