Building a combined photo workstation and gaming/multimedia system

[shadowblade]

It's time to upgrade my editing hardware again, and, since it's been seven years since the last upgrade, time to learn what's changed with regards to hardware since then.

Given that 10-bit colour is now available for GeForce as well as Quadro cards, I'm hoping to build a single, combined photo/CAD workstation and gaming/multimedia system, rather than having to run two separate systems for the two uses.

This is what I'm thinking:

Processor: The faster, the better, I'm guessing? Photoshop operations with huge files are usually very processor-intensive - is there a limit to how many cores it can use, or a point beyond which there isn't much point getting a faster processor? Gaming isn't so processor-intensive - anything that can run Photoshop well should be more than fast enough for that.

RAM: Photoshop seems to need as much as I can supply, but speed doesn't matter as much. Games can make do with 16GB, but it needs to be as fast as possible. Solution - as much RAM as possible, and as fast as possible.

SSD: Primary drive, for program installation and holding files being actively edited. (bulk storage and backup on removable drives). At least 1TB.

Second SSD: Super-fast Photoshop scratch disk. What size would you recommend? Is it a case of bigger is better, or is there a point at which I'd be paying more for a larger drive, without getting any performance benefits?

Graphics card: Given the new possibility of 10-bit output, I'm hoping to use a higher-end GeForce card to support both editing and gaming applications. Previously, workstations needed a Quadro card for 10-bit output, but didn't take advantage of anything else offered by the Quadro - Photoshop isn't particularly GPU intensive (video and 3D rendering can be, but any card should handle basic CAD), so I'm thinking any card that can handle 10-bit output will work. Gaming calls for a fast card - a GeForce costs less than half as much as a Quadro that would be equally fast in gaming applications, and, if the other features of the Quadro aren't being used, and you no longer need one to get 10-bit output, why get the Quadro?

Monitors: This seems to be the tricky part. Obviously, I'll be running a wide-gamut, colour-accurate, editing monitor, but these don't have the brightness, refresh rate, response times, G-sync or 4k resolution I'd want for games and movies. So I want to run a second monitor for this - but not at the same time. Is there any way to plug both monitors into the graphics card and switch between them as needed, with the OS recognising which one is in use at any given time and switching the settings (resolution, colour profile, etc.) accordingly, without having to manually do it every time I switch monitors?

Any thoughts/suggestions? Would it be feasible to build a single, dual-use system, or would it work out cheaper just to go for a two-system solution - one workstation and one gaming/multimedia system? With a two-system solution, is there an easy way to have them share storage (or even other components, e.g. processor)? I'm currently running two systems (one with Quadro, the other with GeForce) with all the photos stored on the workstation (as well as external backups) and it gets very annoying when I'm using the other system, but want access to a photo, either to post online or for some basic, non-colour-critical work.

[armand]

Monitors: This seems to be the tricky part. Obviously, I'll be running a wide-gamut, colour-accurate, editing monitor, but these don't have the brightness, refresh rate, response times, G-sync or 4k resolution I'd want for games and movies. So I want to run a second monitor for this - but not at the same time. Is there any way to plug both monitors into the graphics card and switch between them as needed, with the OS recognising which one is in use at any given time and switching the settings (resolution, colour profile, etc.) accordingly, without having to manually do it every time I switch monitors?

I'll start with this. I have 2 monitors plugged in the same time, a larger 32" 4K for usual stuff and an older 24" FHD for color critical stuff. Both have their own calibration done in the video card, so they they have no internal calibration. If I turn either off, as you would, the other keeps the set calibration.

PS. the video card is an RTX 2060, the cheapest that supports 10-bit, not that I've seen much difference when I switched to the Studio driver which supports 10-bit.

[shadowblade]

I'll start with this. I have 2 monitors plugged in the same time, a larger 32" 4K for usual stuff and an older 24" FHD for color critical stuff. Both have their own calibration done in the video card, so they they have no internal calibration. If I turn either off, as you would, the other keeps the set calibration.

PS. the video card is an RTX 2060, the cheapest that supports 10-bit, not that I've seen much difference when I switched to the Studio driver which supports 10-bit.

Thanks.

I was only intending to run one monitor at a time, to improve performance/frame rate by not forcing the video card to run two separate displays at two different resolutions at the same time. 27"/32" already gives you plenty of real estate. But I guess this would work similarly - set both monitors to show the same thing, then switch between them as needed. When one of the monitors is off, but still plugged in, does the video card recognise that and not waste resources trying to drive it (hence driving the one remaining monitor faster) or does it still try to drive both at the same time?

