"Desktop Upgrade" Recommendations - Predominantly LightRoom and PhotoShop Use

[john swainston]

Hi All,

More information included below, but I've had my current setup for 7 years or so and have been having system stability issues that a rebuild hasn't fixed, and it's about time for an upgrade.

Given the age of some of the main components then apart from potentially reusing the M2 storage I'm not wedded to keeping any of the components, and given the instability I'm having (that seems hardware related), then a replace of pretty much everything is most likely in order - including the elderly case/PSU.

Purchase Timeframe:

Immediately - looking to get something sorted ASAP

Budget:

"Under 2K" - work will pay me up to 2K, so there or thereabouts. If it goes over that then it's down to me to pay, but I should be able to get something within £2K.

Usage:

• Usual office type stuff, but needs to be Windows based, so usual M365 suite of apps
• Photo editing - Mainly Adobe LightRoom, plus a bit of PhotoShop. I shoot quite a lot, and photos are 50-60Mb RAW files to process (on 4K screen), which previously was I/O heavy, and with GPU acceleration. This is my main cause of frustration, and the primary usecase for me as editing takes hours and I need it as slick as possible
  • My current workflow for this is to have imported files on M2/SSD - do processing and export, and then to move them onto HDD once I've finished with them.
• A small amount of video editing, or using the GPU to do transcoding tasks. A nice to have, but assuming a suitable GPU/Card for the photo editing is there then this might be a byproduct, and not the main driver
• I no longer game on the PC - any of that left is now console based
• As a "frustrated ex techie" then I do play at times with code, or run VM's & containers to have a play about with things. All more about me messing about (rather than it being a work necessity) but having something with a bit of grunt and RAM has allowed me to play about with technology in order for me to learn new stuff and keep my team at work on their toes.

Preferences:

I used to have preferences, but my knowledge is so out of date then I'm open to change, and whatever suits my needs above. I suppose a preference for 64Gb RAM over 32Gb, given some of my usage, but I rarely hit swapspace on 32Gb previously.

Current Hardware:

List is below, but out of this then apart from the monitor, HDD and one/two of the Samsung 990's, then I'm expecting to replace the lot. Time for a new case / PSU as well. Current PC has a blueray writer & soundblaster play (problems with onboard sound) - but neither are necessary going ahead.

Operating System
Windows 11 Pro 64-bit
CPU
Intel Core i7 8700 @ 3.20GHz 47 °C
Coffee Lake 14nm Technology
RAM
32.0GB Dual-Channel DDR4 @ 1063MHz (15-15-15-36)
Motherboard
Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd. B360 AORUS GAMING 3 WIFI-CF (U3E1) 43 °C
Graphics
BenQ PD2700U (3840x2160@60Hz)
4095MB NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti (ASUStek Computer Inc) 48 °C
Storage
476GB Samsung SSD 850 PRO 512GB (SATA (SSD)) 29 °C
119GB M4-CT128M4SSD2 (SATA (SSD))
5589GB Western Digital WDC WD6002FRYZ-01WD5B0 (SATA ) 43 °C
1863GB Samsung SSD 990 PRO 2TB (Unknown (SSD))
1863GB Samsung SSD 990 PRO 2TB (Unknown (SSD))
Optical Drives
PIONEER BD-RW BDR-202
Audio
Sound Blaster Play! 3


Peripherals:

None needed, I have mouse/ KB/ speakers, Wacom Tablet & Loupedeck etc for editing - all of which will be ok to keep

Special Needs/Requirements (inc Wi-Fi):

Wifi not needed.

Machine is currently on 10Gb segment for backups and link to NAS. A minimum of 2.5Gb NIC would be my starting point, as currently I see max of 2Gb is anything sustained on the 10Gb.


So thanks for reading this far - if any of you have any recommendations I'm very happy to listen. In short I'm after something "quick" for photo editing primarily, with some headroom for playing with other stuff. If I could meet the primary objective well within budget, then spending any remainder on "fast local storage" (even if it means ditching a 990 - I can always reuse one of those elsewhere) would probably be my thoughts.

