PC for photo editing in Lightroom and Photoshop

Yellow_Blue

I an Looking for new PC and trying to save a little by not buying Mac, so wonder if anyone can advice on specs.
How important graphic card is for photo-editing? Read through few discussions and it looks like there is no agreement on this.
I am looking at the following specs at the moment:

Dell UltraSharp U2412M 24-Inch Screen LED-lit Monitor
Intel Core i5 CPU with 4x 3000 MHz
8 GB RAM
Intel HD Graphics 2500

D.S.

I use a imac myself so won't comment on the monitor / graphics card. However, I will say that you should try and match the package you buy (cpu, monitor, ram, graphics card etc) to the type of editing you do. I use a D800 and regularly have file sizes in the 2-3gig when doing compositing using raw files. What kind of user are you or plan to be? (heavy duty - lots of PP with big files sizes, or light touch / moderate editing?)

I ended up buying more RAM to cope with the workflow and filesizes I had. In general, I reckon you'll find 8gb way too low - particularly if using raw files. Would up this if you can afford it to 32bg. If the RAM slots are accessible - it may be cheaper to buy these online, seperate to your main purchase, and fit them yourself.

almorris

Here's a link to an Adobe tech discussion on building a PS machine. Bit old but I think it covers the needs for a p.c. dedicated to PS. http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/2010/09/how-to-set-up-a-great-photoshop-machine.html

flyingsnail

Up until recently I had been running this setup for PS/LR

i5 2500k (4 cores 3300 mhz)
4 GB Ram
1GB graphics card

Now I didn't find the setup to bad if I was just running PS or LR but I couldn't use both at the same time, I was pushed to upgrade the ram (to 12GB) because one of the plug-in I was using required a minimum of 8gb. Now with more ram I could use PS and LR at the same time without any problems. If I was you I would (assuming your budget allows) aim for 8GB as a minimum with the 16GB as a preference if your work flow relies on using both programs at the same time.

With that said the single best upgrade I have made with this computer is moving from a standard optical drive to and SSD as my primary drive. The speed at which you can open / save or move files is a great help. You don't have to get a large one, I only got 256 GB and still have my standard hard drives for mass storage so I move the files off the SSD once I have finished editing.

magicbastarder

as mentioned above, it depends a lot on what your camera is.
if you're using a camera which has a 12 MP 8 bit output, your working file sizes will be one sixth of what a 36MP 16bit output camera would produce.
the first will produce an image size of ~36MB, the second will produce one of ~216MB. which will place a much greater burden on your RAM requirements.