Advice required on my config before ordering

[BillyBoy]

I am mostly using Photoshop and Lightroom Classic for photo-editing. However, occasionally, a little simple video-editing.
I use a BENQ 4K monitor with Display port.
One question I would like to ask is whether the On-Board Wi-Fi can be disabled as I use an external TP-Link Wifi 6?

Case
FRACTAL POP SILENT CASE TG (BLACK)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™ i7 12-Core Processor i7-12700KF (Up to 5.0GHz) 25MB Cache
Motherboard
ASUS® ROG MAXIMUS Z790 DARK HERO (LGA1700, DDR5, PCIe 5.0, Wi-Fi 7)
Memory (RAM)
64GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR5 5200MHz CL40 (2 x 32GB)
Graphics Card
12GB ZOTAC GEFORCE RTX 4070 GDDR6 TWIN EDGE - HDMI, 3 x DP
1st M.2 SSD Drive
1TB CORSAIR ELITE MP600 NVMe PCIe M.2 SSD (up to 7000 MB/R, 6200 MB/W)
1st Storage Drive
4TB Samsung 870 QVO 2.5" SSD, SATA 6Gb/s (up to 560MB/sR | 530MB/sW)
Power Supply
CORSAIR 750W RMe SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET
Get a discount code for 20% off select peripherals at Corsair.com
Power Cable
1 x 1.5 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Processor Cooling
CORSAIR ICUE LINK TITAN 240 RX RGB HIGH PERFORMANCE CPU COOLER
Thermal Paste
STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Card
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT
Wireless Network Card
ONBOARD Wi-Fi 6E / 7 (MOTHERBOARD DEPENDENT)
USB/Thunderbolt Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Operating System
Windows 11 Home 64 Bit - inc. Single Licence
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Windows Recovery Media
NO RECOVERY MEDIA REQUIRED
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft 365® (Operating System Required)
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Browser
Google Chrome™

Appreciate any help. Thank you.

 

[TonyCarter]

Firstly, no-one on here would recommend any Intel i7/i9 due to their history of failures, throttling, overheating...and a modern AM5 CPU will do everything an i7/i9 would at about half the power consumption. You've also go a smaller/quiet case which will exacerbate the cooling issue.

Secondly, we'd need to know your max budget so we can tailor an AM5 build for you.

Just a few observations before we try an AM5 config for you:

• That's a huge spend on a motherboard, are you sure you need the extra capabilities it's got for the extra £300?
• What's the reason for the 4TB SATA SSD? Why not a much faster 4TB m.2 SSD for about half the price?
• That's quite slow RAM for a DDR5 build, and could leave as much as 10% on the table in memory-intensive workloads
• If you don't need high core count, then the much more efficient 7700X is faster than the 12700KF, plus has an iGPU for troubleshooting/set-up (the newer 9700X is about 10% faster again)

7700X vs 12700K

7700X vs 9700X

 

[BillyBoy]

WOW! Thanks Tony. I have heard about the Intel i7-i9 not being reliable but you have contributed a whole lot more.

Firstly, my budget is £2500 ish. I have a huge pile of digital images and video and have found that I cannot at present keep them on my old 2TB Hard disk as just about filling up. (Also my 500gb SSD for OS is close to full). I don't want to use a remote drive for editing as slows down everything.

My present desktop from PC Specialist is Intel i7 (6 years old) and is not compatible with Windows 11 so I have to bite the bullet and buy new.
I know little about mixing case components so do appreciate your input on specs for a new machine. I don't do any gaming just photo editing and small amount of video editing.

Look forward to a response.

 

[TonyCarter]

