PC specifications for LR Classic

[Brendan]

Lightroom Version

Lightroom 6.14

Operating System

1. Windows 10

I am in the process of evaluating and buying a new DELL Desktop with WINDOWS 11 and also migrate from Lightroom 6 to Lightroom Classic as well as general home use. Have used DELL for years and am very satisfied with my current desktop and especially their tech support. I currently have a XPS desktop but new models are now a high cost whereas their Inspiron models are price attractive and less cost but not sure of their specifications for LR . Have no interest in a laptop. Whilst reasonably computer literate, I am becoming utterly confused with PC reviews etc and specs that are suitable for Lightroom Classic especially the graphics card. Currently, all my photos and LR catalogue backups are stored externally and I have only used 120Gb (Documents, Apps etc) of available 930Gb on Local disc. As I have budget constraints, I do not want to under purchase or over purchase a PC. Hoping you can help me with comments on the specifications of 2 Dell Desktops as per the attachment.

 

[GregJ]

That is a loaded question. I will go on the Dell website and give a look to what they have on offer this week. But I bet any mid-range desktop from Dell is going to be very good running LR and you will have no problems. But let me just say this in terms of a bare minimum. Do not buy a desktop with less than a 1 TB M.2 SSD as boot drive. Absolutely under no circumstances get less than 1 TB.

Get 32 of ram for sure, Do not get a new desktop with 16 ram no matter how broke you think you are. LOL.

Depending on your storage requirements, get an 8 TB internal spinner and you can add more later if you want. Spinning hard drives are cheap. Wait, I just reread your post.....Did you say you have only 120 Gb total storage requirement? That is impossibly low for a photographer, but that makes it a lot easier.... so I changed my mind. Do not get a spinner. Get a 1TB M.2 for the boot and a 2TB M.2 for storage. All SSD. No doubt. You can afford it. No spinners.

CPU and GPU? Let me look at the Dell site and I'll tell you what to get. But you need to wait 2 or 3 weeks and see the whole 13th Gen Raptor Lake lineup. Get the latest 13th gen for sure.

I gotta go now but I'll come back on tomorrow morning and tell you what to get. But listen .... I need to know the most you can spend. Tell me what you can spend. That's all that matters. Then I'll tell you what to get that will make LR sing and dance for you.

By the way .... do you game?

 

[Replytoken]

Welcome to the forum. The machines that you have listed are somewhat similar based on the information that you have provided. The primary differences are a dedicated graphics card and faster memory. Neither machine talks about power supply, and I would be somewhat concerned that the latter can handle the graphics card. Also, if your budget eventually permits, I would look at upgrading your memory to 24 or 32GB if possible. But, push came to shove, I would take the machine with the graphics card if the choice was between the two.

Good luck,

--Ken

 

[Brendan]

Welcome to the forum. The machines that you have listed are somewhat similar based on the information that you have provided. The primary differences are a dedicated graphics card and faster memory. Neither machine talks about power supply, and I would be somewhat concerned that the latter can handle the graphics card. Also, if your budget eventually permits, I would look at upgrading your memory to 24 or 32GB if possible. But, push came to shove, I would take the machine with the graphics card if the choice was between the two.

Good luck,

--Ken

Thanks for your reply Ken. Will take your advice on board. Due to my budget at present, unable to upgrade to 32Gb. When you say take the machine with the graphics card I assume you mean the NVIDIA card.? Also, can you please clarify power supply and the graphics cart?

 

[Brendan]

That is a loaded question. I will go on the Dell website and give a look to what they have on offer this week. But I bet any mid-range desktop from Dell is going to be very good running LR and you will have no problems. But let me just say this in terms of a bare minimum. Do not buy a desktop with less than a 1 TB M.2 SSD as boot drive. Absolutely under no circumstances get less than 1 TB.

Get 32 of ram for sure, Do not get a new desktop with 16 ram no matter how broke you think you are. LOL.

