Best Budget Photos Editing PC Build 2016 (skylake 4K) – around 1000$

For photo post-processing and photo editing, many photographers simply choose the latest iMac version and they are very happy with that. However this comes with a cost of at least 2500$ which is a big investment. A much better solution would be to get a high end custom build PC (Even more powerful than the iMac 5K) for heavy photo processing (or video editing) tasks + separate 4K monitor + Macbook air. All of this for a total price even less then one single iMac 5K. isn’t that great?
In this article, I will first explain why it makes sense to chose a custom PC build over an iMac 5K. Then, I will present a photography budget compact PC build (with a very strong and silent cooling system) that I have made for my photos editing work. All the measured benchmarks show that the proposed custom photography PC build outperforms the iMac 5K (late 2015 model) over 30% for PCMark 8 (Creative Score Accelerated) and over 10% (CPU) and 50% (GPU) for Cinebench R15.

PC vs iMac

A 2500$ iMac configuration (Quad-core CPU,16GB DDR3, Radeon R9 M390) can be found on PC for less than 1200$.

It is true that an iMac 5K has a very beautiful display for photographer and a much better operating system than a Windows PC but:

1) Replacing your machine in the next 3~4 years will make that gorgeous 5K display completely useless as you will need to change everything. I would then highly recommend to invest on a separate high end monitor that you can use it for the next 5-8 years. 4k is new in the market. Getting a 4k monitor will set you free from buying another monitor for the next many years.

2) Having a machine dedicated for photography/photo editing (and video editing) means that you will be using it for software like Lightroom, Photomatix or Photoshop. The user interfaces of these softwares are the same whether it is on a mac or on a PC. Why sould I then spend 2.5k$ If I can get the same performance for less than 1K$

You really love Mac OSX and you don’t want to loose that user experience. I totally get it. What I recommend then is to get or build a custom PC for heavy processing tasks and get an entry level Macbook (such as a Macbook Air or the new Macbook). The total price of a custom PC desktop plus macbook will be still less than the price of the iMac 5K

I really like Apple product. But lets face it, in terms of prices per performance PC is by far the clear winner.

Custom Configuration (under 1200$)

A photography dedicated PC requires especially a quad core CPU, high frequency DDR4 RAM, high end hard drive (ideally NVME M.2. SSD), a strong silent CPU cooler and a middle level GPU. FYI. Even an iMAC 5K (Late 2015 model) doesn’t have these components

You will never find you ideal configuration on a branded PC. There is always something missing. You may find a great CPU and GPU but neither powerful RAM nor strong SSD. Or the other way around, you may find what you need but with a very high end GPU that is made for gaming. At the end you, are spending money on something that you are not fully using it.
So the best option is to go with a custom build where you control each part of the system and you tune it for your specific needs. Building a PC by yourself is not that complicated.
The target for this photography budget compact PC build is to have a quad-core CPU, high frequency DDR4 RAM, high end hard drive. All of these should come with a very strong cooling system (i.e., silent PC that doesn’t get hot). This compact buil should be able to handle a 4K monitor without slowing down the overall performance.

So lets get started!

Motherboard

I needed a strong powerful mini-ITX motherboard with Wifi, Bluetooth and able to handle DDR4 with high frequencies, M.2 slot for high performance SSD and USB 3.1 for ultra speedy transfer.

I have chosen then the ASUS Z170i Pro gaming. A mini ITX mother board that supports DRR4 up to 4GHz, USB 3.1 Type-A and M.2 hard drive. The board also has Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac and Bluetooth.
Selected model: ASUS Z170i Pro gaming – 123€ | 164$

CPU

Well, the best option is to go for an i7-6700 (3.4 GHz quad core). However this is 80$ more expensive than the I5-6600 (3.3 GHz Quad-core). The difference is in the cpu frequency (3.3GHz vs 3.4GHz) and L3 cache (6MB vs 8MB) and the Hyper Threading feature that is available on i7. Depending on the type of the application, the i7 can provide up to 20% more performance compared to the i5.

