[Simen1]

- If you plan to have 64 GB DDR4, buy it all now, and buy 2 DIMMs of 32GB DDR4-2666. You should use both memory channels (2 DIMMs), but not all four slots because that will reduce memory speed.

- Sandisk M.2 SSD are not as good as Samsung 960 EVO

- Rysen doesnt beat Intels top offerings by a large/clear margin on performance, but it does on performance/price ratio. To get matching performance from and Intel CPU, you will roughly pay double the price.

[dafbp]

If you're not playing games, RX 480 is overkill, just as 8GB video memory, even for 4K.
Bring those down a notch and use the extra money to improve PSU (quality, not power) and populate 2 memory banks.

[serothis]

This is a personal thing, but for the sake increased efficiency of heat dissipation I prefer to use 2X16gb of ram over a single stick - also if you get a defective stick of ram your computer isn't instantly turned into an expensive paperweight.

I also strongly suggest getting multiple hard drives, use the M.2 for OS and applications, and have a separate set of High capacity HDD for file storage with an SSD for storing your main working catalog - and use the standard HDD array for backup/archived storage.

All good advice.

If you are in an area where ambient temperatures exceed 35 degrees [95 Fahrenheit] on a regular basis, water cooling can be critical for maintaining hardware stability and longevity. My main computer [ which is actually a gaming rig, but it is also used for photo editing] is water cooled, a custom dual loop design* with borosilicate glass pipes, custom cooling blocks and dual 480mm radiators from swiftech. I haven't even considered overclocking, at this point I won't have to.

Fancy.

* one loop cools the CPU/ Hard drives/Ram. The other loop is dedicated to the two SLi 1070's i'm using.

Wait...you water cool your hard drives? Do you have pictures of your set up. I know people who have water cooled their M.2 drives (specifically the memory controller chip). on a side note I feel like we need a computer hardware thread...

- If you plan to have 64 GB DDR4, buy it all now, and buy 2 DIMMs of 32GB DDR4-2666. You should use both memory channels (2 DIMMs), but not all four slots because that will reduce memory speed.

This is a mistake a lot of people fall into. the "I'll upgrade later" trap. Generally speaking if you don't do it now, it's not going to happen later.

I don't know if 64GB is really necessary at this point (or 5 years down the line) but 32GB (2x 16GB sticks) would be a good way to go. If 64GB is really needed there are 2 more slots to expand.

- Sandisk M.2 SSD are not as good as Samsung 960 EVO

Keep in mind the stated budget. Samsung Evo, while nice, are expensive.


@LFLee one more thing to keep in mind, clearly there are a lot of PC hardware enthusiasts here, we have a tenancy to make mountains out of mole hills. (kind of like sharpness of lenses ) Yes there are differences to hardware but the higher up you go the smaller the difference become.

[LFLee]

Swap your PSU for this one: EVGA SuperNOVA NEX 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (120-G1-0650-XR) - PCPartPicker <-- it is slightly cheaper, same wattage, and fully modular. Trust me, you will like that.

Swap your RAM for this G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 32GB (2 x 16GB) DDR4-2400 Memory (F4-2400C15D-32GVR) - PCPartPicker <-- you get twice as much for another 70 bucks, and besides, no supported mobo can use DDR4 3200 for it yet (yeah, I made that mistake at first too)

Swap your motherboard for this Asus PRIME B350-PLUS ATX AM4 Motherboard (PRIME B350-PLUS) - PCPartPicker <-- it makes up the difference for the RAM.

So, a slight edit to your list: RYZEN 7 1800X 3.6GHz 8-Core - System Build - PCPartPicker <-- 1090 dollars vs 1094 on your original. Ohh, and that case will work just fine.

Most consumer CPU these days come with an integrated GPU. Back in the bad old days the the gpu was integrated into the motherboard itself (thank god those days are over). The 1800x, however is not an ordinary CPU. It's a very high end one. Normally people who buy this caliber of cpu are also spending thousands of dollars on other parts of the computer too. So no integrated GPU was added to the chip to try and keep costs (and heat) down.

PCPartPicker gives you an estimate on the power consumption. It's at the top of your lits right next to the history button.