Case
CORSAIR FRAME 4000D RS ARGB MODULAR - one of Corsairs latest 4000-series refreshes (the Fractal Pop Silent is not listed at the moment, and the other plain cases are almost double the price) [RGB lighting can be turned off]
Processor (CPU)
AMD Ryzen 7 9700X Eight Core CPU (3.8GHz-5.5GHz/40MB CACHE/AM5) - current fastest AMD CPU for single-core Photoshop/Lightroom activities (and will use about 1/3rd of the power of an i7/i9); higher core count would help in video/rendering, but the equivalent fastest 16-core CPU is about £250 more
Motherboard
ASUS® TUF GAMING X870-PLUS WIFI (AM5, DDR5, M.2 PCIe 5.0, Wi-Fi 7) - saved some cash (used elsewhere) by going down from the ROG Maximus motherboard, as it was complete overkill for your usage; note, I would have gone for one of the Gigabyte Auros motherboards, but they're on back-order
Memory (RAM)
64GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR5 6000MHz CL40 (2 x 32GB) KIT - faster RAM
Graphics Card
12GB ZOTAC GEFORCE RTX 4070 GDDR6 TWIN EDGE - HDMI, 3 x DP - no change as there's not a lot in Photoshop/Lightroom that would benefit from a beefier GPU (although if video becomes more important in the future a swap to a newer/faster GPU of the time is easy)
1st M.2 SSD Drive
1TB SOLIDIGM P44 PRO GEN 4 M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD (up to 7000MB/sR, 6500MB/sW) - fast primary drive for just the OS and apps (don't store anything else on here as it will slow it down and accelerate failure)
2nd M.2 SSD Drive
512GB SOLIDIGM P44 PRO GEN 4 M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD (up to 7000MB/sR, 4700MB/sW) - cache drive for Photoshop/Lightroom, so it's kept separate from both the OS/app drive, and the longer term project storage (don't forget to configure Photoshop/Lightroom to use this)
3rd M.2 SSD Drive
4TB CORSAIR CORE XT MP600 NVMe PCIe M.2 SSD (up to 5000 MB/R, 4400 MB/W) - put in a 4TB m.2 SSD instead of the SATA one in your original build; not sure I'd want to rely on an SSD for critical storage, as they give very little (if any) warning of impending failure; fine for short-term storage/working but need to be backed up / moved to the HDD (included) for security
1st Storage Drive
4TB SEAGATE IRONWOLF PRO 3.5", 7200 RPM 128MB CACHE - don't like relying on SSDs for everything, so either this enterprise-level drive, or a large external WD drive (cheaper consumer-level drive) would be my recommendation
Power Supply
CORSAIR 1000W RMx SERIES™ ATX 3.1, MODULAR, CYBENETICS GOLD - newer, better quality, higher efficient than the RMe level PSU, and has room for a beefier GPU upgrade in 3-6 year's time if you move to a GPU heavy workload
Power Cable
1 x 1.5 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead, 1.0mm Core)
Processor Cooling
CORSAIR ICUE LINK TITAN 360 RX RGB HIGH PERFORMANCE CPU COOLER - overkill for the very efficient 9700X, but allows for a beefier CPU upgrade if you move into gaming or heavier video/rendering workloads - plus it's only a few £ more than the smaller model; having this much headroom on the cooling means it'll be almost silent (any noise would be a light whirring from the pump) [RGB lighting can be turned off]
Thermal Paste
STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Card
ONBOARD 2.5Gbe LAN PORT
Wireless Network Card
NONE OR ONBOARD Wi-Fi (MOTHERBOARD DEPENDENT)
USB/Thunderbolt Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Operating System
Windows 11 Home 64 Bit - inc. Single Licence
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Windows Recovery Media
Windows 10/11 Multi-Language Recovery Image - Unlimited Downloads from Online Account
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft 365® (Operating System Required)
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Browser
Microsoft® Edge
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 7 to 9 working days
Price: £2,513.00 including VAT and Delivery
Unique URL to re-configure: https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/amd-am5-pc/nK7JGPPQRJ/

Why more than one storage drive?

I've been meaning to put something like this together for a while. In recent weeks I've found myself writing this more and more so thought I would just post my thoughts in a thread that I could link to. So the reason for this thread is to try and give insight as to the reasoning behind having...

www.pcspecialist.co.uk

 

[BillyBoy]

Hi

Put your specs into order page but got this reply:
We've checked your specification for compatibility. Please consider our advice below before proceeding:

• Please note that the following products are not currently in stock and may possibly delay your order. We suggest you select an alternative product unless you are prepared to wait for these item(s) to arrive back into stock:
  
  CORSAIR FRAME 4000D RS ARGB MODULAR (ETA: 22-02-2025)
• You have selected a 1000W power supply, but based on our calculations you actually only need a 650W power supply. We have calculated your specification to require around 420W of power including a 20% allowance. Although it is not a mandatory requirement to select a lower wattage power supply, doing so will save you money and the last thing we'd like to do is over charge you!
• We note that you have selected an M.2/PCI-E SSD drive and a mechanical hard drive (HDD) under the primary hard disk drive option. In order to benefit from a fast and responsive computer, your operating system will be installed on the M.2/PCI-E SSD drive and not the mechanical hard drive.
• We will mount the radiator for your cooler at the top of the computer case (where possible), otherwise at the front. If you prefer, you can specify a different mounting location below. We will try to mount the radiator in this location, however please note that this is not a guarantee as other components (such as your RAM) might impede on this.
  
  Any update from you please? Regards.

 

[MrWilson]

CORSAIR FRAME 4000D RS ARGB MODULAR (ETA: 22-02-2025)

You're probably looking at around a week for your PC to go into build so I wouldn't worry too much about this. The alternative would be to go for a more expensive case option that is in stock.

You have selected a 1000W power supply, but based on our calculations you actually only need a 650W power supply. We have calculated your specification to require around 420W of power including a 20% allowance. Although it is not a mandatory requirement to select a lower wattage power supply, doing so will save you money and the last thing we'd like to do is over charge you!

Tony outlined the reasoning for the 1000W PSU above

We note that you have selected an M.2/PCI-E SSD drive and a mechanical hard drive (HDD) under the primary hard disk drive option. In order to benefit from a fast and responsive computer, your operating system will be installed on the M.2/PCI-E SSD drive and not the mechanical hard drive.

This is as intended, you want Windows installed on the primary drive as Tony specced

We will mount the radiator for your cooler at the top of the computer case (where possible), otherwise at the front. If you prefer, you can specify a different mounting location below. We will try to mount the radiator in this location, however please note that this is not a guarantee as other components (such as your RAM) might impede on this.

You want a roof/top mount for your radiator.

 

[BillyBoy]

Tks for your advice. I am sure I have benefited from your experience and wisdom in these matters. Ordered today as specified by you.... and will wait on the out of stock case to complete.