mech
Getting comfortable
Here is what I picked out. I wavered between 16GB or 32GB of RAM, and decided to get 32GB. The system's normal memory usage is above 16GB, so that turned out to be a good choice. I later added a 2TB HP EX950 SSD in the motherboard's second M.2 connector. It also has some additional mechanical drives, and a third Serial ATA SSD used as a temporary holding tank when the system does its nightly archive of the day's still photos.
You could also hold out for the 10th-gen i9-10900K, which would give you two additional CPU cores and a slightly higher base frequency. Just make sure not to get any of the i9s that don't have Intel graphics, or you won't be able to use Intel acceleration in BI.
If you did get a Gigabyte motherboard and it's also got an add-in video card, you may find your Intel GPU is missing from Task Manager, and you won't be able to make use of the Intel QuickSync acceleration. To enable the Intel GPU on this generation of Gigabyte motherboard, go into the BIOS and you'll find the setting in the CHIPSET section. Set the Internal Graphics to Enabled (AUTO will disable it if there's an add-in card).
You could also hold out for the 10th-gen i9-10900K, which would give you two additional CPU cores and a slightly higher base frequency. Just make sure not to get any of the i9s that don't have Intel graphics, or you won't be able to use Intel acceleration in BI.
If you did get a Gigabyte motherboard and it's also got an add-in video card, you may find your Intel GPU is missing from Task Manager, and you won't be able to make use of the Intel QuickSync acceleration. To enable the Intel GPU on this generation of Gigabyte motherboard, go into the BIOS and you'll find the setting in the CHIPSET section. Set the Internal Graphics to Enabled (AUTO will disable it if there's an add-in card).
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