AIO's like the one you have selected are ok. Some people swear by them. Others don't like them. It really depends on what you want to do. If you're keeping your computer stock, I would go with a air cooler. There's no risk of anything leaking. No risk of pump failure. Although the risk of leaks and pump failure are very low some people would rather not have the risk at all.

Personally I'm a fan of Noctua. They're very good; Very quiet; and their customer support is second to none.
Noctua NH-U12S 55.0 CFM CPU Cooler (NH-U12S) - PCPartPicker

By definition, Overclocking is clocking a product higher than factory spec. For CPU's what manufactures (intel and AMD) do is have multiple power states. High power and low power

Low power is used during normal usage. (web browsing etc) You don't really need a lot of horsepower to do most tasks so the key the clock speed low to keep power consumption (and heat) low.

High power state is used during intense tasks (video editing) the jump is automatic. Marketing calls it "Turbo" or "Turbo boost". But it's not overclocking. These clock speeds are guaranteed. Overclocking goes into realms where clock speeds are not guaranteed. If you're interested in why, google "silicon lottery"

Beyond what you have selected, I would recommend an HDD for bulk storage. You'd be surprised how quickly your 512GB will be used up. Especially if you plan on doing video editing. Install all your programs to the SSD and save the bulk images/videos etc to the hard drive.

yes, maybe 650 is enough, but suggest getting a better quality brand, corsair, seasonic, silverstone, coolermaster, something at least bronze 80+, and maybe look at ram timings for efficiency with a given cpu and mobo. a dedicated graphics card wiill help too, I favour Nvidia.
maybe a psu calculator may help, leave a bit of head room for expansion Cooler Master: Power Supply Calculator

Not "bad", but if air cooling will meet your needs water adds cost and complexity. Water will generally let you overclock more than air, but your memory and motherboard will still be cooled by air, limiting how much you can push those components.

This is a personal thing, but for the sake increased efficiency of heat dissipation I prefer to use 2X16gb of ram over a single stick - also if you get a defective stick of ram your computer isn't instantly turned into an expensive paperweight.

I also strongly suggest getting multiple hard drives, use the M.2 for OS and applications, and have a separate set of High capacity HDD for file storage with an SSD for storing your main working catalog - and use the standard HDD array for backup/archived storage.



If you are in an area where ambient temperatures exceed 35 degrees [95 Fahrenheit] on a regular basis, water cooling can be critical for maintaining hardware stability and longevity. My main computer [ which is actually a gaming rig, but it is also used for photo editing] is water cooled, a custom dual loop design* with borosilicate glass pipes, custom cooling blocks and dual 480mm radiators from swiftech. I haven't even considered overclocking, at this point I won't have to.

* one loop cools the CPU/ Hard drives/Ram. The other loop is dedicated to the two SLi 1070's i'm using.

- If you plan to have 64 GB DDR4, buy it all now, and buy 2 DIMMs of 32GB DDR4-2666. You should use both memory channels (2 DIMMs), but not all four slots because that will reduce memory speed.

- Sandisk M.2 SSD are not as good as Samsung 960 EVO

- Rysen doesnt beat Intels top offerings by a large/clear margin on performance, but it does on performance/price ratio. To get matching performance from and Intel CPU, you will roughly pay double the price.

If you're not playing games, RX 480 is overkill, just as 8GB video memory, even for 4K.
Bring those down a notch and use the extra money to improve PSU (quality, not power) and populate 2 memory banks.

All good advice.

Fancy.

Wait...you water cool your hard drives? Do you have pictures of your set up. I know people who have water cooled their M.2 drives (specifically the memory controller chip). on a side note I feel like we need a computer hardware thread...

This is a mistake a lot of people fall into. the "I'll upgrade later" trap. Generally speaking if you don't do it now, it's not going to happen later.

I don't know if 64GB is really necessary at this point (or 5 years down the line) but 32GB (2x 16GB sticks) would be a good way to go. If 64GB is really needed there are 2 more slots to expand.

Keep in mind the stated budget. Samsung Evo, while nice, are expensive.

@LFLee one more thing to keep in mind, clearly there are a lot of PC hardware enthusiasts here, we have a tenancy to make mountains out of mole hills. (kind of like sharpness of lenses ) Yes there are differences to hardware but the higher up you go the smaller the difference become.

