DaveJ Loc: NE Missouri

I can not get a good video card to help with Topaz in a laptop mostly. My current chip and RAM are low and can not be updated. It runs slow on LR sometimes and real slow on Topaz. My laptop is getting a little old. HD space is limited , so I currently have 2 external HD attached, so to move it , I need to unplug them. I will still take laptop on trips, if I ever get to take a trip again. Soon I hope.

berchman Loc: South Central PA

Four years ago I went to the nearest MicroCenter two hours away and had them build me a custom desktop. I used Gene51's advice. (He is commenting below.) I recently had a computer technician replace my 1TB SSD C: drive with a 2TB C: drive and my 2TB SATA with a 6TB SATA. I have a big power supply and lots of cooling fans. It cost a lot $3000), but I'm happy. I already owned a 27" NEC monitor.

DaveJ Loc: NE Missouri

After digesting the many comments here and a couple other photo site I visit, I ordered a Dell 8940 XPS from Dell. Before the help I got here, I did not know there were different i7 11th generation CPU chips. I was able to upgrade to the 11700K chip from the 11700 chip, I got the NVIDIA RTX 3060Ti 8GB GC, I changed the RAM to 2 16GB from 4 8GBs, and I got a 1TB M.2 PCLe NVME SSD along with a 2TB SATA spinning drive. With a couple coupons I was able to use I was less than $100 more than the pre-made Dell at MicroCenter. It will not arrive for a little over a month. I can cancel at any time with no penalty if I have second thoughts. I do appreciate all who took time to help me. Hope this also helps others as they read thru this thread.

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

Upgradability
Typically the ability to expand DRAM beyond what’s available on a laptop (more slots)
Available PCIe or m.2 slots to add fast storage or other fast internal devices (such as a 10 GigE card)
Ability to use a more powerful graphics card
Larger power supply to support the above
Faster CPUs (Laptop CPUs are typically chosen for lower power/longer battery life)
Ability to change keyboard
Often more native USB ports (mine has 6)
Better cooling (increased reliability and ability to use more powerful components)
Ability to add more full size drives such as BluRay/MDisks

I could go on, but you get the idea. Yes, you can add some external devices to a laptop such as more storage and a larger display, but you’re limited by the speed and number of the ports or in the case of video, the internal card (those fast GPUs require more power and cooling than you can pack into a laptop.

goldenyears Loc: Lake Osewgo

https://www.pugetsystems.com/

In 2002 I bought a custom-built desktop from Puget Systems. At that time their specialty was gaming computers so I figured I could get a lot of processing power from one of their machines. (Sorry, I don't have the build specs anymore.)

The machine gave me amazing service for many years. I can't imagine what sort of machines Puget Systems is custom-building now. If I wanted a new desktop computer I would give them a call.

A few years ago one of the components gave up the ghost and could not be replaced because the motherboard was old technology. I had already purchased a laptop in 2013 to give me mobility. I decided to just make do with the laptop (Toshiba Portege Z35), as it handles my work load fairly well, and besides, I'm more patient these days and crammed into a small apartment .

11bravo

Agreed, assembling your own is the way to go. Plenty of YouTube videos and webpages to help you along. Don't forget the CPU cooler (I'm fond of Cooler Master Hyper air coolers) and some case fans. Having worked in server rooms for decades, quiet is not an issue - it's white noise to me.

I prefer a larger case (Fractal Design, heavy but solid and sound deadening lining) just for the ease of working in it. Taking the space for 5.25 DVD drives and installing 3.5" hot swap mobile rack makes slipping in HDD's for backups easy.

Get a mobo with an LED status display - makes debugging boot problems so much easier (gone are the old days of listening to beep codes). I like Asus mobo's, especially their fan controller software.

When you build it, you understand how the parts fit together. Easy to upgrade. (My 7 year old self-built desktop runs Topaz in a minute with no graphics card, just 32GB memory). Get Windows Pro version. Biggest surprise is how much air is inside a case - as Trix says, not much to putting one together.

fit.sailor Loc: Space Coast of Florida

11bravo, you recommended getting Windows Pro, but you didn't say why. Is there a performance benefit?

11bravo

Look for a docking station. All the externals plug into the dock with one connection to the laptop. Even better if the dock is specific to the laptop: my travel Lenovo snaps into its dock. Push a button and it pops up, disconnected. Just remember to take the power brick (my solution is an extra brick that stays in the travel bag). Also handy are short usb extension cords to plug into the dock for misc. Usb devices (e.g. flash drives). They even come with different orientation plugs (up, down, left, right). Work great for "back of" desktops too.

