J-Blake wrote in post #19320585
Thank you Martin! I was hoping you'd join in on the conversation.
Interesting advice about the graphics card. My current GPU is a GeForce GTX 450 with 1MB (from memory have to ck when I'm home) and is the cause of my PS incompatibility notifications. If I were to do what you suggest, any recommendations on what I should replace it with?
I agree about the storage vulnerability, but every time I've looked into modifying it I get lost in the details and nothing happens. I guess the easiest solution at this point is cloud based, but it's become overwhelming quickly.
Heya,
So, as long as your display output is sufficient to drive your monitor and allow color calibration, that's all that matters. Only specific functions in photoshop and other softwares use the GPU for any acceleration (namely some filters and brushes). But that's not to say that someone is crippled without it. Today's CPU's handle Photoshop fine.
More info from the horse's mouth:
https://helpx.adobe.com …shop-cc-gpu-card-faq.html
It of course matters if you're using any features that require GPU acceleration. If you are, then that's that, you need a GPU. But if you're not using these hard stop required features that need GPU, then you don't need one at all and can save tons of money and never know a thing about it and be fine. So look there on the right side column, if you're not familiar with those and not using those, then don't bother with a GPU. If you are, well, think about it and see if you feel the need to go down the GPU rabbit hole.
Since you brought up Pudget, here's their own benchmarks in photoshop related to GPU's:
https://www.pugetsystems.com …/Hardware-Recommendations
You'll note, everything is within 1% or less or each other, from a $2k card to a $500 card. There's just no point in getting a big GPU for this. Get the least you need here. 2Gb of video memory is sufficient. A GT 730, GTX 750 Ti or GT 1030 with 2~4GB memory GPU will be plenty for photoshop, if you need a dedicated GPU for specific features that require GPUs. These are vastly over-priced too, but at least are not in the $500+ range for "budget" cards (which they are!).
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The biggest keys to speed is actually memory topology and architecture so that memory handling is fast, efficient and not waiting on a slow spinning disc and fast single and 4+ thread CPU performance (but, the CPU's job is limited by the memory handling and bandwidth and ability to have data to work on that is held in memory, so memory is actually more important for this, the last thing you want is your system pulling and working on data directly off the drive as it waits to be moved around and used for the CPU to do any work on it). Copious amounts of fast RAM is a good way to focus when it comes to photo editing builds because the idea is that the data is being edited in memory, not on the discs. This gets huge with lots of layers and with multiple photos open. It greatly depends on how and what you're editing in your workflow. DDR5 is on the horizon, so DDR4 is still affordable and fast, so get as much as you can (this is where the motherboard starts to matter a lot for some people to ensure they can get 4 sticks of memory and how much RAM they can stack in there). Intel & AMD have some differences in memory topology and handling. So if you go with AMD, I suggest you get 4 sticks of memory right away, it has been shown to have better performance because of the handling of that chipset and architecture; then just get as much RAM as you can fit into your budget. Your SSD/NVMe storage is good, work from that at all times, long storage should be on those spinning discs only (ie, don't work from a spinning disc if you can help it). SSD performance is still relatively tied to its capacity if you're filling it, so if you're working from a nearly full SSD/NVMe, it's time to get more capacity. Some handle better than others, but they all start to show issues when you get near full capacity, so keep this in mind (work on big capacities and utilizing few of it, if you want to retain performance).
From AMD's perspective, the Ryzen 5000 series is a significant step up in single threaded and multi-threaded performance, over the 3000 series even, but it really is much faster (significantly) in single threaded performance and this matters a lot for photoediting because only some functions are actually scaling across cores/threads and many filters are single threaded completely. So if you go with an AMD build, I would get a x570 based motherboard and a 5000 series Ryzen (such as 5600x or 5800x or higher, but you start to see diminishing returns big time in photoshop with loads of cores, so no real need to go beyond these honestly unless you do intensive transcoding/encoding, etc which is not what photo editing is at all; these are very reasonably priced still and available!).
