Computer Build For Coin Photograph Editing

I will respond to other peoples posts tomorrow, but I can't ignore Bstrauss3's comment. Bstrauss3 I suggest you read my post more thoroughly. Clearly you skimmed it, and just assumed I was making a mistake. I made it clear how I back up my system(fortnightly) in the start of this thread.

To make it clear I use a 2.5 inch hard drive hot swap dock. that enables me to use a hard drive in a manner similar to a USB memory stick. I back up the C drive using Acroynis true image and I duplicate the other drives to separate hard drives. Once I have made the back ups I remove the back up drives from the hot swap dock and store them in anti static hard drive containers (A single container holds four 2.5 inch drives). I am well aware that with a raid 10 drive( consisting of four HDDs) and 2 Solid state drives that I have increased my chances of experiencing a drive failure 6 fold. I do not back up to a cloud storage as I do not trust cloud storage providers.

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Bump11. IN my younger years my immediate reaction would be "how are we going to keep the beer cool". In regards to the "techno speak". I guess it rubs off. I do think some computer IT experts rely on techo speak to keep us shelling money out to them. Once of the important things I gained from this project was the understanding of building the PC so that it matched its intended purpose. IN the past I would just go to a computer shop tell them I wanted a PC they would ask me what I wanted it for tell me what they thought I would need. As soon as they told me the price I would invariably pare back the specs to what I thought was a more affordable level. Carey Holzman ( third Youtube insert) made a point that really hit home; that being people should not buy the cheapest computer available but rather the best they can afford for their purpose. He expanded that point by commenting that time and time again people would come in with one or two-year-old machines that were already past their use by date, simply because of the cheap components installed within. He went on to say a more expensive machine will likely last its owner a good 3-5 years without issue. IN my case the Laptop was not fit for purpose within a couple of months. The machine This thread is about should meet my purposes, baring component failure, for five years (I am unlikely to buy another camera, which drove the processing requirements, in that time) despite it probably being outdated in 6 months' time.

It's the same as buying a camera for coin photography. the more you understand your needs the more likely it is you will get a camera that suits your purpose (rather than being told the standard Buy a DSLR and a 100 mm macro lens).

Coconut Joe: Now looking at what I have it does seem incredible. I didn't start out planning such a monster machine. It ended up that way due to a lot of consideration, and mind changing. Mostly It was meeting the requirements for Capture one Pro. As I understand it Lightroom generally copes with a CPU with a small number of Cores. Phase one (the developers of Capture one pro) make medium format cameras. So their software is designed to cope with large mega pixel images. I initially only planned for a 6 core CPU but I kept on returning to that decision. A few years ago, Phase one said you only needed a dual core CPU, then with their next iteration it was 4 cores so I would anticipate in about 18months they will be requiring 6 cores. Phase one's cameras cost around US$50,000 (and higher) so their customers are not scared of being required to have an expensive computer, and they expect high quality processing tools. So in the end I decided it was worth saving for three extra months to get the 8 core. The Ram was a slightly different decision but, with the same principles. The motherboard has 8 Ram sockets (Dimms) and could handle a maximum of 128Gb. The Motherboard manual stated that if all 8 Dimms were filled I would need extra cooling for the ram. So I decided I would only fill 4 Dimms. That brought the maximum down to 64GB, I contemplated just 32MB (twice what phase one told me was the preferred amount). I decided on going for the maximum simple because I knew in a years' time I would want to upgrade to the full amount, and buying a matched set of ram now was simpler (although not cheap). The worst thing about making such a powerful machine my first build was that I was on my own. If I paid for a shop to make it I would have some warranty protection. The lack of such protection (other than that from the manufacturers) made me very cautious with the build. I was paranoid about static and it took nearly 45 minutes of double checking before I installed the CPU. I was similarly cautious with every component I installed.

QXY: thanks for the reassurance. You have clearly understood my approach. Build it right once! Now I can go back to spending on coins!

Parklane.: I was where you are at. I can understand why so many people stick with XP. The later iterations from Microsoft have become tools to milk more money out of their customers. I actually conceived this build as ending up a with a Linux Operating system (I really hate Windows behind the scenes customer manipulation). The issue I ran into was that Capture one pro only works with Windows 10 or the competing Apple operating system. I did look at finding out if I could create a Windows 10 environment in Linux; I can't. So I am a very reluctant windows 10 pro user. I "had" to go for a hi-performance machine (not as High as I ended up) due to the size of the photograph files I was dealing with. With a cheaper Camera and more basic software (Like Light room) I could have gone for a much more basic system. I do wonder if there is a a suggested spend ratio between a Camera and computer?

