Buying a PC for Photoshop in 2022

[mcboatner]

I’m buying a new PC, but the Photoshop system requirements on the Adobe site and the specs on the manufacturer site seem like apples and oranges. For instance, for a Graphics Card, the Adobe site says, 'Minimum: GPU with DirectX 12 support and 1.5 GB of GPU memory' or 'Recommended: GPU with DirectX 12 support and 4 GB of GPU memory for 4k displays and greater;' while the manufacturer offers two options: 'Intel Graphics 630' or 'NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 SUPER, 4 GB GDDR6.' Same problem with the Processor descriptions.  How do I translate the inconsistent descriptions to make a purchase?

[Sameer K]

Hi there,

Thanks for reaching out. We are here to help!

We understand the minimum & recommended specs could appear broad and unspecific. However, the idea is to give a baseline and a standard to look for before purchasing or opting for an upgrade.

Consider using GPUs with an average of 2000 operating per second or higher. You can check this on PassMark's benchmark: https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/directCompute.html

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 SUPER stands at - 4545.

Please feel free to check with independent online benchmarks, stress tests, and reviews before making any purchase decisions. Please consider the type, size, or operation you would carry out in Photoshop.

We hope this helps. Let us know if it does.

Thanks!

Sameer K

[mcboatner]

That is helpful, thanks! Can you do a similar translation for the Processor reqs? Adobe says, 'Intel® or AMD processor with 64-bit support; 2 GHz or faster processor with SSE 4.2 or later' while manufacturer offers options like, '10th Generation Intel Core i3-10105 (6 MB cache, 4 cores, 8 threads, 3.70 GHz to 4.40 GHz Turbo).' I see the GHz, but nothing about the bit support or SSE.

[Sameer K]

Hi, thanks for the response.

Please feel free to check the specification of the CPU you are planning to buy. For instance, when we look for '10th Generation Intel Core i3-10105', its specification are available here, please check the 'Advanced Technologies' section : https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/sku/201894/intel-core-i310105-processor-6m-cache-up...

In order to identify CPUs with SSE support, you can check here:https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000057621/processors.html & similar results from other manufacturers are also just a search away. We understand making a informed purchase decision is important and can be confusing.

We are here to help.

Thanks!

Sameer K

[D Fosse · Accepted solution]

Some of those requirements can roughly be translated as "anything newer than 8-10 years". It doesn't really apply if you're getting a new machine now.

For instance, I can't imagine you can even find a CPU without 64 bit support nowadays. The same probably goes for SSE 4.2, which is standard now.

Any i3, i5 or i7 should work well.

As for GPU, we already agreed that an integrated Intel GPU is not good enough. A NVidia GTX 1650 or upwards is a good choice.

An often undercommunicated requirement for Photoshop is disk capacity and speed. Here, the official system requirements are somewhat unrealistic. You should always have 250-500 GB or so free space, for the Photoshop scratch disk. This is for temporary storage of working data that can't be held in RAM. The ideal type of drive is what's known as NVMe or PCIe M.2. They are much faster than the previous generation of SATA SSDs, which in turn is much faster than old-fashioned spinning disks.

RAM isn't so critical. There's never "enough" anyway. Anywhere between 16 to 64 GB is fine.

[mcboatner]

This was very clear and useful, thanks!

[defaultbdx6imvcxa7j]

Hello,

Please help me, I am looking to buy a new computer (I use lightroom classic and Photoshop) currently own a MacAir, but of course need more power, I don't mind go back to PC as I found annoying the Mac ecosistem, not even use it, and very expensive.

I am looking at a Dell XPS 15":

Processor12th Generation Intel® Core™ i9-12900HK (24MB Cache, up to 5.0 GHz, 14 cores)

NVIDIA® GeForce RTX™ 3050 Ti, 4 GB GDDR6, 45 W

Memory32 GB, 2 x 16 GB, DDR5, 4800 MHz, dual-channel

Hard Drive1 TB, M.2, PCIe NVMe, SSD

LCD15.6", UHD+ 3840x2400, 60Hz, Touch, Anti-Reflect, 500 nit, InfinityEdge

All upgradebalem, Memory Ram, SSD. 

Or I can go for a MacBook pro 14" but I am nort sure if Apple M1 Max with 10-core CPU, 24-core GPU, 16-core Neural Engine will be enough or I should go with the Apple M1 Max with 10-core CPU, 32-core GPU, 16-core Neural Engine and 32 GB RAM. ($450 more expesive than Dell)

Downsize here is Mac is not upgradable so I have to be wise with the configuration, my current one has 8GB ram (2 years only) and I can't barely use it anymore, some features will be extremly slow.

thanks in advance for the advice!

[Bojan Živković]

Dell XPS 15 is more than enough as it stands right now and near feature, probably. RTX 3050Ti is sufficient and 4GB memory is good enough, at least for now and I believe near feature. Personally I am running GTX 1050 Ti at the moment and everything works just fine. Processor is newest generation.

