7 replies to this topic

[holloways]

I need a new PC (Desktop). My husband is about to go to Costco and buy an off the shelf desktop-(LOVE COSTCO Warranty) but I want enough ram / memory (etc), to run Lightroom and Photoshop with enough processing power. Suggestions please???? I am looking for suggestions on a healthy configuration for a windows desktop which will run Lightroom and Photoshop and work with 10MG pics. No video yet, but possibly in the future. Other than that - standard MS OFFICE stuff. I don't want to go over the top - but want reasonable speed and power. I can still get a WINDOWS 7 machine if I go to Dell directly (along with some cheap WIN 8 licenses - should I want to upgrade). Hope to run this machine for 5+/- years. It is a multi-purpose machine - not just for photos. Prefer not to have to update all my software (running Lightroom 3). Suggestions please!!!

[Steve Williams]

If you plan to keep it for 5 years I'd try to get a nice i7 processor and 1TB harddrive. Costco has some reasonable sales going on now on some nice Dell systems. You should be able to get out of there without spending more than $1000. The video cards that ship with these would be able to keep up. By the way, definitely upgrade to LR4. ;-)

Good luck,
Steve

[ChrigelKarrer]

I use LR4, Photoshop on my Lenovo Core i7 Laptop with 8 GB of RAM and one 256GB SSD and one 1TB 5400 rpm hard disk and it works
satisfactory well and fast. I recently switched to Windows 8 and it makes all a bit faster and smoother but the new tile design "sucks"
Getting a Desktop i would get a 7200 rpm hard disk, a fast graphic adapter for full HD 1920x1240 resolution and maybe 16 GB of ram.
A nice thing to have (i have it) is a smaller 128 or 256 GB SSD Disk to store the operating system and all programs while a 1TB (or more) disk store
all the data files.
Having a desktop with at least 2 similar hard disk under a RAID array would give peace of mid regarding sudden hard disk failure.
Chris

[KirkD]

Get as much RAM as possible. I had 8gb and it ran fine, but a year ago, I upgraded RAM to 32gb and it runs pretty sweet. I agree with Steve. Go with an I7 processor

[DiverPam]

Check out this thread. http://wetpixel.com/...showtopic=46433 It has a lot of information about what is required to run lightroom as well as a lot of suggestions for laptops that will do this well.

Good hunting - DiverPam

[PeteAtkinson]

www.imagescience.com.au have some useful articles about building PCs specifically for Lightroom and Photoshop. I built one to their specs and am happy with it.

[E_viking]

LR Prio1: As good Processoras you can get, prefferably an i-7. LR is hard on Processor power, especially while rendering.
LR Prio2: 8GB RAM is enough for LR ( if you will stitch Panos or HDR then 16GB)
RAM is no real issue, since it can easily be reconfigured later.

Grafic Cards: LR does not use them at all, some filters in Photoshop and Nik do. The Intel internal Graphics is good enough for LR ( as long as you are no gamer).
Well, an off the shelf PC, will have a Grafic Card anyway.
SSD: Is almost irrelevant for LR. Slightly better when having the Catalog on a SSD, but hardly noticeable.
However, nice when starting up the PC&opening programs.

[E_viking]

I forgot 1 important point. I assume that they will all have it anyway.
Make sure that it has some USB3 Ports!

Then you can run nice and fast external harddisks, for extra storage space, backups etc etc
As, well as uploading a lot faster.