PC upgrade plans, gpu or no?

**Mooncatt** · 03-22-2021, 07:17 AM

I'm currently planning out a new PC primarily for editing, but I'm trying to decide if I want to buy something used/ready made with a graphics card or custom build without a graphics card and add that when the market stabilizes. My current setup is an old laptop with a 4th gen i7 @3.4 GHz core clock processor with onboard video and 8 GB of RAM. Editing in Raw Therapee isn't too slow, but it really struggles with Topaz DeNoise, with long adjustment preview loading and an average export time of around 2:20 per image.

My thought with building a new PC is something along these lines:

System Builder - Core i5-10600K 4.1 GHz 6-Core, Eclipse P500A D-RGB ATX Mid Tower - PCPartPicker

This is without a dedicated graphics card. Any thoughts on if this would give an appreciable reduction in image processing/exporting time in Topaz?

I know processing through a dedicated graphics card would give the bigger impact, but I have future plans of running the new Microsoft Flight Sim and don't want to waste money on a cheap low end card simply because it's available right now. This is also why I picked this specific i5. Testing is showing the game doesn't use all cores and easily becomes CPU bound, so I want the higher core clock/lower core count for this reason even if an i7 or i9 would be faster with Topaz. When I do finally hunt for a graphics card, it'll be something like an Nvidia 2070 Super or better.

Anything I buy fully equipped today would likely need a substantial upgrade to play the flight sim. I'd love to get it all now, but the used market around me stinks (all either cheap and barely considered a gaming pc, or so pricy for good ones that I may as well build my own, no good middle ground).

**FozzFoster** · 03-22-2021, 07:50 AM - **1 Like**

Originally posted by Mooncatt

add that when the market stabilizes

GPUs are pretty much a scam these days. It hurts to say but pre-built may be better, for now.

Originally posted by Mooncatt

Microsoft Flight Sim

FWIW: I play Microsoft Flight Sim with a Ryzen 5 1600, an RX 580 8GB, and 16GB RAM - it definitely struggles for decent frames at high-ultra settings, but does the trick well on medium settings. However, my bottleneck is the GPU. Most GPUs struggle with that game currently - it's a beast!

**ramseybuckeye** · 03-22-2021, 07:51 AM - **1 Like**

I haven't built one in several years, but I think the same is true that most prebuilts won't have gaming specs unless you shell out a lot. But I also remember the reason I didn't build last time I bought a PC was that I could by a prebuilt cheaper than I could build for a good graphics but non gaming computer. Your component list looks like good quality stuff, but I'm not up to date, I thought everyone was building with AMD processors now. That seems to go back and forth. I don't think you have nearly enough memory though, but I guess you plan to add that when you add the graphics card.

**FozzFoster** · 03-22-2021, 08:01 AM

Originally posted by ramseybuckeye

amd processors

+1 amd

**jatrax** · 03-22-2021, 08:33 AM - **2 Likes**

Graphic card prices are insane right now, even if you can get one. I would build the base computer you want and figure on adding the GPU when prices come down. From what I've read that might be this fall. Bitcoin miners seem to be the biggest issue on GPU availability but I'm sure COVID has also had an impact.

I have not had a prebuilt computer in over 15 years. Anything that has the right specs also has a "gaming" slant with stickers, LED lights, wild case and a ridiculous price. You can buy the parts from Newegg and build your own for much less and get exactly what you want. Looking at your specs I would suggest a lot more RAM than 8gb. 16gb would be the minimum I would consider and 32gb would not be out of line.

You might find this information useful: Best Workstation PC for Adobe Lightroom Classic (Winter 2020) (pugetsystems.com)

Puget Sound Systems is the only company I know that tests and publishes results for what actually works when running Lightroom and other graphic programs.

**AstroDave** · 03-22-2021, 08:48 AM - **1 Like**

Originally posted by jatrax

Looking at your specs I would suggest a lot more RAM than 8gb.

+1

My current rig is an i7 with 12 GB, and the memory is often approaching full!

**ProfessorBuzz** · 03-22-2021, 09:23 AM - **2 Likes**

i7 16gb minimum and an NVidia card would be what I recommend. That I5 without GPU will be too slow. Make sure to get an SSD.