Thanks again guys!
VoiceOfReason I will swap the PSU and RAM as you suggested. Will have to look into MoBo more - right now the options for AM4 MoBo is limited.

Digitalis, do you think a 'gaming' PC generally also a good photo/video editing PC?

dafbp, graphic card is pretty much no use for LR/PS, but I heard is useful when do video editing, no?

I will also swap a M.2 2280 Samsung EVO 950 SSD, in this case I probably have to settle with 256GB one to maintain the price point. I plan to add a 512GB SSD for photo editing / catalog, and move them to regular HDD after editing. Will add them as I go along.

Thanks for the advise on CPU cooling. I thought water cooling is kind of cool so wanted to try out... but I think it might be overkill for my application, will look for Noctua one.

So, this is pretty much set:
Ryzen 1800X,
Samsung EVO 950 M2 SSD,
G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 32GB (2 x 16GB) DDR4-2400 Memory
EVGA SuperNOVA NEX 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply
XFX Radeon RS RX 480 8GB GDDR5 Video Card (~$190)

Still deciding on:
GIGABYTE GA-AB350-Gaming (rev. 1.0) AM4 AMD B350
CPU Cooling (Noctua brand)
Casing

Did I miss anything? wifi card? case cooling fan?

[robbiec]

Thanks again guys!
VoiceOfReason I will swap the PSU and RAM as you suggested. Will have to look into MoBo more - right now the options for AM4 MoBo is limited.

Digitalis, do you think a 'gaming' PC generally also a good photo/video editing PC?

dafbp, graphic card is pretty much no use for LR/PS, but I heard is useful when do video editing, no?

I will also swap a M.2 2280 Samsung EVO 950 SSD, in this case I probably have to settle with 256GB one to maintain the price point. I plan to add a 512GB SSD for photo editing / catalog, and move them to regular HDD after editing. Will add them as I go along.

Thanks for the advise on CPU cooling. I thought water cooling is kind of cool so wanted to try out... but I think it might be overkill for my application, will look for Noctua one.

So, this is pretty much set:
Ryzen 1800X,
Samsung EVO 950 M2 SSD,
G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 32GB (2 x 16GB) DDR4-2400 Memory
EVGA SuperNOVA NEX 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply
XFX Radeon RS RX 480 8GB GDDR5 Video Card (~$190)

Still deciding on:
GIGABYTE GA-AB350-Gaming (rev. 1.0) AM4 AMD B350
CPU Cooling (Noctua brand)
Casing

Did I miss anything? wifi card? case cooling fan?

Drop to Ryzen 1700X - You won't notice difference
Try and get an X370 board, one reason - better Power circuitry
Watercooling is cool but you will need to add at least $2-$300 for bespoke or a hundred or so for an AIO

During build - This is last generation AMD FX8350 @ 4.85, 16GB TridentX, R9 290, RAID with 4 SSDs and 4 HDDs, Dual DDC 18W, 2 rads (240 + 360), 11 fans.





Phanteks ECLIPSE P400S for a case.

PS have the 950 PRO M.2 card and I am getting the following speeds on a restricted platform PCIe V2.0 instead of PCIe V3.0 so you should be easily into the 2K Read / Write



Lastly, keep an eye on the Threads xtremesystems as there are some pretty clued up guys / gals here who will highlight any potential issues.
There have been reports of Asus and MSI boards dying due to over the air Bios updates and memory compatibility is still WIP. There is a lot of wailing and moaning about some benchmarks - gaming mainly but I'd expect some patches to sort this out over the next couple of months.

Personally I am getting the following to update my machine - Ryzen 1700, Asus Crosshair 6 Hero and 32GB of G Skill TridentZ 3200 C14 whilst keeping case, cooling and video card.

[LaurenOE]

For video editing and photography, look closely at what comes on the Motherboard.
Does it have M.2/ PCIe NVMe support?
Does it have Thunderbolt support?
USB 3.1 or better support?
Can you SLI the video cards?

The machine I am typing this on has 126G of RAM and supports all of the above.
SSD drives are a given.
7200 RAID drives for storage are a given.
Big power supply and cooling are a given.

