advertisement


Which processor for desktop photo-editing?

C

Colinb

pfm Member
I'm going to put together a new desktop for photo-editing to use instead of my surface pro, plugged in to my benq montor, which has a 6th generation core i7 and 16GB RAM. Then I will be able to upgrade as I feel necessary or as Lightroom/Photoshop demand more processing power. So, is it still the case that Photoshop and Lightroom need the best single core performance and there's not a lot of performance benefit to be had from going much beyond 6 cores? I was looking at Ryzen 5 3600 with a reasonable graphics card with a motherboard that can take 64GB RAM ( Although I would only put in 32 to start with), rather than intel processors to get the best value or is there an intel that can compete on price/performance ratio ?
 
If you do a Google you will get a lot of hits and be able to read up on what to spend the budget on for PS and LR.

Performance wise you want SSD x 2, one for the OS/Installation the second for your Project Data. Samsung 960 are excellent.

RAM you are OK with 32GB but 64GB is better.

CPU - the Ryzen 5 is a good shout

GPU - NVIDIA is generally a better bet than AMD but less important than SSD and RAM

https://www.pugetsystems.com/recomm...-Adobe-Photoshop-139/Hardware-Recommendations

https://www.pugetsystems.com/recomm...ightroom-Classic-141/Hardware-Recommendations

​
 
Yes, thanks, I already use samsung ssds internally and externally and have a 6Tb external HDD for main backup storage. I've been looking at Nvidia, something like a 1060 as any higher and there isn't much benefit for a lot of extra cost and I was just getting fed up with looking at all the benchmark statistics for cpus so hoping somebody would have already done the legwork.
 
The 1060 is fine and it’s what I build these type of PC’s with, got a box of ‘em sitting unused for over a year at work. If I was building today looking for value that Ryzen 5 would be top of list unless you want to blow serious wedge. Have a preference for ASUS and Gigabyte vid cards and motherboards.
 
Great. That pretty much confirms the components I was looking at as being the correct combination. Just need to make a decision now as to which Ryzen to get.
 
Honestly, once you get beyond half decent and 16gig it barely matters unless you are running batched actions on multiple raw files. Just one image at a time, doing hand adjustments once you reach a 5950, 16gig, nvme dot2 and 3200 speed ram you'll be the lag.
 
RAM is definitely helpful with LR and if you are working with high resolution images say 50MP upwards, and stitching, bracketing, etc then 32Gb is a min, otherwise 16Gb will be enough, that and a fast SSD and a reasonable preocessor, half decent graphics card and you'll be fine.

FWIW I'm running LR/PS happily on a 5yr old i7-7600, 32Gb and nVidia GTX960, and its coping fine with Fuji GFX 50MP images.
 
I'm using a D850 so the image files are pretty big. That's why I was thinking 32GB just to be sure. I usually only edit one at a time, although I am starting to do a bit of stacking.
 
Adding RAM to a motherboard, assuming it’s got the slots or you plan ahead is an option. Changing CPU too, just a bit more of a faff.
 
Colin I don't do much with RAW files, the occasional promo image for work, 20 layers of adjustment and colour effects in PS. I do a lot of 3d rendering work though where texture maps for photoreal work might be 10k x 5k in size and up to 70 layers. I get by comfortably with a well specced workstation replacement laptop. 16gig of 3200 ram, 10850 intel and nvidia 3070 with plenty of fast ssd.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.


advertisement


Back
Top