The Squirrel Mafia · 03-22-2021, 09:27 AM - **2 Likes**

I built a PC last year based on the AMD Ryzen 5 3600 CPU & 64GB of RAM. I also have an AMD RX 580 video card in there. The build cost me about +-$875 or so. It's fairly quick with RawTherapee. I don't play video games on the PC, outside of RetroArch with old-skool console games (NES, SNES, TG-16, Geneses, etc.), so I couldn't really tell you if this rig would play modern games well.

But yeah. Everything seems to be overpriced at the moment 'cause of the pandemic. The same exact build I did last year would probably cost me about +-$1,300 today. I do plan on eventually swapping out the Ryzen 5 3600 for a Ryzen 7 5800X or similar a few years from now. It will give me a much bigger boost in processing power, not that I'm complaining about the 5 3600 CPU. It's waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay faster than my former FX-8350 machine. RawTherapee spits out jpegs in about +-3.5 seconds. It would take about +-9 seconds with the FX-8350 machine.

Not a Number · 03-22-2021, 09:36 AM - **2 Likes**

I can't speak for the i5-10600K but my friend built a system for photo editing around the i7-9700K and 16GB. He didn't think the built-in GPU was up to the task based on processing time and CPU temps. He added a Gigabyte RX-590 8GB card and is happy.

I built a system around the i7-9700K 16GB and the same video card. I do very little gaming and the PEFs from my K10D aren't all that demanding for processing time. I did some tests and benchmarking on the built-in GPU vs the GPU card and yes, you are better off with a card - even a mid range card such as mine. The temps that the CPU/On-board GPU while not near throttling temps were alarming to me. I only have an air cooler but a water-cooler might help.

The i5-10600K and i7-9700K have the same built-in UHD 630 GPU running at the same base frequency. Also the built-in GPU uses main memory, not dedicated memory.

Kozlok · 03-22-2021, 10:11 AM - **2 Likes**

When I built mine, I opted for the biggest, fastest NVMe drive I could find. That has been a good decision as far as I'm concerned. Loading times are so much less now, and that impacts almost everything you do.

texandrews · 03-22-2021, 10:19 AM - **1 Like**

I got one of these in November: PowerSpec System Specs

These can be gotten from MicroCenter. It's basically their house brand, but the good thing is that it's built with off-the-shelf parts, and so is user upgradable. Excellent price. They have lots of other models, but I had to settle on this one as my desktop unexpectedly crashed and got into a bad restart loop. I needed to get something quick with what I could afford at the time. I'll recover the old computer, but will have to do a clean install of Windows, which will effectively wipe the C drive.

Very pleased (much more powerful than my old unit), and as far as the GPU went, my daughter had built her own desktop over the summer (she's pursuing a PhD ---in Art History!) and had upgraded her GPU and sent me her "old" one, a much better one, which I haven't yet installed but will be able to handle photogrammetry and any video work I can throw at it.

The only caveat here is that like so many motherboards, this one's slots are too close together, so the GPU covers up one of the free ones. Dumb, considering how big these GPU's are.

Kwong · 03-22-2021, 10:29 AM - **1 Like**

Originally posted by Mooncatt

I'm currently planning out a new PC primarily for editing, but I'm trying to decide if I want to buy something used/ready made with a graphics card or custom build without a graphics card and add that when the market stabilizes. My current setup is an old laptop with a 4th gen i7 @3.4 GHz core clock processor with onboard video and 8 GB of RAM. Editing in Raw Therapee isn't too slow, but it really struggles with Topaz DeNoise, with long adjustment preview loading and an average export time of around 2:20 per image.

My thought with building a new PC is something along these lines:

System Builder - Core i5-10600K 4.1 GHz 6-Core, Eclipse P500A D-RGB ATX Mid Tower - PCPartPicker

This is without a dedicated graphics card. Any thoughts on if this would give an appreciable reduction in image processing/exporting time in Topaz?

