New PC build

G-Slev

G-Slev

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Name
Gary
Edit My Images
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I'm looking to upgrade my current PC as it is seriously limiting my ability to post process images. I do a lot of panoramas and I am finding that lightroom runs really slowly and hangs a lot whenever I am either working on stuff or importing/generating previews etc.

My current setup is an Athlon x4 860K with two hard disks - system disk of 1tb and images disk or 2tb which also contains the lightroom catalogue. I've got 16mb of Ram and a 1050ti graphics card.

I principally use my PC for lightroom and photoshop work, with occasional gaming (mostly driving games such as project cars 2 and assetto corsa).

Having my options, I am thinking the following:

At least 16gb of ram
Processor wise, I was thinking of going for an intel. I did look at the i7 8700K but I am actually wondering whether I may be better going for an i5 8500 and putting the extra cash towards more memory and going for 32gb.
I am sticking with my current graphics card
Possibly looking for an SSD to house the lightroom catalogue and my raw files from the current year (with previous years on the hard disk)

My budget is likely to be £500 to £700. Does anyone have any observations? Happy to be shouted down if AMD is a better route for me. I plan to reuse as much of my existing setup as I can (I have a case and 600w corsair power supply)
 
The new AMD Ryzen 5 2600X are available for pre order now with Scan.co.uk for £193.49.

Availability is tomorrow in some places but not sure about UK.

There is nothing nicer than getting a CPU that is brand new no the market.
 
As above - task manager will be your friend in trying to identify the issue.

At a guess i would say it is part CPU and part storage. as Neil suggests, SSD's will help for catalog etc.

The thing to keep in mind re your current CPU is that it is equivalent to a dual core processor for performance (the X4 860K has 2 modules consisting of 2 threads each) so it doesn't have the same grunt as a true quad/six core CPU.
As lightroom loves fast CPU then an upgrade may be inevitable but it will be cheaper and quicker to go investigate a storage solution first as you can plug and play with SSD's (of a fashion).
If you want to consider changing the CPU then you will also have to look at a new mobo plus ram.
 
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I was thinking of getting an ssd - though I would have to get a sata III one as my motherboard does not support the M2 standard. I had resolved that I would be better waiting until I upgrade before taking the SSD path so I could go down the M2 path, but I suppose I would still see a performance boost by going down the SSD SATA route now. And the SSD can be used for something once I do upgrade.

I still think it's a good time to replace that processor though.
 
GTG said:
The new AMD Ryzen 5 2600X are available for pre order now with Scan.co.uk for £193.49.

Availability is tomorrow in some places but not sure about UK.

There is nothing nicer than getting a CPU that is brand new no the market.
Click to expand...

Do you think I am better waiting and going for that rather than an I5 or I7 then? I understood that AMD's single core performance wasn't brilliant and that lightroom does not make use of multiple cores.
 
stupar said:
As above - task manager will be your friend in trying to identify the issue.

At a guess i would say it is part CPU and part storage. as Neil suggests, SSD's will help for catalog etc.

The thing to keep in mind re your current CPU is that it is equivalent to a dual core processor for performance (the X4 860K has 2 modules consisting of 2 threads each) so it doesn't have the same grunt as a true quad/six core CPU.
As lightroom loves fast CPU then an upgrade may be inevitable but it will be cheaper and quicker to go investigate a storage solution first as you can plug and play with SSD's (of a fashion).
If you want to consider changing the CPU then you will also have to look at a new mobo plus ram.
Click to expand...

It's definitely the processor - it's maxing at 92% when doing a panorama merge and moving the sliders around in the develop module. Ram doesn't really creep above 4gb
 
PhotoBoris said:
Do you think I am better waiting and going for that rather than an I5 or I7 then? I understood that AMD's single core performance wasn't brilliant and that lightroom does not make use of multiple cores.
Click to expand...

I did not know that so perhaps intel is best if it only uses single core.
AMD are good for multi-core and they come with a very quiet CPU cooler as standard
 
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I would go for the i5, not the i7. Works fine for me with a rather older i5 and 16GB RAM.

As you'll be buying a new motherboard anyway, I would stick with 16GB for now, but make sure you have room to add an extra 8GB if it turns out you need it (I doubt it, unless you do 50-shot panos).

I would buy a relatively small SSD - 250GB would be plenty - and use that as your system disk. Everything will get snappier.

Not sure how much benefit you will see from moving the LR catalogue on to an SSD.
 
I'm an Intel man through and through so I would go for i5 8500/8600

If AMD is your thing then something like a Ryzen 7 1700
 
stupar said:
I'm an Intel man through and through so I would go for i5 8500/8600

If AMD is your thing then something like a Ryzen 7 1700
Click to expand...

The new models of AMD are out tomorrow I think or very soon.

They are extremely efficient so even if they don't beat the intel`s, they are going to out efficiency the intel`s for now
 
GTG said:
The new models of AMD are out tomorrow I think or very soon.

They are extremely efficient so even if they don't beat the intel`s, they are going to out efficiency the intel`s for now
Click to expand...

Yeah it's nice to see a potential AMD vs Intel battle again.
AMD before Ryzen were seriously lacking in my mind so change is good!
 
