i5 and i7 variants - utterly confused, please enlighten me!

[dweeble]

OK - this is where I am: run a PC built for me 6 years ago, I asked for basic and robust and it is certainly both of those. I'm starting to run out of storage space and it is pretty slow at times. I use a mix and match of Irfanview, Faststone, Capture Nx-d, GIMP, darktable and Rawtherapee. Recently Nx-D for most stuff, but have just figured out a wrokflow which works for me on dt and am rather loving it.

Budget is razor thin. With cameras my approach is to use last generation first class kit (D300,D3S,80-200mm) - that doesn't work quite the same with PCs but you get the idea.

Current plan is to get a used Dell or other decent brand as cheaply as humanly possible! For main disk obv SSD, thinkign that for storage 2 SSDs (they seem very cheap nowadays), saving to each in case one fails. Remember my files are only 12MP so a little storage goes a long way.

Really don't need a go-faster machine, just competently quick!

Guess an i5 processor should do most of what I need, but there seems a vast difference between various generations - talk me through the soup please. And how crtical is MHz? What shoudl I aim for on that? Also, am I right in thinking most modernish motherboards have the ability to add fancier stuff if I decide to upgrade? I looked at putting a better CPU into mine and it seems the board just isn't up to it.

Thanks in advance, be gentle with me!

ETA, totally forgot, one other requirement is that it can run more demanding programmes like GigaPixel - not at rocket speed but reliably.

 

[sirch]

Also, am I right in thinking most modernish motherboards have the ability to add fancier stuff if I decide to upgrade? I looked at putting a better CPU into mine and it seems the board just isn't up to it.

It's always the promise but I generally find myself in the same boat as you, when I eventually get around to trying to upgrade the processor the motherboard is never compatible with newer processors

 

[gman]

This is a handy site for quickly referencing the performance of a CPU (and other components if you select the tab menus at the top). When looking at laptops not so long ago I was finding some i5's faster than my i7 because they were newer generations: https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_list.php

Usually I would try and get the best processor and associated motherboard you can because the rest is easier to upgrade. A good brand PSU is also an important, although often overlooked item.

EDIT: If it helps I have another computer I use which has an i5 4460 3.2GHz and it handles Photoshop, Illustrator, Lightroom etc with ease. My laptop is also an i5 (can't remember which one) but where it suffered was only 4GB of RAM. Things quickly locked up when photo editing. I increased the RAM and sorted.

So, my advice would be a processor similar to the i5 4460 3.2GHz or faster and at least 8GB of RAM. 256GB SSD min but a 512GB would be better as it's surprising how fast it can fill up. I upgraded to a 750W Corsair RM750i PSU but that is probably overkill for you. Whilst the wattage is important, I would say the manufacturer and quality is more important so that it's a stable voltage.

 

[wilt]

An i5 from the past 3 years would be fine and if you can stretch to 16gb of memory. Main disk SSD but the added expense of SSD's for storage isn't really worth it TBH if on a budget.
The upgrade path with Intel rarely works, though if you'd went with AMD the past few years they've allowed the same cpu socket to be upgraded.