I'm looking for feedback on this build in the context of graphic design/photo editing/lite video editing. The goal is to build a decent setup that will manage programs such as Photoshop, Illustrator, Premier, etc. really well, without being complete overkill. This PC will not be used for gaming purposes.
I'm wanting to stay in the $2500 range (some flexibility if necessary), and monitors not needed (have 2 IPS monitors).
Question: Are there any cables or other peripherals that I may have overlooked?
I'm looking for feedback on this build in the context of graphic design/photo editing/lite video editing. The goal is to build a decent setup that will manage programs such as Photoshop, Illustrator, Premier, etc. really well, without being complete overkill. This PC will not be used for gaming purposes.
I'm wanting to stay in the $2500 range (some flexibility if necessary), and monitors not needed (have 2 IPS monitors).
Question: Are there any cables or other peripherals that I may have overlooked?
Also the MSI Shadow has a weaker cooler than the Ventus so it's far from ideal. It would only be worth considering if no better option is close in price and/or the budget limit is reached and cannot be stretched.
The Zotac GeForce RTX 5070 Ti Amp Extreme is a factory overclocked custom-design model. It comes with excellent build quality, thanks to the quad-slot, triple-fan, all-metal cooling solution. Also included is a mesmerizing RGB effect and a dual BIOS with "quiet" mode.
www.techpowerup.com
It's a big brick though... like my Gamerock, so I am hesitant in confidently recommending it.
Still it is at least worth considering and of course no need to rush with purchase decisions.
The reason I'm not happy with fat video cards is because I have the same MSI Z890 Tomahawk which very conveniently has two bottom M.2 slots. I have a Phanteks G500A which I thought was great but after building in it I consider it a semi-POS, the reason is because like the Antec Flux SE it has only 7 expansion slots.
While my 5070 Ti Gamerock does not cover the bottom M.2 slots the space between the GPU and the PSU cover is very small/narrow so when I installed the second SSD in one of the bottom slots it was really difficult.
Now if the GPU was less thick it would have been easier although the proper fix would've been an adequate number of expansion slots, in this case a minimum of 8.
But why do I have expectations, especially from case mfgs?
Anyway, no need to rush, it's extremely easy to go wrong, it's best to be cautious and make sure you have an adequate return window when you proceed to assemble everything. If something turns out to be less than ideal ditch it immediately.
/////
Since I said there's no need to rush, then maybe you should postpone your build.
The 5070 Ti is perhaps too expensive for your needs. The 5060 Ti 16GB might be a bit weak in some scenarios, the problem is the 5070 has only 12GB. Now if you would wait, at least regarding the GPU, until next year when the refresh lineup launches you could get a 5070 Super with 18GB. That would have more muscle than a 5060 Ti and also more VRAM. And obviously it would be significantly less expensive than the current 5070 Ti.
Regarding the CPU, apparently Arrow Lake will get a refresh as well. The NPU is clearly getting better, the rest I don't know how much.
So... I don't want to hype the next wave and keep you in limbo regarding the build but there are some arguments in favor of waiting at least for some components. The CPU refresh is likely less substantial than the GPU one. Just some food for thought.
Uhm... that's a 100% AMD build. For productivity and not gaming it's not that great.
32GB of RAM is certainly adequate for now depending on the workload, but for the near future not so much.
Especially if multitasking. Even if the workloads are light to moderate it will add up. Go with 64GB, some will say go even higher.
Okay so I am not going to insist on getting you to change your choice but I would like to know what made you choose a full AMD build if you don't mind explaining that.
Uhm... that's a 100% AMD build. For productivity and not gaming it's not that great.
32GB of RAM is certainly adequate for now depending on the workload, but for the near future not so much.
Especially if multitasking. Even if the workloads are light to moderate it will add up. Go with 64GB, some will say go even higher.
Okay so I am not going to insist on getting you to change your choice but I would like to know what made you choose a full AMD build if you don't mind explaining that.
Well I don't know much about pc building so I went off of some videos to make my choices.
