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RAW Photography Skylake Build + 12 Questions

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rmf

Joined
Nov 26, 2016
Messages
11
Motherboard
Gigabyte GA-Z170X Designare
CPU
i7-6700K
Graphics
RX 580
Hi, I’m about to build my first Hackintosh. I haven’t built a custom computer for more than 16 years.

What I want is a powerful, quiet, expandable box to do design and photography work. High-resolution RAW processing is almost the only thing where I really miss power on my current setup, which is a MacBook Pro (Late 2013), 16GB RAM, 1 TB SSD, GeForce GT 750M 2GB. I am willing to invest in better design, better quality or better support, though it should stay affordable somehow.

This is what I thinking about currently, inspired by the November 2016 buying guide:
  1. Fractal Design Define R5
  2. Corsair RM 650x Watt
  3. Gigabyte GA-Z170X-Designare
  4. Intel Core i7-6700K + Corsair H60
  5. Ballistix Sport LT 32GB Kit
  6. Samsung 960 Pro M.2 SSD
  7. Graphics Card – to be defined

1 — Fractal Design Define R5
The Define R5 seems to be a solid, quiet and aesthetically acceptable case.
Are there any comparable or better cases I should consider?

2 — Corsair RM 650x Watt

When do I need a stronger power supply? The 750 watts model is only 10 Euros more.

3 — Gigabyte GA-Z170X-Designare
Why do some recent Golden Builds seem to prefer ASUS mainboards?
Any good reason to buy another model?

4 — Intel Core i7-6700K + Corsair H60

Will next generation Intel CPUs work on the GA-Z170X boards?

5 — Ballistix Sport LT 32GB Kit
What is the difference to the Elite series?
Why do some recent Golden Builds use G.Skill TridentZ RAM?

6 — Samsung 960 Pro M.2 SSD
I will use an existing SSD until the 960 Pro becomes available. RAW files will come from different storage sources, internal and external SSDs or harddrives. I will probably put two 2,5" SSDs and up to four 3,5" hard drives in the case.
Will the 650 Watts power supply sufficient for them?

7 — Graphics Card
I plan to upgrade to an LG UltraFine 5K when TB3 graphics cards become available. Especially on that display, the graphics card cannot be fast enough, I guess. But to support a single WQHD display, my impression is, a GTX 970 might be the sweet spot regarding price/performance.
Where can I get a good overview about the performance differences between all those GPUs (for my use cases)?
Which graphics card brand and model would you recommend?

Is there anything on the horizon I might want to wait for?
Any other suggestions for improvements or comments?

Thanks!

PS: No gaming.
 
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I have almost the same build and I'm editing 50MB raw pictures from Nikon D800 in Lightroom with a breeze (about 100k pictures in database)

i6700K is the latest generation Apple officially uses, so no CPU generation upgrades at the moment.

Regarding M.2 SSDs, you should definitely choose AHCI versions, not NVMe. NVMe is working somehow, but still very hacky.
From what I read from photography forums, M.2 SSDs vs. normal SSDs don't make a noticeable difference in performance anyway.
 
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I have almost the same build and I'm editing 50MB raw pictures from Nikon D800 in Lightroom with a breeze (about 100k pictures in database)
Sounds good! What’s your build? Which GPU do you use?

Regarding M.2 SSDs, you should definitely choose AHCI versions, not NVMe. NVMe is working somehow, but still very hacky.
From what I read from photography forums, M.2 SSDs vs. normal SSDs don't make a noticeable difference in performance anyway.
Storage will probably be the last step in this experiment. I’m not familiar with those technical details yet. What is the issue with NVMe? Is it just newer and wasn’t used by Apple yet? What is Apple using in the new MacBook Pro?

For RAW processing itself it’s no big difference for sure. But I expect the overall system performance improvements to be huge. The tripled SSD performance was impressive, when I got my current MacBook Pro in 2014.
 
Build: look under my username :)

NVMe is hacky because Apple officially only supports a very specific (their) set of NVMe-SSDs. Third party NVMe, like from Samsung, require hacked kexts and they can break with any update. And you can't buy the same NVMe that Apple uses.
 
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NVMe is hacky because Apple officially only supports a very specific (their) set of NVMe-SSDs. Third party NVMe, like from Samsung, require hacked kexts and they can break with any update. And you can't buy the same NVMe that Apple uses.
Thanks! Good to know. I would definitely prefer to be able to upgrade, as I can do on any Mac. I’m fine with a bit of hacking to set it up, but I really don’t want to take care about my computer continuously.

Which GTX 970 do you have?
 
Gigabyte GTX 970 4GB (GV-N970WF3OC-4GD)
 
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I'm editing raw files from my Canon D60 and Oly EPL-7 on my Hack in LR and PS/OnOne RAW etc.
Works fine/snappy, even with the builtin HD530 GPU... I will upgrade to a real GPU when I can get a 40" or larger 4K screen with proper colour for a good price.
No GPU means my Hack stays very cool/silent. I'm using a Noctua NH-D15 CPU cooler, which I prefer over watercooled solutions.
I have normal SATA SSD's for storage and cache.
 
I'm editing raw files from my Canon D60 and Oly EPL-7 on my Hack in LR and PS/OnOne RAW etc.
Works fine/snappy, even with the builtin HD530 GPU... I will upgrade to a real GPU when I can get a 40" or larger 4K screen with proper colour for a good price.
You probably mean 60D, right? The i7 6700K is probably fast enough to make it not feel slow. But I think you’d notice the difference with a dedicated GPU too – if you have a 4K display or not. For me it is about 36MP RAWs from a D800.
I'm using a Noctua NH-D15 CPU cooler, which I prefer over watercooled solutions.
Why do you prefer that cooler? What’s wrong with water cooling?
 
You probably mean 60D, right?

Right.

Why do you prefer that cooler? What’s wrong with water cooling?

Chance of leaks. I once had a PowerMac with watercooling. Just after I sold it, it sprang a leak. The Mac was a complete loss.
D15 is just as quiet(I record acoustic instruments right next to my hack) as a good watercooler. It's huge, but will fit into a R5 case (that's what I have). My 6700k is overclocked to 4.7 GHz, BTW, so I need proper cooling.

My raw files are between 13 - 25 MB in size. I hardly notice any lag while editing. This came as a nice surprise, I was ready to buy a proper GPU but now I can wait for hack drivers for the latest gen of AMD and NVIDIA to become available.
 
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Chance of leaks. I once had a PowerMac with watercooling. Just after I sold it, it sprang a leak. The Mac was a complete loss.
D15 is just as quiet(I record acoustic instruments right next to my hack) as a good watercooler. It's huge, but will fit into a R5 case (that's what I have). My 6700k is overclocked to 4.7 GHz, BTW, so I need proper cooling.
Good to know. I’m gonna go for the D15 as well. Thanks!

My raw files are between 13 - 25 MB in size. I hardly notice any lag while editing. This came as a nice surprise, I was ready to buy a proper GPU but now I can wait for hack drivers for the latest gen of AMD and NVIDIA to become available.
I’ll give it a try with the chipset graphics. If it feels fast enough to me too, I might wait for latest generation hacks as well.
 
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