Any advice on this PC for photography and video editing?

[keirow]

Below is the specification I've chosen to replace my nine year old PCSpecialist (i7-860) machine which is getting a little short on processing power for my current and future tasks.

The new PC will be used mainly for my photography using Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop, with some video editing in the near future using DaVinci Resolve or Adobe Premiere. This is my hobby, but I do take on some commissions which I find really tax my current machine. In addition of course there will be the usual home office work and occasional gaming at 1920x1080.

I'd appreciate any advice or insight into my current build choice which will include an existing 500gb ssd to be used as a scratch/cache disk. In particular, for the motherboard choice I was considering the ASUS Maximus XI Hero as an alternative but I read that the Aorus Master has better power regulation as well as three M.2 slots which may come in handy in the future for an additional NVMe drive. The PC will run at stock frequency but I've allowed a power supply that should cope should I choose to overclock in the future.


Case
FRACTAL DEFINE R6 BLACK QUIET MID-TOWER CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™ i9 Eight Core Processor i9-9900K (3.6GHz) 16MB Cache

Motherboard
Gigabyte Z390 AORUS Master: ATX, LG1151, USB 3.1, SATA 6GBs WIFI - RGB Ready
Memory (RAM)
32GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 3000MHz (2 x 16GB)
Graphics Card
6GB NVIDIA GEFORCE RTX 2060 - HDMI, DP - VR Ready!

1st Storage Drive
4TB SEAGATE BARRACUDA PRO 3.5", 7200 RPM 128MB CACHE

1st M.2 SSD Drive (Operating system and applications)
500GB SAMSUNG 970 EVO PLUS M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 3500MB/R, 3200MB/W)

2nd M.2 SSD Drive (Project Files/Source Footage)
1TB SAMSUNG 970 EVO PLUS M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 3500MB/R, 3300MB/W)

DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM

Power Supply
CORSAIR 750W TXm SERIES™ SEMI-MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET

Processor Cooling
Noctua NH-U14S Ultra Quiet Performance CPU Cooler
Thermal Paste
STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
Sound Card

ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Wireless/Wired Networking
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT (Wi-Fi is INCLUDED on the Aorus Master)
USB/Thunderbolt Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS

Operating System
Genuine Windows 10 Home 64 Bit - inc. Single Licence [KUK-00001]

Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)

Price £2,306.00 including VAT and Delivery

 

[keirow]

Apologies for bumping this thread, but it was coming up as an 'invalid post' yesterday and showed no content which the admin has fixed.
So if you have a moment to peruse the above spec and come back with any useful insight it would be much appreciated.

 

[Oussebon]

The general spec seems fine.

Agreed the Hero is not worth it; the Master would be my choice too at the end of the spectrum.

The Pro HDD may not really be worth the huge price premium, since your project files will be on the SSDs anyway. Though How exactly do you plan to use the storage, if you're buying 2 NVMe SSDs and already have a Sata SSD to add?

With the i9 CPU, I would go with a high end AIO cooler like the H100x as a minimum

 

[keirow]

Thanks for your input, your validation of the Master is welcome, I toyed with that choice for quite a while

I specified the trio of ssd's as the ideal to cope with projects in progress with Premier/ DaVinci Resolve and the HDD for storage of finished projects (those video files get big!). You make a valid point on the HDD, a 5400 rpm drive is fine for long term storage and would save a fair bit.

The cooler is another component I have spent a while considering and I guess I have steered away from water/AIO coolers since I have no experience with them. If I was overclocking I would definitely consider an AIO cooler - at the moment I'm not but I am looking for a quiet PC and reliability which the Noctua NH-U14S should provide. According to Noctua it should be fine up to 9900K boost frequencies and even a mild overclock (the new NH-U12A would definitely be better), but if you have a moment, I'm interested in why you think the H100x would be beneficial ??

 

[Oussebon]

Because the 9900k is a small nuclear reactor and really wants the best cooling possible. And there isn't a downside to AIO coolers.