I know processing through a dedicated graphics card would give the bigger impact, but I have future plans of running the new Microsoft Flight Sim and don't want to waste money on a cheap low end card simply because it's available right now. This is also why I picked this specific i5. Testing is showing the game doesn't use all cores and easily becomes CPU bound, so I want the higher core clock/lower core count for this reason even if an i7 or i9 would be faster with Topaz. When I do finally hunt for a graphics card, it'll be something like an Nvidia 2070 Super or better.

Anything I buy fully equipped today would likely need a substantial upgrade to play the flight sim. I'd love to get it all now, but the used market around me stinks (all either cheap and barely considered a gaming pc, or so pricy for good ones that I may as well build my own, no good middle ground).

This day and age with the advent of AI software and to get the best performance from new hardware definitely go with the best GPU you can afford if video and photo imaging is your primary use case. Another aspect is to go with solid state drives versus spinning disks. Will offer a huge increase in performance. Lots of RAM 8GB would be a starting point but 16 should be the norm.

Lev · 03-22-2021, 10:34 AM - **1 Like**

I'd like to renew my old case, and put there some new stuff, but.... had no idea that the GPU is unreal to get these days. :/

TonyW · 03-22-2021, 10:47 AM - **1 Like**

Originally posted by Mooncatt

.....
This is without a dedicated graphics card. Any thoughts on if this would give an appreciable reduction in image processing/exporting time in Topaz?

I know processing through a dedicated graphics card would give the bigger impact, but I have future plans of running the new Microsoft Flight Sim and don't want to waste money on a cheap low end card simply because it's available right now. This is also why I picked this specific i5. Testing is showing the game doesn't use all cores and easily becomes CPU bound, so I want the higher core clock/lower core count for this reason even if an i7 or i9 would be faster with Topaz. When I do finally hunt for a graphics card, it'll be something like an Nvidia 2070 Super or better.

Anything I buy fully equipped today would likely need a substantial upgrade to play the flight sim. I'd love to get it all now, but the used market around me stinks (all either cheap and barely considered a gaming pc, or so pricy for good ones that I may as well build my own, no good middle ground).

I would double check with Topaz but suspect that integrated graphics may slow down some of the Topaz products.

If you use either Photoshop or Lightroom or even both then consideration should be given to accelerated GPU advances and the fact that Adobe seem to be utilising GPU accelaration more with each incarnation of its photo software.

Photoshop will run with onboard graphics adequately for a single 1080 display but low end GPU will be twice as fast for GPU accelerated tasks*. For a 4K or multi dispalys use a dedicated card
*Features that require a GPU for acceleration:
Artboards, Blur Gallery, Camera Raw (some), Image Size – Preserve Details, Lens Blur, Neural Filters, Select Focus, Select and Mask, Smart Sharpen.

Lightroom at this time does not utilise GPU acceleration as much as Photoshop, but it is likely IMO that this will change over time with new releases

**jatrax** · 03-22-2021, 12:00 PM - **1 Like**

Originally posted by TonyW

Lightroom at this time does not utilise GPU acceleration as much as Photoshop, but it is likely IMO that this will change over time with new releases

The last couple of releases have added GPU support for a number of Lightroom features. It appears that trend will continue. I've noticed a significant improvement in lag time for some things even with my relatively old and slow GPU card.

I had a 2gb card which Lightroom reported as only partially usable and started looking for a new card. With prices simply insane and availability almost non-existent. I mentioned it to my son who promptly handed me his old 4gb card out of his parts bin. (I guess sometimes they actually do listen to the old man

). Still under powered but with the 4gb in the new card Lightroom reports the card is fully functional. I have seen a noticeable improvement with this card and it will hold me until prices drop and I can get an 8gb card sometime in the future.

