GPU for designer

[Alex32252670s8p0]

Hello everyone. I hope I'm not in the wrong section.

I'd like some clarification regarding the requirements for a PC for design, not gaming.
- Photoshop, 2-4 files simultaneously, applying camera raw filters and color correction, max 50 MB per file
- InDesign, 2-4 files simultaneously, layout for multi-page menus or catalogs (using the book function, however, the file size is 4 GB when closed)
- Premiere, After Effects, video editing to learn how to use these software, so small things, no pretensions

The idea is a Ryzen 7 9700X CPU, 32 DDR5, 870 EVO, all chosen according to budget and performance.
The question is about the GPU: some recommend the RTX 3060 because it has 12 GB of VRAM, others push the 5060 Ti with 8 GB.
Obviously, I can't afford ultra-expensive, ultra-high-performance GPUs right now, but at least something that will allow me to work decently without any hiccups.

The countless reviews always focus exclusively on games, and I haven't found any reviews for graphics applications.

I currently have an FX8350, 16DDR3, and RX560, so I'm using a very slow machine that I already know will struggle to run certain software.

Thanks to anyone who joins the conversation.

[Glenn 8675309]

I've  got  the rtx 3060 with 12 GB ram in my old 4 core i5 cpu-  zero issues with PS or my beloved flightsim2020.
Your ideal is fine, your current is crap.

Now some will respond with "Naw dude, you need the 256 core i56 with 2TB of ram and the gtx 9090 with 256GB of ram"---no you don't need the latest and greatest.

[Alex32252670s8p0]

Hi, sorry for the delay. I was initially aiming for the 3060 too, but in the end I think I'll choose the 8GB 5060 Ti.

[ExUSA]

RAM and GPU are first, fast SSD storage for files and scratch disk are second. A video card with 16GB of RAM will be the most versatile and probably give the most longevity.

Or just get a decently spec'd Mac, an M4 Pro or Max will give you plenty of power.

[Alex32252670s8p0]

Thanks, and sorry for the delay.
They may be good, but I don't want a Mac. I don't like their policy, and I like to upgrade my PC whenever I want without having to spend ridiculous amounts.
The PC I'll build will have a Ryzen 7 9700x and 32GB of RAM, probably an 8GB RTX 5060 Ti.

[D Fosse]

The optimal price : performance ratio for Photoshop is RTX 4060 / 5060.

8 GB VRAM will work, but 12 - 16 GB is recommended.

The higher model numbers, -70 -80 -90, will be faster with certain operations (in some cases dramatically so), but it's questionable whether it's worth the rapidly increasing price tags.

[Alex32252670s8p0]

Different times, but I see that Photoshop and other tools are increasingly demanding.
The CC2020 version already required Windows 10... terrible.

[ExUSA]

Don't be surprised if software versions released at AdobeMAX, either this year or next, require Windows 11.

As for the "I want to be able to upgrade" that's fine, but it often means replacing components that you under-specc'd originally. Buying a video card with 8GB of RAM if fine fot today but you'll want 16GB tomorrow, so there's $300 before inflation and tariffs.

[davescm]

To be fair, if Photoshop's developers always had to design down to older hardware and operating systems, we would complain about functions being slow and ask why isn't Photoshop using our GPUs effectively. We already see such complaints about older functions that have not been re-developed to use the GPU, and operating system APIs, in the way that the core functions have in recent versions.

Dave

[jane-e]

I see that Photoshop and other tools are increasingly demanding.

By @Alex32252670s8p0

I've had to replace computers more than a few times when they could no longer run the updates to my software. Even so, I can't imagine Adobe and other companies trying to be compatible with my first two computers from 1989 — or even any of the subsequent ones! I've found that upgrading when purchasing makes my computers last a few years longer, saving money over time.

Mac SE/30

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_SE/30

Compaq 286

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compaq_Deskpro

BTW, Microsoft will stop supporting Windows 10 in another month, meaning there will be no more security updates. I wouldn't want to risk it if it were me.

Jane

[Jeff Arola]

Windows 10 has an extended security update program to extend security updates for at least a year as of this post.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-US/windows/end-of-support

Looking forward to Adobe making an announcement about Windows 10 sooner rather than later, so users can start planning for Windows 11 if it's a requirement to use the latest yet-to-be released Adobe software.

[jane-e]

Windows 10 has an extended security update program to extend security updates for at least a year as of this post.