Depending on your storage requirements, get an 8 TB internal spinner and you can add more later if you want. Spinning hard drives are cheap. Wait, I just reread your post.....Did you say you have only 120 Gb total storage requirement? That is impossibly low for a photographer, but that makes it a lot easier.... so I changed my mind. Do not get a spinner. Get a 1TB M.2 for the boot and a 2TB M.2 for storage. All SSD. No doubt. You can afford it. No spinners.

CPU and GPU? Let me look at the Dell site and I'll tell you what to get. But you need to wait 2 or 3 weeks and see the whole 13th Gen Raptor Lake lineup. Get the latest 13th gen for sure.

I gotta go now but I'll come back on tomorrow morning and tell you what to get. But listen .... I need to know the most you can spend. Tell me what you can spend. That's all that matters. Then I'll tell you what to get that will make LR sing and dance for you.

By the way .... do you game?

Hi Greg, thanks for your reply. Due to my budget at the moment, cannot upgrade to 32Gb. Currently allmy photos, back ups are stored externally, my current 120gB on the local disk comprises documents, apps etc hence the low storage. No I do not game. I see you live in the USA , I am in Australia so with the current low exchange rate, my budget is USD $2000 maximum, so this buys me a DELL XPS 16Gb Memory and NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1660 model. Await your reply tomorrow

 

[Replytoken]

Thanks for your reply Ken. Will take your advice on board. Due to my budget at present, unable to upgrade to 32Gb. When you say take the machine with the graphics card I assume you mean the NVIDIA card.? Also, can you please clarify power supply and the graphics cart?

Yes, I was referring to the machine with the NVIDIA card (i.e. a dedicated graphics "card"). Graphics cards can consume a lot of power, especially when they are running at 100% of their capacity. Your PC's power supply has to supply power to the entire machine, including the graphics card. Some common model, mass market machines from the big box companies have very small (read affordable) power supplies, and this is not an ideal situation. You probably cannot change out the PSU, but try to see what size it is in the machine you are looking at (with the graphics card). I am suspecting 300w from what I can find for similar machines, but I cannot confirm. This is a bit light, but if you do not constantly thrash the CPU and card, it may not be much of an issue. Just make sure you do not block the vents or fan.

--Ken

 

[GregJ]

Hi Greg, thanks for your reply. Due to my budget at the moment, cannot upgrade to 32Gb. Currently allmy photos, back ups are stored externally, my current 120gB on the local disk comprises documents, apps etc hence the low storage. No I do not game. I see you live in the USA , I am in Australia so with the current low exchange rate, my budget is USD $2000 maximum, so this buys me a DELL XPS 16Gb Memory and NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1660 model. Await your reply tomorrow

Real quick, I'll come back tomorrow, but 2000 dollars? OK. I think you can go 32 of ram. And don't worry about the PSU. The PSU is a big decision when you are building (especially with the new 4080/4090), but buying from Dell? Dell will not make a rig and sell it with inadequate PSU for the build.

But you are not in the US. That means you are going to be paying a lot more than I do for Dell (which is just up the road from my place), so I'm not sure what you see on a Dell UK site or wherever you are.... Plus shipping and your high taxes? Yikes. So for 2,000 here, you can get a lot of Dell and definitely 32 ram. But I just don't know what kind of prices you are seeing outside the US. Higher than what I see for sure.

Also, are you a gamer? That bit about the GPU.... You gotta get a desktop w a GPU. Are you seeing a rig for two grand without a GPU?

 

[Brendan]

Real quick, I'll come back tomorrow, but 2000 dollars? OK. I think you can go 32 of ram. And don't worry about the PSU. The PSU is a big decision when you are building (especially with the new 4080/4090), but buying from Dell? Dell will not make a rig and sell it with inadequate PSU for the build.

But you are not in the US. That means you are going to be paying a lot more than I do for Dell (which is just up the road from my place), so I'm not sure what you see on a Dell UK site or wherever you are.... Plus shipping and your high taxes? Yikes. So for 2,000 here, you can get a lot of Dell and definitely 32 ram. But I just don't know what kind of prices you are seeing outside the US. Higher than what I see for sure.