03-22-2021, 07:17 AM	#1
Mooncatt Loyal Site Supporter Join Date: May 2020 Location: Wisconsin Photos: Gallery Posts: 1,372	PC upgrade plans, gpu or no? I'm currently planning out a new PC primarily for editing, but I'm trying to decide if I want to buy something used/ready made with a graphics card or custom build without a graphics card and add that when the market stabilizes. My current setup is an old laptop with a 4th gen i7 @3.4 GHz core clock processor with onboard video and 8 GB of RAM. Editing in Raw Therapee isn't too slow, but it really struggles with Topaz DeNoise, with long adjustment preview loading and an average export time of around 2:20 per image. My thought with building a new PC is something along these lines: System Builder - Core i5-10600K 4.1 GHz 6-Core, Eclipse P500A D-RGB ATX Mid Tower - PCPartPicker This is without a dedicated graphics card. Any thoughts on if this would give an appreciable reduction in image processing/exporting time in Topaz? I know processing through a dedicated graphics card would give the bigger impact, but I have future plans of running the new Microsoft Flight Sim and don't want to waste money on a cheap low end card simply because it's available right now. This is also why I picked this specific i5. Testing is showing the game doesn't use all cores and easily becomes CPU bound, so I want the higher core clock/lower core count for this reason even if an i7 or i9 would be faster with Topaz. When I do finally hunt for a graphics card, it'll be something like an Nvidia 2070 Super or better. Anything I buy fully equipped today would likely need a substantial upgrade to play the flight sim. I'd love to get it all now, but the used market around me stinks (all either cheap and barely considered a gaming pc, or so pricy for good ones that I may as well build my own, no good middle ground).

03-22-2021, 07:50 AM - 1 Like	#2
FozzFoster Custom User Title Join Date: Jan 2016 Location: Alberta Photos: Albums Posts: 6,806	Originally posted by Mooncatt add that when the market stabilizes GPUs are pretty much a scam these days. It hurts to say but pre-built may be better, for now. Originally posted by Mooncatt Microsoft Flight Sim FWIW: I play Microsoft Flight Sim with a Ryzen 5 1600, an RX 580 8GB, and 16GB RAM - it definitely struggles for decent frames at high-ultra settings, but does the trick well on medium settings. However, my bottleneck is the GPU. Most GPUs struggle with that game currently - it's a beast! Last edited by FozzFoster; 03-22-2021 at 08:05 AM.

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03-22-2021, 07:51 AM - 1 Like	#3
ramseybuckeye Site Supporter Join Date: Apr 2009 Location: Hampstead, NC Photos: Gallery Posts: 17,291	I haven't built one in several years, but I think the same is true that most prebuilts won't have gaming specs unless you shell out a lot. But I also remember the reason I didn't build last time I bought a PC was that I could by a prebuilt cheaper than I could build for a good graphics but non gaming computer. Your component list looks like good quality stuff, but I'm not up to date, I thought everyone was building with AMD processors now. That seems to go back and forth. I don't think you have nearly enough memory though, but I guess you plan to add that when you add the graphics card.

03-22-2021, 08:01 AM	#4
FozzFoster Custom User Title Join Date: Jan 2016 Location: Alberta Photos: Albums Posts: 6,806	Originally posted by ramseybuckeye amd processors +1 amd

03-22-2021, 08:33 AM - 2 Likes	#5
jatrax Site Supporter Join Date: May 2010 Location: Washington Cascades Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 12,991	Graphic card prices are insane right now, even if you can get one. I would build the base computer you want and figure on adding the GPU when prices come down. From what I've read that might be this fall. Bitcoin miners seem to be the biggest issue on GPU availability but I'm sure COVID has also had an impact. I have not had a prebuilt computer in over 15 years. Anything that has the right specs also has a "gaming" slant with stickers, LED lights, wild case and a ridiculous price. You can buy the parts from Newegg and build your own for much less and get exactly what you want. Looking at your specs I would suggest a lot more RAM than 8gb. 16gb would be the minimum I would consider and 32gb would not be out of line. You might find this information useful: Best Workstation PC for Adobe Lightroom Classic (Winter 2020) (pugetsystems.com) Puget Sound Systems is the only company I know that tests and publishes results for what actually works when running Lightroom and other graphic programs.

03-22-2021, 08:48 AM - 1 Like	#6
AstroDave Loyal Site Supporter Join Date: May 2007 Location: Flagstaff, Arizona Posts: 1,637	Originally posted by jatrax Looking at your specs I would suggest a lot more RAM than 8gb. +1 My current rig is an i7 with 12 GB, and the memory is often approaching full!

03-22-2021, 09:23 AM - 2 Likes	#7
ProfessorBuzz Loyal Site Supporter Join Date: Feb 2018 Posts: 1,903	i7 16gb minimum and an NVidia card would be what I recommend. That I5 without GPU will be too slow. Make sure to get an SSD.

