Photography PC upgrade

G-Slev

G-Slev

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Gary
Edit My Images
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I recently upgraded my gaming PC, and I think it is probably time to upgrade my photo editting PC. Whilst it has served me well over many years, it is running an i5 8600K from 2017, and as time has gone on, lightroom imports and previews have got longer and longer and it is taking an age when I have massive shoots to import.

I am looking to spend as little as possible, because I am tight, and I don't need cutting edge by any means. I was wondering about upgrading the CPU and motherboard, and was considering either a Ryzen 5600X, 5900x or 7600x - though if I go for the latter, I will need to factor in new ram as I currently have 32gb of DDR4. Do you think either processor would be a worthwhile upgrade on what I have? Alternatively, can anyone suggest something different that is worth looking at? I use lightroom classic, photoshop and Topaz denoise AI. Thanks in advance for your support people!
 
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If your processing is taking longer with the same camera and software then the speed issue may well be fixable. I'd probably try reinstalling windows + processing software, also clean off the old thermal compound on processor and reapply fresh (and maybe graphics card too?). All doable at no cost. Make sure you have all data backed up first.
 
Not sure if it will help. But for reference, I have a 5700x, b550, rtx 4060 with 32gb ram (win11). I don't use LR, but runs PS, puur raw 3, topaz denoise ai etc just fine.
 
G-Slev said:
I recently upgraded my gaming PC, and I think it is probably time to upgrade my photo editting PC. Whilst it has served me well over many years, it is running an i5 8600K from 2017, and as time has gone on, lightroom imports and previews have got longer and longer and it is taking an age when I have massive shoots to import.

I am looking to spend as little as possible, because I am tight, and I don't need cutting edge by any means. I was wondering about upgrading the CPU and motherboard, and was considering either a Ryzen 5600X, 5900x or 7600x - though if I go for the latter, I will need to factor in new ram as I currently have 32gb of DDR4. Do you think either processor would be a worthwhile upgrade on what I have? Alternatively, can anyone suggest something different that is worth looking at? I use lightroom classic, photoshop and Topaz denoise AI. Thanks in advance for your support people!
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Common mistake.

When either the operating system or the application software start to slow down and take a while to do their stuff, most people always assume it's time to buy a new computer.

But that would be like when your attic is full, it's time to buy a new house.

Always consider doing spring cleaning of your computer, both hardware and software.

Open up your computer and clean out any of the dust that managed to get inside.

Also, use software diagnostic tools to sort out the software. Stuff like cleaning out cookies, history, junk files, etc., do other stuff like defrag. Every operating system will have different diagnostic tools, or you could install 3rd party diagnostic tools.

Sometimes in extreme problems, do what @ancient_mariner suggest, like reinstalling Windows and application software.

They often do the trick, and sometimes bring your computer back to the way it run when it was new.

That would be the same thing as cleaning out your attic of the clutter, and you'll find that you now have plenty of room.

My mother had a Windows XP, and was not happy that it was running too slow, asked me for options on buying a new computer. I told my mother to let me try sorting out her old computer first, so my mother agreed.

First thing I did was to open it up, to clean out the dust. It was covered with so much dust that looked a layer of cotton wool.

Remember that the faster the machine runs, the hotter it becomes, and heat is the one of the two main reason why computers slow down.

After cleaning out as much of the dust as I could, I spent hours cleaning out junk files, using diagnostic tools, like defrag, and stuff like that. It's like you're doing a software sping cleaning.

When it was done, my mother tried it and remarked that it started up much faster, and software ran much more smoother and faster.

Don't worry, you're not the only one, most people tend to think of buying a new computer when all it takes is a simple housekeeping of both hardware and software.

If you are not sure how to do it, you could have specialist do it for you. If cleaning up the computer helped, then you've given it a few more years of life. But if it did not do well, consider upgrading as a final restore.

Good luck.
 
When comparing CPUs, look at the single core performance, some i5s are faster than many i7s for photo editing.
 
A clean install and upping the RAM will improve you current pc immensely even adding an ssd will give it a major boost. I did exactly this a couple years ago my i5 laptop only had 8gb ram and standard type hdd i change the hdd to an ssd and put another stick of 8gb in giving me 16gb ram reinstalled win 10 and it boots up in 6 seconds loads photoshop quickly. only just replaced it having had some spare cash
 
What have you got in terms of GPU? It could be perhaps worth getting a really nice card now, like 4070 TI and perhaps deal with the rest later. When I say I now I actually mean around Black Friday sales...

that can effectively carry over to a new PC once you have a more comfortable spending budget.

GPUs are getting very very important these days. Next we may soon need NPUs so you may as well position yourself strategically to purchase the latest gen of Intel or even the next one, or AMD equivalent.

I'd rather do that than a budget previous gen cpu with on-board graphics. Ewww.
 
G-Slev said:
I recently upgraded my gaming PC, and I think it is probably time to upgrade my photo editting PC. Whilst it has served me well over many years, it is running an i5 8600K from 2017, and as time has gone on, lightroom imports and previews have got longer and longer and it is taking an age when I have massive shoots to import.
Click to expand...

It sounds like you have two PCs, one for gaming and one for photography. Why not consolidate down to one system? High performance CPU/GPU/RAM is needed for both and far more economical to have one system. Can always have two different windows installs or even different peripherals for the two different jobs.
 
LongLensPhotography said:
What have you got in terms of GPU? It could be perhaps worth getting a really nice card now, like 4070 TI and perhaps deal with the rest later. When I say I now I actually mean around Black Friday sales...

that can effectively carry over to a new PC once you have a more comfortable spending budget.