By @Jeff Arola

That's really good to know, Jeff. I followed the link to the FAQs and see that it is not automatic and there is a nominal fee. Worth it, imo, for those who are keeping Windows 10.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-US/windows/end-of-support#FAQ3

Jane

[Trevor.Dennis]

I'd be interested in how long people typically go between replacing computers.  I think I am aropund five to six years, but I like to keep an eye on performance charts for CPU, and drive.  I also look at motherboards and how many M.2 slots they have, although you have to be careful about PCIe lanes.  I am not super flash in that respect, but our Dave is clued up and always happy to help. 

I have stayed with 64GB memory for my last two systems, because it never got close to maxing out on my last system.  But I do see some surprisingly large photoshop temp files, so I absolutely prioritise drive performance.  That continues to be an area where significant gains continue to become available.  I then spend what I feel gives me the best bang for buck GPU (currently RTX4080).    

We all follow the Puget Systems articles as they give real world performence information that you can filter by the apps you will be running. Also look at the systems they sell as they are based on a huge amount of testing.

Finally, I now have a workstation supplier that I trust here in New Zealand (Compulsion Tech).  I have had some bad experiences once waiting a _very_ long time for a promised build, and after an amazingly good experience with the above company, which involved several conversations with the owner Ben.  I was able fine tune the spec of one of their high end workstations and he had it to me in no time at all.

Something that has surprised me recently, is that among our group friends on this forum, Jane has the most powerful system by a good margin, and its a Mac!  

[jane-e]

Something that has surprised me recently, is that among our group friends on this forum, Jane has the most powerful system by a good margin, and its a Mac!  

By @Trevor.Dennis

No comments from me, Trevor, because I think both platforms are good. 

I replaced my January 2017 computer in December 2024, so it was just short of eight years for me this time.

Jane

[Trevor.Dennis]

Jane, my surprise was that from following Harm Millaard and Bill Gehrke on the Prem Pro Hardware forum and their PPBM5 results table, and the highest placed Mac was something like 250th.  So my expectations were suck in that long ago past.  I just checked the site (mainly so I spelled their names right) and the 3930K system built with their advice, is still placed 17th out of what was several hundred systems at that time. 🙂  We lost Harm way back, and Bill's last post is from 2018, so I don't know if he is still with us.

[Glenn 8675309]

Im in the windows 10 group who has an older system (6 years) with a 4 core i5 cpu, 16 gb of ram, and a nice rtx 3060 with 12 Gb of ram--- what is holding the video card back is the pci bus- it's speed is slow (2x) but the video card works fine.   I got the video card mainly for ms flight sim 2020- and I am wquite happy with the results.

My mobo doesn't have the tpm chip it was near it's end of life which I bought the computer.

I usually tell people to decide on a video card- then buy the next model up- pay $$ and you will be happy with gaming, and rendering speeds if you do any 3d modelling. 

I will transfer my video card into the new computer when I get it (probably in two months) and simply transfer the programs with some software I bought last year- it does a really good job.  

The one bad thing about video cards: the "grass is allways a bit greener" with a newer model.  I go could out and buy the video card I want ins Just under $9,000 and my wife would kill me.  Over 24,000 cuda cores-- my 3d renders would be blazing fast. 

[Trevor.Dennis]

You should talk to Dave about systems for 3D renders.  He makes full use of living close to the North Pole as it keeps his mini-Crey nice and cool.

[davescm]

@Trevor.Dennis Haha, I like it. I built my current system early in 2021 and it still serves me well. It has an NVidia 3090 24GB OC GPU, i9-10920X CPU and 256GB DDR4 RAM. That is overkill for Photoshop but I built it for 3D physics simulations which can eat up RAM, and rendering where it still performs well, and should last a couple more years.

@Alex32252670s8p0 In your situation I would go for an Nividia 4060 or 5060. One thing to note, if you choose the NVidia GPU, install the Studio drivers rather than the game ready drivers. These tend to be more reliable.
That said there is a bug in the current drivers, which I have raised with NVidia, and results in 10 bit/channel displays only using 8 bits/channel. That requires switching back to driver 546.33 to get the full 10 bit/channel display. It only affects high end monitors with that 10 bit/channel capability though.

Dave

[jane-e]

@Trevor.Dennis 

It's always good to start the day with laughing and I love this!