03-22-2021, 09:27 AM - 2 Likes	#8
The Squirrel Mafia Pentaxian Join Date: Jan 2015 Posts: 3,054	I built a PC last year based on the AMD Ryzen 5 3600 CPU & 64GB of RAM. I also have an AMD RX 580 video card in there. The build cost me about +-$875 or so. It's fairly quick with RawTherapee. I don't play video games on the PC, outside of RetroArch with old-skool console games (NES, SNES, TG-16, Geneses, etc.), so I couldn't really tell you if this rig would play modern games well. But yeah. Everything seems to be overpriced at the moment 'cause of the pandemic. The same exact build I did last year would probably cost me about +-$1,300 today. I do plan on eventually swapping out the Ryzen 5 3600 for a Ryzen 7 5800X or similar a few years from now. It will give me a much bigger boost in processing power, not that I'm complaining about the 5 3600 CPU. It's waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay faster than my former FX-8350 machine. RawTherapee spits out jpegs in about +-3.5 seconds. It would take about +-9 seconds with the FX-8350 machine.

03-22-2021, 09:36 AM - 2 Likes	#9
Not a Number Moderator Join Date: Mar 2012 Location: Venice, CA Posts: 10,526	I can't speak for the i5-10600K but my friend built a system for photo editing around the i7-9700K and 16GB. He didn't think the built-in GPU was up to the task based on processing time and CPU temps. He added a Gigabyte RX-590 8GB card and is happy. I built a system around the i7-9700K 16GB and the same video card. I do very little gaming and the PEFs from my K10D aren't all that demanding for processing time. I did some tests and benchmarking on the built-in GPU vs the GPU card and yes, you are better off with a card - even a mid range card such as mine. The temps that the CPU/On-board GPU while not near throttling temps were alarming to me. I only have an air cooler but a water-cooler might help. The i5-10600K and i7-9700K have the same built-in UHD 630 GPU running at the same base frequency. Also the built-in GPU uses main memory, not dedicated memory.

03-22-2021, 10:11 AM - 2 Likes	#10
Kozlok Pentaxian Join Date: Jun 2012 Location: Albuquerque Photos: Gallery Posts: 3,148	When I built mine, I opted for the biggest, fastest NVMe drive I could find. That has been a good decision as far as I'm concerned. Loading times are so much less now, and that impacts almost everything you do.

03-22-2021, 10:19 AM - 1 Like	#11
texandrews Moderator Join Date: Apr 2014 Location: Baltimore Photos: Albums Posts: 3,390	I got one of these in November: PowerSpec System Specs These can be gotten from MicroCenter. It's basically their house brand, but the good thing is that it's built with off-the-shelf parts, and so is user upgradable. Excellent price. They have lots of other models, but I had to settle on this one as my desktop unexpectedly crashed and got into a bad restart loop. I needed to get something quick with what I could afford at the time. I'll recover the old computer, but will have to do a clean install of Windows, which will effectively wipe the C drive. Very pleased (much more powerful than my old unit), and as far as the GPU went, my daughter had built her own desktop over the summer (she's pursuing a PhD ---in Art History!) and had upgraded her GPU and sent me her "old" one, a much better one, which I haven't yet installed but will be able to handle photogrammetry and any video work I can throw at it. The only caveat here is that like so many motherboards, this one's slots are too close together, so the GPU covers up one of the free ones. Dumb, considering how big these GPU's are.