If efficiency is a big concern, go hang out at the silentpcreview forums, maybe ask some questions about your intended build. There's a lot of expertise there.

Nobody is as interested in efficiency as people who want silence, because excess heat means more cooling, which means more noise...
 
Okay, sorry for resurecting and old thread, but I thought I would come back with what I've decided to get.

I'm going to reuse my case, PSU and heatsink (hyper evo 212 that's only a year old) and hard disks and buy:

Intel - Core i5-8600K 3.6GHz 6-Core Processor
MSI - Z370 GAMING PRO CARBON ATX LGA1151 Motherboard
Corsair - Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3000 Memory

All this adds up to just over £500 - and I've got £100 of Amazon vouchers lying around so it will only cost me £400.

Thanks for all the tips and suggestions guys.
 
PhotoBoris said:
Okay, sorry for resurecting and old thread, but I thought I would come back with what I've decided to get.

I'm going to reuse my case, PSU and heatsink (hyper evo 212 that's only a year old) and hard disks and buy:

Intel - Core i5-8600K 3.6GHz 6-Core Processor
MSI - Z370 GAMING PRO CARBON ATX LGA1151 Motherboard
Corsair - Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3000 Memory

All this adds up to just over £500 - and I've got £100 of Amazon vouchers lying around so it will only cost me £400.

Thanks for all the tips and suggestions guys.
Click to expand...

I went for similar recently and it has massive benchmark scores.

i5-8600k, asus maximus x hero z370 and patriot viper ddr4-3200.

I risked it though, refurbished mobo, used ram and amazon warehouse for the i5 and they had to give me a partial refund because fan was missing.

ended up about £400
 
If your new motherboard comes with an M2 slot, then I highly recommend getting an SSD for the operating syste, Lightroom catalogues (I create a new one for each event/shoot) and recent RAW files. I read that there was a new WD Black NVME SSD that was as fast as the Samsung Pro model, but at a lower price.
 
Would you suggest that rather than getting another 16gb of Ram?
 
M2 SSD's are lightning fast, much better than the sata equivalents. Samsungs read over 3000mb and write over 1500mb per sec.

honestly, go for an M2 you will be amazed how quick files open, literally a couple of seconds to open Photoshop
 
Definitely get an SSD over an extra 16Gb of RAM. I have 16Gb in my machine, an even with LR ans PS open I rarely see usage over 12gb. I recently fitted an SSD to an older laptop that was painfully slow to use, transformed it completely and now it boots in seconds and most programs open almost instantly.
 
Just as a precaution because this isn't always understood by some people.

If you are looking at M.2 drives be aware that M.2 is just a form factor and that there are two types, SATA M.2 and NVME M.2. if you end up with a sata version it will be no faster than a standard 2.5 inch SSD drive.
If you are looking for the type where transfer rates are quotes in the thousands rather than hundreds then you need to go for NVME
 
PhotoBoris said:
Sorry, me again! Quick RAM question.

I am looking at this RAM:

https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/product/MYH48d/corsair-memory-cmk16gx4m2b3000c15


However, I can get the 2400 version for £20 less:

https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/product/y9rcCJ/corsair-memory-cmk16gx4m2a2400c16

Is it worth me paying the extra £20 for the 3000 ram or should I save the £20 towards and SSD?
Click to expand...

It's a 6 and two 3's whether you would notice any tangible gains out of it.

Personally I would buy the 2400mhz and put the extra cash somewhere else.
 
PhotoBoris said:
Sorry, me again! Quick RAM question.

I am looking at this RAM:

https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/product/MYH48d/corsair-memory-cmk16gx4m2b3000c15


However, I can get the 2400 version for £20 less:

https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/product/y9rcCJ/corsair-memory-cmk16gx4m2a2400c16

Is it worth me paying the extra £20 for the 3000 ram or should I save the £20 towards and SSD?
Click to expand...

Small note, ddr4 ram automatically runs at 2133 MHz no matter what it says.

3000 MHz or 2400 MHz is what is can go up to.

You have to go into BIOS and tell it to do.

If the motherboard or cpu do not support those speeds that it wont run at that speed full stop either.

It ok for people who just go into a shop and buy stuff off the shelf and think its all easy.

Building it yourself you need to know the specs of the motherboard, cpu and go into bios, find a setting, change a setting, save it, restart etc....
 
GTG said:
Small note, ddr4 ram automatically runs at 2133 MHz no matter what it says.

3000 MHz or 2400 MHz is what is can go up to.

You have to go into BIOS and tell it to do.

If the motherboard or cpu do not support those speeds that it wont run at that speed full stop either.

It ok for people who just go into a shop and buy stuff off the shelf and think its all easy.

Building it yourself you need to know the specs of the motherboard, cpu and go into bios, find a setting, change a setting, save it, restart etc....
Click to expand...

If OP goes/has gone with their intended CPU and mobo (i5 8600k and MSI Z370) then he will be fine.
The CPU is guaranteed to work at 2666 and above and the mobo is rated well beyond 3000mhz with (OC).

I would still stick with 2400mhz unless doing some extreme overclocking.
 
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