PC Build for MRI image processing

PC for preprocessing/tractography

It has been after long time I had the opportunity to build a PC. Actually it was not for me but for my wife who is doing a Phd. She is using following MRI image processing tools,

Freesurfer (https://surfer.nmr.mgh.harvard.edu/)
MRtrix (https://www.mrtrix.org/)
FSL (https://fsl.fmrib.ox.ac.uk/fsl/fslwiki)
Advanced Normalization Tools (https://github.com/ANTsX/ANTs)

These tools uses memory and process heavily and she was struggling to do the process in her laptop(Intel core i7 with 16 GB memory).

So I started doing research what best components I can used to build a powerful PC that can handle neuroimaging processing tools.

Process wise I had 2 choices Intel or AMD, These days AMD is beating Intel in the process market with giving high processing power for less money. After doing some research around I selected AMD Ryzen 7 2700X (8 core) processor with Wraith Prism cooler.

MSI B450M MORTAR Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard

As the motherboard I selected "MSI B450M MORTAR Micro ATX AM4", which support maximum memory of 64 GB and is within my budget. Also got two 16GB Corsair Vengeance DDR4-3000 Memory modules after reading some reviews. Hoping to upgrade to 64 GB in future.

As the main hard disk, I got Samsung 860 Evo 1 TB SSD drive. As the AMD Ryzen 7 2700X does not have inbuilt GPU, I went with MSI GeForce GTX 1050 Ti 4 GB graphic card.

As for the casing I selected "fractal design focus g mini microatx mini tower case", which has a good build quality for the price. Also it comes with 2 front panel fans which improve the air flow inside the casing.

I used pcpartpicker.com site to build my spec, which is a useful site for anyone who wish to build their own PC. pcpartpicker.com site will highlight if there any incompatible components in your build, which is very useful and free of charge as well.

Use the below link to see my full PC specification,

https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/LXVBZf

My wife was happy with the PC build as she manage to run neuroimaging tools without any problem.

But if you have big budget I recommend going for a AMD processor with more cores (such as AMD Ryzen 9 3900X 12 core or AMD Ryzen 9 3950X 16 core) with memory of 64 GB or more. This will make you run several MRI processing tools parallel.

Enjoy!