This build will be better than our current laptop which has i5-8250U, 25 gb ram, intel 128 mb uhd graphics 620, 1 tb storage.
The 9950X is a beast. We’re talking 16 cores of Zen 5 muscle with great single core speed and some serious multitasking chops. Whether its rendering video or handling massive Illustrator files the 9950X doesn’t flinch. For apps like Photoshop and Illustrator, which lean more on CPU than GPU, this chip is already overkill.
As for the 9700 XT, Sure it ain't NVIDIA but unless the workflow specifically relies on CUDA, it holds its own just fine. Adobe apps have improved support for AMDs graphics tech and Premiere now supports AMDs hardware encoding and OpenCL just fine. So unless someone is really pushing GPU accelerated effects nonstop, they probably won’t notice any major difference.
The 9950X is a beast. We’re talking 16 cores of Zen 5 muscle with great single core speed and some serious multitasking chops. Whether its rendering video or handling massive Illustrator files the 9950X doesn’t flinch. For apps like Photoshop and Illustrator, which lean more on CPU than GPU, this chip is already overkill.
As for the 9700 XT, Sure it ain't NVIDIA but unless the workflow specifically relies on CUDA, it holds its own just fine. Adobe apps have improved support for AMDs graphics tech and Premiere now supports AMDs hardware encoding and OpenCL just fine. So unless someone is really pushing GPU accelerated effects nonstop, they probably won’t notice any major difference.
Thanks for chiming in and give me some peace of mind as the other gave made me think I might have went wrong in my build but even if it wasn't as great as it could be it will still perform better than my 7 year old laptop.
Well @Why_Me had a solid build for 1800$
But i guess some videos online were much better than informed people on this site. Hope it works out for you but you did spend about 500$ more than you needed to, if you were going to spend 2300 you could have got a better gpu thsn a 5070ti if you wanted ect ect, hope the build goes smoothly
Appreciate the comments; timing was a big factor as the current laptop (an interim solution) cannot handle anything Adobe related - hitting 'buy' was already overdue.
The 265k trades blows with a 9950X and is usually only slightly slower but cost way less freeing 200 usd to be used on a much more well rounded build.
A 265k/5070ti based system would have covered every content creation base and would have either been slightly cheaper or the same price is why I mentioned it more balanced basically.
Amd gpu are still very inconsistent for productivity good in some workloads and not so much in others.
9950X is solid just not worth 200 usd more than the 265k.
Well @Why_Me had a solid build for 1800$
But i guess some videos online were much better than informed people on this site. Hope it works out for you but you did spend about 500$ more than you needed to, if you were going to spend 2300 you could have got a better gpu thsn a 5070ti if you wanted ect ect, hope the build goes smoothly
Um, thanks for the input?? As stated, I'm new to this so I did research (yes, including videos online - don't most people do that?) and sought feedback on reputable forums (like this one). What I failed to state was my timeline - I needed to place my order by Sunday evening. Some of my original build had to be swapped out due to availability. I agree that the $1805 build is solid and if I'd had that response before hitting buy on my cart, I may have reviewed the differences and made another choice(s). Also, the $1805 build did not include storage so the $500 difference is really more like a $250-ish difference.
Appreciate the wishes for a smooth build.
The 265k trades blows with a 9950X and is usually only slightly slower but cost way less freeing 200 usd to be used on a much more well rounded build.
A 265k/5070ti based system would have covered every content creation base and would have either been slightly cheaper or the same price is why I mentioned it more balanced basically.
Amd gpu are still very inconsistent for productivity good in some workloads and not so much in others.
9950X is solid just not worth 200 usd more than the 265k.
The 9950X was listed on PC Part Picker for 499 - 700 usd depending on the vendor, but when I started building my cart in Amazon, the price was $434 usd.
For what it's worth, I went back and forth between AMD and NVIDIA gpu but in the end, I feel good about this part of the build and am looking forward to seeing how it performs when it's up and running.
The 9950X was listed on PC Part Picker for 499 - 700 usd depending on the vendor, but when I started building my cart in Amazon, the price was $434 usd.
