Best Devices or Setups for Smooth Adobe Photoshop Performance in 2025?

[Calculer_enligne1704]

Hi Adobe Community,

I’m looking to upgrade my device (either laptop or desktop) mainly for work within the Adobe Photoshop ecosystem — things like high-res photo editing, using multiple layers, smart objects, brushes, and occasionally working with RAW files in Camera Raw.

Before making a purchase, I’d love to get some real-world input from fellow Photoshop users:

• What are the ideal specs (CPU, GPU, RAM, SSD vs. HDD) for Photoshop in 2025?

• Is GPU performance still important for Photoshop, or should I prioritize CPU and RAM?

• Would 16GB RAM be sufficient for professional use, or is 32GB now the sweet spot?

• Any device or monitor recommendations specifically optimized for color accuracy and Photoshop workflows?

• Are there any known compatibility or performance issues with the latest version of Photoshop and certain hardware?

I’d really appreciate your insights before I commit to a new setup. Whether you’re a full-time creative or a casual editor, your experience matters!

Thanks so much in advance!

[tina_1995]

Just upgraded myself  32GB RAM and a fast CPU made a huge difference! GPU still matters for smart filters & smoother performance! 

[Calculer_enligne1704]

Thanks!

[D Fosse · Accepted solution]

i7 / 32-64 GB RAM / 2TB NVMe 4 gen / RTX 4060

(+ additional storage for image files).

Anything above that is mostly wasted. The two single most critical components are the scratch disk (500 GB - 1 TB on the fastest drive) - and the GPU. The sweet spot is RTX 4060 or the new 5060.  Higher models will be faster with some operations, but the rapidly increasing price will hardly be worth it.

Monitor is a chapter by itself. Budget brands are very risky, they need to cut corners to reduce price. The only really safe bet nowadays is Eizo. The rule of thumb is that the monitor should be 1/3 to 1/2 the budget. Avoid 4K if you want to limit cost! 4K is extremely expensive and doesnt really have any advantages for pixel-based raster editing. It's much more useful for vector art.

[Calculer_enligne1704]

Thanks!

[Jacob Co.]

I consider 16 GB RAM low. I recommend a lot of RAM if you work on heavy files, as much as you can reasonably get. Personally, I don't get less than 64 GB on any decent editing machine. This will help Ps keep more of its data resident in fast memory. GPU perfomance is important, though strong CPU performance still is as well (for now). Newer features also can be very demanding of GPU memory.  Avoid old GPUs and old GPU drivers.

Our formal system requirements are on the low end if you are looking for really good performance. 

[Trevor.Dennis]

I have 64GB on my current and previous systems, and I chose to stay with 64GB on my current system because Photoshop never came close to maxing out its allocated memory.  What I do see is exactly what Dag @D Fosse talks about with Scratch drives.

Right now I have a 720P video animation and a blank file I use for screen shots for forum answers.  

Opening another 2GB project that I changed to 32bit

That's out of 45GB of allocated memory.

That's 26GB of scratch space that has to be writen to and read possibly every time I use a function, and it chose to do that rather than use more of the available memory.  M.2 NVMe drives are lightning fast nowadays, but you are missing out on significant Photoshop performance if you choose to go cheap.  

BTW  Photoshop is not great at giving up system resources, even if you used Edite Purge.

OK, I see I have fallen foul of something I like to remind people about.  I've closed Photoshop and have an ophaned 4.2GB scratch file left on the drive from a week ago, so Photoshop did not shut down properly that day, and left the scratch file behind.  It's good practice to check the root directory of your primary scratch drive periodically for ophaned Photoshop Temp files, and delete them.