03-22-2021, 10:29 AM - 1 Like	#12
Kwong Senior Member Join Date: Feb 2013 Location: Canada Photos: Albums Posts: 198	Originally posted by Mooncatt I'm currently planning out a new PC primarily for editing, but I'm trying to decide if I want to buy something used/ready made with a graphics card or custom build without a graphics card and add that when the market stabilizes. My current setup is an old laptop with a 4th gen i7 @3.4 GHz core clock processor with onboard video and 8 GB of RAM. Editing in Raw Therapee isn't too slow, but it really struggles with Topaz DeNoise, with long adjustment preview loading and an average export time of around 2:20 per image. My thought with building a new PC is something along these lines: System Builder - Core i5-10600K 4.1 GHz 6-Core, Eclipse P500A D-RGB ATX Mid Tower - PCPartPicker This is without a dedicated graphics card. Any thoughts on if this would give an appreciable reduction in image processing/exporting time in Topaz? I know processing through a dedicated graphics card would give the bigger impact, but I have future plans of running the new Microsoft Flight Sim and don't want to waste money on a cheap low end card simply because it's available right now. This is also why I picked this specific i5. Testing is showing the game doesn't use all cores and easily becomes CPU bound, so I want the higher core clock/lower core count for this reason even if an i7 or i9 would be faster with Topaz. When I do finally hunt for a graphics card, it'll be something like an Nvidia 2070 Super or better. Anything I buy fully equipped today would likely need a substantial upgrade to play the flight sim. I'd love to get it all now, but the used market around me stinks (all either cheap and barely considered a gaming pc, or so pricy for good ones that I may as well build my own, no good middle ground). This day and age with the advent of AI software and to get the best performance from new hardware definitely go with the best GPU you can afford if video and photo imaging is your primary use case. Another aspect is to go with solid state drives versus spinning disks. Will offer a huge increase in performance. Lots of RAM 8GB would be a starting point but 16 should be the norm.

03-22-2021, 10:34 AM - 1 Like	#13
Lev Veteran Member Join Date: Aug 2015 Location: Tbilisi, Georgia Posts: 1,197	I'd like to renew my old case, and put there some new stuff, but.... had no idea that the GPU is unreal to get these days. :/

03-22-2021, 10:47 AM - 1 Like	#14
TonyW Veteran Member Join Date: Feb 2016 Posts: 706	Originally posted by Mooncatt ..... This is without a dedicated graphics card. Any thoughts on if this would give an appreciable reduction in image processing/exporting time in Topaz? I know processing through a dedicated graphics card would give the bigger impact, but I have future plans of running the new Microsoft Flight Sim and don't want to waste money on a cheap low end card simply because it's available right now. This is also why I picked this specific i5. Testing is showing the game doesn't use all cores and easily becomes CPU bound, so I want the higher core clock/lower core count for this reason even if an i7 or i9 would be faster with Topaz. When I do finally hunt for a graphics card, it'll be something like an Nvidia 2070 Super or better. Anything I buy fully equipped today would likely need a substantial upgrade to play the flight sim. I'd love to get it all now, but the used market around me stinks (all either cheap and barely considered a gaming pc, or so pricy for good ones that I may as well build my own, no good middle ground). I would double check with Topaz but suspect that integrated graphics may slow down some of the Topaz products. If you use either Photoshop or Lightroom or even both then consideration should be given to accelerated GPU advances and the fact that Adobe seem to be utilising GPU accelaration more with each incarnation of its photo software. Photoshop will run with onboard graphics adequately for a single 1080 display but low end GPU will be twice as fast for GPU accelerated tasks. For a 4K or multi dispalys use a dedicated card Features that require a GPU for acceleration: Artboards, Blur Gallery, Camera Raw (some), Image Size – Preserve Details, Lens Blur, Neural Filters, Select Focus, Select and Mask, Smart Sharpen. Lightroom at this time does not utilise GPU acceleration as much as Photoshop, but it is likely IMO that this will change over time with new releases

03-22-2021, 12:00 PM - 1 Like	#15
jatrax Site Supporter Join Date: May 2010 Location: Washington Cascades Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 12,991	Originally posted by TonyW Lightroom at this time does not utilise GPU acceleration as much as Photoshop, but it is likely IMO that this will change over time with new releases The last couple of releases have added GPU support for a number of Lightroom features. It appears that trend will continue. I've noticed a significant improvement in lag time for some things even with my relatively old and slow GPU card. I had a 2gb card which Lightroom reported as only partially usable and started looking for a new card. With prices simply insane and availability almost non-existent. I mentioned it to my son who promptly handed me his old 4gb card out of his parts bin. (I guess sometimes they actually do listen to the old man ). Still under powered but with the 4gb in the new card Lightroom reports the card is fully functional. I have seen a noticeable improvement with this card and it will hold me until prices drop and I can get an 8gb card sometime in the future.