[colonel00]

I'd love to hear some input on system specs, parts lists or even prebuilt machines I should look at for a new PC. It will mainly be used for everyday stuff like surfing the internet, work crap and all that along with PP of photos and videos. I don't need a gaming rig but I'd like something pretty snappy. Currently my machine bogs down with Lightroom and there is a delay when edits are applied and much worse at times when going from one photo to the next.

Anyway, with a budget of $1K or under, I'm hoping for some suggestions from some of the techies and possibly some good deals to watch for.

Thanks.

[BigDave]

Maximize your RAM, get the fastest clock speed you can afford and at LEAST a Win 7 system. A good graphics card (gaming needs are not necessary) and a great monitor. Add about 1 terabyte of storage and you should be good!

[savoche]

As has been said, lots of RAM (I have 32 GB), SSD for the system and LR catalog (if you use LR), a fast CPU (my 4 core i5 should probably have been an i7), a decent graphics card (I have a passively cooled gaming one, geforce 1050 I think), and a good monitor (I have a 27" IPS panel 2560x1440 pixels).

I would rather have a slower system with a great monitor than a mediocre screen on a blazingly fast PC if those are my options.

[dafbp]

As has been said, lots of RAM (I have 32 GB), SSD for the system and LR catalog (if you use LR), a fast CPU (my 4 core i5 should probably have been an i7), a decent graphics card (I have a passively cooled gaming one, geforce 1050 I think), and a good monitor (I have a 27" IPS panel 2560x1440 pixels).

I would rather have a slower system with a great monitor than a mediocre screen on a blazingly fast PC if those are my options.

Definitely invest in a good monitor, as it will stay with you for years. CPUs come and go, and you can get a decent system (CPU/mobo) now for half the price of a good QHD (2560*1440) IPS monitor, and upgrade 1 year later for a big performance boost. Cheaply, if you choose a system where you can just upgrade the CPU and keep the rest without a performance penalty (and I'm not kidding).
For color acuracy, IPS is a must.

[TER-OR]

The Tom's Hardware forums are a great resource for builders and buyers. They'll have threads for PC builds, gaming/editing/theater etc.

I went a little different a few years ago, with a lower-power build using on-chip graphics which has proven very good. I figured I could add a discrete card if required, but in no way has the graphics been a problem. It takes a little while to import a bunch of RAW files from the K3 catalogs, but nothing inordinate. The SSD is certainly a must these days, and again Tom's has a lot of evaluations to consider. The SSD costs are a bit high now, but for this work you don't need the most expensive options - they're just not worth the cost. An M2 drive would be something to consider, though.

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/all.html?refine=build-your-own&refine=photo+video

[timw4mail]

Consider an AMD Ryzen CPU over an Intel. They are competitive with the Intel options, and generally less expensive.

[interested_observer]

Good Morning -

I saw the post before I went to bed, but I decided to just crash last night. There is a wonderful web site devoted to this "build a pc" effort - Pick parts. Build your PC. Compare and share. - PCPartPicker that makes the effort really easy. Two years ago, I used it to build a similar PC - here is the story and all the build details....

• Building a new PC - Lightroom - PentaxForums.com

A couple of things that might help.

• The OS that you run does matter. The memory utilization and allocation strategy of Windows and Linux are polar opposites. Windows wants to always maximize the amount of available RAM, while Linux takes the position of maximizing the utilization of RAM. What that means is that Windows will roll just about anything out to cache asap, while Linux will keep everything in RAM until it absolutely required additional memory, then roll out the least recently used set of pages. For instance, the other day I was actually looking at how my RAM was utilized while doing some post processing. I was running the OS (Win 8.1), FireFox, LightRoom 5.6, AffinityPhoto, Microsoft ICE and Oloneo PhotoEngine - all heavy hitters in terms of RAM utilization in parallel while processing a VERY large set of stitched and stacked panoramas. RAM utilization was pegged at 8GB - with 16GB installed. I would have thought that the memory utilization would have been higher. I really did not investigate farther. Over the last year I have been thinking about sticking another 16GB of RAM in - but it really appears that Windows is not interested in using it - so why bother. Things are running just fine as it currently is.

• With everything installed - lots of applications, I am only using 128GB of my 256GB SSD that is my system drive (c. I do roll off LightRoom's catalog off to my E: drive - which consists of 3 clustered physical drives - a 256GB SSD that faces the OS, and 2 - 3TB rotating drives. The motherboard I used turns out is able to support the Intel Smart Response Technology (SRT) - which makes the 256GB SSD appear to be single 3TB SSD (using the rotating disks in a RAID 1 mirrored configuration). Essentially, I loose no speed having both the LR catalog and all of my images on the E: drive. It was a bit tricky in setting this up. Actually, SRT only uses 64GB of the SSD as the front end cache - so in retrospect, I should have used a smaller SSD.

• The graphics card was a $50 low to middle end card, so that when LR decided to use the graphics cards for processing, I would have something to support it.

... and this little netbook that I am currently using on the kitchen table is dying a slow death (~5 years old). The keyboard is going along with the USB ports, that I continually need to unplug and re-plug the mouse into, so that it will be recognized. It's also just a single core, so it's slooooooow - but I wanted something to use while traveling that was small and lite weight.

