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Which is the best desktop PC for photo editing?

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You might want to decide on a budget first. The spec of the computer itself isn’t too important really, as long as there’s at least 16gb of fast RAM. The most important part will be the monitor, and a top spec large monitor will take most of whatever budget you have.
 
I agree with Tony:
A few years ago when I was really into photography I bought the most powerful PC I could find (I7 Chillblast) with the best graphics card.
It's served me well, but if I were buying today I wouldn't need to do that as almost any PC will be good enough.
You may still want to make sure it has a good graphics card and if you have the cash, maybe a 4K monitor.
 
I just bought a new PC.

i5 processor
16GB RAM (2600mhz)
4GB graphics card
500GB SSD
2 x 2TB HDD

Getting a PC which has the programmes and operating sytem on a Solid State hard drive will be beneficial. Keep the photographs on a normal HDD, preferably 7200 rpm.

The main interface is the monitor of course. To utilise a good monitor you do need a good graphics card and not the shared graphics built into the mother board as that usually uses the main system RAM, hence "shared".

My main monitor is a Dell UP3017, I think that's the model, which has 98% of the Adobe colour gamut. This does give a better rendition of colour. My second monitor is a Dell Ultrasharp 24" (not 4k though) so there is a decent comparison, side by side. If you get a large primary monitor you really don't need a second one. Depending on how close you sit you may not need that large a screen.
 
Agree with the above comments on the monitor being key. If your work is primarily in Lightroom, bear in mind that it can't utilise many processor cores simultaneously. What this means is that the absolute speed of the processor will determine how quickly the program works. An Intel processor is likely to have a small advantage here. Other programs (I use DXOMark a lot, for example) benefit from multiple cores much more so AMD's Ryzen line can be better value.
 
The samsung OLED monitors are ok, coming from a factorying. They have a test report. I'm looking at a 24 now I have another in a box.

It's going to end up Viewsonic LOLZO
 
You also might want to look at used monitors, I use two MultiSync 2490WuXi's - some came originally with custom xrite calibration sensors. Colors are excellent, I bough one new a good few years go and a second one last year on ebay for under $100. If you calibrate them you can match print match very well .
 
The sad truth of the matter is Adobe, in partnership with camera manufacturers have made poor advances in the last few years. The only real advance is in faster access to storage drives. Lightroom does not take advantage of the power of multicore cpu's so any half decent desktop will do. Money is best spent on a monitor with good colour gaumet and management.
 
With Lightroom you can set off tasks in parallel as a work around, which will use spare core capacity, and Adobe has promised better support now that 4 cores have evolved to 6 or 8 on mainstream PCs. Anyone who says the speed of the machine doesn't matter hasn't compare editing on a 8 or 9 year old i3 with a modern computer - one of my neighbours asked me to help him to edit a holiday's worth of pictures - the difference is night and day. So the point is it's the difference between new PCs that might not be so important. I agree 100% about a decent monitor and regular calibration - no need to go overboard, I just use a Dell U2413. A dual screen setup is handy with a lesser one for general work or a fast screen for games.
 
Extra to my previous post, I remember for many years I used to colour-calibrate my graphics/monitor/printer but after a while I gave up doing that as it didn't make much difference. probably only worth doing if you're doing commercial photos or you're absolutely determined to get 99% colour accuracy..
 
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