Many Thanks,

John....

 

[tamzzy]

Photo editing - Mainly Adobe LightRoom, plus a bit of PhotoShop. I shoot quite a lot, and photos are 50-60Mb RAW files to process (on 4K screen), which previously was I/O heavy, and with GPU acceleration. This is my main cause of frustration, and the primary usecase for me as editing takes hours and I need it as slick as possible

adobe is predominantly CPU-based, do you use any plug-ins that require the GPU to be beefy as well? AI?

 

[Tetras]

Photo editing - Mainly Adobe LightRoom, plus a bit of PhotoShop. I shoot quite a lot, and photos are 50-60Mb RAW files to process (on 4K screen), which previously was I/O heavy, and with GPU acceleration. This is my main cause of frustration, and the primary usecase for me as editing takes hours and I need it as slick as possible

My current workflow for this is to have imported files on M2/SSD - do processing and export, and then to move them onto HDD once I've finished with them.

Which point exactly is it that takes you hours?

If you're literally waiting for processing to complete and the CPU is stuck at 100%, then I'd just throw more cores at the problem and buy a 265K.

If you're stuck with one or two cores at 100%, then a CPU like the 9700X is very strong in single thread and great in Photoshop.

If your import/export is the issue, that's awkward. A 990 Pro is still a pretty darn fast SSD and even if you went for a top-end PCI-E 5.0 drive, that might not solve the problem if you're copying to/from a slower drive that can't keep up.

Archiving to HDD would seem like an obvious bottleneck, but I assume that's not the cause?

You mentioned GPU acceleration, I'd have expected a 3060 Ti to be capable enough in most circumstances, do you believe that it isn't? It is important to clarify though, because an expensive upgrade if it is pointless.

Machine is currently on 10Gb segment for backups and link to NAS. A minimum of 2.5Gb NIC would be my starting point, as currently I see max of 2Gb is anything sustained on the 10Gb.

10Gb would be pricey on the board, but MSI do 5Gb even on their low-end(ish) boards.

My basket at OcUK:

• 1 x Intel Core Ultra 7 265K (Arrow Lake) Socket LGA 1851 Processor - Retail (SKU: PRO-INT-03111) = £289.99
• 1 x MSI MAG Z890 TOMAHAWK WIFI (LGA 1851) DDR5 ATX Motherboard (SKU: MOT-MSI-03439) = £239.99
• 1 x Crucial Pro 64GB (2x32GB) DDR5 PC5-44800C46 5600MHz Dual Channel Kit (SKU: MEM-CRU-01085) = £158.99
• 1 x Crucial T705 2TB NVMe PCIe Gen5 M.2 Solid State Drive (SKU: STO-CRU-01870) = £192.95
• 1 x Asus GeForce RTX 5070 Ti Prime OC 16GB GDDR7 PCI-Express Graphics Card (SKU: GRA-ASU-04152) = £719.98
• 1 x Lian Li Lancool 216 Mid-tower PC case - Black (SKU: CA-7BG-LL) = £86.00
• 1 x Antec HCG 1000 Pro Platinum 1000W ATX3.1 Full modular Power Supply (SKU: POW-ATC-02746) = £189.95
• 1 x be quiet Pure Loop 3 360 High Performance All In One CPU Cooler - 360mm (SKU: COO-BEQ-06199) = £84.94

Total: £1,962.79 (includes delivery: £0.00)​

 

[tamzzy]

You mentioned GPU acceleration, I'd have expected a 3060 Ti to be capable enough in most circumstances, do you believe that it isn't? It is important to clarify though, because an expensive upgrade if it is pointless.

the 3060ti is more than sufficient for both PS and LR unless using plugins that lean on the GPU
if only using the basic plugins, it's literally only 2-5% difference between a 5090 and a 2080ti

 

[Tetras]

the 3060ti is more than sufficient for both PS and LR unless using plugins that lean on the GPU
if only using the basic plugins, it's literally only 2-5% difference between a 5090 and a 2080ti

5090 a great use of the budget then!

