My father in-law is a photographer, and wants to replace his PC that he uses mainly for photo editing in Photoshop.
Some googling tells me that Photoshop can use up to 8 cores effectively. Any recommendations for 12 core CPUs with good price/performance?
Any recommendations for what GPU will work well for Photoshop? ( do I need Nvidia specific features? How much VRAM?)
Thanks.
Don’t forget storage. Both in the machine and externally. Maybe one of the entry level nas to start with.
Just a suggestion.
Check the benchmarks on puget systems website…
they usually have lots of benchmarks for adobe products
I run Linux, so I’m not in a position to offer much advice on Photoshop, but I do a lot of photography work, and would recommend you follow up on what is being used as a display and if it is calibrated. You might want to ask what type of monitor, if it is capable of 10 bit color, and if he calibrates the monitor. Almost all of the current GPUs can provide 10 bit color if the monitor is capable of displaying it.
Here’s some background on it:
https://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/monitor-calibration.htm
After quickly combing through a bunch of Pugetbench Photoshop graphs, The Intel Core i9 13900K + a mid tier Nvidia GPU
(like an RTX 3060 or 3060Ti) should be great for most people. PS doesn’t seem to requite a god-tier GPU.
The Mac Studio would be ideal for this task, but the Mac Mini or a Macbook is more than adequate as well. Photo editing isn’t that intensive a task.
Can confirm. The M1 mini I used before was not quite fast enough to show changes while moving sliders.
If mobility would be beneficial at all I’d advise for a macbook pro. The 16" is dead silent while editing, comes with a perfect screen and has the same performance as the mac studio.
Photoshop still runs best on NvIntel builds, so my recommendation:
| Type | Item | Price |
|---|---|---|
| CPU | Intel Core i9-13900K | $551.99 |
| CPU Cooler | Thermalright Phantom Spirit 120 SE | $44.90 |
| Motherboard | MSI MAG Z790 TOMAHAWK WIFI | $259.99 |
| Memory | G.Skill Trident Z5 Neo 2x32 GB DDR5-6000 CL30 | $199.99 |
| Storage | Corsair MP600 PRO LPX 4 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 | $279.99 |
| Storage | Corsair MP600 PRO LPX 4 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 | $279.99 |
| Video Card | NVIDIA Founders Edition GeForce RTX 4070 | $569.00 |
| Case | Cougar Archon 2 Mesh RGB | $71.98 |
| Power Supply | Cooler Master MWE Gold 850 - V2 | $99.99 |
| Case Fan | ARCTIC P12 | $9.49 |
| Total | $2367.31 |
The 4070 is a bit overkill here but buying lower just feels pointless at the moment. Your pops is going to be quite happy for years and years with this. You could drop down to a 13600k and a 3060, if the budget is too high, and save some money.
Final word of advice, Intel is coming out with 14th gen chips this fall. So you might want to hold off two months to see what the new chips are. The above hardware will be compatible with 14th gen.
How hard is PS on storage? Would opting for an RTX 3060 12GB instead of a 4070 but having an Optane 905p “working-drive” be a better real-life option?
Unless we are talking about Lightroom everything happens in RAM. And even LR only profits from faster storage when flicking through images that don’t have previews yet.
Any modern PC can handle manual photo editing - just make sure there’s enough RAM.
If he wants to download 1000 (or 5000 …) images from a camera and run scripted processes on all the images, then a faster CPU would be helpful. The other scenario where a faster CPU might be needed is for extremely high resolution images, like 150 megapixels or higher, or for deep color (ie, 12 or 16 bits per color).
Photoshop can make use of a GPU, but for anyone other than a very experienced power user, it’s unlikely to make much of a difference. Put the money that would have been spent on a fast GPU into a good color calibration system instead.
There were some suggestions to get a Mac of some sort. I’d recommend getting a newer system of whatever he’s already using. Don’t change OSes on him 
.
Remember to check the size of his photo library. I have a 650GB photo library, but one of my friends who does a lot of hobby stills photography has a 34TB photo library.
Don’t forget a backup drive or two. Also remember to configure the backup drive. If he has have 2 backup drives, say via usb, every time you visit you can swap the primary backup drive. This way if his computer dies from a lightening strike he still has a cold backup that is current within a few months.
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