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I have an i9-13900K with RTX4080, 64Gb RAM.. nearly empty 2tb 980 Pro for Scratch.
Photoshop is lightly threaded so it tends to be CPU cl;ock speed that counts. I responded to another hardware thread earlier today, and ran Resource Monitor while performing some heavy duty funtions, and I couldn't stress the system no matter how hard I tried. The CPU was peaking at 50 to 60% , but RAM, GPU and drive activity was basically zero.
Even if Photoshop and maybe Illustrator will be your main use, go ask about hardware on the Premier Pro forum
Check out the Hardware links
As I have mentioned earlier "The only benchmark I can find for Photoshop is PugetBench, but this seems to still have the Mac system running through Rosetta. In other relevant benchmarks (Single Core CPU) the PC seems to perform better, but I'm unsure of how this would translate to real-world Photoshop usage.".
By @romany36267645
The articles I linked to below all have extensive results specifically for Photoshop, but you can change the filters for other apps. The 'systems they sell' link points to systems they consider ideal for Photshop. I chose to use an RTX4080 and a pair of 2Tb Samsung 980 Pro drives, and moved some fast storage over from my old system. I'm hoping to get five years out of this system.
Many years ago a couple of guys from the Premiere Pro Hardware forum had site listing results from hundreds of systems that ran an in depth set of benchmarks they devised for Premiere Pro. They stopped colating results after CS5 because it was a huge job for them. The results were interesting in that the highest placed Mac system was in the 200s. Things may have changed since then, but Windows PCs are easier to configure for high demand workflows, and MUCH cheaper. I remember that Scott Kelby and his buddies collectively known as The Photoshop Guys all used MBPs but Photoshop needs a lot lower system resources than Premiere Pro. So I have stayed with Windows PCs and Workstations through many upgrades.
My background is primarily Mac, this is my take on it.
In other relevant benchmarks (Single Core CPU) the PC seems to perform better, but I'm unsure of how this would translate to real-world Photoshop usage. Does Photoshops optimization for the Apple processors make up for its weaker raw computing power?
By @romany36267645
As a still image editor where often only one document is open, there is only so much parallelization that can be done. I think that favors single-core performance in the specific case of Photoshop. Applications built to regularly process many images or frames at once, such as Lightroom Classic, Camera Raw, or video editors, can typically make much more effective use of all available CPU and GPU cores.
Now if we’re talking Mac vs PC, a good PC may be faster in Photoshop. Intel-based CPUs seem to be capable of higher single-core and often also multi-core performance, largely because they have a higher power budget. Apple Silicon is definitely more efficient, but that is mostly a concern for mobile or small desktop machines where there is much less ventilation and cooling. The higher Intel power budget means if you have a tower with great cooling, you should be able to simply pour a lot of wattage into the tower and the CPU/GPU should be able to beat just about any Mac that shows up. Also, if you expect to do much 3D, right now the Mac is not really a contender in 3D against Nvidia graphics cards for PCs.
Where Apple really shines right now is in those mobile and small desktop uses. The Mac laptops can in some cases perform surprisingly well vs Intel for intensive applications, not because the Mac is actually more powerful, but because of performance per watt: To achieve the same level of performance, many PC laptops/mini desktops need power and cooling that are not available, so they slow down either because of not enough watts or too much heat. There are some PC workstation laptops that can solidly beat Mac laptops in sheer performance, but only when they are connected to their 140+ watt power supply plugged into a wall and fans at maximum; not when unplugged.
But CPU is not everything, and when comparing them you have to carefully consider your photo work vs the GPU. For a PC, you’re choosing an amount of RAM + discrete graphics RAM. For a Mac, you have no choice of GPU except core count, and system memory is shared with graphics. But not in the same was as Intel integrated graphics; Apple Silicon is said to manage system vs graphics memory in a much more flexible and dynamic way.
This has two consequences. One is that if you have a PC and Mac with 96GB memory, the PC is really 96GB RAM for the system + whatever amount or graphics memory is on the discrete GPU; and the Mac has 96GB of memory dynamically allocated between system and graphics; so in theory the Mac has less potential memory available for Photoshop because graphics needs some.