GPUs are getting very very important these days. Next we may soon need NPUs so you may as well position yourself strategically to purchase the latest gen of Intel or even the next one, or AMD equivalent.

I'd rather do that than a budget previous gen cpu with on-board graphics. Ewww.
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2060 super
 
I apologise if I appear to be hihjacking the thread but it is very relevant to my situation.
I run a 2016 machine, i5, 32gb DDR4 2400 ram , SSD on an Asus 150BM motherboard with onboard graphics.
I cannot upgrade to Win 11as the MB does not have the TPM chip.
THe PC is more than adequate for my needs but it is getting a bit slow with LR/PS when using the latest AI tools.
I don't really want to spend nearly £1K on a new m/c but I wonder if a separate 4gb graphics card will make significant difference.
It is cleaned up on a regular basis with CCleaner.
Any thoughts will be much appreciated

Chris
 
troutfisher said:
I apologise if I appear to be hihjacking the thread but it is very relevant to my situation.
I run a 2016 machine, i5, 32gb DDR4 2400 ram , SSD on an Asus 150BM motherboard with onboard graphics.
I cannot upgrade to Win 11as the MB does not have the TPM chip.
THe PC is more than adequate for my needs but it is getting a bit slow with LR/PS when using the latest AI tools.
I don't really want to spend nearly £1K on a new m/c but I wonder if a separate 4gb graphics card will make significant difference.
It is cleaned up on a regular basis with CCleaner.
Any thoughts will be much appreciated

Chris
Click to expand...
May be better with a clean install
 
troutfisher said:
wonder if a separate 4gb graphics card will make significant difference.
Click to expand...

A little, but you would be much better off with a fast 8 or 12GB graphics card (around £300) - I don't think you would se a big improvement with a low spec card that more or less replicates the onboard graphics.
 
G-Slev said:
2060 super
Click to expand...
things have moved on a little since, but still should do more than adequate job for now.

troutfisher said:
I apologise if I appear to be hihjacking the thread but it is very relevant to my situation.
I run a 2016 machine, i5, 32gb DDR4 2400 ram , SSD on an Asus 150BM motherboard with onboard graphics.
I cannot upgrade to Win 11as the MB does not have the TPM chip.
THe PC is more than adequate for my needs but it is getting a bit slow with LR/PS when using the latest AI tools.
I don't really want to spend nearly £1K on a new m/c but I wonder if a separate 4gb graphics card will make significant difference.
It is cleaned up on a regular basis with CCleaner.
Any thoughts will be much appreciated

Chris
Click to expand...
As above you can try starting with getting a decent up to date graphics card, something you can buy in store today and min 8GB RAM. maybe a top spec gen4 NVME (which will only run at full speed on new machine, but still an improvement in the interim)

It is pretty inevitable you will soon need to replace the whole lot, but if you need you can space out the components a little.

Nothing worse than running integrated graphics for creative work in 2024. I have 2022 mid-spec integrated laptop that is absolutely useless for any of this work and the only reason is this intel crap.
 
Thanks for everyones input, I think a serious cost/benefit analysis is called for.
 
You'll probably already know this if into your gaming rigs, but mind to double check power requirements if upgrading to some of the latest and more powerful graphics cards, a few need a lot of juice and multiple PCI-E connections.

Also, watch out for the CPU/MB throttling a powerful GPU. this is a problem I current have with my son's computer (my old one passed down) the i7-3770k is almost the fastest CPU for the motherboard and is causing the bottleneck, so no point upgrading the 1660 Super card until I upgrade the CPU/MB.
 
So this does lead to the question of what is the key order of things for optimising a PC for editing software like LrC and PS

As I understand it
1) CPU is more impactful than GPU unless you're doing lots of rendering of images and the number of cores is largely irrelevant
2) Quick drives - especially for LrC catalogues, really Catalogues should be stored on the quickest available drive
3) RAM It used to be the case that Lightroom and PS liked to eat RAM so as much as possible

Anyone know what the actual order of the hardware is that will optimise editing?
 
jamesev said:
So this does lead to the question of what is the key order of things for optimising a PC for editing software like LrC and PS

As I understand it
1) CPU is more impactful than GPU unless you're doing lots of rendering of images and the number of cores is largely irrelevant
2) Quick drives - especially for LrC catalogues, really Catalogues should be stored on the quickest available drive
3) RAM It used to be the case that Lightroom and PS liked to eat RAM so as much as possible

Anyone know what the actual order of the hardware is that will optimise editing?
Click to expand...

I'm sure that Lightroom uses multiple cores, so still worth considering. If it's a brand new build then I would say that they all have to be considered, although it's easier and quicker to upgrade RAM and GPU at a later date compared to the CPU and storage. If it's an upgrade path, then I would keep task manager open and watch what happens as I'm using LR and PS and the bottleneck should quickly reveal itself.
 
jamesev said:
So this does lead to the question of what is the key order of things for optimising a PC for editing software like LrC and PS

As I understand it
1) CPU is more impactful than GPU unless you're doing lots of rendering of images and the number of cores is largely irrelevant
2) Quick drives - especially for LrC catalogues, really Catalogues should be stored on the quickest available drive
3) RAM It used to be the case that Lightroom and PS liked to eat RAM so as much as possible

Anyone know what the actual order of the hardware is that will optimise editing?
Click to expand...
Note that while LR may not fully utilise multiple cores, if, like many people, you don't shut down every other application before running LR (you have a browser open with a couple of active tabs, email client, a music player for background, etc), then any 'spare' cores will take these apps rather than having to 'share' with LR - making LR more responsive.
 
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