Looking for a photo/video editing desktop PC.

Considering possibly I7 processor, 16Gb ram, graphics card, SSD, decent sized hard drive (2tb)

Any suggestions where to purchase? Any decent deals around? Sound feasible with a £500-600 budget?

maybe one for the evening crowd….

A very quick look gets you close
http://www.dell.com/uk/p/xps-8700/pd?oc=cdx8716&model_id=xps-8700
without the SSD

Check out the dell outlet for better prices on these, if not build your own from ebuyer etc on some bare bones systems or board & chip. Basically everything that is on special in one box.

How hardcore do you want to go with the editing?

I just ordered one from Aria following advice on here a while ago.

Mine was a bit over your budget but I custom-specced it with a quiet case and some other bits.

http://www.aria.co.uk/Systems

If you can’t find what you’re after on the site give them a bell, very helpful and low-pressure.

I presume the £5-600 is not inclusive of a monitor?

Might be a stretch to get that all for 5-600. Never mind monitor and OS.

You would save a bit sourcing the parts and building yourself. I’m a long time mac user but fancied a PC built to a spec I wanted. Cheapest way was to build it. I have never done it before and don’t know much about computers but it wasn’t that hard. I followed a youtube vid and in a couple of hours it was done.

If you don’t fancy it. Dino PC are pretty cheap and have good reviews.

Complete box or build your own?
I built one like that spec for that budget (box only), i7, 16gb, ssd, case etc (no HDD), by making a shopping list of my apec from reviews and sourcing components from different places. Amazon was actually cheapest for a lot of stuff. Places I looked – Amazon, ebuyer and ccl came up best.

Budget didn’t include software, I put my money in hardware and went open source.

Was worth it, it flies. Can render 1080p 60fps video faster than real time (1 minute video renders in 45-50 seconds) using Linux Mint and Kdenlive.

Already have monitors, keyboard, speakers etc so 5-600 was for the tower and operating system essentially.

Considered attempting a build myself but have next to zero IT hardware skills. Have heard it isn’t actually that difficult.

Some good links, will follow them up and have to decide which route to go down…Is a self build fairly straight forward?

Easier than a Technical Lego kit.

Just plug some parts into the motherboard and connect cables. The motherboard usually comes with a detailed manual.

Hardest bit is ensuring all your purchases are compatible. A ‘bare bones’ kit would sort the main stuff – motherboard, CPU and ram.

You will probably want thunderbolt 2 too for fast in/out raid and ease of adding more storage and periphials, I guess that’s now readily available on pc motherboards?

Is thunderbolt that much faster or worth it for a desktop? Plenty of local space and USB 3 is fairly fast, generally the card is more limited. Only really an issue if you have a laptop with tiny storage

If you’re using photoshop install and run it on a separate SSD.

Personally I’d go with an i5. Little gain to be had with an i7 for graphics work.

I’d use the spare cash to go to 32gb Ram as I think that would give more of a performance boost.

If editing video then an i7 all the way. Those extra cores will really speed up encoding and yes it does make a real world difference.

16gb of ram should be enough but depends what photo’s videos you have.

Build it yourself is easy. depending on CPU fan the mounting of that will be the trickiest as most aftermarket coolers don’t have thermal paste pre-added like the OEM option.

Your budget is fine for 2nd hand parts but I’d be looking at spending another 2/300 on top of that for something that’s more in line with the spec you want when buying new.