New PC Help Needed Please

[grandadfatboy]

Hi everyone,

I hope you are all stay safe and well.

My apologies for the long post, but I felt that the more information I can give, and what I'm trying to achieve, the easier it would be for you to advise me on upgrading/replacing my ageing pc.

The new pc will mainly be used for editing video, photos and music. With this in mind, I'm considering the latest versions of Premiere Elements and Photoshop Elements. My logic is (rightly or wrongly), that the UI for both would be similar in their layout, and somewhat familiar, as I used Photoshop Elements 5 many years ago. Not having done any editing for some considerable time, I'm expecting quite a steep learning curve, not that that will be an issue, as I have now retired and have more time on my hands.

As far as video and photo editing are concerned, I'm not looking to be performing “professional level” editing. With video editing I'd be looking to trim videos, add transitions/captions/titles, add music track(s) etc. With regards to photo editing, I'm looking to remove red eye, remove skin blemishes, add/remove backgrounds, remove unwanted objects, adjust colours, contrast etc. That said, I'm sure I will look for greater improvements as I become more familiar with each programme and what can be achieved with it.

I've been doing a little research and found the system below as being a “budget” spec system for video editing, to which I added a 2nd Seagate 1TB HDD. My budget is £500 - £700

Processor: Intel i5-9400F
MB: MSI B460M-A PRO
Memory: 8GB Corsair Vengeance DDR4
GPU: 2GB Nvidia Geforce GT 1030
Storage Drive 1: 256GB Samsung 860 EVO SSD
Storage Drives 2: 1TB Seagate Barracuda SATA3
Storage Drives 3: 1TB Seagate Barracuda SATA3
PSU: Corsair 550W
O/S: I intend to install Win 10 Pro 64bit

Questions:

1. Do I need the level of spec in the system above, considering what my photo and video editing requirement are?

1. Storage Drive 1: Do I go for a 2.5” standard drive bay SSD model, or do I go with M.2? What are the advantages/disadvantages?​

1. Storage Drives 2&3: Is it possible for each drive to be mirror copies of one another, so in the event of a HDD failure my data would be safe on the mirrored drive, and how would I go about setting that up?​

1. Given what I'm trying to achieve, should I be looking at other photo and video editing software?​

Thank you for reading, and hopefully understanding what I am trying to achieve with my new pc, and I look forward to hearing your advice and recommendations. TIA

 

[KenB]

Hi again,

Please don't apologise for providing detail - many don't supply nearly enough

Do I need the level of spec in the system above, considering what my photo and video editing requirement are?

Looking at the basic specs for Photoshop Elements :
You will need at least 8GB Ram
Your i5 processor will be fine
Your Graphics Card will be fine.

You could possibly get away with an i3 processor and a lesser spec Graphics card but if you want to "future proof" then stick with them.

Storage Drive 1: Do I go for a 2.5” standard drive bay SSD model, or do I go with M.2? What are the advantages/disadvantages?

The basic advantage of M.2 over the standard SSD drive is speed.
The standard SSD utilises the SATA connection on the motherboard.
The M.2 however, uses the PCIe slot - which is much faster.

An ordinary HDD will transfer data at 180MB / sec
An SSD = 600MB / sec
An M.2 SSD = 3GB / sec

However - I doub't that you would see a significant difference in load speeds etc with the M.2
Personally I would stick with the standard SSD - unless you want to go for broke

Also with SSDs there are no moving mechanical parts.
They should be more reliable.

Storage Drives 2&3: Is it possible for each drive to be mirror copies of one another, so in the event of a HDD failure my data would be safe on the mirrored drive, and how would I go about setting that up?

Win 10 has a "Backup" facility that will copy the main drive to an external drive.
However, this is not what you want.
You want to copy [ "mirror" ] one "external" drive to a second external drive.

You can do this manually no problem.

I know Macrium Reflect can clone / image your main drive on the free version.
However, if you want to copy Files / Folders specifically you would need to buy the pro version.

Given what I'm trying to achieve, should I be looking at other photo and video editing software?

With video editing I'd be looking to trim videos, add transitions/captions/titles, add music track(s) etc.

I am not really the person to advise you on editing software.
I have done a bit of video editing and Win 10 comes with "Movie Maker". This is a basic video editor but I think it would do what you describe above.

 

[grandadfatboy]

Thank you for the reply Ken, and thank you for the advice. Glad to know the spec I found wasn't too far off.

Having watched a few youtube videos, and having discovered building my own wasn't so daunting after all, I'm now torn between buying a custom components pc, buying the components and installing them into my current case (maybe recouping a few £s by selling on my current MB/CPU/Ram), or building one from scratch.

Are MB/CPU/Ram bundles a good starting point when considering an upgrade/new build, and then adding the remaining components to complete the build based on that bundle, compared with selecting and buying each component independently?

 

[KenB]

Are MB/CPU/Ram bundles a good starting point.............. and buying each component independently?

I suspect that you would be paying more for the bundle.
Google the listed parts for price.
You know that the individual parts would be compatible.

The Motherboard you have selected is Micro ATX.
If your current case is a standard ATX the new M-Board should still be compatible.
However a new case would only cost you about £40 - £50.

 

[grandadfatboy]

Thank you again Ken. I'll do some more research.

May I ask what free internet security is available, and is it as good as a paid for package?

 

[KenB]

Hi again,

We have this question regularly.
Starbuck is the resident security expert and he advises that Win 10 comes with Defender already installed.
There is no need for a bought AV - Defender is perfectly adequate at this point in time.

There are other free options.

Don't be tempted to have two AVs running - they will conflict and possibly slow the system down.

 

[grandadfatboy]

Thank you for that Ken.

 

[KenB]