When both displays are set to show the same thing (say, Photoshop) is there any issue with running two displays at two different resolutions, or even two different aspect ratios? As in, if I maximised the Photoshop on the 4k monitor, would it show up as maximised on a lower-resolution monitor, or would it display as more-than-maximised, with the screen stretching past the edges of the display (since it would be around 4000x2000px maximised on the 4k screen)? I've only ever run two monitors of the same resolution together, so don't know how it would behave when resolution/aspect ratios are different.

[armand]

If the monitor if, off the video card does nothing for it. You turn it on and it keeps the set settings, in Windows at least. Most modern video cards should be able to drive 2 monitors in the same time without issues.
Mine are set to extended, if I set them to mirroring the difference in resolution is too high and it doesn’t look pretty.

If you want gaming I take you’ll want something in the 2080 range.

[tsinsf]

Check out Pugetsystems web site. They have all the information you are looking for.

[Peter McLennan]

I'm in the same boat, 'blade.  Who knew that 12GB of memory wasn't nearly enough?

Agreed, Puget Systems has a lot of good info.

[smthopr]

I am speculating here as I'm not computer building expert...

But, if you have enough RAM, might you not need to worry much about a Photoshop scratch disk?

I just say this as I've got a workstation with 128gb RAM, I don't think I ever use a scratch disk in Photoshop as everything is stored in the RAM and it never overflows to the scratch disk (at least I don't think so   My scratch disk is an SSD, but there's not much room on it...

If you're more knowledgable than I, please correct me if I'm mistaken here!

[Christopher]

Well it depends on file size! I have 128Gb RAM but would go for 256, as I run out all the time. These GFX and Phase One Panos are getting huge

[geneo]

What is your budget? Just the graphics part (monitors and graphics card) can run you several thousand at the high end of what you are asking.

Do you really want to play games at 4k? What kind of games? 4k is quite demanding, especially at refresh rates > 60 Hz. You would probably  want an NVIDIA  2080 or 2080 Ti or 2080 Super for 4k. 2070 super does 1440p games well. Can't speak for AMD graphics.

You hook up 2 monitors and span them. You can move windows between them, play a game on one and do Photoshop in either.

I expect there are diminishing returns on your processor speed and number of cores. How fast do you need a sharpening or transformation. really. An 8 core  9700 would probably be more than enough. Again can't speak for AMD.

You are right about RAM. quantity and not speed is important. 3200 MHz RAM is the sweet spot for DDR4 RAM and you will want at minimum 32 GB for Photoshop, the more the better

For an SSD, just get a single 1 to 2 TB for NVME m.2 (say Samsung 970 Pro) for both the system and Photoshop scratch/cache. With spinning disk, you used to have to have a separate disk for scratch because of disk head contention. SSD do not have this limitation.

Mine is dual use: Intel i7-8086k 6 core hyperthreaded, 32 GB of 3200 MHz RAM, Samsung 960 Pro NVME m.2 512GB for system and scratch/cache, 2TB regular SSD (2 1TB in RAID0).  RTX-2070 Super graphics card, an 1440p Eizo Color Edge for gaming and photoshoping, and a DELL 1080p monitor for displaying stuff on the side that I want to replace by another 1440p monitor. I do hit memory limits sometimes. I haven't done any pano stitching since I had a 10 MP 1D3. Now I have a 30 MP I am sore I would feel pain if I were to try some stitching . LOL.

Also, running two monitors won't affect your framerate much, especially if nothing is changing on the second monitor - it is just displaying the same data ovr and over and is not 3D so is not very taxing.

Second you look at Puget if you don't want to put one together yourself.

[shadowblade]

If the monitor if, off the video card does nothing for it. You turn it on and it keeps the set settings, in Windows at least. Most modern video cards should be able to drive 2 monitors in the same time without issues.
Mine are set to extended, if I set them to mirroring the difference in resolution is too high and it doesn’t look pretty.

If you want gaming I take you’ll want something in the 2080 range.

What do you mean it 'doesn't look pretty' if mirrored?

Do you mean that the computer tries to drive both monitors as if they were the same resolution, resulting in (for instance) the Windows taskbar being cut off the bottom of the screen on the lower-resolution monitor, or being displayed halfway up the screen on the higher-resolution monitor? Or just that the difference in perceived resolution is disconcerting, with the screen being resized correctly to fit the resolution of each monitor?