• Well, yesterday while I was shopping over at Costco - I saw that they had a Dell XPS 13 Laptop, I7 quad core (they said??? - probably dual physical cores with 4 logical cores), 16GB RAM and 512GB SSD with their +QAD screen (3000 x 1800) for $1099. Super thin (metal case) and 2 pounds heavy.

[promacjoe]

A few notes on building a new system.

1: SSD's have a limited number of write cycles. Consider moving all your User/cache files off the SSD and onto a physical drive.

2: RAM, get as much RAM as you can afford. You can create a RAM drive, (virtual hard drive) on the excess RAM. You can then store cash files in this RAM drive. This can increase the speed to your hard drive as much as 10 times over a SSD. Google RAM drive. AMD has a good one, and several tutorials on YouTube. There are also many good free ones. do not store the image on your SSD.

3: Windows 7. If you're using Windows 7, make sure you have a PS2 compatible keyboard. Windows 7 does not "Natively" contain USB3 Drivers. Only as an update. The USB ports may not work on the new motherboard Until you update the drivers. Once updated, you can plug in. the mouse and keyboard to a USB 3 port, and finish the installation. also make sure your new motherboard has a PS/2 port. also note: make sure you understand how to use the keyboard shortcuts to navigate through windows. Write them down if you need to. It is a pain to try to figure out a keyboard shortcut in the middle of trying to install Windows.

4: when buying a processor, read the description carefully. Some processors come with a fan/heatsink. Some do not. Make sure you consider this in your purchase. Also on AMD processors , some processors have the video processor built into them, some do not. Just because your motherboard has a video-out doesn't mean your processor will support it. you still may need a separate video card.

other than that, make sure you read all documentation available before you purchase the item. If you have any questions, Please ask. Someone will try to answer your question.

[timw4mail]

3: Windows 7. If you're using Windows 7, make sure you have a PS2 compatible keyboard. Windows 7 does not "Natively" contain USB3 Drivers. Only as an update. The USB ports may not work on the new motherboard Until you update the drivers. Once updated, you can plug in. the mouse and keyboard to a USB 3 port, and finish the installation. also make sure your new motherboard has a PS/2 port. also note: make sure you understand how to use the keyboard shortcuts to navigate through windows. Write them down if you need to. It is a pain to try to figure out a keyboard shortcut in the middle of trying to install Windows.

I would avoid Windows 7, for reasons of outdated drivers, and that Windows 10 is not going away.

[promacjoe]

Many motherboard manufacturers are still supporting Windows 7 drivers. Because of this there is no reason to avoid Windows 7 at this time. How long they will continue supporting the drivers is a different story. Security updates is a bigger issue. But this is a big issue with Windows 10 as well. If you do not know how to disable it Windows 10 will copy every keystroke every mouse click that you make and possibly send this information to Microsoft. This includes your username and passwords. For me I am still using Windows 7 on a brand-new AMD system. I have no issues with drivers. My system and virus protection is always kept up-to-date. And since I do not put any really important information on my system, bank accounts or credit card numbers etc., I am not very worried about security. the choice of operating system is yours. But don't be afraid of Windows 7, it is still a viable operating system. Update when you feel comfortable doing so.

[cali92rs]

What is the component that determines how fast something renders on LR?
For example, when I click on a photo in Library, a preview takes a while to generate. It is annoying

[promacjoe]

It is a combination of processor speed, memory, hard drive and video card. Windows routinely cashes to a hard drive. Moving that cash to a virtual hard drive, (ram drive) will speed up your system. you will need at least 4 GB of memory available for windows. The rest can be set up in a RAM drive. unless you're doing high-level 3-D graphics or gaming, or using a 4K monitor, a video card will not improve your performance that much. just use a decent video card. You don't have to go for the high-end cards. $70-$100, is a good price range. Just remember, the programs you choose and how you set up your machine makes a big difference in your performance. Do your homework, and make good choices.

[colonel00]

Thanks for all of the replies. I currently have an AMD a10-7850K APU processor running integrated video off the motherboard. I can't remember what the motherboard is off hand. Currently I have 8GB of DDR3 1600 I think. I have three SSD's, one for my OS (Windows 10) and two that I copy files to for editing before I eventually move them to a regular HDD for long term storage. I know I may be "wasting" write cycles on the SSD's by doing this but it has helped with speed. However, the system still struggles even with simple things like edits. For instance, if I use the brush tool to touch something up, I usually have to wait a second or two for the effect to happen and then go from there. It's not fluid at all. Switching between photos has a bunch of lag, especially if I am switching while at 100% crop. I get by alright but on days when I'm shooting birds and I come home with 500 images to go through, it really gets old having to wait on each image to load slowly.

Now, I have considered just getting some more RAM and possibly a GPU and hoping that would fix the problems but that still leaves me with a moderate investment on a machine that is still fairly long in the tooth.

[promacjoe]

if you have 8G of memory, And you're using Windows, try setting 4GB up as a RAM drive instead of using an SSD. truthfully Windows does not like to use more than 4GB of memory, Windows will still cash to the hard drive. So you could have 64GB of memory and still have a similar problem.

if your system is over seven years old, I would suggest biting the bullet and upgrading your system. You will be much happier with it. but I would still's suggest setting up a RAM drive.

[colonel00]

Thanks. I actually have some memory on order that should give me 32gb and I'll look into setting up a RAM drive. I'll see what improvements it makes and if it still struggles, this machine can become a backup machine for redundant storage and I'll look at diving into a new machine build.