BStrauss3: With my coin collection, I have it split between two Safety deposit boxes in different countries. I don't tolerate too much risk. I had planned the build with regularly backing up in mind. I even seriously toyed with getting a tape drive as secondary back up system. The problem I ran into was all I could find was doubtful second-hand options. I had never heard of the 3-2-1 system. For others 3= make three copies (using a variety of storage media) 2 = 2 copies are stored locally, 1- 1 copy is stored off site. Funnily enough I checked my current back up situation. For my Crucial documents, I have more than three copies and one copy is actually in my safety deposit box. One of my most immediate concern's is the backup of the C drive. Its on a M.2 Drive. An M.2 drive, for whose unfamiliar is a new form of Solid state drive. It is the same dimensions as a stick of Gum. Its very expensive per unit of storage but has extremely high read speeds which allow for very fast booting. I gained the impression that more than likely, for me, this drive will be the first to fail. I not sure if this is a good idea but my plan was to buy a second M.2 drive in October and clone the current M.2 drive on to it. and then put that drive in my closest safety deposit box (which is in a small town outside of Vienna). I do store some information in cloud storage but it is info I am not worried about losing. I also plan to replace two of the HDDs in my Raid 10 drive mid next year. simply to ensure the HDDs are not all of the same age( this was always in my plans.

My Z87/Haswell desktop computer is about 4 years old, so I've been looking at building a replacement. The new case, PSU, and fans+filters are already complete, but there's no electronics yet. The 2 8TB bulk storage disks (only 1 year old) and the graphics card from my current desktop will be reused in the new computer.

My first plan was to go with Z270/Kaby Lake this summer, but there's not much real advantage over the old Haswell CPU (other than NVMe boot drives and 64GB memory).

So, I waited for the X299/Skylake-X to come out. On paper it sounded promising, but it turns out that Intel requires water cooling even at stock voltages and clock speeds. The 140W TDP is apparently really 300+ watts, under conditions of maximum load (Prime95 with worst case sizes and SIMD/AVX-256/512 options selected). This causes severe overheating of both the CPU and the VRMs on many of the current motherboards, and subsequent throttling to avoid damage.

So, I'm now starting to look at Z370/Z390/Coffee Lake. TDP is supposed to be 95W -- given that this is a mainstream (non-HEDT) CPU, I just hope that air cooling is acceptable with stock speeds and voltages.

Rocky although I went with the Thermaltake V 51 Case I am not sure its the best for the purpose. I wish I had spent a little extra on the case... more than likely it would have seen me spend less on "work around" options As I noted at the start of the thread... there were somethings I didn't like about it. They were : only 2 external 5.25 bays. For my purposes 3 bays would have been better. Also There are other tower models that include HDD hot swap docks. Now you may not want a hot swap dock... and this is where making recommendations for a computer system is very hard. It all depends on what you want and how you will use the system. I found as soon as I purchased a significant component my subsequent component choices became narrowed. This is highlighted by your graphics card choice. Its an older card and is very expensive. The radiator will fit in the V51 case but there may well be a much better case option. I think other could comment but you might want to do more research and look at more recent Graphics cards. They may well have more efficient less power hungry GPU's and associated cooling. I believe you also use Capture one pro. that application needs at least 2 GB of Ram( the card you are looking at has 4)

Edit: on computer cases. I wish I had purchased a case with similar features to this one. I looked at this one but its design was too gaming oriented for me. It has very good front I/O connectivity. It has the hot swap dock I would have preferred and placed where I would have liked it.

https://www.amazon.com/Thermaltake-...ltake+chaser

ak what do you think about this video card.

EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti FTW3 GAMING, 11GB GDDR5X, iCX Technology - 9 Thermal Sensors & RGB LED G/P/M, 3x Async Fan Control, Optimized Airflow Design Graphics Card 11G-P4-6696-KR
by EVGA

ham thank you very much. I like the 1900 series it has 4 slots for adding other components. lots of room to expand. thanks for the help I am going to need it

I appreciate the post about experiences in building a computer with coin photography. To share about an editing program that might be useful for the topic, I think, a PhotoViewerPro can provide a quality coin photos.

AK 4K is out standing. wow when you get the right pieces. no more staring at the little flip screen on the sony camera.fine tuning final focus is a breeze thank you again AK great one.