Hardware Configuration for Large PSB Files

Forum|Forum|1 day ago
April 25, 2026
3 replies
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I work with large PSB files - often 4+ GB - with many layers in Photoshop and I need to upgrade my computer. If I get an M4 Max Studio system with 64 GB RAM and a 2 TB SSD internal drive will that be enough, or should I increase RAM to 128 and/or get a larger SSD drive? I’d be grateful for advice.

steverap1Author

Participating Frequently

This is very helpful indeed. Okay, so if I routinely work with 4+ GB PSB files, you believe I should configure a system with 128 GB RAM and 4 TB internal drive. Unfortunately Mac Studios with that configuration are not available, presumably due to chip shortages.

jane-e

Community Expert

@steverap1 wrote: I should configure a system with 128 GB RAM and 4 TB internal drive

Hi Steve,

@Trevor.Dennis tagged me because I bought a new Mac to replace my 2017 Intel iMac a little over a year ago. I just looked up the Studio, and see the configuration that @D Fosse is recommending.

I went with 64 GB Ram and a 4TB HD. Because we can’t add internal drives like those who use Windows and build their own computers, I always go with a large HD so there is plenty of room for the Scratch space.

The external drive I use for Time Machine is 5 TB.

I never migrate applications. I always do a clean install.

Jane

D Fosse

Community Expert

The main bottleneck is traditionally the scratch disk - but many of the new GPU-based advanced functions don’t use the scratch disk. They run in the GPU, use GPU memory, and if that runs out, write to the system pagefile. In other words, they use system memory management, not Photoshop memory management.

The main thing you need to consider is that on a Mac, the GPU uses shared system memory. The GPU can use large amounts of memory, and will tend to use whatever is available. The long and short of it is that you should at least double the amount you would “normally” need.

In short, with these file sizes, I’d go 128 GB and 4 TB.

Just a small warning: We have seen occasional issues of GPU memory leaks, where it just maxes out without any apparent limit. This will bring the whole system down if the memory is shared. Most likely, this is caused by corrupt Photoshop preferences, and apparently it tends to happen when settings/preferences are migrated in an update. So don’t do that. This isn’t a common issue, but it has happened a few times.

Trevor.Dennis

Community Expert

Dag, I have an RTX4080 in my i9-13900K and 64GB RAM. I will be replacing this next year, because while it still works fine for Photoshop, my wife uses my previous system, and it is definitely showing its age.

I was going to go with a similar, one down from maximum spec GPU to save the NZ$1000 difference in price, but since I got a Topaz Studio subscription, I’m finding that it is hugely GPU dependent, and I suspect this will be true of most of the Ai tools we are going to see in the years to come. I will also go to 128GB RAM this time, and two, 2TB of the fastest NVMe drives available at that time.

I’ll also be looking for a mainboard that has PCI lane capacity to support at least four (five would be better) NVMe drives without a serious impact on performance. I am embarrassed to say that I can’t remember how all of these drives are connected, but I am sure there is at least one drive that the system is not seeing. I am going to let the builder sort all the configuration to make that work though. I used Compulsion Tech here in NZ for my current build, and he was so impressive, I can’t see me ever using anyone else going forward. Unfortunately, pricing has gone way up since the beginning of this year, and high-end workstations are going to cost serious money.

D Fosse

Community Expert

Indeed, prices are very high now, due to the AI industry eating up most of the available manufacturing resources. RAM prices are through the roof, and for most integrated products that use RAM, like e.g. GPUs or laptops, they cut memory capacity down to avoid raising overall prices too much. If you buy a GPU today, they mostly come with 8 GB VRAM now, whereas 16 was pretty much standard a year ago.

For a computer to handle Photoshop comfortably, in most cases I’d say 64 GB is plenty for a machine with shared system memory such as a Mac. But the OP works with very large files, and that’s why I would recommend 128. Not so much to keep Photoshop happy, but mainly to acommodate high GPU I/O happening outside Photoshop’s normal memory management. That’s GPU processing called by Photoshop, but executed outside it.

Trevor.Dennis

Community Expert

I think regular poster, and Community Expert, @jane-e might use a Mac Studio. She will be paged via her ID in this post, and be along to offer an opinion. A lot of the Community Experts use high end systems, and when we did some comparative tests a while back, Jane’s Mac smoked our Windows systems.

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