But not always. I saw a YouTube video of an interesting edge case where a specific operation went faster on the Mac because the PC graphics card had 16GB graphics RAM, but because the Mac had 64GB of Unified Memory and the application did not need most of it, the Mac could throw much more than 16GB of memory at graphics, so it won the test. But that is an edge case for this discussion, because for photo editing, as long as there is at least 8GB available to graphics, it is rare that the amount of graphics memory would be the limiting factor. But that is an example of how Apple Silicon Unified Memory is not always a drain on system memory and can potentially make more memory available to graphics, on a Mac with far more system memory than applications need at the moment.
The other thing to keep in mind is what parts of Photoshop need what components. Many Photoshop benchmarks are a specific selection of features from a certain point of view, but if you don’t edit that way, you’ll get different results. And some benchmarks represent very traditional workflows, not fully accounting for new features in the last 5 years. For example, the more you edit using features from the first 20 years of Photoshop, the more single-core performance will help. But the more you use features developed during the last 5–10 years of Photoshop, the more the CPU/GPU cores and graphics memory matter. Specifically, Photoshop/Camera Raw features based on AI, such as upscaling and detail enhancing, denoiseing, content removing, healing, etc. are much more dependent on having a good recent GPU. And we know those features are an intensive area of development right now. For AI, graphics in Apple Silicon Macs seem to perform well compared to PC discrete graphics.
So that’s a long rambling way of saying be careful about comparisons, because of architectural differences between current PCs and Macs, and how various components are used by different parts of Photoshop.
A short version of this could be that the more your work can be on a desktop with a beefy power supply and serious cooling system, the more a PC with a high end recent graphics card might result in higher potential maximum Photoshop performance; and the more you want to get a lot of work done fast on battery or in a mini desktop, the more you want a Mac. Or, as in Trevor’s example, if your most intensive work doesn’t come close to pushing either platform to the edge, then either would be more than good enough: Then you just choose the one you like more or that costs less.
The article is not "largely outdated". The information is based on Photoshop benchmarks for current-gen hardware…These benchmarks are based on real-world tasks. There are no better ways of objectively measuring performance that I know of.
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By @romany36267645
Open 18MP .CR2 RAW Image, Resize to 500MB*, Rotate, Magic Wand Select, Mask Refinement, Paint Bucket, Gradient, Content Aware Fill, Save .PSD File, Open .PSD File
Filter Tasks:
Camera Raw Filter, Lens Correction, Reduce Noise, Smart Sharpen*, Field Blur*, Tilt-Shift Blur*, Iris Blur*, Adaptive Wide Angle, Liquify
* denotes GPU-accelerated tasks"
I think I see what D Fosse getting at. It’s similar to in my earlier reply where I said a realistic comparison depends on the feature mix of the benchmark compared to what you are actually going to use today. I have had similar issues with that benchmark, some examples below:
Open 18MP .CR2: Oh, I bought that 18MP Canon DSLR…in 2007. Today, even though I am slow to upgrade cameras, I no longer regularly use any cameras where the raw file is only 18MP. And I’m just midrange…today, the serious Photoshop users here are all asking about performance processing files from their 48MP, 60MP, etc. sensors, sometimes +100MP with pixel shift resolution boost or panorama merging.
Magic Wand Select: Although this is still popular, even the most basic computers will have no problem with this feature from 1999. The selection performance challenge today is for the more processor intensive AI-based features such as Object Selection, Select Sky/Background, and Select People in Camera Raw. These are all far more intensive for both CPU and GPU, so we all need to know more about this, but they are not yet incorporated into common Photoshop benchmarks.
Gradient: Photoshop just completely renovated gradients around a new non-destructive, easier to edit gradient object. Those tend to be more processor-intensive, and again is so new it is not clear if any benchmark is measuring it yet.
Content-Aware Fill: OK, that is a little more up to date…but not as of last month. The new Generative Fill is easier to use, returns much better results…but requires a mix of on-board and network/cloud processing; probably not part of any benchmark yet.
Save/Open PSD File. This is fine, but if someone really is working with huge Photoshop files, PSD can’t handle it: Where is the test of PSB (Photoshop Large Document Format)?
