Best bang for the buck in upgrading PC

I'd like to get more performance while running Photoshop etc. My current system has an Intel i5-3570K at 3.4 GHz, 8 gig of ram, and I'm only using the on-board video processor (intel HD 4000). It currently does OK with Photoshop and Lightroom, but there are times when there's a noticeable lag when panning etc.

What would give me the biggest gains .... adding a solid state drive, a high performance video card (and if so which one), upgrading my processor to an i7 (I believe that's possible, but haven't verified it yet for my system), more ram?

thanks

Is this a custom made machine? If so you'll need the model and manufacturer of the motherboard in order to see what would be the best CPU you can put in there.

SSD's are great but kind of expensive. I have one in mine and love it! Also, I'd add more RAM to your machine. Again, your motherboard will determine how much RAM you can put in it. A video card might help but try adding more RAM first if you can.

The motherboard is a Gigabyte GA-Z77-DS3H

I had 16 Gigabytes of ram in it for a while (borrowed some from another machine) and it did make a small difference but not earth shattering.

CameraMan wrote in post #17453741
Is this a custom made machine? If so you'll need the model and manufacturer of the motherboard in order to see what would be the best CPU you can put in there.

SSD's are great but kind of expensive. I have one in mine and love it! Also, I'd add more RAM to your machine. Again, your motherboard will determine how much RAM you can put in it. A video card might help but try adding more RAM first if you can.

I agree with SSD and more RAM. SSD's have actually come down a lot in price but read the reviews as not all are alike. Some have better controller hardware/software than others. Take a close look at the more well known brands. They will cost a little bit more usually but take the long look and view that cost offer the life of your machine. Photoshop will use as much as you have if you let it - 16 GB would be better overall, but I don't believe a total of 32GB would give you a big enough gain. Perhaps put that into a better video card.

COOLING - people often forget about this. Make sure your PC is as clean (dustfree) as it can be with top notch ventilation. When CPU's get too hot some will actually "downshift" to a slower speed. Have good fans or maybe more and faster fans for better cooling.

SSD would be your best bet to increase the "speed" of PS / Lightroom in a short run. However, look for adding 16Gb RAM as well. i5 3rd gen is good enough to do the job.

Another vote for an SSD. Upgrading from an i5 to an i7 will get you almost nothing and you already have 16gb of memory so unless you are doing a lot of memory intensive apps, doubling it would gain a whole lot. A dedicated graphics processor will help a bit but the bottleneck really is the disk. They are faster than they were but still, by far the slowest component in the system.

Yeah, SSD should definitely be priority #1. I guarantee you will ask yourself why you didn't upgrade to one sooner.

Do you ever max out the ram? 8 GB should be fine for most people, but if you work with lots of very large files, video editing, or do hardcore multitasking then you may want to look into upgrading that... it's pretty cheap these days anyway. As far as a video card, only specific tasks in PS take advantage of GPU acceleration, so unless you do lots of rendering or do any gaming, then putting money into a nice video card would be a waste. If you feel like you want a dedicated GPU, then any low-mid range card would be more than sufficient.

How old if your OS install? I do an annual clean install

These are the CPU types you can put in your motherboard...

Support for Intel® Core™ i7 processors/Intel® Core™ i5 processors/ Intel® Core™ i3 processors/Intel® Pentium® processors/Intel® Celeron® processors in the LGA1155 package

So long as the CPU is a socket 1155 it will work in your machine.

groundloop wrote in post #17453721
What would give me the biggest gains ....

Adding a solid state drive, especially if the Ram is already sufficient.

So... an SSD and upping the ram to 16 GB it is, I appreciate the input.

Since I don't want to spend a ton of money I'm going to be limited to either a 128 or 256 GB SSD so I'll need to figure out what to put on the SSD and what to leave on my existing drive. It won't be possible to port ALL of my photos to the SSD since I have well over 350 GB in my photos folder right now. I'll be interested in hearing how others handle this who are budget limited and have a relatively small SSD.

Adding an SSD is unlikely to have any appreciable benefit while working on photos. (It will help with starting up Photoshop or opening or saving photos after adjustments have been made). Adding RAM to improve performance is more cost effective than purchasing an SSD. Check your efficiency indicator while using Photoshop. If it drops below 95%, you will benefit from adding additional RAM.

Adding a GPU may speed you up e.g. if you are using the flick panning function. Below are the processes which make use of the GPU. If it is not listed below, you are unlikely to benefit from a dedicated GPU.


