bkyser Loc: Fly over country in Indiana

Thanks all, I think it's starting to sink in (albeit slowly) My current HP isn't necessarily a slouch, but from what I've read, HP doesn't play very well with upgrades that are different than HP. That's why I want to just start from the ground up.

I am a grandfather, but I have to admit, I'm also kind of wanting the flashy RGB lights and other stuff that means nothing to the actual function, other than to look really cool.... so, I'm also 6 years old at heart.

I know it's wishful thinking, but I figure if I do this correctly, and go with component parts, maybe instead of buying a new computer every 5 years or so, I can upgrade parts and pieces as needed, and hopefully get twice as long out of it.

I started with Mac, and although there are millions of satisfied users, I still think I get more bang for the $ spent with windows, so until Mac's fall in line price wise, I'll stick with Windows.

Thank again, I've learned a lot here. Hope to keep learning.
Bob

Tim Stapp Loc: Mid Mitten

Get a son or step son (or daughters, since that is what you have) that owes you money to build one for you. Then wait 5-6 months for it to be built. It WILL be fantastic. I will get with him and get the BOM (bill of materials) that went into it. All I know is that with a Solid State Hard Drive to contain the programs and a 2 TB hard drive for data, it is incredible.

A 6 shot (raw files) panorama that took 10 minutes to render on my old machine took 30 seconds on my new machine. I just checked and I have 16 GB memory. Oh, and I now have a two monitor system. It's great to have PS and LR open on two different screens.

Tim Stapp Loc: Mid Mitten

I will admit, he did all of the research and design of the PC. I gave him Adobe's minimum requirements and turned him loose. He researched and made sure that everything was compatible ie. motherboard/processor, video card, etc. He did a super job.

JD750 Loc: SoCal

Ok build your own computer? So on the transistor level? There are some good companies with well paid smart engineers building computers. It's not trivial. A lot of soldering involved.

Ha ok Im just kidding you. BUT food for thought, it's not 1990, here are some incredibly good systems out there you can buy and start using right away.

Re the answer to your question "Which speeds up a photo editing computer more, extra RAM or a graphics card?" is Yes. Stuff it with all the RAM you can, buy a good graphics card with a lot of local RAM.

So you're doing video or 3D rendering, where you need all this horsepower?

bkyser Loc: Fly over country in Indiana

That's awesome. Glad it worked out. I know what waiting for sons-in-law to do things......anything...that they promise to do.

bkyser Loc: Fly over country in Indiana

Some, but very little video. I have several 1080 go pros to hide during a wedding, and a couple of 4k capable cameras for details, but I'm primarily a still photo guy. Video is just something I offer. The 4K basically renders my computer worthless, so even though I have the capability, I have to use 1080 to get ANY video done. So much for spending extra on my drone. (also, with the commercial real estate company, they want VERY little video too, mostly stills)

bk

hawk43

YES

nadelewitz Loc: Ithaca NY

A little confused.
If your motherboard has onboard graphics or the CPU has graphics built-in, and you ADD a graphics card for better graphics capability, you would disable the ONBOARD graphics. You would do that in the BIOS configuration. If, that is, adding a graphics card doesn't automatically disable/override the onboard graphics.

You presumably would have no reason to use onboard graphics if you are adding a card.