Punch Technology?

[percy]

Looking to replace my ageing desktop and stumbled on this company - Punch Technology https://www.punchtechnology.co.uk/best-pcs-photogr.... They seem to have good online reviews, but wondered if anyone on here had any experience of them (good/bad?)
I'm looking at one of their budget 'photography PCs' to use with Lightroom/Capture One.
Thanks in advance.

• Edited the url**

Before I part with my cash, does anyone have any experience of Punch?

Edited by percy on Tuesday 18th October 09:38

[mikef]

I don’t think people can follow your link

[url=url]https://www.punchtechnology.co.uk/about-us/[/url]

[babelfish]

mikef said:

I don’t think people can follow your link

[url=url]https://www.punchtechnology.co.uk/about-us/[/url]

nor yours: https://www.punchtechnology.co.uk/about-us

[mikef]

Mine wasn't a link - I was pointing out

[url=url]

in the original post

[phil4]

There's nothing magic they're doing... they just assemble a PC from other people's (intel, AMD, Nvidia etc) parts.

If they get good customer reviews, and the price isn't too high compared to others, then no harm using them, but that's really all you should judge them on, price and reviews. All IMO obviously.

[MesoForm]

percy said:

Looking to replace my ageing desktop and stumbled on this company - Punch Technology https://www.punchtechnology.co.uk/best-pcs-photogr.... They seem to have good online reviews, but wondered if anyone on here had any experience of them (good/bad?)
I'm looking at one of their budget 'photography PCs' to use with Lightroom/Capture One.
Thanks in advance.

Which one are you looking at? The recommended specs for Lightroom and Capture One both say dedicated graphics cards which they don't have.

[percy]

MesoForm said:

Which one are you looking at? The recommended specs for Lightroom and Capture One both say dedicated graphics cards which they don't have.

Looking at the basic one - still much better than my 11 year old PC. Been running LR and Capture One on current PC (without dedicated card) and they run OK - just the PC is VERY slow and creaky now. Main use is photo editing (RAW files) and some web browsing. I also use MS Office, but less frequent now that I'm on the run-in to retirement.
My main query was that, as I'd never heard of them, I was wary of being scammed...

[CloudStuff]

Trading as https://www.dominatethestairstechnology.co.uk/abou...

[percy]

CloudStuff said:

Trading as https://www.dominatethestairstechnology.co.uk/abou...

? The link doesn't work and I can't find anything related to that url either?

[mikef]

percy said:

Looking at the basic one - still much better than my 11 year old PC

That's saying very little Ideally you'd be buying a PC to serve you in some form for another 11 years, not just the minimum you can get away with today

I took a look at the PC you linked to and have the following comments

• I think you should probably start out by listing the hardware specs and features that you need (you can do that with a little online research), then thinking about future-proofing to some extent (like adding storage as you take more photos). Without doing that, neither you nor we can tell you whether this meets your needs

• Reading the spec, this really is built down to a price and looks inherently not upgradeable without throwing parts away - being able to upgrade components without replacing the whole system is surely the reason for a desktop PC

• As an example, this CPU has a total drawn power (TDP) of 65W and the cooler supports up to 95W. Will it work? Yes. Will you be able to take advantage of the raft of cheap but powerful AM4-socket CPUs that will hit eBay once AM5 systems become mainstream? No, not without replacing the cooler.

• Similarly the power supply unit (PSU) is rated at 400W. The built-in graphics may work, but a discrete (sp) graphics processing unit (GPU) will work much better. And you will most likely have to swap out the PSU to support a discrete PSU.

• Do you need a small MATX-sized box? It limits both expansion slots and space for adding, say additional disks when you fill up 2TB, which isn't a lot. There is only room on the motherboard for a single NVMe SSD, a full-size equivalent motherboard would have at least two slots, meaning you can add more high-speed storage in future without swapping out the existing system disk (which is always a pain)

• On that subject, the unbranded NVMe SSD looks to be PCIe3 spec. You can at least double transfer speeds (up to 7GB/s) by getting the right PCIe4 NVMe SSD instead. 480MB is tight on space, but if you're happy to swap projects onto that disk from slower internal or external storage for editing, it should be OK to start with. Nice to have a second slot later, if you need it

• Most cameras these days will also take 4K or at least HD video, I don't believe the PC linked would come close to being sufficient for video editing if that took your fancy

A fully-leaded photo-editing PC will work out more expensive than your linked PC, but you really need to think about what you need, or risk having to spend twice in a short time

[mikef]

For what it's worth, here's the spec of a MATX system that I recently sold to a friend for under a grand, that would definitely do what you want:

Ryzen 5 5600X CPU, Gigabyte Aorus Elite RTX 3060 Ti GPU, 7GB/s and 5GB/s PCIe 4 NVMe SSDs (512 + 512GB), 10TB total storage (2TB SSD, 8TB HDD), Corsair H60 AIO CPU water cooling, Coolermaster S400 silent mid-sized case, 32GB 3200 GHz DDR4 RAM, Wi-Fi 6

[percy]

mikef said:

Loads of helpful stuff

Thanks for that - not sure that I understood all of it though. I get what you're saying, so thought I'd give more info. My initial query was just about whether it was a reputable company - looks like it is OK.
Re: storage - I tend to use external drives and cloud storage for my files, so not too bothered about the storage on the PC. Are you suggesting that the SSD might be a little tight for future use in terms of Windows and software.
I didn't realise that it was a small case (mATX) - you can see how little I know about modern PCs! I'm just looking for a decent PC without being ripped-off. I have no desire to go into video editing - motorsport photography is my hobby. I tend to shoot RAW files and do a bit of light editing. I also do abstract landscapes which involves using Photoshop and Lightroom.

In terms of my budget - I can't stretch to more than £600, which is why that one caught my eye.
While you're here - are you aware of other places to look? I couldn't spec my own machine, as I really don't understand how different components impact each other - e.g the PSU/CPU statements you made above.
Thanks again for your input - much appreciated.

[mikef]

You could take a look at https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk - a few of us on here have bought from them in the past and been positive about the systems and vendor support

I still use my 12 year old Mac Pro for Photoshop and video editing - I always think you can make something last that long by buying at the top of the range then upgrading components after a few years. The alternative is to buy low and accept a limited working life then do the same thing again a few years in

[130R]

A 5600G should be fine for your use I would think. Something like this: https://www.overclockers.co.uk/ocuk-tech-labs-amd-...

You'll need to add Windows in (in the drop down menu) if you don't have a key / aren't comfortable installing it from scratch. Also a WiFi adapter if you don't have one already.

[percy]

Cheers for your advice.

[mikebradford]

Bought from them on two seperate occasions.
Both still performing well so will happily recommend
Use for running CAD software.

[percy]

mikebradford said:

Bought from them on two seperate occasions.
Both still performing well so will happily recommend
Use for running CAD software.

Cheers

[Misaps]

I bought a fairly high end system from Punch used for photo and video editing. Their customer service was very good when I had a couple of queries / wanted to change the configuration before ordering and the system has been reliable enough for me not to have to use the after sales dept.

[percy]

Just to say thanks again for all the advice etc. I have just taken delivery of my new desktop - from PC Specialist. I gave them my budget and they specced a PC to suit my needs (inc a separate graphics card), which seemed slightly better than the Punch PC.