The features that are OpenCL enabled are:
• Video Panorama
• Blur Gallery (Iris, Field, and Tilt-shift Blur)

GPU-enhanced features added in Photoshop CC 2014
Upscale.
Blur Gallery 2.
Focus Mask.


GPU-enhanced features added in Photoshop CC
The Blur Gallery (Iris Blur, Field Blur, and Tilt-Shift) is enhanced by OpenCL.
Smart Sharpen.
Smart Sharpen also uses OpenCL for Noise Reduction only.
Scripted Patterns (Tree and Picture Frame).
Perspective Warp.

GPU-enhanced features added in Photoshop CS6
Adaptive Wide Angle.
Crop: GPU is used when rotating an image.
GPU-enhanced features added in Photoshop CS6
• Adaptive Wide Angle Filter (compatible video card required)
• Liquify (accelerated with compatible video card with 512 MB of VRAM)
• Oil Paint (compatible video card required)
• Warp and Puppet Warp (accelerated with compatible video card)
• Field Blur, Iris Blur, and Tilt/Shift (accelerated with compatible video card supporting OpenCL)
• Lighting Effects Gallery (compatible video card required with 512 MB
of VRAM)
• New 3D enhancements (3D features in Photoshop require a compatible video card with 512 MB of VRAM):
o Draggable Shadows
o Ground plane reflections
o Roughness
o On-canvas user interface controls
o Ground plane
o Light widgets on edge of canvas
o IBL (image-based light) controller

GPU features added in previous versions Photoshop
• Scrubby Zoom. See Zoom continuously in Photoshop CS5 Help.
• Heads Up Display (HUD) color picker. See Choose a color while painting in Photoshop CS5 Help.
• Color sampling ring. See Choose colors with the Eyedropper tool in Photoshop CS5 Help.
• Brush dynamic resize and hardness control. See Resize or change hardness of cursors by dragging in Photoshop CS5 Help.
• Bristle Brush tip previews. See Bristle tip shape options in Photoshop CS5 Help.
• Rule of thirds crop grid overlay. See Crop images in Photoshop CS5 Help.
• Zoom enhancements. Smooth display at all zoom levels and temporary zoom. See Zoom continuously and Temporarily zoom an image.
• Animated transitions for one-stop zoom. Press Ctrl+Plus Sign (Windows) or Command+Plus Sign to zoom, and the image animates slightly between zoom levels. The zoom can be subtle.
• Flick-panning. Choose Edit > Preferences (Windows) or Photoshop > Preferences (Mac OS). In the General panel, select Enable Flick Panning. Then, select the Hand tool and click-flick the image, like a flick gesture on an iPhone. The image glides smoothly to the new position.
• Rotate the canvas. See Use the Rotate View tool in Photoshop CS5 Help.
• View nonsquare pixel images. See Adjust pixel aspect ratio in Photoshop CS5 Help.
• Pixel grid. A pixel grid appears when zooming in more than 500% on an image. See Hide the pixel grid in Photoshop CS5 Help.
• Adobe Color Engine (ACE). Color conversions are faster because the GPU handles the processing instead of the CPU.
• Draw Brush tip cursors. Choose Edit > Preferences (Windows) or Photoshop > Preferences (Mac OS). In the Cursors panel, choose a Brush Preview color. Then, when you interactively adjust the size or hardness of the Brush tool, the preview color displays the change in real time.  See Resize or change hardness of cursors by dragging in Photoshop CS6 Help.

Adobe Bridge GPU features
• Preview panel
• Full-screen preview
• Review mode


Upgrading to an i7 processor with a higher clock speed will provide faster processing.

Use the SSD to run LR, keep pic files on harddrive. The only programs you should have on the SSD are the OS and programs you need to run fast. Your RAM needs to be identical and should be the fastest your motherboard allows. You can't mix and match sticks of ram. I would definitely get a video card, lots of good mid grade cards out for pretty cheap. Good luck with your upgrade!

daverator wrote in post #17455374
...Your RAM needs to be identical and should be the fastest your motherboard allows. You can't mix and match sticks of ram....

Actually, a higher frequency RAM only provides a 12% boost at most when using Haswell processors. Prior to Haswell, it was about 2%. I haven't seen any tests on the new Broadwell processors yet.

http://www.xbitlabs.co​m …splay/haswell-ddr3_6.html

Ah, thanks, I'm an AMD guy, dont do intel, point was about matching Ram sticks.

There are also some things you can do right away. Take a look at the recommendations here:
https://helpx.adobe.co​m …ce-photoshop-cs4-cs5.html