2017 Build Question

Hey Guys, so I'm updating my build from 2012 and this is what I have so far...

i7 7700K
asus z270 strix MB
64GB of ddr4 2400
GTX 960 (holdover from previous build)
128 M.2 boot/program drive
256 GB SSD main drive
1TB WD Black
4TB seagate long term storage
Fractal design case (either reusing my R3 or buying the R5)

The MB has wifi built on and I'm attaching an antenna as it won't be in a room that is wired for ethernet.

So my longwinded question is, what extras would you put into this that I'm not thinking of. It's mainly an editing PC with some occasional gaming and media consumption built in. Web browsing, word processing, email, PS, Lightroom and some steam.

I've read into internal SD card readers but they seem very hit or miss. Is there anything else photography related or otherwise that you would recommend considering adding to this build?

Thanks guys!

Jim

I wouldn't bother with a K model unless you're definitely going to overclock. What's on the "main SSD drive"? Caches and temporary images? Might as well get a larger hard drive than 1TB as they're not much more expensive, WD Black probably not necessary but mine has been super reliable.

All in all looks good. I'd try to run Ethernet cable, or you could do ethernet over power.

Internal card readers have been a flop for me. I've had 3 of them and all have died within 3-4 months. I'm using a USB 3.0 card reader that reads SD and compact flash. It's pretty slick. I've had that for over 5 years now and has never let me down.

It's a lexar LRW300U revision B1

tim wrote in post #18256150
I wouldn't bother with a K model unless you're definitely going to overclock. What's on the "main SSD drive"? Caches and temporary images? Might as well get a larger hard drive than 1TB as they're not much more expensive, WD Black probably not necessary but mine has been super reliable.

All in all looks good. I'd try to run Ethernet cable, or you could do ethernet over power.

7700k is around $25 more than a 7700. 7700k base clock is 4.2 with 4.5 Turbo, 7700 is 3.6 and 4.2. For $25 extra I would take the 7700k regardless.

-dave-m- wrote in post #18256333
7700k is around $25 more than a 7700. 7700k base clock is 4.2 with 4.5 Turbo, 7700 is 3.6 and 4.2. For $25 extra I would take the 7700k regardless.

Ah yeah makes sense then.

I would do less RAM and more SSD. 32GB RAM is going to be more than enough for photo editing and gaming. In fact 16GB should be plenty. I would do a 250GB m2 SSD as the system/program disk. In fact, 500GB m2 SSD's are very competitive. The one sure thing is that software bloat is unending. I've got Win10 Pro 64, Adobe Lr, Ps, Pr, Sg and Me, O365 and a few games and utilities, and only 45GB free on a 240GB SSD with my pagefile and temp/scratch pointed to a second SSD.

Love my Fractal R4. Does a great job of noise dampening and cooling. I just wish it had an indicator for HDD activity. I actually fixed that by drilling a 1/8" hole next to the headphone jack and epoxying a small red LED there, then wiring it to the motherboard HDD header.

I have an internal memory card reader with dual 3.5" HDD dock in my top external drive bay. Has SD, MicroSD and CF slots, 2x USB 2.0 ports and 2x 3.5 SATA bays. I used to put client video projects on bare SSD drives that I could then just plug-in to the dock. Now that external USB 3.0 SSD's are so fast and cheap I don't use the dock anymore, but the memory card slots still get used regularly. The brand I have is Vantec NexStar.

Other than that, what are you doing for CPU cooling and backups? I'd do a Corsair plug-and-play water cooler and add a second 4TB drive for continuous backups (not RAID-1, but actual backups using something like CrashPlan local backup).

So to answer a couple of questions...

The 1tb black is from my previous build, already own it, no reason to scrap it.

I bought 32gb ram (2x16) but was sent 64 (4x16) not complaining so I'm going to roll with it as it didn't cost me any extra.

Cooling I went with air, phantek cooler. Didn't want to mess with water regardless of if it's self contained or not. I was looking for longevity as the extra few ghz from 4.9 to 5.1 doesn't make a huge difference for me.

I bought the mydigitalssd m.2 in 240gb. My current computer has space at so I didn't feel I needed to go to 500 gb. Sorry about the incorrect info above, I actually forgot what I bought and had to look it up.

Regarding backup, I use my 4 tb to backup the total rig. Then I have an apple time machine wifi backup to that hard drive and I have cloud backup from there using backblaze.

I do plan to overclock, 4.8 min, 5.0 max depending on what's possible with the setup.

bumpintheroad wrote in post #18256644
I would do less RAM and more SSD. 32GB RAM is going to be more than enough for photo editing and gaming. In fact 16GB should be plenty. I would do a 250GB m2 SSD as the system/program disk. In fact, 500GB m2 SSD's are very competitive. The one sure thing is that software bloat is unending. I've got Win10 Pro 64, Adobe Lr, Ps, Pr, Sg and Me, O365 and a few games and utilities, and only 45GB free on a 240GB SSD with my pagefile and temp/scratch pointed to a second SSD.

My OS / program SSD with W10, Office, some development tools (which are fairly big), all the web browsers, PS CS6/Bridge, uses 40GB and leaves 60GB free. I have a 1-16GB swap file on that disk too, currently sitting at 1GB.

You probably have a bunch of junk on your disk. Here's how to try to save some space:
- Run Disk Cleanup, first in regular mode, then again and hit "clean up system files".
- Try MS's tips.
- Manually go into each temp directory (windows temp, appdata / (each user) / (local and roaming profile) / temp and delete everything
- Restore points can take up heaps of space. I set mine to either 1% or off, I can't remember which.
- Grab Treesize Free and run it as admin on your main disk. You might have things like browser caches, iTunes files, etc, filling up the disk


Interested to hear if you can save much disk space with this method. Google will give you more disk space saving tips too.

I firmly believe anyone can easily stay within a 120GB SSD for the OS, and anyone who makes an effort and is a bit technical can likely stay within 60GB unless they game or do something unusual.

I like keeping my OS SSD as small and empty as possible because I take system disk backups with macrium reflect, so I can restore quickly if required. The bigger the disk and the more junk on it the bigger the backup. If you have a very large SSD you could partition it for the OS/programs.

Just had a friend help me build something in the same ballpark of what has been mentioned. I'm coming from a Vista era system. Think I'm going to be blown away much?

Did go with the 512 gig SSD, as I agree with the software bloat statement.

I think you fail to understand how much disk space games use these days. I only have two games installed and they consume more than 55GB. If I want to install Battlefield 1 it requires 50GB free space. If you're a heavy gamer you'll want two or more SSD's in a RAID-0 array, separate from your system and data drives, just to store game binaries and data.

While I appreciate your advise I'm pretty familiar with disk utilization management. We may differ in which tools we use (I prefer CCleaner, WinDirStat and Clonezilla) but we are not to far separated in approach. Regardless of how much disk and free space you have, you should periodically clean-up all the junk files the OS and apps leave behind.

While 120GB might be "plenty" and even 60GB "enough with effort," the cost difference between 120 and 240GB is around $20. Too many times I've made seemingly reasonable decisions about required disk space and been burned a few years later. The cost of buying 2x what you anticipate ever needing is far cheaper than the effort of constant cleaning and moving and replacing drives. Spend the extra $20 and have no regrets if you never use more than half of it. But I think eventually you will use the space.

In regards to my system, I'd actually been lazy for a few months and didn't realize I'd put VirtualBox VM images in the default location on my system drive. After moving them I regained 45GB, but that still leaves only 90GB free on a 240GB SSD. If I uninstalled the games I could live with a 120GB SSD, but then my computer would be less fun.