[LFLee]

Drop to Ryzen 1700X - You won't notice difference
Try and get an X370 board, one reason - better Power circuitry
Watercooling is cool but you will need to add at least $2-$300 for bespoke or a hundred or so for an AIO

During build - This is last generation AMD FX8350 @ 4.85, 16GB TridentX, R9 290, RAID with 4 SSDs and 4 HDDs, Dual DDC 18W, 2 rads (240 + 360), 11 fans.
Phanteks ECLIPSE P400S for a case.

PS have the 950 PRO M.2 card and I am getting the following speeds on a restricted platform PCIe V2.0 instead of PCIe V3.0 so you should be easily into the 2K Read / Write

Lastly, keep an eye on the Threads xtremesystems as there are some pretty clued up guys / gals here who will highlight any potential issues.
There have been reports of Asus and MSI boards dying due to over the air Bios updates and memory compatibility is still WIP. There is a lot of wailing and moaning about some benchmarks - gaming mainly but I'd expect some patches to sort this out over the next couple of months.

Personally I am getting the following to update my machine - Ryzen 1700, Asus Crosshair 6 Hero and 32GB of G Skill TridentZ 3200 C14 whilst keeping case, cooling and video card.

Thanks! I am also plan on getting the "Phanteks ECLIPSE P400S" - how do you like it? do I need additional fan for the case? how about the
"silence edition" of this case? Yes, I am looking to up my budget a bit to get a X370 MoBo.

Items that fit AM4 search term on newegg seems to increase a lot from yesterday. I think I will wait a bit to see other options.

Any particular reason you choose that RAM? and why Ryzen 1700 and not 1700X?

---------- Post added 03-03-2017 at 01:52 PM ----------

For video editing and photography, look closely at what comes on the Motherboard.
Does it have M.2/ PCIe NVMe support?
Does it have Thunderbolt support?
USB 3.1 or better support?
Can you SLI the video cards?

The machine I am typing this on has 126G of RAM and supports all of the above.
SSD drives are a given.
7200 RAID drives for storage are a given.
Big power supply and cooling are a given.

Thanks for the advises! but Thuderbolt support?? isn't this a apple thing?

[VoiceOfReason]

Air cooling is fine. Here's what I've been running for a year and a half now: Core i7-5820K 3.3GHz 6-Core, Radeon R9 390 8GB (2-Way CrossFire), CS888CL ATX Mid Tower - System Build - PCPartPicker

[robbiec]

Thanks! I am also plan on getting the "Phanteks ECLIPSE P400S" - how do you like it? do I need additional fan for the case? how about the
"silence edition" of this case? Yes, I am looking to up my budget a bit to get a X370 MoBo.

Items that fit AM4 search term on newegg seems to increase a lot from yesterday. I think I will wait a bit to see other options.

Any particular reason you choose that RAM? and why Ryzen 1700 and not 1700X?

---------- Post added 03-03-2017 at 01:52 PM ----------



Thanks for the advises! but Thuderbolt support?? isn't this a apple thing?

I have a Phanteks Enthoo Primo but their design philosophy is sound and the P400 looks like a nice offering.
The X370 is really the matching chipset for the 8/16 Ryzen - should include a better NIC and Audio codec as well as better power circuitry and extra PCIe lanes.
I choose that RAM for a number of reasons - I have the previous generation DDR3 TridentX which has been very stable, the TridentZ use the Samsung B chips which are the highest density ram chips and they have the tightest timings at DDR4 3200 @C14
1700 over 1700X? Value for one thing, lower TDP for another - The X's will clock ultimately higher but displace a lot more heat doing so, the 1700 will get to a sane useable OC of about 4Ghz for all 8 cores so bang for buck this is probably the best chip on sale right now.

[Snakeisthestuff]

Because I think I did not read a clear answer to that yet:
First you should decide if you:

A: You just want an state of the art PC with all the fancy stuff but it should be rock solid and does not involve to much hassle to set it up and keep it running. (The new Autooverclock feature belongs in this category!)