Filter Tasks: Some of those are still widely used, but many are not. For example, how many of those blurs do you use every day? Liquify is still quite popular though, and good to include.
So those are examples of what I meant by talking about how a benchmark is weighted between what we all used in Photoshop in 2003 and what we are all using now in 2023. The omission of Smart Objects (very processor intensive) and AI features (heavy demand on GPU) are particularly unfortunate. I hope that major benchmarks are working on this, because Photoshop has changed more in the last 5 years than in the previous 25. (The PugetBench page says it was last updated in 2019…4 years ago.)
For Photoshop, the major traffic points are disk throughput and the GPU. Those two are the priorities. The CPU is far down on the list. If you have to work off external drives, for instance, you're already set way back and no fast CPU can save you.
By @D Fosse
You keep saying that Dag, but I am sure you are wrong. Chris Coz used to tell us that CPU clock spped was everything for Photoshop. Photoshop is lightly threaded, but I do see a lot of multi thread usage if I try really hard. This a 5000 pixel brush with 1% spacing dragged all over the screen in a 50,000 pixel square 16 bit image.
Something I have found strange with this system is the the CPU idles as around 5.3Ghz, but drops to around 4.9Ghz when loading it with the brush test. GPU is doing nothing.
I tried Nueral Filter Restoration on a 2000 x 3000 pixel photo with a LOT of damage. It only took about two seconds, but still barely put a blip on the GPU
Check out the Puget Systems benchmarks. GPU is still not crucial for Photoshop performance.
All right, all right...this is beginning to look like medieval scholastics hurling benchmarks at each other 😉 But I did my bit in leading us down that rabbit hole, so I'll eat up some of it. Mea culpa 🙂
I stand by most of what I said. But yes, I probably overdid it to make my point clear. Can we go back to work now? 😉
"might result in higher potential maximum Photoshop performance" This is exactly what I'm trying to find a conclusive answer for. The desktop I've described in my initial post should have better performance but I don't know for certain. I'm sure both of them would be "good enough" but it would be helpful to know which system is truly faster in the real world.
By @romany36267645
What the replies in this discussion are showing is that the answer to choosing a computer for Photoshop, even within just the PC or just the Mac world, is similar to buying anything else tech-related in that there often is not one conclusive superior solution. Whether you’re buying a car, an appliance, etc. the answer is commonly “it depends.” And that applies here too.
One way to get closer to “conclusive” is to narrow down the scope. From your replies it’s clearer that you’re focusing on a desktop, for mostly Photoshop, and you want the fastest potential Photoshop performance even if your actual workload might not need it. For that specific combination, my suspicion even as a loyal Mac user is that a PC tower desktop with 64–96GB RAM and a top tier Nvidia graphics card is probably going to “conclusively” have faster potential performance than any Mac.
What the Mac Studio is very well suited for is the “big middle” demographic of users who just want an efficient, quiet little desktop that, even in its base model, has more than enough power out of the box to smoothly take care of what most people need to get through in Photoshop. But if the best Mac Studio is up against a well-equipped PC desktop in a brute force contest where the goal is the fastest potential processing of the very largest and most intensive Photoshop files (large pixel dimensions, heavy compositing, Smart Objects, lots of effects…), I expect the Mac Studio to fall well short of PC performance in both CPU and graphics.
I agree, but this is still speculation. Unfortunately seems to be about as good of an answer as we can get at this point. Unless of course, someone takes the time to do some independent testing.
By @romany36267645
And the moment you get it done, you probably have to do it again. Because everything is constantly changing. What about the new Snapdragon X Elite “Apple Silicon killer” CPU announced a couple of weeks ago? But what about the new “Mac Pro desktop performance in a backpack” Apple Silicon M3 Max that was announced shortly after that? And what about the next NVIDIA graphics card? It’s going to keep going back and forth.
In the end, the reliable old rule several of us have pointed out is still the best advice. Forget about the constantly moving “bleeding edge,” and focus on what your own work needs: Just get something you like and can afford, because the midrange and upper midrange of the Mac and PC lines, properly specced, are fast enough for most day to day Photoshop work.
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