PC Build for Photographers

Gear

Apr 15

Before you ever spend money on expensive tech like a PC, always ask yourself WHY do you need it.

My old main system was a 15" MacBook Pro 2018 with 256GB of storage. Now, I'm a photographer who uses about a GB of space per photo - and while external hard drives do exist, it was getting unbearably inconvenient. And in Fall 2020, just as I was about to start a new school semester online, I knew I needed an upgrade.

First, take a step back and ask yourself what you need a computer for. For me, I needed a system that:

could handle 2D and 3D Rendering programs like AUTOcad and Solidworks for my personal engineering projects.
had enough space for my photography files (RAW & edited)
could handle streaming AND running games or Adobe software at the same time
could run multiple Adobe software AND files at the same time
looked pretty

So, let's break down the components:

Starting us off, I have the Intel Core i7-10700K 8-Core, 16-Threads for my processor. Having multi-cores with the Intel i5 and i7 models makes rendering so much quicker. I spent much more on the processor, getting a 10th generation model, because I don't want to upgrade any time soon so I got the most reasonable processor in the Intel line.
The CPU cooler is just a simple Cooler Master RGB Air Cooler. I chose a fan over a water cooling system because I wasn't going to do any crazy gaming and didn't want to spend the additional few hundred dollars.
Because I have a 10th generation model, I needed to get a compatible Z490 motherboard. I have the ASUS TUF Gaming Z490-Plus ATX Gaming Motherboard. I use the wi-fi model and I actually didn't know it was RGB until after I bought it, oops.
Photo and video editing uses up a lot of RAM, so I went for the Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro 32 GB with two 16GB RAM sticks, just in case I needed to add more slots in the future.
Now, I don't play that many video games so getting a high-end GPU wasn't a priority. But I also didn't want to use the processor's built-in graphics card. I went for the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1660.
Hello storage you are my best friend. I didn't invest in a M.2 because I don't really care for instant speed. A SSD does the job for me. So off of the 1TB Samsung 860 Evo SSD I have my OS, Adobe Software, OBS for streams, and any games that I'm currently playing at the moment. My 4TB Seagate BarraCuda stores all of my archives like documents and photo galleries. Backing up is so crucial as a photographer so I also back up these files onto a few cloud servers. For everyone watching, this is a PSA to back up your files when you're done watching this video.
For the power supply I got the Corsair TX Series 650W Semi-Modular Power supply. Nothing too special to mention about this, I just made sure to look for a 80+ Gold rating.
And to wrap this all up in a pretty ribbon, my case is the Phanteks Eclipse P300A. I was told that this case was pretty good for airflow because of the mesh front. So I obliged.
For a bonus mention, I also use the Keychron K8 Wireless Mechanical Keyboard, with RGB Backlight and Gateron brown switches.