B: Do "Manual" Overclocking by yourself (which involves a lot of research, trial and error and time to spent on forums to learn about the process, also you should consider that this always involves the chance to get an unstable system and this can wear of your CPU / Board etc a lot faster) -> not so good for people who want a PC running without putting too much effort into it, alternatively see A

For A:
- Wait a month if you can! (Because there are some mainboard bios issues which need to be fixed (memory compatibility issues and so on), also the price will come down, and everything will be more hassle free)
- Buy an 1800x, or 1700x if money is an issue (almost same performance)
- Buy 2x16GB Single Rank (1R) RAM with at least 2666 MHz, check the QVL of your mainboard of choice for compatible ram (more than 2 ram dims only allow for max 2400Mhz atm and therefore should be avoided, but this might change with new bios firmware hence wait a month!)
- One nice 500GB Nvme SSD like the Samsung 960 EVO / Pro might be enough for the beginning
- add an external USB 3.1 (4 TB) HDD for backups (and keep it not attached to your pc and at an other place if possible, for example at work or so), Backup regulary!
- add additional Space as you need it for example an 4TB Western Digital HDD or 2x4TB Raid0 for speed or Raid1 for availability
- Mainboard depends on your needs / money you dont necessarily need an x370 chip, B350 might make more sense if you do not overclock

For B:
Start Reading all the reviews here and have fun:
AMD Ryzen 7 Review Roundup - Official Ryzen CPU Launch Coverage
-> inform yourself, decide whats best for you
-> if finished read ryzen-overclocking guides
(-> remember there is a chance you damage your PC or files if something goes wrong!)

( - Buy a 1700 (best budget / performance ratio, will most likely OC to 1700x or even 1800x and more)
- Buy 2x16GB 3600MHz Single Rank Ram with good timings
- Buy Watercooling equipment and so on
- ... (you will find out yourself) )

[Digitalis]

Digitalis, do you think a 'gaming' PC generally also a good photo/video editing PC?

Good question, most AAA games these days are really taxing on hardware, gaming requires very high performance parts in a computer to get the best experience. Photo editing doesn't require SLI videocards or 7.1 DTS sound* or a chassis with illuminated components**. However when working with video, the GPU*** can be used to encode files - and they can apply effects and filters faster than an CPU can alone due to their parallel processing capability. Also I find hardware peripherals designed for gaming to have better build quality and ergonomic design regarding long term usage than generic peripherals. You may also want to look into getting a graphics tablet - photo editing is more "natural" with pen input.

you water cool your hard drives?

Yes, especially my western digital black hard drives, which have a habit of running really hot. Google has published statistical data from their datacenters and shown that there is a direct link to high temperature and incidence of hard drive failure. Though of course this only applies to platter based hard drives.

Do you have pictures of your set up

Actually no..at the time I was too busy getting everything together I didn't bother. At the moment my computer is positioned in such a way I couldn't get any photos of the interior easily. the whole set up is heavy as hell.

* All things considered, I like to listen to music while i'm working.
** I find this trend of turning your PC into a eye-searing U2 concert light show it a bit ridiculous.
*** Graphics Processing Unit.

[LaurenOE]

Thanks for the advises! but Thuderbolt support?? isn't this a apple thing?

Nope. PCs have it these days - Intel is behind it too.
Nothing is faster for transferring external files at this point.

This is my main machine's Motherboard - https://www.asus.com/us/Motherboards/X99-DELUXE-II/

Thunderbolt 3.

'nuff said.

[Snakeisthestuff]

Yes, especially my western digital black hard drives, which have a habit of running really hot. Google has published statistical data from their datacenters and shown that there is a direct link to high temperature and incidence of hard drive failure. Though of course this only applies to platter based hard drives.

FYI since you mentioned that google paper, the funny thing is it actually found that drive fail rate was higher at low temperatures xD. They concluded that high temperature does not have that negative impact that is generally believed.

Starts at page 5:
https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/research.google.com/en//archive/disk_failures.pdf

[Digitalis]

it actually found that drive fail rate was higher at low temperatures xD

It's a bell curve, and that really isn't surprising. The WD black drives I have without water cooling can easily run up to 54°C when running under heavy load with an ambient temperature of 30°C. So in the case of WD black drives - it is best to keep them cooled.