[shadowblade]

I am speculating here as I'm not computer building expert...

But, if you have enough RAM, might you not need to worry much about a Photoshop scratch disk?

I just say this as I've got a workstation with 128gb RAM, I don't think I ever use a scratch disk in Photoshop as everything is stored in the RAM and it never overflows to the scratch disk (at least I don't think so   My scratch disk is an SSD, but there's not much room on it...

If you're more knowledgable than I, please correct me if I'm mistaken here!

When you're working with a stitched, stacked, multi-exposure panorama from the A7r3, or a 150MP image with multiple blended layers and adjustment layers, each with its own mask, there's almost no such thing as 'enough RAM'...

[shadowblade]

What is your budget? Just the graphics part (monitors and graphics card) can run you several thousand at the high end of what you are asking.

No real budget - it's a system to replace two computers (workstation and games/media platform) and intended to last a few years, so wouldn't actually be all that much, amortised over six or seven years. Although I can carry my editing monitor over to the new system, so that's a few thousand saved

Do you really want to play games at 4k? What kind of games? 4k is quite demanding, especially at refresh rates > 60 Hz. You would probably  want an NVIDIA  2080 or 2080 Ti or 2080 Super for 4k. 2070 super does 1440p games well. Can't speak for AMD graphics.

Definitely, and all sorts of games. No doubt 4k will become more and more common over the next few years - may as well get something that can last a while, rather than something that becomes obsolete quickly. This is a welcome change from 20 years ago, when the latest hardware would quickly become obsolete, barely able to run new titles just two years after they were considered cutting edge - current hardware seems to last a while longer before becoming obsolete.

You hook up 2 monitors and span them. You can move windows between them, play a game on one and do Photoshop in either.

...

Also, running two monitors won't affect your framerate much, especially if nothing is changing on the second monitor - it is just displaying the same data ovr and over and is not 3D so is not very taxing.

Certainly, Photoshop and the like wouldn't be very taxing on the GPU. But, when running a game at 4k and >60fps, with all the graphic details turned to maximum, is there going to be enough spare capacity to run a second monitor at the same time? Moreover, running programs in windowed mode always seems to be more taxing than full-screen. I don't know - just asking.

I expect there are diminishing returns on your processor speed and number of cores. How fast do you need a sharpening or transformation. really. An 8 core  9700 would probably be more than enough. Again can't speak for AMD.

Do you know whether Photoshop can benefit from even more/faster cores? I tend to work with very large, stitched images, with lots of layers, so speed is always welcome. But if Photoshop, or its many plugins, can't actually benefit from more cores (some programs only run on a single core, or a certain, limited number, no matter how many cores you actually have), then there wouldn't be much point having them, and a lower-core-count, higher-clock-speed processor might work better.

No concerns about games here - any processor that can run Photoshop quickly is more than fast enough for any game (I've heard that, for games, anything more than i7 is unnecessary).

You are right about RAM. quantity and not speed is important. 3200 MHz RAM is the sweet spot for DDR4 RAM and you will want at minimum 32 GB for Photoshop, the more the better

This could be an expensive part. Games need fast RAM, but not all that much (16GB usually being enough), while Photoshop needs large amounts of RAM, but speed doesn't matter. So, if I want a system to do both, it seems that I'd need fast RAM (for games) and lots of it (for editing). This means $$$$...

For an SSD, just get a single 1 to 2 TB for NVME m.2 (say Samsung 970 Pro) for both the system and Photoshop scratch/cache. With spinning disk, you used to have to have a separate disk for scratch because of disk head contention. SSD do not have this limitation.

Good point.

Would I be better off getting 3-4 of them and running them in a RAID 5 or RAID 10 configuration?

Second you look at Puget if you don't want to put one together yourself.

Unfortunately, I'm in Australia, so Puget is literally on the opposite side of the planet from me.

[kers]

Well it depends on file size! I have 128Gb RAM but would go for 256, as I run out all the time. These GFX and Phase One Panos are getting huge

I don't understand- ptGui does very large panorama's with only 20 gb max...

[geneo]

Running a second monitor when you are playing games won't affect the fps.

Faster RAM won't improve game performance.

You really don't need to RAID SSD. I did just because I had acquired two 1 TB SSD over time, and wanted a 2 TB volume.

If you are looking for 4K gaming, then get a 2080 Super or a 2080 Ti. The later would be preferable as it has a 11 GB of memory for frame buffer (compared to 8 GB).  It is around $1200-$1400 USD here in the US.