For the GPU, again, I don't recommend anything frankly. What you have will work, it just needs to drive the monitor and allow calibration. That's all. You don't need a GPU for photo editing at all. Your CPU can do all of this work. The money you would spend frankly on any GPU right now is so inflated, and you won't get hardly any performance from the lower tier ones. For example, a GT730 is over $100 USD and it will do as near zero better than your current GPU for this purpose as it gets. Higher cards like the 1600 series or 2000 series are hundreds of dollars (despite being $200 cards, costing double or more now) and will also have very little impact on what you're doing. And if you get a 3000 series nVidia card, these will effect performance only on things that utilized GPU acceleration, but largely won't be doing much at most of your workflow points in photoshop most likely. So the bottom line is you can spend $580~1000 on a 3000 series GPU and basically just increase your electric bill and get nothing from it in photoshop. I don't suggest you spend this way. You will get far more return for your photoshop experience from the higher performance and larger capacity NVMe's/SSDs and loads of fast low latency RAM and the best Ryzen 5000 series you can get under the hood CPU.
And there's another option, the APU. This is a CPU with GPU built into it, on one chip. Ryzen has them now, the 5600G for example is one and its quite good as a CPU and its a good functional GPU without all the cost. Under $300 for this one chip and it does the CPU & GPU functions. Great way to go for a budget build to avoid the GPU market right now.
So if I were going into Microcenter or anywhere and asking for a pre-built (nothing wrong with this!), I would ask for:
x570 based AM4 motherboard with 4 DIMM slots for memory (alt B550 chipset)
AMD 5000 series Ryzen (5600x, 5800x, 5900x, etc) CPU (or 5000 series APU such as 5600G)
64Gb DDR4 Memory with low latency (CL14 or CL16 ranges)
2~4TB NVMe as primary working media so that you're not near its capacity limits while editing
Lowest tier possible display/GPU option, whatever will drive a monitor, no gaming GPU stuff
Highest quality PSU (power supply) they have on the shelf (never low-budget on PSU)
And I would put a robust UPS (uninterruptible power supply) on this so you don't lose work to any brown/black outs.
It will cost you less to build yourself if you're NOT getting a GPU.
But pre-builts are easier and cheaper if you are getting a GPU; for perspective.
And again you can use an APU to avoid the GPU all together. This is a GREAT way to build for a workstation right now.
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Regarding storage/backups:
For storage, use your current PC as the base unit to hold your spinning discs and share/serve them over your network (wired, or 5Gb wireless at minimum if you go wireless) and get those spinning discs and storage away from your workstation that you're building and do real backups on anything you don't want to lose ever. Two physical copies is ok to start, but if you're not already having two physical separated copies of your data you never want to lose, you're just riding a luck streak, so start working towards this or better go for the 3rd physically separated copies of your data. A simple optical storage media like bluray discs with your irreplaceable data on them is an excellent inexpensive way to get there. And again, the higher quality powersupply and a UPS is preferred to avoid catastrophe due to that. Never have everything on one supply that can fail.
Again, any PC can work as a network attached storage without anything fancy going on. You can literally just put that PC you're using aside and it can just house the drives and share them over your network to your new PC and other devices. Windows has pretty simplistic file sharing under the hood so you can set it up pretty simply. And you can operate it headless via windows remote desktop or other free software to use it without having to walk over to it to tell it to do anything. It's already up and running with an operating system. You're just changing its role.
Otherwise, again I would stress getting that 2nd and/or 3rd physical copy method going. Instead of cloud or building farms of network attached storage and spending endlessly on these things, plus the learning curve up front, just keep it simple: optical media. You can buy a simple DVD/Bluray burning drive for $50~60 and buy spindles of 25Gb to 50Gb bluray BDR discs and just write your precious data to these discs and store them somewhere safe and dry. They're in cold storage this way, no one can hijack your data, its only vulnerable to fire/flood basically from an environmental perspective. Optical will outlive you in terms of a medium, unlike harddrives. Super cheap to buy these discs. Write them at low write speed with verification so that its bit for bit perfect. Then label and shelf/store it. Only keep important data. Don't get into the practice of hording RAW files forever. Keep only the best or most important ones this way. Your HDD/SSD are for the "living" data where you have more than what you need going on and don't care if its lost.
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So I would take your max budget for this, and see what's going to fit into it for your needs both as a self built (if you're open to this or have done this) or a pre-built from someone else and see what you can get either way. If you need specifics (like model numbers, etc) we can go that way, but it won't be needed at all if you go pre-built.
Very best,
