- My Forums
- Tiger Rant
- LSU Recruiting
- SEC Rant
- Saints Talk
- Pelicans Talk
- More Sports Board
- Fantasy Sports
- Golf Board
- Soccer Board
- O-T Lounge
- Tech Board
- Home/Garden Board
- Outdoor Board
- Health/Fitness Board
- Movie/TV Board
- Book Board
- Music Board
- Political Talk
- Money Talk
- Fark Board
- Gaming Board
- Travel Board
- Food/Drink Board
- Ticket Exchange
- TD Help Board
Customize My Forums- View All Forums
- Show Left Links
- Topic Sort Options
- Trending Topics
- Recent Topics
- Active Topics
Started By
Message
Best site to custom build or modify non-gaming desktop
Posted on 3/8/26 at 2:55 pm
Posted on 3/8/26 at 2:55 pm
It's time to replace my workhorse desktop computer. The guts of it are in the neighborhood of 12 years old or so. I've done a few things to it (HDD to SSD, replaced the PSU) but it's just getting slow, can't run Win11, etc.
I don't need a gaming computer, but I'd like it with a bit of oomph for Lightroom, Photoshop, etc. Good SSD primary drive, large HDD for file storage, something other than onboard graphics. I'm not finding exactly what I want in the pre built selection on Amazon or NewEgg, but all of the custom build sites I can find are for high end gaming rigs. I don't have the time to build it out myself.
I remember back in the day that you could go to a lot of manufacturers' sites and pick a pre build and upgrade some of the components. Does anyone offer that anymore? Do I buy something off the shelf as close as I can find and then buy the other pieces (2nd drive, GPU) and do the upgrades myself?
I don't need a gaming computer, but I'd like it with a bit of oomph for Lightroom, Photoshop, etc. Good SSD primary drive, large HDD for file storage, something other than onboard graphics. I'm not finding exactly what I want in the pre built selection on Amazon or NewEgg, but all of the custom build sites I can find are for high end gaming rigs. I don't have the time to build it out myself.
I remember back in the day that you could go to a lot of manufacturers' sites and pick a pre build and upgrade some of the components. Does anyone offer that anymore? Do I buy something off the shelf as close as I can find and then buy the other pieces (2nd drive, GPU) and do the upgrades myself?
3
Posted on 3/8/26 at 4:05 pm to PJinAtl
They do, at least at HP and Lenovo. You just have to figure out which models let you customize the build. Here is Lenovo's site.
You have to be careful with manufacturer stuff if you take something with no discrete GPU and assume you can plug a 9060XT into it, for instance. You have to look at the mobo specs, along with the PSU.
But if you're willing to do that, why not just use a build from someone else on PCPartPicker?
Jesus, I just looked up my last build (in June.) The 128GB of RAM I bought for $400, is now $1900.
You have to be careful with manufacturer stuff if you take something with no discrete GPU and assume you can plug a 9060XT into it, for instance. You have to look at the mobo specs, along with the PSU.
But if you're willing to do that, why not just use a build from someone else on PCPartPicker?
Jesus, I just looked up my last build (in June.) The 128GB of RAM I bought for $400, is now $1900.
Posted on 3/8/26 at 5:03 pm to PJinAtl
I checked the recommended builds for both programs, and they're a lot more modest than I expected. This build is old (B550 mobo), but if you swap the mobo and CPU out for AM5, (Ryzen 5 9600X, X870 or B850,) and pick the case you like, maybe add water cooling, and you'd be set. I like Fractal Design's cases, my current is a white Define.
I can create a parts list for you if you pick the case if you want. Any other constraints like a certain number of USB 3.2 ports, etc?
I can create a parts list for you if you pick the case if you want. Any other constraints like a certain number of USB 3.2 ports, etc?
Posted on 3/8/26 at 8:05 pm to LemmyLives
That's awesome, thanks. I will take a look at it tomorrow.
Posted on 3/8/26 at 8:52 pm to PJinAtl
Why not just get a little Lunar Lake mini or a Mac Pro?
Intel’s Lunar Lake is packed with 8x Xe2 GPU cores and a huge NPU that is broadly supported in today’s popular software libraries. It also has more media capacity than you’ll ever need. Save a little $$ because fast RAM is on package. Also very pleasant machine to be around compared to a tower. No heat or noise.
Only downside a couple months ago was diffusion models but I’d imagine they are already supported or will be very soon. That has been CUDA dominated for a long time.
Apple has a wide variety of great machines and excel at creative tasks.
