8gb vs 16gb VRAM running PS and LR Classic

[RxPhoto]

Does anyone run both PS and LR Classic?  I'm running both on a Dell laptop with only 4gb vram, so I'm looking to upgrade to something that has either 8gb or 16gb vram.  I also play videos at the same time.  Would like to know if someone out there does something similar and the setup he/she has and of course what the performance is like...

[KR Seals · Accepted solution]

I am using a Win11 PC with 64GB RAM. I just checked memory usage. With PS and LrC open, they are using 13GB. That is with no extra layers or adjustments to the image in PS. Adobe programs will generally take more memory than they actually need, but I think you would be better off with 32 or 64GB. 16GB at the absolute minimum.

[RxPhoto]

Thank you for the quick response!  I think my new desktop will have 32gb of RAM.  How much VRAM does your graphics card have? 

[KR Seals]

8GB. That works pretty well, but I've read that 12 is better.

[AxelMatt]

@RxPhoto I can confirm what @KR Seals wrote. I use a graphic device with 12GB VRAM and it work perfect.

[RxPhoto]

Do you run anything else on the side? Video player, music player, etc. and how does it perform with the added load?  I'm considering 16gb VRAM but if I can get away with 12gb VRAM, it'll save some money.

[KR Seals]

12GB VRAM should work great. In my setup, RTX 3079ti, 8GB VRAM, I am running two monitors. I have PS and LrC on one and my file manager and email on the other. I'm not doing any video intensive work on both monitors at the same time and everything runs fine. With LrC on one Screen and PS on the other, 3.4 GB of VRAM is in use.

[RxPhoto]

Thank you everyone for your help.

[RxPhoto]

I went with 16gb VRAM.  12gb is uncommon these days.

[Bojan Živković · Accepted solution]

Another crucial aspect for the smooth operation of Photoshop is the scratch disk. Ensure that you have at least 500GB, preferably 1TB, of free disk space allocated for Photoshop to use as a scratch disk.

[RxPhoto]

Thank you for your help.

[RxPhoto]

I have a 1Tb NVMe external drive for all the photos and catalog. I'll eventually get a bigger drive when it starts to get full.