@modesta_1982 

If I recall correctly, the way Dave dealt with the heat was to install three fans in his current computer. Also, he usually includes the advice to do a clean install of the Studio Driver and to skip the GeForce experience. 

     One huge advantage of building your own computer is that you can swap out components when needed. That option is not available to me because I'm on a Mac.

Jane

[davescm]

@jane-e There are three case fans and plus an additional three fans on a watercooler radiator in there.
Dave

[Trevor.Dennis]

Jane, I know you were talking about the video card driver, but I am convinced that a clean OS reinstall can make a lot of difference.  I got my current i9-13900K system at the beginning of 2023, so approaching three years old.  It was definitely more snappy with Photoshop when I first bought it.  Harm and Bill were pretty insistent that you should not share an NLE computer (Premiere Pro, After Effects and Audition).  If you were brave enough to share your list of running processes from Task Manager, they'd give you a hard time (understatement).  After three years my system is more than a bit cluttered.

181 background processes would sent them into apoplexy!  I only use the Space Mouse with SketchUp, and a ShuttleProV2 with Prem Pro and AE, which is not very often, so they are wasting resources 95% of the time.

@Conrad_C Is it possible to have separate Start-Ups each with designated processes running with Windows? I can remember what OS you run, and I am now thinking it is probably Mac.

[Alex32252670s8p0]

Thanks for the comment.

I have an old PC that just can't keep up.
I'm talking about an FX8350, 16 GB DDR3, and RX560, which is now 14 years old (I replaced the GPU 5 years ago).
I'm forced to replace my computer because it's become impossible to work with the latest versions of Adobe (2020 and later). The temperatures are often so high that they shut down the computer or make it unstable, and I'm not talking about 8K projects, but even a 100-page catalog in InDesign or editing a 30 MB photo in Lightroom.

[Conrad_C]

Here are some comments on how GPU power affects the Adobe applications you mentioned:

Photoshop: The handling of multiple documents is affected more by the amount of RAM, and the free space available on any volumes you have assigned as scratch disks. The GPU is becoming more important for operations like machine learning/AI features and layer compositing, but for general Photoshop operations the most important variable is still single-core CPU speed.

Camera Raw/Lightroom: You didn’t mention this, but if you edit a lot of raw files in Camera Raw, this is where a top spec GPU is making the most difference right now (not counting video editing and 3D). Many of the latest Camera Raw features are either GPU-accelerated (they can run on the CPU, but run faster with a good GPU) or fully dependent on GPU performance (they pretty much run only on the GPU and nothing else matters). 

InDesign: The GPU can be used for display, but out of all the applications you listed, InDesign probably makes the least use of the GPU at this time. Like Photoshop, it is an older application where single-core CPU speed is still the main performance factor, and where more RAM is what helps it handle more open documents at one time.

Premiere Pro, After Effects (and by extension Adobe Media Encoder): A high performance GPU is important for these applications because many critical features are now GPU-accelerated. You’ll get the best GPU recommendations in the Video Hardware forum.

The question is about the GPU: some recommend the RTX 3060 because it has 12 GB of VRAM, others push the 5060 Ti with 8 GB.

By @Alex32252670s8p0

The way I listed the apps might help answer that question: The Adobe apps less dependent on a GPU run fine on a lower spec model like a 3060, the apps leaning heavily on the GPU right now could benefit from a 5060 for people requiring top performance and can afford that GPU.

On a strict budget, you just get what you can afford and assume you might have to wait a little longer for some things to process.

[Alex32252670s8p0]

Thanks for the comment.
My use is a bit generic; I don't edit large quantities of photos, but I like to experiment and learn.
I work a lot with InDesign and Illustrator, however.
I'd also like to learn how to use Premiere or Davinci to create short, unpretentious videos.

So I'll get the various parts to assemble a mid-budget PC (around €2,000), certainly not top-of-the-line, that I can use for my workload, and finally, a decent monitor.
A PC that's not high-end, but that will allow me to do some work and be upgradeable over time.

[Trevor.Dennis]

I'd also like to learn how to use Premiere or Davinci to create short, unpretentious videos.

By @Alex32252670s8p0

You might be interested in some tutorials that Jim on ProDesignTools is promoting at the moment. They are incredibly powerful apps, and have their shair of Ai enhanced features.  

 Free! Get 23 Hours of Premium Training for Premiere Pro and After Effects | ProDesignTools