allanh Loc: Central Indiana

Greetings...wondering how much cpu is needed for editing? Getting ready to upgrade. I've got an older i3 now. Reading reviews online has not been very helpful. A lot of folks are looking for game machines. Elements runs but struggles on the one I have now. Doubt that anything more would even load. Thanks for the help.

Shellback Loc: North of Cheyenne Bottoms Wetlands - Kansas

A lot of questions to answer specifically - how much do you want to spend? what editing - video or photo? desktop or laptop? storage requirements? etc...
Here is a good link to review and give you some ideas for building your own: https://turbofuture.com/computers/Build-Photo-Editing-PC

It may answer some of the questions for you...

mwsilvers Loc: Central New Jersey

There are various flavors of i3, i5, and i7 chips. However, while the i3 might work for you, in general its not a good choice. Additionally, how much ram do you have? With an i3, I'm guessing you may only have 4 gigabytes. I would say something with an i7 and at least 12 gig of ram will give you good results. More ram would be better. I have an i7 with 24 gig, and all my programs run on an SSD drive with the data on a conventional disk drive. And its still not a speed demon.

rleonetti Loc: Portland, Oregon

In my limited experience, computing power is not a big deal for photo work. What is a big deal with things like Lightroom and Photoshop working with photos is memory--lots of memory. Also my machine has "solid state hard drive" for part of my storage that speeds up everything.

orrie smith Loc: Kansas

a gaming machine would be your best bet for photos. call HP and have them build one with your specs, tell them what you are going to use it for and they will talk you through a machine that will serve you better than buying one off of the shelf, just my opinion.

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

Check the search function for information on this subject. The question has been asked and answered multiple times in the last couple of months. Here are a couple:

http://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-420552-1.html
http://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-410421-1.html

Bobspez Loc: Southern NJ, USA

i7 Pentium running at faster than 3Ghz, 16gb of RAM, video card with at least 2gb of RAM, 1TB 7800rpm SATA drive. Shouldn't need anything more for photo or video editing. With Photoshop I allocate 8800MB of RAM to Photoshop in the Photoshop preferences, and 10900MB of RAM for video editing with Premiere Pro.

rwilson1942 Loc: Houston, TX

That is about what I'm running: Intel Core i7 @3.4GHz with 16 G Ram, 64 bit Win 10. I run Lightroom and Photoshop at the same time with no problems.

Bobspez Loc: Southern NJ, USA

Forgot to mention I'm also using win 10 64 bit. I don't use Lightroom but Photoshop completes anything I do in just a few seconds.

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

Several good suggestions. Make sure to use a 64-bit version of the OS (nothing over 4GB DRAM is usable with a 32-bit version), and definitely consider using an SSD for the OS and apps as well as a conventional HD for image storage. An SSD will make a huge difference in performance as the speed of many processes is I/O rather than CPU-bound.

allanh Loc: Central Indiana

Thanks everyone for all the help.

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

PSE benefits from having as much ram as you can justify, with 16gb being the least I would suggest, and a discrete graphics card, ie, not the one that is integrated in the cpu - Intel Graphics for example. A 4 core machine with hyperthreading is the norm, as is a cpu that runs at around 3 ghz or faster.

Gaming machines are great, but you are paying a premium to get graphics cards that have multiple processing threads and huge amounts of memory to increase the frame buffer for faster video rates - up to 60 frames per second - and lots of CUDAs to ensure smooth video performance. You don't need this for a Photoshop workstation, where the memory requirement is based on how many displays you are driving and what their resolution is. For a couple of years I ran a dual 1920x1200 display system with only 512 gb ram. It was fine, but I got modestly better performance when I upgraded to a Quadro K2000 with 2 gb of ram. It is important to have support for OpenGL and OpenCL.

A solid state drive for your boot drive will help things load faster- 512 gb being the least I would consider.

sb Loc: Florida's East Coast

A "gaming machine" is built for video - much more than you need to spend money for. I have an i5, which has video support built in (you do not need an extra video card as you do with the i7 processor). You do not need super fast for photo processing - just video processing. I use either my laptop or my desktop - both have SSD drives (the desktop has a conventional HDD for storing the photo files). The laptop only has 8GB and it will slow down a little bit when processing RAW photos with Photomatix or if I have a bunch of large jpg files pulled up at one time on Photoshop Elements. The desktop has 16GB and is a little faster, but my laptop is by no means "slow" - I never feel I am waiting for something to happen.

DaveHam Loc: Reading UK

One of our desktops is a Dell i3 which we use with Adobe CC (it has a high res monitor we can't fit to our other boxes). With 8 gig of RAM it was rather slow and prone to locking; when we discussed this with an Adobe guru he suggested adding RAM rather than processor upgrade (buying a new box) so we put in 16 gig of RAM. This has a very significant effect; the machine is now good to use and runs very well. Another upgrade suggested which we could not use was a better graphics card.

Part of the problem was the size of files being handled; we regularly have RAW files of 100 - 130 mb to process which can produce enormous tiff's during post. This was identified as being the performance bottleneck rather than a faster processor; the i3 is capable of handling most of the demands CC creates.

dcampbell52 Loc: Clearwater Fl

Get the best computer that you can afford. Computers, like everything else, are constantly being improved on. I learned early in the "Pentium Days" that since Intel had 15 or 20 different speeds of Pentium processers, I look at the price difference between each model. You have 3 or 4 entry level processors then in the mid-tier you have 3 or 4 more then the high-end 3 or 4 more. For what I was doing, I tried to either purchase the higher end of the mid-tier or the lower end of the higher tier. This often relates to the amount of memory the processor will support. You also have to look at the motherboard. My current board supports 64mb of memory and 2 graphics accelerator cards. I also have it water cooled and I have a 1tb C: drive plus 4 drives of 4tb and one of 5tb. I also have a large server with lots of storage that is connected to both my computer and my wife's. Then I have the WD Cloud Array connected to my network (that array sits next to my large server and to my 3 internet web servers and firewall.) But, I make a living with my photography and the WD Cloud allows me to set areas for customers to be able to view their images (WITHOUT DOWNLOADING) to make choices about purchasing. The Web server was my initial attempt to be able to upload my images from my laptop at a hotel room to get them back to my studio for safety (rather than carry them in a card or portable drive) while on business or pleasure trips.
You can easily invest a lot of money in computer power so you need to look at your needs. Mine are high but they developed over time and so, I just kept building computer power. I often "retired" an older but decent computer to become a server and replaced it with a "better/more powerful" desktop (or gave the older desktop to my wife).