Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

You'll find some solid recommendations, together with extensive benchmarking - to help you make some well-informed choices.

https://www.pugetsystems.com/

I've built dozens of Windows systems for various people - all are running just fine. This post was created on an 9 yr old PC that I updated slightly to include more ram and bigger hard drives in 2015. I have 8 TB storage, 32gb ram, i7 2600K running at 5 gHz. It's actually quite fast. Newer computers will have 6 or more cores with hyperthreading which will make Lightroom run a little faster, though clock speeds haven't changed much. SSD drives have come down in price, and many computers provide room for 2 or 3 m.2 NVMe PCIe SSD drives which runs software an boots Windows very fast. There is no need for a NIC card, most motherboards have them built in.

Without knowing what software you are planning to run it is hard to tell if you will get any benefit from an i9 cpu. If future-proofing is a goal, then maybe it's a good idea to plan around one. USB C Gen 2 or Thunderbolt 3 will ensure that I/O speeds on external drives will be close to what you get with internal SATA III drives.

LenCreate

I replaced the hard drive in a computer about that age with an SSD last year and the old sluggish desktop now flies! Easy to do and you can buy a 1 TB SSD for around $100 or less. I used the free version of Macrium to copy the HD content to the SSD. Much cheaper than buying a new computer.

John N Loc: HP14 3QF Stokenchurch, UK

I've just bought an I7 with 32gb so I'm hoping the spec. is O.K. I buy refurbished from Microsoft Authorised dealers for about 1/2 price.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

For most of us a regular computer would work well.

I mean, are we talking many minutes here or a second or three?

bobmcculloch Loc: NYC, NY

I've had a number of desktops and laptops both at work and at home, last big computer I bought was an all-in-one, works out very well both for photo editing and general use, and it freed up a lot of real estate on my desk while giving me a bigger screen, last couple of desktops I never opened up to add or change anything, penny dropped, don't need to be able to do what I never do, screen is good for editing photos, now YMMV but its a thought, BTW I5 and I think 12gig ram does my editing fine.

gvarner Loc: Central Oregon Coast

You should look seriously at tossing that old HD. A local computer shop should be able to give you a good cost estimate of what could meet your needs. Most of them don’t build them anymore, they just buy a Dell, for example, and add whatever else you want.

jederick Loc: Northern Utah

Toby

You might want to be sure it will support 2 or more monitors with at least one being a 4K

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

Good point. Most modern video cards have two ports with different connectors and protocols, and most main boards have another, so you can run 3 if you like (which is what I use)

Papa Joe Loc: Midwest U.S.

I have purchased my last three computers from TigerDirect (http://www.tigerdirect.com/) and have never had a problem. All three are 'refurbs' and the price was very reasonable. Never a problem with any of them. The Desktop unit I'm using now is going on its 5th year and still working like new. Their refurbs are guaranteed. I am obviously a very satisfied customer of TigerDirect.
http://www.tigerdirect.com/
Papa Joe

htbrown Loc: San Francisco Bay Area

Thanks - good advice

htbrown Loc: San Francisco Bay Area

This is not a bad idea, but I would still be limited to 8 GB RAM, since that's all this one will take. I might do this to kick the can down the road a bit.

htbrown Loc: San Francisco Bay Area

I just upgraded my second disk to 4TB last year when my photo collection got too large for the 1TB that preceded it. Your point is well taken, but I'm going to hang onto it for a bit.

htbrown Loc: San Francisco Bay Area

God point. Thanks!

htbrown Loc: San Francisco Bay Area

I don't have room on my desk for a third monitor, but consider two essential.

I doubt I'll ever have a 4K monitor either, but I can remember buying a 100 MB disk and thinking I'd never want bigger too...