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Participant
February 21, 2023
Question

system requirements

  • February 21, 2023
  • 1 reply
  • 9521 views

Hello, I will purchasing a PC laptop for home and wonder what system requirements I need to run only Adobe In Design. Thanks

 

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1 reply

James Gifford—NitroPress
Legend
February 21, 2023

There have been several discussions on this in recent weeks. You might do a quick search of the forum and review the arguments discussion. 🙂

 

Of the Adobe suite tools, though, InDesign is among the least demanding. It uses only one CPU core, so the number of cores you pay for will be more relevant to Photoshop, AfterEffects, Premiere and things like games. Any i7 CPU should be fine; one that's a little further up the power spectrum would not be money misspent. (That said, I am in the camp of buying at the "moderate" point on whatever the current CPU curve is; at the top of the peak, but not out on the leading edge where prices triple for power increases not generally proportional to cost.)

 

RAM is crucial. Most modern apps (and games) really demand 32GB for most purposes. 64GB is overkill unless you're going to work with very large Photoshop and AE projects. But 16GB won't really do it any more.

 

Fast SSDs are essential as well. HDDs are no longer a good buy except for bulk storage of things like video projects and archives. You want a fast SSD for boot, apps, scratch disks and working projects. A second SSD for project data files is a nice thing to have.

 

Video: almost any system with a name-brand video adapter (Nvidia or AMD) is good enough for InDesign. You will want the ability to drive an external 4K monitor, and (again) for the more power-hungry tools, a GPU that's up the curve will be a nice asset. InDesign does not use GPU acceleration (under Windows), but some of the other apps do. (Teh jump from no-GPU to modest-GPU is MUCH larger than from modest-GPU to mega-GPU, though, so don't go overboard unless you're going to dock into multiple desk monitors.)

 

Decent i7. 32GB RAM. Two SSDs with 2-4TB each. Decent name-brand (that means not "Intel Business Graphics" or some such) video adapter. At least one video port (DP or HDMI). That'll do ya.

 

Participant
February 21, 2023

This helps, thanks so much. And I'll search around in the Forum.

Deb

Community Expert
February 21, 2023

Just to echo what has been said already

 

Processor: Adobe InDesign is a CPU-intensive application, so you should aim for a processor with at least 6 cores and a high clock speed. A good option would be an Intel Core i7 or i9 processor or an AMD Ryzen 7 or Ryzen 9 processor.

 

RAM: InDesign can be quite memory-intensive, especially when working with large documents. So, it is recommended to have at least 16 GB of RAM. If you work with extremely large or complex documents, consider getting 32 GB or even 64 GB of RAM.

 

Storage: InDesign files can take up a lot of space, so a fast and large SSD is recommended. A 500 GB or 1 TB SSD would be ideal for storing your InDesign files and the operating system.

 

Graphics card: While InDesign does not rely heavily on graphics processing, having a dedicated graphics card with at least 2 GB of VRAM can help speed up tasks like rendering previews and exporting files. A NVIDIA GeForce or an AMD Radeon graphics card would be a good choice.

 

Monitor: A high-resolution monitor is crucial for graphic design work. A 24-inch or 27-inch monitor with a resolution of at least 1920x1080 pixels would be suitable. A larger screen with a higher resolution, such as a 4K or 5K display, would provide an even better user experience.

 

Overall, a good setup computer for InDesign would be a high-end workstation or gaming PC with a powerful CPU, plenty of RAM, a fast SSD, a dedicated graphics card, and a high-resolution monitor. However, keep in mind that the specific requirements may vary depending on the size and complexity of the projects you work on.