pshane

Hi, - I have just purchased my first brand-new PC since 2000! - (Mainly for Photography-related reasons).
I believe I have selected a pretty robust PC for the job and would love some advice from fellow Hoggers.
Description: -
Dell XPS 8940 10th Gen Intel® Core™ i7-10700 processor(8-Core, 16M Cache, 2.9GHz to 4.8GHz) Operating System:Windows 10 Home, 64-bit, English Video Card:NVIDIA® GeForce® RTX 2060 SUPER™ 8GB GDDR6
Memory:16GB, 1x16GB, DDR4, 2933MHz<br>Hard Drive:256GB M.2 PCIe NVMe Solid State Drive + 2TB 7200 rpm 3.5" SATA Hard Drive<br>Dell Wireless Card W1810/QCA9377.
After unpacking, attaching the necessary cables, and plugging it in, - What are the first things one would install, and in which order?
Anti-virus First? - Which one? - and, so on with the other programs, one would like/need to have on their new PC, Especially, any favorite Photo Editing & Organizing programs that I should consider.
(At 75 years young, and not a 'Pro', this will probably be my last PC, and I'd love for it to be properly optimized and would appreciate any advice. - Thanks, Pat

Ollieboy

Get rid of the 7200 rpm drive and replace it with another ssd. That's your weakest link in your new tower. Some may not agree due to cost. Once and done. Just my opinion. Sounds like a good setup.

R.G. Loc: Scotland

Hard drives still have the edge when it comes to reliability and longevity. If it's for archive only, slowness may not be an issue.

Ollieboy

My experience shows that 7200 rpm drives are less reliable than 5400 rpm drives. I don't believe they are more reliable than ssd drives (no moving parts). Definitely much cheaper though.

EastWest

My Dell struggles in lightroom with just 16MB of ram I'll bump it up when I do my next build. Getting hard to build one for less than Dell.

robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

75 & 12 days here: I have 32GB of RAM and plan to go for 64. If you put all the apps on the SSD and use the HDD for files and data things should go well. That is what I do except I have an SSD and two UDD's one of those is dedicated to photos and videos only. My video card is 6GB, but my CPU is an i9 and I am hard wired to the cable modem.

For security I use Malwarebytes + Windows Defender. Well McAfee is part of my cable package but I leave it in standby mode and only run a scan every other week or two. And my cable company not only has good security but it sometimes gets too aggressive and I have to tell it to let something through. For general system maintenance and file cleaning etc I use System Mechanic (pcmag editors choice)

Get a good backup program and add an external to keep them on - I use Acronis, in fact when I upgraded I used Acronis to transfer my old setup to the new one. And just two weeks ago I moved everything from our son's i5 to his new i7 gamer using PCMover (recommended by Microsoft and then did the same with the new Dell that replaced the wife's old Pentium 4 she only uses for email and shopping. Both ways of transferring worked - did have some tweaking etc to do - but they worked.

rwilson1942 Loc: Houston, TX

My favorite antivirus is Malwarebytes
I have an older version of this setup, XPS8900 running a 7200 1Tb and a 500Gb SSD and 16Gb Ram.
Software installed on SSD, data on 7200 HD.
Works well for me.
By the way, I turn 78 in November :)

tcthome Loc: NJ

I have a few year old Dell Allienware with a simular set- up. I keep my pics that aren't being worked on on the D drive (still in LR) & a folder structure of new imports for editing on the C (SSD)drive. I had plenty of room on the SSD but had the itch to upgrade & went from 256SSD to a 1 tb Samsung 970 EVO & upped the ram from 16 to 64 gb. He will be fine. I don't know about thexps models but mine came with internal slots with the power cords for 2.5" hard drives. When the D drive gets full , I'll add a 2 tb ssd.

tcthome Loc: NJ

Are vpn's any good or are they same as the programs mentioned above? Thanks for any replies in advance!

photoman43

I also recommend upgrading your RAM from 16 GB to 32GB or 64GB. That will make a big difference and is worth the money.

I now use ESET antivirus nod32 and malwarebytes pro. ESET has an Internet product you might want to consider.

Depending on how many drive bays you have available inside your tower, I would add a second SSD drive if you can afford it, and another spinning drive or two with a much greater capacity. Something like 4 or 8 TB each.

If there is room inside the tower add another fan to increase cooling. Or replace the fan there with a bigger one.

Depending where the air intakes are on the tower, make sure they are kept open. If they are any on the bottom of the tower, do not place the tower on a rug or cloth. Raise it an inch for air flow. Heat is a killer of drives and motherboards.

David Taylor

Some quite mad suggestions being made here.

aellman Loc: Boston MA

The purpose of a VPN for home users is to keep your Internet use private. VPNs operate in real time, replacing your IP address (which identifies your computer) with a random one. It can be turned on and off per your needs. ExpressVPN is one of the top brands. The services are not expensive.

CamB Loc: Juneau, Alaska

Doesn’t Windows have a migration tool like Macs, that will automatically link to your old computer and transfer everything and set the new one up? I would start by using that.
...Cam

ejpeters Loc: New Jersey, USA

Just one suggestion. I would go with a larger SSD drive. I have 512GB on my laptop and a 1TB on my Tower. Windows quickly takes up quite a bit of the 256GB on the drive.

bwana Loc: Bergen, Alberta, Canada

I'd definitely add more RAM. I recently purchased a very similar desktop and upgraded it to 48 GB (added 32 GB); makes a big difference. I also added two additional 1 TB SSD's (total of 3x1 TB's) for the fastest possible processing.

I also run a dual external housing with 2x10 TB HD's for storage and backup. DON'T forget about a backup!! No SSD or HD lasts forever.

The GPU in the RTX 2060 video card is great; don't forget to configure your system / software to use it.

Enjoy!

bwa