[armand]

What do you mean it 'doesn't look pretty' if mirrored?

Do you mean that the computer tries to drive both monitors as if they were the same resolution, resulting in (for instance) the Windows taskbar being cut off the bottom of the screen on the lower-resolution monitor, or being displayed halfway up the screen on the higher-resolution monitor? Or just that the difference in perceived resolution is disconcerting, with the screen being resized correctly to fit the resolution of each monitor?

You can only choose one resolution that will be applied to both.
If I choose 4K, the FHD has very small and blurry letters.
If I choose FHD, the 4K monitor has the sides cut off (different ratio 1.77 vs 1.6) and the letters are not the sharpest.
Bottom line, you waste one monitor. I just extend them and it works fine, once I figure out a small bug. If I open LR/Photoshop on one monitor and then move it to the other, it keeps the initial resolution so I have to close it and open it on the monitor where  I want to use it.

[shadowblade]

I don't understand- ptGui does very large panorama's with only 20 gb max...

Try a five-image panorama, taken at five different focus points for DOF stacking (sometimes necessary with long telephoto landscapes) and three different exposure settings for dynamic range.

The issue isn't a single large image. It's 50-125 of them stacked together. Normally, I'd do it in sections (one image at a time, or one focus point at a time, or one exposure level at a time) before combining them, but that's still slow.

Or a large panorama with multiple edit layers in Photoshop.

[shadowblade]

You can only choose one resolution that will be applied to both.
If I choose 4K, the FHD has very small and blurry letters.
If I choose FHD, the 4K monitor has the sides cut off (different ratio 1.77 vs 1.6) and the letters are not the sharpest.
Bottom line, you waste one monitor. I just extend them and it works fine, once I figure out a small bug. If I open LR/Photoshop on one monitor and then move it to the other, it keeps the initial resolution so I have to close it and open it on the monitor where  I want to use it.

Fair enough.

So, to mirror them, you'd really need two monitors with the same resolution.

[kers]

Try a five-image panorama, taken at five different focus points for DOF stacking (sometimes necessary with long telephoto landscapes) and three different exposure settings for dynamic range.

The issue isn't a single large image. It's 50-125 of them stacked together. Normally, I'd do it in sections (one image at a time, or one focus point at a time, or one exposure level at a time) before combining them, but that's still slow.

Or a large panorama with multiple edit layers in Photoshop.

i also do it in sections and use flat tiff in the end to do the panorama... - in these cases i want the best quality- and automatically i do not get that. Even ( especially) not with AI...
I want control. And by closing the programs that did there job i hardly ever need more than 32GB ram- some programs just use up everything for cache.

[geneo]

Fair enough.

So, to mirror them, you'd really need two monitors with the same resolution.

But what wold be the point of a second monitor if you mirror? Mirroring is usually used for presentations to a group of people on a projected display. Also miroring would use twice the bandwidth of the graphics card. Extending the display gives you more real-estate and doesn't affect performance.

[shadowblade]

But what wold be the point of a second monitor if you mirror? Mirroring is usually used for presentations to a group of people on a projected display. Also miroring would use twice the bandwidth of the graphics card. Extending the display gives you more real-estate and doesn't affect performance.

The point of the second monitor is not for extra real estate, but to be able to use different monitors for different applications. You can only really concentrate on one monitor at a time anyway. And, when gaming or watching a movie, the last thing you want is a lit up second screen, next to your main display, distracting you - a bit like someone's lit-up phone in a cinema.

Doing some colour critical work? Use the colour-accurate monitor and turn off the gaming monitor. Watching a movie? Slide the monitors across so the gaming monitor's in front of you, then turn off the editing monitor. When mirrored, both monitors would display the same thing, so, no matter which monitor's in front of you, you can still alt-tab to access web browsers and other non-colour-critical apps.

Why does extending the display not affect performance, compared with mirroring? Two mirrored 4k displays renders 8MP and sends it to two different monitors. Extended, the card is displaying 16 million unique pixels. Not sure how that works. Either way, if you turned off one of the monitors, would performance return to normal? Or would the card still try to render and send data to the switched-off monitor?

Now, if only Eizo would bring out a 27" successor to the CG248-4k. The CG279X is only 1440p, while the CG319X doesn't mirror well, since it uses a different 4k from the standard (in addition to costing as uch as a small car). The BenQ SW320 looks interesting, but there seem to be some concerns about uniformity.