Also, are you a gamer? That bit about the GPU.... You gotta get a desktop w a GPU. Are you seeing a rig for two grand without a GPU?

I am in Australia so order from Dell Australia website and yes, we do pay more. I believe the Dell PCs' come from Singapore. The XPS model I was looking at is one of 2 models with 16Gb Memory. The $USD 2,000 price I advised earlier includes add ons not related to Lightroom but by itself it is approx. $USD 1800 ($AUD 2,500). Re your GPU query, the INTEL processor specified with this XPS model is a CPU according to the Intel website. Note, with Lightroom, I do not have thousands and thousands of photos, I am ruthless with culling photos so only keep the very best, have approx. 15,000 at the moment accumulated over 13 years
And NO, I am not a gamer
Thanks for your help, appreciate it

 

[Paul_DS256]

A lot of good information shared here.

As a fellow Dell XPS 8700 user, and also thinking off upgrading, here are some of my thoughts:

• I have always wanted to go to MAC but after I could no longer upgrade the MAC OS on my older Macbook decided to stay with a Windows desktop with replaceable/upgradeable components. I personally feel Apple seems to be creating more closed systems as opposed to Windows. I know your question is on Windows but wanted to share my opinion.
• I would recommend selecting a desktop with a minimal motherboard integrated systems. I ran into all sorts of problems upgrading from Windows 7 to Windows 10 with the integrated Intel RAID controller. Finally fixed the problem by replacing the disk even though there was nothing wrong with it. It was a strange error no one could identify. Several times a day, the system would freeze. Task Manager would show 100% disk activity but with no IO. Yes, I know, weird.
• You need to consider the other products, such as Topax, you may want to use. It seems a lot of apps are using more GPU resources. I recently had to upgrade my video card since it didn't meet the minimum GPU memory requirement of 2GB. However, I find some Adobe and Topaz processing can take a fair amount of time on my 16GB system, especially when more than one large app is opened. I also have the occasional failure in some LrC like HDR and Pano unless I shut down all other Window apps. So, starting with 32GB and being able to upgrade will be something I look for.
• Still on the video card, it is something I'd have to do more research on this since there is a large variance in prices for those cards. Not sure if there is any particular feature of the card Adobe products need over gamers.
• You seem like me and keep tech as long as you can which means we need the flexibility of hardware upgrades while Windows and app set higher minimums for software that will run on the hardware.

I'm of mixed feelings on the following but looking at what Puget Systems recommends for LrC configurations may be a useful reference.

Good luck.

 

[GregJ]

This is 100% all about getting the best components you can in Australia for 2000 US Dollars equivalent. I have no idea what electronics and computers cost in Australia. So take advice from people there. I know exactly what I could build for 2000 dollars in the US and exactly what I could buy.
Let me give you an example. This morning from Dell on the Dell site in Texas I can buy this Dell XPS Desktop for 1,999 dollars, marked down from 2,500 bucks. This is a very nice rig. I was surprised at what you can get for 2 grand right now. Prices are really dropping. This has a 12th gen Alder Lake chip, but a really high-end one. And it has a Geforce RTX 3080 GPU! That component alone would have cost you 1500 bucks a year ago, yet now it is part of a 2000-dollar PC.
If everyone here had this desktop, there would be an instant 85% drop in problems because this rig would solve almost all the problems people have with LR! LOL. Here it is - all for exactly 2 grand. And this is exactly what I thought you should get; except I was surprised by the inclusion of the RTX 3080! That is awesome.

• 12th Gen Intel® Core™ i7-12700 (25 MB cache, 12 cores, 20 threads, 2.10 GHz to 4.90 GHz Turbo)
• Windows 11 Home, English
• NVIDIA® GeForce RTX™ 3080, 10 GB GDDR6X
• 32 GB, 2 x 16 GB, DDR5, 4400 MHz; up to 128 GB
• 1 TB, M.2, PCIe NVMe, SSD
• 750W Platinum Silver Bezel Chassis including optical drive

 

[Brendan]

A lot of good information shared here.