For what it's worth, I went back and forth between AMD and NVIDIA gpu but in the end, I feel good about this part of the build and am looking forward to seeing how it performs when it's up and running.
At the end of the day you are the one that is going to live with the system I just made a few comments just in case someone does a search with your same dilemma so that they can see the alternative options and why they may or may not make sense.
I was hoping you paid 434 for it which is a much better price. The other nice thing is Zen6 will hopefully be on that socket and could be awesome for productivity down the line as a drop in upgrade especially if the rumors are true and there is a 24 core option although again it will likely come down to what you use the pc most for.
The only other thing I was mildly surprised with was your board choice it seems somewhat limited for a content creation use case but again you know what you use your pc for better than anyone so I am guessing it ticks all your boxes.
At the end of the day you are the one that is going to live with the system I just made a few comments just in case someone does a search with your same dilemma so that they can see the alternative options and why they may or may not make sense.
I was hoping you paid 434 for it which is a much better price. The other nice thing is Zen6 will hopefully be on that socket and could be awesome for productivity down the line as a drop in upgrade especially if the rumors are true and there is a 24 core option although again it will likely come down to what you use the pc most for.
The only other thing I was mildly surprised with was your board choice it seems somewhat limited for a content creation use case but again you know what you use your pc for better than anyone so I am guessing it ticks all your boxes.
Totally makes sense on offering some alternatives for future thread searches!
I originally had the MSI MAG X670E TOMAHAWK motherboard but, after seeking input in another forum, changed it out for one that had an HDMI and DP to support my two monitors directly.
Thanks to you - and all the others - for the feedback/discussion. There are a lot of factors to consider in this space and it can quickly get overwhelming for those of us who don't know what we don't know!
As a former graphic design artist and video production "guy", I cannot stress enough the importance of system memory. I'll take 128GB of 4800 MT/s over 32GB of ultra fast memory. Because once you run out, the programs start to crash. It is also major time savor to have all the adobe apps open at once. For about a year now they support live-editing. Make changes to a photoshop file and it live updates in After Effects or Premiere.
Next up is GPU. Adobe really favors NVIDIA cards, so AMD Radeon is out of the question. For CPU, whatever gives you the highest multithread performance for cost. However, a lot of PS and illustrator functions are still single threaded (even in 2025). Not to mention plug-ins as well. So whatever CPU has higher IPC is the winner inside the budget.
Revised build after considering the build from @Why_Me, comments from @oxrufiioxo and @ir_cow, as well as a Photoshop specific forum here and here. Changed the CPU to an Intel Ultra 7, the GPU/video card to a 5070 ti, and upped the RAM from 32 to 64. Again, appreciate the feedback to determine the right combination of components!
Wait what!? A B850 mobo for a 265K?
Look can you please stop ordering parts before making sure everything is compatible?
Just post the final list, get the green light and then order. Why rush it?
And if you're getting a 265K please do yourself a favor and get the Montech Hyperflow Silent 360 instead of the Arctic LF3 Pro.
I just built two pro render rigs, replacing a Threadripper 3970x with dual 2080ti and with AIC 4x nvme. The TR build was huge costly, good performance but again costly as hell. Downsized the builds since the cpus are so much better vs TR3 and losing all those lanes but nvme sizes are larger and cheaper now.
It was replaced with a 9950x3d and 5090, which exceeded the Threadripper in multi, aka cpu rendering tasks. And the 5090 is self explanatory. The 9950x3d or 9950x is the obvious choice and whatever 5000 series gpu fits yer budget. Also a 4090 is still competitive in render scenarios.
Wait what!? A B850 mobo for a 265K?
Look can you please stop ordering parts before making sure everything is compatible?
Just post the final list, get the green light and then order. Why rush it?
And if you're getting a 265K please do yourself a favor and get the Montech Hyperflow Silent 360 instead of the Arctic LF3 Pro.
Thanks for the input - obviously made some errors and will have to make some returns. If it feels rushed, it is - need a new PC that will handle what I need it to.
