bwana Loc: Bergen, Alberta, Canada

A good gaming desktop will work just fine for photo and video processing. Your specs look very good BUT I'd up the size of the HDD to at least 4TB; however, this depends on the number of pictures/video you have.

bwa

TheShoe Loc: Lacey, WA

Also https://www.originpc.com

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

I,’d just add that while companies like Puget are a good choice, having your neighborhood computer store assemble your PC for a charge may not be the best decision unless you specify name brand components as they may use their generic “house brand” unless you specify otherwise. Also, it’s really a trivial task to assemble a PC anymore with simplified drive mounting. Attach the MB (5-8 screws), attach the power supply (4 screws), plug in the DRAM, SSD, and CPU, plug in the cables from the MB to the case, and that’s it except for loading the OS and Aps. Takes no more than an hour for the HW and a couple of hours for the OS. Saves several hundred $ and you’ll actually get to choose all your components and learn something about this strange machine that you likely rely on daily.

Drbobcameraguy Loc: Eaton Ohio

That is a fine set up. Just make sure it is able to be upgraded hard drive wise which I'm sure it can be switched out. I have purchased 4 desktops from microcenter. Great outfit. The graphics card is fine. You will love the boot time of the nvme m2 hard drive. I personally don't like Dell. I buy the Power spec computers which is micro center house brand. Zero blotware that way.

jimvanells Loc: Augusta, GA

I have an I-7 9th Gen with an 8GB graphics card and 32 gig of ram. I looks like your on the right track but the 12 GB graphic card may be more than you need. I have no issues with speed when using Topaz.

eeengineer Loc: Madison, WI

If you are going to store your photos and videos on the computer you will want either a different computer or a nas. That dell can only have 2 2.5” hard drives. You should have at least 2 large hard drives for storage. I would recommend 2 10TB in mirror setup.

AirWalter Loc: Tipp City, Ohio

Who directed you to this computer? A store salesman or did you decide on these specs yourself? You certainly do not need a 3060 video card unless you are a fanatical game player. An I7 with only 2.5 Ghz is not a good one! You should look for a CPU with at least 3.4 Ghz and make sure the model number of the CPU has the letter "k" following whatever number it has. The ones with the letter "k" are unlocked and with the proper motherboard will overclock themselves when they detect a demand for more CPU performance, and they do this automatically. Stay away from Intel motherboards; look at MSI and ASUS motherboards. Notice the review number of 3.7 out of 5.0 in the review section on the page for that computer at Micro Center. That 3.7 rating indicates a computer with poor performance. I hope you do more searching for better specs.

AirWalter Loc: Tipp City, Ohio

A lot of bad obsolete info. Burn this list!

DaveJ Loc: NE Missouri

Well, Thanks ALL! I have read each comment and looked at almost all of the links provided. Lots of good info. I really appreciate every comment. As expected, I'm almost overwhelmed by the info. I do have a budget, so the custom builds at approximately 2X the cost of the other guys is out of reach. I'm going to digest all this for a few days. My laptop is working fine except very slow on Topaz and some slow things at times on PS and LR, but not real bad. Hopefully some others have read and learned from this thread. Again, thanks. Keep them coming.

DaveJ Loc: NE Missouri

I have not talked to a salesman. If bad, it is all me!!!

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

T

Just a few comments:

There’s a lot more to CPU performance than clock speed. If you look at Intel Xeon professional CPUs, you’ll notice that they are generally fairly low clock speed. Instead, look here at actual performance benchmarks: https://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html

No disagreement with the “K” designation if overclocking is your thing.

Regarding MBs, as I said earlier, I had driver issues with the last Intel MB I tried. Sent it back for an Asus, which has been running flawlessly for at least 7 years.

I am not a fan of water cooling (noise, reliability, leaks) for personal computers, although it is becoming a standard for HP enterprise servers.

No need to worry about the number of drive slots as your storage should generally be SSD, preferably m.2 NVME plugged directly to the MB.

As I stated earlier, I’d much prefer to purchase the parts and assemble my own. Manufacturers like HP or Dell tend to skimp on power supply capacity, expansion slots, etc.

If you’re planning on implementing a high speed internal network and/or a NAS, then consider a MB that supports 10 GigE Ethernet, which is quickly becoming affordable.

John Hicks Loc: Sible Hedinham North Essex England

I would an AND chip over Intel either a 12 core of 16 core running at 5 ghz, choose mother board that will take up 96 GBP of memory and a 1tb ssd with a couple of 8 tb hard disks for data .
On the mother board a couple m2 sockets and twin graphic cards joined as one a 1.5 kw power supply , also get a couple of 8tb external disks a DVD writer ok n the machine for loading software I no nothing about Apple products as the only Apple product I would buy is a granny Smith or an English cox.

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

Twin graphics cards and a 1.5KW power supply? Really?

AirWalter Loc: Tipp City, Ohio

Xeon CPUs are useless for the general consumer market. Read this whole article.

https://www.howtogeek.com/427596/xeon-vs.-core-are-intels-expensive-cpus-worth-a-premium/

Joexx

With all due respect, no it is not that easy. Yes you can save money and it is a great way to go for many reasons. Ever screw up the paste on the heatsink of a cpu?....Yes, most reasonably tech savvy people can do it with some research. The 2nd time is much easier, but.......