 

[john swainston]

adobe is predominantly CPU-based, do you use any plug-ins that require the GPU to be beefy as well? AI?

The GPU seems to be used for a lot of things in the Develop module, and with a 4K display turning it off/on currently makes a fair difference, and without it on the CPU doesn't seem to get maxed.

The general direction of travel seems to be to use it more (with 16Gb VRAM on card now being the spec for full acceleration), and all the masking and generative AI tools which appear more and more per release all use it.

Even things like graduated filters are far "snappier" with GPU enabled.

So nothing specific/unusual - but previous GPU upgrades have improved matters, and Adobe seem to be going down leveraging GPU's more and more so a bit of futureproofing might be prudent.

 

[tamzzy]

and with a 4K display turning it off/on currently makes a fair difference, and without it on the CPU doesn't seem to get maxed.

using a discrete gpu will be a massive upgrade in comparison to the integrated gpu
but going from a mid-range gpu to an ultra-highend gpu makes less of a difference

The general direction of travel seems to be to use it more (with 16Gb VRAM on card now being the spec for full acceleration), and all the masking and generative AI tools which appear more and more per release all use it.

definitely if you're using AI then getting a 50 series GPU is a no brainer
minimum 16gb vram (506ti 16gb)
...or might be worth waiting for the 50 super series referesh with more vram and soldiering on with the 3060ti at present (also gives you the chance to see whether its the cpu bottlenecking you and hence no need for a gpu upgrade)

 

[john swainston]

using a discrete gpu will be a massive upgrade in comparison to the integrated gpu
but going from a mid-range gpu to an ultra-highend gpu makes less of a difference


definitely if you're using AI then getting a 50 series GPU is a no brainer
minimum 16gb vram (506ti 16gb)
...or might be worth waiting for the 50 super series referesh with more vram and soldiering on with the 3060ti at present (also gives you the chance to see whether its the cpu bottlenecking you and hence no need for a gpu upgrade)

Thanks for the input.

I suppose some of my thoughts around this are due to "work paying", and that I've got an unstable system for which I can't work out what component makes it go bang. Nothing in system or event logs, no "BSOD", it just hard boots. I've reseated and checked/cleaned connections, and rebuilt the OS from scratch so it seems to be pointing towards hardware. My original suspicion was a problem with the graphics card as it failed more often in lightroom or transcoding, but it could also be linked to other things like the PSU or motherboard. Soak tests I've run are "inconclusive" at best.

Part of the delay in replying is my machine has just gone bang again (twice - just had to swap to laptop to reply), with pretty much only a browser open - so not exactly taxing things there or using the GPU as per my original thoughts, but the frequency of the reboots is happening more and more - and under les and less demand.

So do I "need" to upgrade the card - probably not, but I was looking at getting a worst case view on what I needed to replace, as I can't necessarily assume on reuse. Given the constant restarts I'm kind of past benchmarking my current system, and am leaning more towards reliability as I'm fed up with lost work and rework.

Maybe the sensible path is to renew all but the GFX card, rebuild and see how I get on and see whether that needs a replacement or upgrade.

As for your previous question
"Which point exactly is it that takes you hours?

If you're literally waiting for processing to complete and the CPU is stuck at 100%, then I'd just throw more cores at the problem and buy a 265K.

If you're stuck with one or two cores at 100%, then a CPU like the 9700X is very strong in single thread and great in Photoshop."

The end to end process will take hours, but that might be because I have a 1000 photos to go through, grade and edit.

The import process is something that seems to have grown over time - at one level then it's copying files from a CF Express card via USB3 to the 990, which is pretty quick. However, Lightroom seems to be doing more and more when building smart previews and there are a few threads kicked off doing all sorts of enrichment and recognition at that stage. To be honest that's a "go and have a cup of tea" task once kicked off, so whilst a bit of a pain it's not my main bugbear.

