New Computer Advice Please

I need to update a desktop PC computer for my wife. Budget is about $1,000 excluding any monitor.

I would like it to be reasonably fast using Lightroom 5 and be able to run other MS Office applications simultaneously.

Seems I've read something about clockspeed of the processor being a strong factor in Lightroom performance. I've always ordered Dell PCs but am open to other options.

Can someone give me a recommendation of a combination of Processor speed, # cores, Ram and if at least a portion of the hard drive space should be solid state.

I appreciate any advice I can get.

Doug

Core i7
8-16 GB RAM
SSD
NVidia graphic card

What kind of computer do you have now?

Do you need a monitor(s)

The current computer is a
Dell Studio XPS 7100 with
AMD Phenom II X6 1045 ST Processor 2.7 GHz
8GB of RAM
Running Win 7 64 bit
1TD main drive and 2nd 1.5 TB drive Sata not sure of speed

don't need a monitor have a 24" Dell 2408w

Merlin_AZ wrote in post #17040883
Core i7
8-16 GB RAM
SSD
NVidia graphic card

To make it cheaper:
- Intel i5 is good enough, batch exports maybe slightly slower
- Graphics card is nice to have but not essential. If you do get one the cheapest one is fine, the 620 or 630. You get no benefit from faster cards at this point

I suggest 16GB RAM and a 120GB SSD at least. If you get 250GB or so you can have images, cache, catalog, OS and programs on the SSD. With 120GB put the images on an internal hard drive, you don't lose much performance.

Thanks for the responses so far.

If I don't want to assemble the box myself what are good options to be able purchase a computer with specs mentioned so far?

Thanks

Lenovo, Dell, or there are plenty of places that will custom build you a PC. The advantage of custom built is expandability, Dell/HP/etc can be limited in that regard.