11bravo

Not really performance, but more security (bitlocker) and control (how windows updates and when). A few times having access to group policy came in handy as a quick way to do something. My refurbished laptops came with Pro installed and my main desktop has it while my old desktop is home.

https://www.pcgamer.com/whats-the-difference-between-windows-10-home-and-pro/

https://www.pcworld.com/article/2952408/who-needs-windows-10-pro-5-reasons-to-upgrade.html

https://www.lifewire.com/windows-10-home-vs-pro-4177144

https://www.wepc.com/compare/windows-11-home-vs-pro/

I use Remote Access a LOT (what can I say, I'm lazy, so being able to control all my computers from 1 location rather than having to get up and walk to another room is a plus), but when travelling, it's a must. Though I use AnyDesk rather than the Pro's built-in Remote access.

John Hicks Loc: Sible Hedinham North Essex England

You can have far more processing power from a desktop computer than a laptop could ever produce, however if you want to buy a laptop then buy it, but the best laptop can never equal the best desktop ever.

Harry0 Loc: Gardena, Cal

ANY "gaming" PC would have the specs you need.
Look for one that's 1 or 2 years old-
I just paid @ 10% for one @ 2 years old so the owner could switch to Ryzen.
32gb ram is a "sweet spot" right now.
Some programs (PS anyone) can sometimes choke a bit trying to deal with more ram. Or more cores.

Joexx

If you can get a 2 year old pc for 10% of the original price, yes that is a good deal. But your comment on too much RAM or extra cores is not correct. It is easy to misunderstand what is going on.
If you have extra RAM that you do not need, it just is unused RAM. For example: if when you are using all of your applications and you are using 24GB of RAM (see Task Manager), adding additional RAM will not speed your processing, but it will NOT slow it down. It is just "Extra".
Also, extra cores will NOT slow you down. It may not help if an application is "single threaded", meaning it just uses one core, but additional cores will not slow you down. For single threaded functions, a big impact will be the cpu speed. For example a 4 core 5Ghz cpu will probably be faster than an 8 core 3Ghz cpu for single threaded processes. But an 8 core 5Ghz cpu will be faster than a 4 core 3 Ghz cpu. Of course, this is an over simplification,lots of other things impact speed, but you get the point.

Some Photoshop functions will parallel process (use multiple threads/cores at the same time) and extra cores will significantly speed things up. Others are just single threaded so not so much. Hope this is helpful

11bravo

Having 32GB of RAM in the desktop I built 7 years ago serves to offset not having a discrete graphics card (use on-board graphics) when using Topaz products (Topaz Mask, Topaz Sharpen, Topaz Adjust, Topaz DeNoise AI, Topaz Gigapixel AI) including the most recent versions. Having questioned Topaz themselves as to why these run as my system does NOT meet their minimum requirements (I was PLEASANTLY surprised), their response was that the 32GB seems to be used rather than graphics memory. It might take a minute to produce the output, but it does work. Plus having "extra" RAM cuts down on paging.

Just the other day windows threw an error saying it ran out of memory (not during any PP). Embarrassingly, I tend to leave browser tabs open (and a LOT of tabs) while other processes that use memory were running. Doesn't happen often, but... saves me from having to be more vigilant ...

I agree that 32GB is a sweet spot today.

Joexx

Yes, More apps are now using the graphics card for memory & processing. PS used to use very little, but in the past year or so PS & LR are now using the GPU more. I do not know atout Topaz products. It does seem reasonable to me that lots of RAM can (sometimes) make up for not having a graphics card, but you still miss the extra processing of the GPU.
As for Windows saying that you are running out of memory, there can be several reasons. Applications can "leak" memory, IE stop using RAM and not release it properly. Or, Windows itself will also leak memory (bug). This means that even if you close down everything, you will still not free up all unused memory. The only "cure" is to either sign off & on, or if that still doesn't free up memory, reboot.
If windows managed memory properly, your leaving many browser tabs open would not impact performance. Once you stopped using the browser Windows would just page out the inactive pages and free them up (if you needed them). Of course this process takes time, but once done, it "should" be the same as closing down the browser...But Windows has never really done this well.
Open up task manager while you are running & monitor your RAM usage. At least you can see when things are getting close & proactively close down apps.
I agree about the 32gb RAM, but recently PS & LR seemed to be using quite a bit more memory on my PC. Probably the recent updates are poorly coded & hog memory... not sure, but I was forced to increase my RAM to 64GB ( I also have a pretty good Video card).
BTW, you are probably aware of this but if you are doing any active paging at all, you likely will see a big speed improvement if you get more RAM, assuming or course that your current configuration supports more RAM.

11bravo

I have task manager up 24/7 just so I can keep an eye on it. But the nice thing about computers is that they continue to do your work even when you're not sitting in front of them, and mine work all the time. But good suggestions.

Memory leaks have been the bane of programmers since forever and can be difficult to find and rebooting every now and again can be good (plus flushes out all those disk writes and forces the MFT to be updated), just be sure to let the computer fully shutdown before powering off. I think higher memory usage might not be "bad coding" but just an effort to use what's available and avoid paging.

Cheers.