I never used Mac so I can not compare because it seems there are some differences between Mac and Win when it comes to performance using same or similar specs.

[defaultbdx6imvcxa7j]

Thank you, I am really interested in performance, seems (to me) those settings I am looking for on the Dell XPS ar pretty solid.

[OzPhotoMan]

On my old machine I was running 8Gb, but when I upgraded my camera to a Nikon D850 that produced 30-40Mb raw files, 8Gb was not enough so I upgraded to 16Gb. Memeory size is very dependent on file size. 

[Lumigraphics]

The new M1 Mac will pretty much flatten anything with an Intel chip, especially in the mobile space. Either an M1 Pro/Max MacBook Pro or the new Mac Studio, which is faster than anything up to the PC workstation ($$$$) level.

[jane-e]

@defaultbdx6imvcxa7j 

Whether you go with Mac or the Dell, be sure the computer meets (or exceeds) the recommended system requirements:

https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/system-requirements.html

Jane

[D Fosse]

Any laptop still has three inherent shortcomings, whatever the fruit on the lid:

• disk management
• cooling
• display

[Lumigraphics]

Yeah, the biggest thing is whether you want portability or not. Laptops outsell desktops at least 2-1.

[OzPhotoMan]

Most serious photographers dont use laptops. The vast majority of users out there are not serious photogrpahers.

[Nancy OShea]

Most serious photographers dont use laptops.

By @OzPhotoMan

=========

Most professional photographers use BOTH.  😁

Laptop on location.

Desktop in the studio/office.

[Lumigraphics]

I'm a working professional photographer and my first portable was a PowerBook 5300cs (look it up.) Pretty much every serious photographer I know has both portable and desktop machines. It's silly to make an absolute statement like that, especially one that is so wrong.

[OzPhotoMan]

My apologies. I was referring to editing, correct me if i'm wrong, but I don't think a laptop without an exteranl monitor is any good for editing. 

[D Fosse]

A laptop really isn't ideal for Photoshop, but if you choose carefully you may find one that works.

An Intel integrated GPU will not be sufficient for Photoshop. You need a dedicated GPU, and the GTX1650 should work well.

The problem is that many laptops have dual GPUs - Intel + dedicated NVidia/AMD card, switched according to workload and power. In that case you need to disable the Intel GPU completely.

Dual GPUs work for simple applications that don't really use the GPU for anything more than show an image on screen. But Photoshop uses the GPU for actual data processing, and the result returned to Photoshop for further processing. It's a two-way flow. You can't send data to one GPU and get it back from the other. So there can only be one single GPU.

See section 7 and 8 here: https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/kb/troubleshoot-gpu-graphics-card.html 

An additional consideration is disk space and configuration. Photoshop needs a lot of free disk space for the scratch disk. Make sure the laptop in question has a big internal drive, preferably 1 TB.

[mcboatner]

Thank you, although I'm looking for a desktop tower.

[Trevor.Dennis]

A laptop really isn't ideal for Photoshop, but if you choose carefully you may find one that works.

By @D Fosse

I personally hate using Photoshop on a laptop, but Scott Kelby and his Photoshop Guys all seem to use MBPs as their primary Photoshop systems.  They are constantly travelling and training, so need the mobility of a laptop.    However if you are young and have decent eyesight (I can barely remember those days) then perhaps look at decent gaming laptops.  They tend to have the sort of spec that works well with Photoshop.   The bottom line tends to be that clock speed is king, so a CPU with a >5GHz clock speed will outperform a far more expensive CPU with twice as many cores and a lower clock speed when it comes to Photoshop.

For real world system tests for Photoshop (and most serious content creation software) Pugot Systems is the place to go.  Check out the articles using the software filters, and their Products tab to see what system specs they use for particular usage.

Puget Custom Computers: PC Hardware Articles (pugetsystems.com)

[Chuck Uebele]

I would avoid an Intel GPU at all cost, as well as an integrated card.

[Trevor.Dennis]

Adding to Chuck's comment, we see a lot of threads here from people who buy laptops with powerful GPUs, but their laptops insist on using the built in Intel GPU with Photoshop to save battery use.  It's fixable, but a PITA.

[Bojan Živković]

Puget Bench reports that latest Intel processors are better than AMD Adobe Photoshop: 12th Gen Intel Core vs AMD Ryzen 5000 Series (pugetsystems.com)

It appears that integrated graphic which ships with 12600K is good enough for Photoshop  PugetBench List (pugetsystems.com) 

I haven't tested yet but I have ordered Ryzen 5 5600G (huge discount on amazon 25.5.2022 as I am writing this) which has graphic processing unit and score of 1515 operating per second according to PassMark PassMark Software - Video Card Benchmarks - GPU Compute Video Cards

Graphic card pricing is still very, very high at least in this part of the world and I am trying to help anyone who is looking to skip GPU until prices stabilize.

[Nancy OShea]

Puget Systems has Photoshop-ready workstations. 

https://www.pugetsystems.com/recommended/Recommended-Systems-for-Adobe-Photoshop-139/Buy_150