Intel’s Lunar Lake is packed with 8x Xe2 GPU cores and a huge NPU that is broadly supported in today’s popular software libraries. It also has more media capacity than you’ll ever need. Save a little $$ because fast RAM is on package. Also very pleasant machine to be around compared to a tower. No heat or noise.
Only downside a couple months ago was diffusion models but I’d imagine they are already supported or will be very soon. That has been CUDA dominated for a long time.
Apple has a wide variety of great machines and excel at creative tasks.
Posted on 3/8/26 at 10:22 pm to PJinAtl
You haven't mentioned what backup strategy you have for the data on the HDD. If it's not a swap or a work drive, have you considered a 2 bay NAS for most of the big storage? It is relatively expensive to back up files that are changing a lot to cloud, which it sounds like you're doing. /Says the guy with 29TB of redundant storage who is slightly paranoid.
The paranoia starts with losing a semester worth of data in 97/98. I then bought a T-100 tape drive (while on Stafford loans), to make sure it would never happen again. But then I formatted every backup tape before I ran a backup. Which, I didn't know, meant every completed backup was totally not being backed up, because formatting that series of tape was destroying them when formatted. So I resorted to at least mirroring as soon as I could afford it.
The paranoia starts with losing a semester worth of data in 97/98. I then bought a T-100 tape drive (while on Stafford loans), to make sure it would never happen again. But then I formatted every backup tape before I ran a backup. Which, I didn't know, meant every completed backup was totally not being backed up, because formatting that series of tape was destroying them when formatted. So I resorted to at least mirroring as soon as I could afford it.
This post was edited on 3/8/26 at 10:24 pm
Posted on 3/9/26 at 11:35 am to LemmyLives
I have two separate cloud backups. Incremental backup of all of my files nightly to iDrive, and all of my photos (jpeg and raw) backup immediately to my Amazon Prime account.
I probably oversold my needs. Currently I use PS and LR for personal stuff - photos of the kids, our family Christmas portraits, pictures for Christmas cards, travel pictures that we sometimes have printed to canvas for display around the house. My wife has a side hustle doing heat transfer vinyl and dye sublimation and we are considering her trying to ramp that up but she has her own laptop that she uses for most of that work.
I just know that my current desktop has reached its limits. It needs a graphics card to run PS efficiently. The 256 GB SSD is about maxed out due to Adobe programs, etc. I have a decent sized HDD for data that is partitioned into logical drives one each for normal files, music, photos, videos, and website files from the websites I built freelancing. I know I could transfer that drive into a new computer but I would prefer to transfer the files (I have a drive enclosure) than risk the new machine not recognizing the partitions and losing data.
I probably oversold my needs. Currently I use PS and LR for personal stuff - photos of the kids, our family Christmas portraits, pictures for Christmas cards, travel pictures that we sometimes have printed to canvas for display around the house. My wife has a side hustle doing heat transfer vinyl and dye sublimation and we are considering her trying to ramp that up but she has her own laptop that she uses for most of that work.
I just know that my current desktop has reached its limits. It needs a graphics card to run PS efficiently. The 256 GB SSD is about maxed out due to Adobe programs, etc. I have a decent sized HDD for data that is partitioned into logical drives one each for normal files, music, photos, videos, and website files from the websites I built freelancing. I know I could transfer that drive into a new computer but I would prefer to transfer the files (I have a drive enclosure) than risk the new machine not recognizing the partitions and losing data.
Posted on 3/9/26 at 1:28 pm to PJinAtl
Try this build out.
I went with black components because that's what most people prefer, even though I am currently all white.
There are two easy areas to cut costs: the GPU and the RAM. An RX580 8GB from ebay is $59, and that's what I had in my PC until last year. The RAM you could easily cut down to 16GB. I took a guess on the case, but with your use case you don't need ridiculous amounts of airflow, especially with the water cooling on the CPU.
I picked the brands based on what I'm currently using (my water cooler is a decade old Corsair H100i, Asrock mobo and GPU, etc.)
I went with black components because that's what most people prefer, even though I am currently all white.
There are two easy areas to cut costs: the GPU and the RAM. An RX580 8GB from ebay is $59, and that's what I had in my PC until last year. The RAM you could easily cut down to 16GB. I took a guess on the case, but with your use case you don't need ridiculous amounts of airflow, especially with the water cooling on the CPU.
I picked the brands based on what I'm currently using (my water cooler is a decade old Corsair H100i, Asrock mobo and GPU, etc.)
Page 1 of 1
Popular
Back to top
Follow TigerDroppings for LSU Football News