Critique my component List

I'm having eCollege PC put this machine together for my wife; goals are to have a quality machine with some snap and longevity; will do some photo editing and loading or large folders of pictures, internet, YouTube etc.; maybe Lightroom someday. Will be paired with a Dell 27" ultrasharp. It will be in our kitchen nook so small form factor is a priority. Is onboard video generally OK with lightroom?

Input on component list would be appreciated.

IMAGE LINK: https://pstanfield.smu​gmug.com …j/0/O/config.jp​g&lb=1&s=A

It looks like a very solid build to me. Did you piece it together or was this a pre-built selection they had?

EverydayGetaway wrote in post #17800439
It looks like a very solid build to me. Did you piece it together or was this a pre-built selection they had?

I started with their middle of the road mini intel series and customized each component. Figured a black WD HD was worth $25 more than blue, went down the line and beefed it up a bit. About $1300 incl. Windows 10 when I was done. Built one PC a while ago; no desire to do it again for the extra it will cost with these guys.

thx

mpstan wrote in post #17800494
I started with their middle of the road mini intel series and customized each component. Figured a black WD HD was worth $25 more than blue, went down the line and beefed it up a bit. About $1300 incl. Windows 10 when I was done. Built one PC a while ago; no desire to do it again for the extra it will cost with these guys.

thx

Fair enough. Was going to say that you can save a bit by doing the part sourcing and putting it together yourself, but it's understandable if you don't have any desire to do that

I think onboard video is fine - I don't think you'll get any significant advantage putting anything else in.

tim wrote in post #17800856
I think onboard video is fine - I don't think you'll get any significant advantage putting anything else in.

If there is ever any intention of some gaming (up to 1920x1200 - you can actually run the Witcher 3 very well on a 2GB model, just need to carefully tweak settings, e.g. foilage & grass to low but can have textures on high) you might want to stick an Nvidia GTX 750 Ti in there - very nice and capable card which only draws power from the PCIe slot.
Assuming Adobe every got GPU acceleration working, a dedicated card will also be better and more reliable than an Intel one... (still have bad memories from the X3100...) - But it is Adobe... they seem to be unable to properly code GPU acceleration... (Capture One Pro has OpenCL support )

http://www.videocardbe​nchmark.net/high_end_g​pus.html
-> The best Intel in the list has 1/3rd the performance of the 750 Ti.

BUT: If all you will do is just browse the web, view images - and do some editing in Adobe's (non GPU accelerated) software, the Intel GPU will be fine.

mpstan wrote in post #17800494
I started with their middle of the road mini intel series and customized each component. Figured a black WD HD was worth $25 more than blue, went down the line and beefed it up a bit. About $1300 incl. Windows 10 when I was done. Built one PC a while ago; no desire to do it again for the extra it will cost with these guys.

thx

If you really want speed, either get an SSD outright for the system drive or use a Cache SSD/SSHD. Incidentally, assuming you have enough RAM, the absolutely best upgrade you can apply to any PC is to swap a spinning disk for a (decent, e.g. Intel) SSD.
Harddrives are slow - and for storage itself it doesn't really matter that much any more which one you pic.

Thank you all for your input. I'm pretty sure after talking again with my wife that she will not be doing hard core photo editing. She has a point and shoot and will be able to use either the new editor in Windows 10, or just Office Picture Manager.

So I'm thinking a more mainstream nice i5 system with at least 8MB RAM. Will try to find a Mini form factor to fit in our nook.... decide on SSD or not, and I should be good to go.

mpstan wrote in post #17803605
Thank you all for your input. I'm pretty sure after talking again with my wife that she will not be doing hard core photo editing. She has a point and shoot and will be able to use either the new editor in Windows 10, or just Office Picture Manager.

So I'm thinking a more mainstream nice i5 system with at least 8MB RAM. Will try to find a Mini form factor to fit in our nook.... decide on SSD or not, and I should be good to go.

8MB won't get you very far...
I suspect you mean 8GB.

Having said that though, if mit runs Windows, stick in 16GB - 2 dimms with 8GB each.
(My Ultrabook has 10GB and I would only recommend 8GB as a minimum.)

The problem is that Windows loves to gobble RAM with time and the more it has, the more it will use... - Some people claim its the caching, but caching is listed individually on Windows 8.1 (Ultrabook) and RAM usage just creeps up over time... - Heck, same with Windows 7 though...
Another fun little issue on Windows 7... if you run Windows Update, it gobbles up 1GB of RAM and does not free it until you reboot... (unless they finally fixed that bug...)

If you then use any Adobe software, it rather likes to gobble up RAM, especially if it leaks memory... (has Lightroom at 17GB before I moved to Capture One once...) - And while Capture One starts lower it also likes to gobble up RAM over time, though I have not seen more than 5-7GB (yet).

The other annoying aspect is how little regard programmers have for resources... (incompetence?)
Even Skype gobbles up 150MB+ doing absolutely nothing... Browser opne? Another 200-300MB gone "off the bat"... more the more tabs you open. I guess the developers nowadays think that RAM is cheap so people can just buy more...

And while Linux is a lot better on the OS side, once you start looking at browsers and other software you want to use, you get the same problem...