TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

That’s not the point. The point is that clock speed is no predictor of CPU performance as you’ll see from perusing the high end CPUs in the link I posted AND understanding the benchmarking suite. When I was at Oracle, my SE and I were in competition with Dell for an enterprise class installation at an unnamed university. We met with the IT group, which to put it kindly, were relatively unsophisticated. During the meeting, they mentioned that they were interested in Dell because their CPU had a higher clock speed (as if that was a key performance determiner). We left shaking our heads and wondering if we really wanted this deal (you have to support what you sell with the customer’s staff).

BTW, more cores, like higher CPU speed, may or may not be a benefit depending on your application, the chip architecture, L1/L2 bandwidth, and whether it supports multithreading and parallel processing. More cores may be of benefit to LR, but maybe not, beyound a certain point, with PS. System performance for a specific application is much more complex than clock speed and number of cores.

AirWalter Loc: Tipp City, Ohio

In the case of the general consumer it certainly does. We, in this group, aren't concerned with the business world and it's needs.

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

No, I’ve never screwed up applying themo conductive paste on a CPU heatsink. I agree that some people are just not up to the task, but a large percentage of this forum’s user’s have a modicum of technical expertise, and assembling a home PC is certainly easier than understanding a modern digital camera and its principles.

My personal opinion is that we are becoming more and more helpless in the face of technology and instead, pay a platoon of specialists to do things our parents would have done for themselves, making us slaves to technology we don’t understand and to those that do. I’m preaching self-reliance and understanding the technology we use. End of rant...

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

My comment is that you should listen to the advice of enterprise and HPC computer professionals, not amateur computer rags. The point of the article you cited was not that Xeons weren't higher performance than the equivalent I-7/I-9s (they were - look at the benchmarks in the link I posted), it was that their performance/cost ratio was not the best choice for the individual user, which I agree with. MY point was that if you look at performance vs clock speed in the benchmarks I posted, you CAN’T necessarily equate performance to clock speed. Did you look at the benchmarks, and do you disagree, or should I post specific examples to prove the point that CPU clock speed is not necessarily a good measure of performance?

Joexx

A cost effective & quick way to increase performance of your current laptop is to check out the memory. Do you have enough? If it is not soldered in, additional RAM may be a choice. Use Task Manager to check your memory usage when Topaz and/or PS are loaded. If you are using all of your RAM, adding Ram (if you can) may help lots.
Another possibility is to replace your current hard drive with an SSD. It will probably be a SATA III (not as fast as an NVMe) but still much much faster than a hard drive (also cheaper than a NVMe). This can make a big difference. It also has the added possibility that when you eventually get a new PC (desktop probably) you can use the "old" SSD as an additional drive in the new PC. So, the RAM upgrade is a "throwaway", the SSD is not.

JimH123 Loc: Morgan Hill, CA

If you are planning to use products such as Topaz AI and others, a fast GPU really helps. The PC I use is about 5 or 6 years old and had a fast GPU at the time I bought it, but there is certainly better options now. If fact, what I looked for was the fastest gaming PC I could find.

Since then, I had to replace another aging PC and it actually has a bit faster processor (they are both 8 core), but the GPU doesn't match the one in the other PC. And the slower GPU makes it overall slower.

You really only need one SSD in your system. I use a 1 TB for the SSD. Additionally I have packed the PC with 3 additional hard drives in each PC. I am using 2 TB hard drives, but bigger ones are available now. I don't store anything on the SSD other than the operating system and the applications. Even my email lives on a hard drive. All images reside on the hard drives. Applications that need scratch pad areas use the SSD.

Here is a site comparing GPUs:

https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-gpus,4380.html

From experience, I see a major difference in performance with Topaz AI products if I choose to use the GPU or the CPU to process images. With the CPU, the fan speeds up and the PC labors and takes longer. With the GPU, the fan runs at its normal level and the GPU does all the work and does it faster.

I notice that the link is blue and underlined up to the comma. You need the entire link for it to work.

Tony Hayman

From my experience having built all of my desktop computers starting with a Heathkit what counts is (1) The speed of the system hard drive, followed closely by the speed of your storage/working hard drive (2) The amount of memory your Video Board has: 8GB is minimum, 10GB is Good 12GB and up is good, but cross reference the speed of the 10GB with the 12GB card (3) The CPU, it isn't as big a thing as the Video Card, but at least an I9 or AMED equivalent is necessary... The best resource I have found is Newegg, they have a kit builder site where you can enter your needs and it will give you good recommendations.

JimH123 Loc: Morgan Hill, CA

I remember those Heathkits! Did several of them myself. Eventually, I seem to recall that they were bought out by Zenith, and they faded away shortly after that. But I also see that they still have a web site. But they don't look like the company I remember. I remember a walk-in store in La Mesa California in the mid 70's. Don't know if they have any of those any longer.

cahale Loc: San Angelo, TX

How much can you afford? Add 30%. Spend it. Then try to be happy.

sergiohm

This is double the price you’ve budgeted for but these guys know what they’re doing and build optimized PCs for the main software you’re running.

https://www.pugetsystems.com/recommended/Recommended-Systems-for-Adobe-Lightroom-Classic-141/Buy_158

I have a Dell Aurora R11, 512 GB PCI-E drive, 64 GB RAM, it’s within your budget and I’m happy with it. I use the same software you do (LR, PS and Topaz). But I can only recommend with a caveat, if you get one and after a while it has issues be prepared to fight with Dell, originally I had an Aurora R8, it died after 11 months and after 2 months dealing with Dell I had to open a complaint with Better Business Bureau, Dell finally sent me a brand new com, the Aurora R11.

eric21

Go to pugetsystems.com. Click on "solutions > photography", or just give them a call.
I got a computer from them and am very happy.

cbrennan8

Have an Intel I9 desktop and an AMD Ryzen 9 3950X desktop (both with LR, PS, Topaz). The AMD is much faster than Intel with all photo apps. Recommend an M.2 2TB ssd for C drive, minimum 32gb RAM.

robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

AMD has always had a reputation for fast image processing.
From time to time Intel will take the image processing crown from AMD then AMD ups the game again. After almost going out of business the AMD top end CPUs are currently the top of the heap again.

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

Yep, AMD currently pack more cores, finer lithography (7 nm) and higher power (and heat) than equivalent Intel die CPUs.

pithydoug Loc: Catskill Mountains, NY

Just curious what do you think a desktop will provide that a laptop can't? One of my best photo days was when I got rid of the boat anchor under my desk for my laptop. My camera(s) and my laptop travel well.