I've seen gradual deterioration in the speed of Grid view over the last couple of years, with that slowing down and down - and switching from that to Develop mode is just sluggish nowadays, and in Develop mode there is just a lag of a couple of seconds for loads of small things that just ruins my productivity. If one/two things could be improved then it's my time within the Preview and Develop modules - imports and exports I can live with. PS. I've tried all sorts of optimisations/caches / had different I/O on different channels, added AV exclusions and tested without AV running, but over time it just seems to go slower.

The increasingly frequent reboots are the final straw, hence time to pretty much start anew - but given the marginal gains around GFX card maybe I test the waters on that and defer (saving work money)....

 

[Tetras]

The end to end process will take hours, but that might be because I have a 1000 photos to go through, grade and edit.

The import process is something that seems to have grown over time - at one level then it's copying files from a CF Express card via USB3 to the 990, which is pretty quick. However, Lightroom seems to be doing more and more when building smart previews and there are a few threads kicked off doing all sorts of enrichment and recognition at that stage. To be honest that's a "go and have a cup of tea" task once kicked off, so whilst a bit of a pain it's not my main bugbear.

I've seen gradual deterioration in the speed of Grid view over the last couple of years, with that slowing down and down - and switching from that to Develop mode is just sluggish nowadays, and in Develop mode there is just a lag of a couple of seconds for loads of small things that just ruins my productivity. If one/two things could be improved then it's my time within the Preview and Develop modules - imports and exports I can live with. PS. I've tried all sorts of optimisations/caches / had different I/O on different channels, added AV exclusions and tested without AV running, but over time it just seems to go slower.

The increasingly frequent reboots are the final straw, hence time to pretty much start anew - but given the marginal gains around GFX card maybe I test the waters on that and defer (saving work money)....

Hmm, I'm not really familiar with the process enough to say for sure where the bottleneck is going to be in each of those parts of your workflow. My £2K spec is basically just "throw money at everything (CPU single/multi thread, I/O and GPU) and hope it works", which in the circumstances maybe that's the best way to go.

 

[tamzzy]

from what i can see, the ryzen 9950x is better for photoshop, the intel 285k is better for lightroom

PugetBench Compare Results

This benchmark comparison tool lets you easily check the performance of CPUs and video cards versus each other across a range of professional applications.

www.pugetsystems.com

PugetBench Compare Results

This benchmark comparison tool lets you easily check the performance of CPUs and video cards versus each other across a range of professional applications.

www.pugetsystems.com

pugetbench have broken it down so do have a look in detail and see which one fits your requirements better

 

[john swainston]

from what i can see, the ryzen 9950x is better for photoshop, the intel 285k is better for lightroom

PugetBench Compare Results

This benchmark comparison tool lets you easily check the performance of CPUs and video cards versus each other across a range of professional applications.

www.pugetsystems.com

PugetBench Compare Results

This benchmark comparison tool lets you easily check the performance of CPUs and video cards versus each other across a range of professional applications.

www.pugetsystems.com

pugetbench have broken it down so do have a look in detail and see which one fits your requirements better

Hi tamzzy - thanks for this, I wasn't aware of PugetBench & looking at the timings Intel certainly has the edge for what I need.

 

[john swainston]

FYI - I went largely for the list above, but for now will stick with my 3060 Ti and see how that goes. Given work are paying then the main change to the initial list is going for an Intel 285K as a bit of overkill (marginal improvements for some of my usecases according to PugetBench).

Thanks for your help.

 

[Tetras]

FYI - I went largely for the list above, but for now will stick with my 3060 Ti and see how that goes. Given work are paying then the main change to the initial list is going for an Intel 285K as a bit of overkill (marginal improvements for some of my usecases according to PugetBench).

Thanks for your help.

Let us know how it goes, will be interesting to see how well it addresses the slow downs (or doesn't).

For sure, I wouldn't have paid extra for the 285K myself, but if they're paying anyway

 

[tamzzy]

Enjoy your new system!