looking to upgrade, new PC or new components?

Right now I have a have an intel i5 2570k @ 3.40GHz running 8gb ram. Using internal graphics card (which i heard with lightroom it's not that importatnt to have a graphics card). Am I better off getting a better CPU and build, or should I update my PC with more ram and graphics card. Lightroom is laggy!!!

Usually, the greatest speed improvement can be achieved with a ssd. After that more cpu power is probably most effective. Also check out https://www.lightroomq​ueen.com …m-performance-whats-slow/

An SSD along with more RAM will certainly add more zip to the machine. Most SSD's provide
software to clone your existing drive. I prefer to do a clean install of the OS, and put the
programs on the SSD, and the data on the spinning drive.

EDIT--
The i5 2570k machine will probably take a SSD with a 6Gbps SATA III interface. If you build a new machine get a motherboard and SSD with a M.2 interface.

Hope this helps,

110yd

110yd wrote in post #18234263
An SSD along with more RAM will certainly add more zip to the machine.

Definitely this.

Check to see how much RAM usage is when your in the middle of doing your LR task. If your RAM is maxed usage then your PC is paging to the HDD which can bog down the experience.

drmaxx wrote in post #18233821
Usually, the greatest speed improvement can be achieved with a ssd.

^^^^

I've worked with computers for many years and in my experience when I change a drive to SSD for someone, they are actually amazed at the improvement! As an example, boot times can go from 2 to 3 minutes down to 15 to 20 seconds.

I do recommend the migration kit (usually about $10 extra) as opposed to doing a fresh install, unless of course you are having major issues that a fresh install will fix.

As to increasing RAM, you won't see the vast boost in performance you will with an SSD swap. But if you chose to do a RAM upgrade, investigate using RAM as a scratch disk. By using excess RAM as a scratch disk, you will likely increase SSD longevity.

John from PA wrote in post #18234480
I do recommend the migration kit (usually about $10 extra)

Here's a free option that did the trick for me: http://www.macrium.com​/reflectfree.aspx

drmaxx wrote in post #18234520
Here's a free option that did the trick for me: http://www.macrium.com​/reflectfree.aspx

Actually Samsung (as an example) migration software is also a free download. The migration kit gets you any needed cables, something handy to have especially if you are doing a laptop upgrade to SSD.

If i am in your situation. First i would buy the SSD. Then make the SSD as a system and put your Lightroom software there. Then IF, IF still slow, just upgrade the whole thing, i mean the important thing like new processor

Also - which version of LR do you have? LR 5.7 and earlier do not use GPU acceleration.

In Lightroom CC/Lightroom 6, you can use a compatible graphics processor (also called a graphics card, video card, or GPU) to speed up the task of adjusting images in the Develop module.