My XPS completely died today and it's 50 days out of warranty (I bought it only 13.5 months ago). Despite being a $4,000 machine Dell is giving me the standard protocol service. I will probably be without a computer for weeks and will need to spend whatever it costs to repair it.

Im chalking this up to a loss and looking for a desktop PC. I will use the existing XPS as a backup going forward because I can no longer rely on it as my main machine.

I'm wondering if anyone has any suggestions for a machine? I really want something reliable that wont die after 13 months of ownership. And something good for timelapse rendering. So top of the line GPU, RAM, CPU SSD, etc.

I've been googling a bit but I get the impression that a lot of these review sites just suggest whoever has paid for a good review.

You can assemble a PC quite easily by yourself. For timelapse editing with LRTimelapse I'd focus on a decent amount of Ram (16 or 32 GB), a multicore processor (Octacore or better more - the more the better, this is where the speed scales!), one or two fast SSDs and a good Monitor (color calibrated).
A fast Graphics Card is not so essential, get a medium one but don't spend too much money on the latest gaming card, it won't really help.
The AMD processors are very good in terms of Price per core. Go for a Threadripper, if you can afford it.
You can also go to a custom PC builder with this requirements and he will taylor you a good and stable system.

Thanks Gunther. Yes I'm debating between building and buying. I used to get nervous at the prospect of building myself because of potentially being screwed if something goes wrong. But after this debacle with Dell I guess it's not really that different.

13 month old machine and the motherboard is dead. I just ordered a replacement board for $800

Maybe it helps to see how I build my last 2 PC's, that's on my German Blog, you can use the Google Translator to translate to English or another language:
https://gwegner.de/tipps/high-end-pc-fue...anleitung/
https://gwegner.de/know-how/guenstiger-r...tung-2020/

Hope you don't mind if I dare to "recommend" a total different path...!

What about getting yourself a good Mac with the Apple Care package? Normally you get that way a really good machine plus 3 years of warranty and minimized efforts.

I am still today working on my Mid 2012 MacBook Pro without any problems. Okay, it's no longer the fastest machine, but for me it's still sufficient and ROI was definitely worth the money spent.

Herbert

Usually for Workstations level computers (which are what serious timelapse photographers would usually go for) you pay at least double the price for the same performance with Apple that for a PC. The other disadvantage is, that you won't be able to upgrade to the latest OS and the latest version of many Apps with older Apples. I don't think you can update your 2012 hardware to Big Sur and that means that you will be forced to update your hardware eventually. And usually that happens after way less than 9 years. Latest when your new camera requires the latest Lightroom which does not run on the older MacOS anymore and Apple refuses to upgrade on your hardware. This has not happened on Windows in the last years. Backwards compatibility has certainly also disadvantages, but for the user it's mostly great.

And a 2012 Hardware is outdated, no matter if PC or Mac. Sorry to say that...

In the consumer area the new M1 Macs are finally ok in terms of price/performance ratio, but those are not workstations for the demanding timelapse photographer and barely extendable.

As an IT guy I can tell you, you definitely get more bang for your buck, much more extensibility with a PC and also less compatibility issues.

But please let's stop the Mac vs. PC discussion right now. Anyone who wants a Mac will buy one, most likely because is used to it, has other compontens from Apple etc.
Anyone who is undecided should decide for himself and anyone who buys a modern PC won't regret it. Most Mac users know Windows from the XP era - that's been long ago and hasn't anything to do with a modern W10 configuration.

Hi Gunther,

Thank you very much for the informative response.

Hmm... yes, maybe I am not a serious timelapse photographer and I am also not an IT person. Yes, my 2012 hardware is outdated, but it it still works. And I dare to state, just based on that fact and what the OP described, that therefore the ROI of such that investment was most likely better... plain and simple.

By the way, working in PC environments during all my professional career I think I also have a little an idea and some experience to compare the different systems of Windows and MacOS. Both have their benefits and drawbacks, simple as that, at least in my opinion. Last but not least, I faced also already twice the same situation like the OP, means the PC of a well known brand just died short after the warranty expired.

But... I didn’t start any discussion Mac vs PC, I just made an alternate suggestion, without stating anything like “this is better than that”.

Everybody has different priorities in such a selection process and that’s fine! At least for me, maybe based on my personal philosophy and potentially only limited experience, there are more aspects than just pure performance to be considered, for example reliability, ease of maintenance and so on.

Finally, I couldn’t care less if people use a PC or Mac as their computer... as long as these people from the “dark side” don’t date my daughter!

Herbert

;-)

Hi Gunther,
Currently I cannot complete my timelapses because I have an old laptop that I'm trying to work off of. My timelapses involve around 40,000 images. If I have a PC built like the one you suggested will I be able to process my timelapses with 40,000+ images?
Thank you!

Officially LRTimelapse is designed to support sequences of max. 15.000 images. You can find that in the license terms: https://lrtimelapse.com/eula/
Of course that's not a hard limit and it will depend on your hardware how enjoyable it will be to work with bigger sequences.
And it's not only the memory and performance, also the curves etc will be very tight.
Bottomline: I'd recommend to split large sequences and work on parts separately.
No one will usually watch a timelapse of 40.000 images in one piece, that would be 22 minutes played back with 30fps. It just doesn't make sense. Better split it or filter it with the long term filters. Bring it to manageable chunks and work on those.