As a fellow Dell XPS 8700 user, and also thinking off upgrading, here are some of my thoughts:

• I have always wanted to go to MAC but after I could no longer upgrade the MAC OS on my older Macbook decided to stay with a Windows desktop with replaceable/upgradeable components. I personally feel Apple seems to be creating more closed systems as opposed to Windows. I know your question is on Windows but wanted to share my opinion.
• I would recommend selecting a desktop with a minimal motherboard integrated systems. I ran into all sorts of problems upgrading from Windows 7 to Windows 10 with the integrated Intel RAID controller. Finally fixed the problem by replacing the disk even though there was nothing wrong with it. It was a strange error no one could identify. Several times a day, the system would freeze. Task Manager would show 100% disk activity but with no IO. Yes, I know, weird.
• You need to consider the other products, such as Topax, you may want to use. It seems a lot of apps are using more GPU resources. I recently had to upgrade my video card since it didn't meet the minimum GPU memory requirement of 2GB. However, I find some Adobe and Topaz processing can take a fair amount of time on my 16GB system, especially when more than one large app is opened. I also have the occasional failure in some LrC like HDR and Pano unless I shut down all other Window apps. So, starting with 32GB and being able to upgrade will be something I look for.
• Still on the video card, it is something I'd have to do more research on this since there is a large variance in prices for those cards. Not sure if there is any particular feature of the card Adobe products need over gamers.
• You seem like me and keep tech as long as you can which means we need the flexibility of hardware upgrades while Windows and app set higher minimums for software that will run on the hardware.

I'm of mixed feelings on the following but looking at what Puget Systems recommends for LrC configurations may be a useful reference.

Good luck.

Thanks for your input Paul, you are right , I have a XPS8700 and had minimal issues. There is a lot of info you have provided to digest but will be a great help in deciding on a PC

 

[GaryG]

Greg, can you provide the model number or a link to that Dell XPS? It might help Brendan, although it will probably be out of his price range with the Aus dollar.

If I was interested in a desktop I’d probably get it, but I’m looking for a laptop in that price range.

 

[Brendan]

This is 100% all about getting the best components you can in Australia for 2000 US Dollars equivalent. I have no idea what electronics and computers cost in Australia. So take advice from people there. I know exactly what I could build for 2000 dollars in the US and exactly what I could buy.
Let me give you an example. This morning from Dell on the Dell site in Texas I can buy this Dell XPS Desktop for 1,999 dollars, marked down from 2,500 bucks. This is a very nice rig. I was surprised at what you can get for 2 grand right now. Prices are really dropping. This has a 12th gen Alder Lake chip, but a really high-end one. And it has a Geforce RTX 3080 GPU! That component alone would have cost you 1500 bucks a year ago, yet now it is part of a 2000-dollar PC.
If everyone here had this desktop, there would be an instant 85% drop in problems because this rig would solve almost all the problems people have with LR! LOL. Here it is - all for exactly 2 grand. And this is exactly what I thought you should get; except I was surprised by the inclusion of the RTX 3080! That is awesome.

• 12th Gen Intel® Core™ i7-12700 (25 MB cache, 12 cores, 20 threads, 2.10 GHz to 4.90 GHz Turbo)
• Windows 11 Home, English
• NVIDIA® GeForce RTX™ 3080, 10 GB GDDR6X
• 32 GB, 2 x 16 GB, DDR5, 4400 MHz; up to 128 GB
• 1 TB, M.2, PCIe NVMe, SSD
• 750W Platinum Silver Bezel Chassis including optical drive

I know the Dell model you are referring to and is available here. I will have a closer look at its specs now I know what I need. You have been very generous with your time and your advice has been very helpful, I do appreciate it. Thanks

 

[prbimages]

Your Dell XPS system costs A$2,500 on the Dell Australia website (if I'm looking at the correct model). For just $140 more, you can get a considerably better machine, with 32GB of RAM, a 3070 graphics card, and a 1 TB SSD: see the second and third machines in the attached screenshot:

 

[Brendan]

Thank you for your comments, I am aware of these models and agree with you on the 32Gb model for the extra $140