In my case, I went with an I5 as I wanted to spend that 100 extra bucks on a high end hard drive.
Selected model: i5-6600 3.3 GHz Intel Quad-Core – 191€ | 225$ (you can have the i7-6700 for 300$)

RAM

In order to get advantage of the selected motherboard and have the frequency of the RAM as close as possible to the frequency of the CPU, I went with 16GB of DDR4 clocked at 3GHz
Selected model: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 DRAM 3000MHz – 72€ | 78$

Hard Drive

The bottleneck of any PC (and Mac) is the Hard Drive. This is where your photos are stored. When the data is not available on the RAM they are retrieved from the hard drive and this is where everything slows down. It does not matter anymore what CPU or RAM do you have, the hard drive controls the overall speed performance of your system. So you really want to get a high end hard drive for your system.

After reading several reviews, the Samsung 950 PRO Serie is the clear winner in this category thanks to its NVMEe and M.2 technology. All the benchmarks on the internet proves that it is the best m.2 SSD available now on the market. However, it is a bit expensive compared to standard SSDes.

I am planning to use a NAS for storing all my images. Therefore 256GB is enough for installing the OS and all required applications.
Selected model: Samsung 950 PRO Series – 256GB PCIe NVMe – M.2 Internal SSD – 168€ | 195$

GPU

The integrated GPU in the i5 or i7 cpu supports 4K resolution but you will probably stress a lot your machine to support that. 4K resolution is definitely a heavy task for an integrated GPU. Thus, it is highly recommended to get a dedicated graphic card to support 4K@60Hz monitors and also to give a boost to your photography processing applications. In fact, it is recommended to have a middle entry GPU for lightroom and Photoshop.

If you are into Virtual Reality VR then you need to get at least an NVIDIA GTX 970 (over 300$) to make your PC compatible. However if you are not into the VR world and you want to stay focus on photography (and video editing). Then you may get a GTX 960. It is more than enough.

There are many variations for GTX 960. My next GPU requirement is to have a silent GPU with at least 4GB of GDDR5. The Asus Strix GTX 960 is what I was looking for.
Selected model: Asus Strix-GTX960-DC2-4GD5 NVIDIA GeForce – 187€ | 215$

PSU

Again I wanted a silent PC and the PSU (Power Supply Unit) has a silent fan. Therefore you should choose this component carefully. After reading reviews I have decided to get a Corsair RM550x which is a 80+ Gold Certified
Selected model: Corsair RMx Series, RM550x, 550W, Fully Modular Power Supply, 80+ Gold Certified, 10 year warranty – 79€ | 100$

Case

I got this new model from Raven. It fits the ATX PSU, However the center of the PSU fan doesn’t align well with the center of the aeration on the case. Otherwise it is working perfectly fine for me (you may try to email Silverstone to be sure).
Selected model: SilverStone Technology Raven Z One Evolution RVZ01B-E – 79€ | 119$

Fan

I was looking for powerful silent cooling solution (low profile to fit the small case)
Selected model: Noctua NH-L9x65 – 48€ | 48$

Wrapping up: Compact photography configuration (under 1200$, under 1000€)

Monitor (4K under 500$)

For the monitor I propose either the Dell P2415Q (24″) or the P2715Q (27″). I have the 24″ model with HDMI 2.0 (for 4K @60Hz) and I am very satisfied with it. I have also plugged it once to a Macbook Pro to compare the quality of the image with the retina Macbook Pro display. I didn’t see any difference. Perfect image quality!

Selected model:  Dell P2415Q 24″ – 422€ | 379$ || Dell P2715Q 27″ – 547€ | 499$

Final Results

Benchmarks

For Apple iMac benchmarks I used the results from NotebookCheck for Apple iMac Retina 5K 27 Late 2015 3.2 GHz M390 MK472D/A

CineBench – While doing the CPU benchmark, the maximum reached temperature under full load was 61°C.

PCMARK 8

I would love to hear your feedbacks and thoughts. Please leave a comment 🙂