Buildin New PC for Photoshop/ Lightroom Kaby Lake vs Coffee Lake?

[Picturequest]

Hello Gang!

Well Ive hit the ceiling on my 2010 i7 860 PC. I maxed out the 16gb of RAM, but Windows  always tells me I need to quite PS. I shoot the Sony A7rII which makes large 42mp RAWs. Lightroom lags like crazy.  So, I'm on a budget but am planning on updated to either a Kaby Lake i7 7700k or wait for the 8700k Coffee lake 6 core.

From my research PS and Lightroom really don't take advantage of all the cores. I wanted to support AMDs 1700x but even with all the cores a website showed how much lower performance it was compared to the Intel.

I'd like to get 32gtb RAM (2x16) so I could still upgrade in the future if ram ever gets cheap again.

I want to get an M.2 as a start up drive.

So I'd appreciate any opinions if it is worth waiting for the 8700 with 6 cores. Will that even mater with PS/LR?

Thanks

Max

[D Fosse]

Picturequest  wrote

From my research PS and Lightroom really don't take advantage of all the cores.

I keep hearing that all the time, but when I look I never see anything to support it. Seems like a persistent myth to me.

Here's an i7-7700K and Lightroom CC going crazy with the sliders, on 36 MP raw files:

I built this system about a month ago (with an M.2) and I'm impressed. Never seen Lightroom performance like this before (Photoshop has always behaved well, no matter what hardware I put it on).

I also have another machine at work, an older i7-3820 (SSD not M.2). Core utilization is just as good there, although on the whole a tad slower with Lightroom.

[JJMack]

You do not state what your budget is.  Photoshop does not require the best computer available out there. I like Coffee Cake and like to have money to buy Coffee, Cake and wine. So I like to buy as few computers as possible and not spend top dollar for the systems that I buy.  I made a rule for myself that I follow and works well for me.  Buy last years top of the line machines that currently sell for between $1,500 and $2,500 and use your old good hardware with it. Like Displays, Wacom tablets, mice and External drives.   There is also nothing wrong with buying refurbished equipment either.   I have been particularly happy buying refurbished Dell works stations from Dell Outlet they come with 3 Years of Dell Service.  You need to monitor the Dell web site often to find a machine you may want for they sell quickly so you need to know what you want and when that type of configuration become available pounce on it before someone else does. Last week I bought one for my son for  $1,565 here is what he now has. It would be a great machine for Photoshop if he used Photoshop.

Dell Outlet Precision T5810

Processor: Intel Xeon E5-2630 v4 Processor (10 Core, 2.2GHz, 25M Cache, 85W)

32 GB DDR4 RDIMM ECC 2400MHz (4x8GB) Module,Dual In-Line Memory,Registered Dimm

256GB 2.5Inch SATA Class 20 Solid State Drive,S3,7MM,PM871

NVIDIA Quadro M2000 4GB (4 DP) (1 DP to SL-DVI adapter)

8X DVD ROM Drive Digital Video Disk Drive,8X,12.7T,Hitachi Lg Data Storage,BLN

Dell KB212-B USB Keyboard,104,United States

Optical 2-Button Mouse Black,Logitech,DI

Internal Speaker

Hard Drive Bracket

Precision T5810 425W TPM Chassis

Windows 10 Pro

Windows 64 Bit

Wave Systems Software

3 Year Hardware Service with Onsite/In-Home Service After Remote Diagnosis

The Dell Workstation I purchased in 2013 for $2000 is still serving me well but is less powerful. Handle Photpshop well. I do not use Lightroom.

Dell Outlet Precision Fixed Workstation T5600, 825W Tower

Genuine Windows 7 Professional 64-Bit Operating System DVD

Processor: Intel Xeon Dual Six Core E5-2620 Processor (2.0GHz, 15M, 7.2 GT/s,Turbo)

2GB NVIDIA Quadro 4000, Dual Monitor, 2DP & 1DVI (max resolution 2560x1600 two)

8GB, DDR3 RDIMM Memory, 1600MHz, ECC (4 DIMMS)

PERC H310 RAID Controller

256 GB Solid State Drive

500 GB SATA, 3.5 Inch, 10K Hard Drive

8X DVD +/- RW Optical Drive

English  Keyboard

Dell USB Optical Mouse

Precision T5600: 3 Year Basic Hardware Service with 3 Year

$2,029.00 Dell Outlet       + $180 4TB external USB3 Disk  $316 32GB ECC memory  Total $2,525,00

My Wife Dell better then mine less then my son's  purchased in  2016

Dell Model: T3620

Processor: Intel Xeon E3-1270 V5 3.6 GHz 4 Core

Ram: 32GB 4X8G 2133 Non ECC

Storage: Solid State Drive 512GB

Graphics: Nvidia Quadro K2200

Removable Storage: Dvd+/-Rw 16X

Operating System: Windows 10 Pro

$1,934.32 Dell Outlet.

Not all features in Photoshop can be multi threaded.  Some processing is sequential in nature.  Many feature will take advantage of all the cores you have I have seen things like smart blur peg 24 threads on my system.   Some features also will use you GPU you do not need the greatest Display adapter unless you also use Premier Pro or are a Gamer they will work better with top of the line Display adapters from Nvidia.

[Picturequest]

I'm building my own.

Based on PCPARTSPICKER.COM

i7 7700k $300-330

32GB Ram (2x16) $230-250

Motherboard MSI Z270ish $150-180

M.2 500gb  $200

With black Friday coming up. I can imagine saving about $100 off these prices. As long as the RAM doesn't keep rising.

I will use my current monitor case and Power Supply. To total around $880-960

I'm guessing the Coffee Lake i7 8700k will be under $350. New Z370 Motherboard in the same price range.

I will add a GPU down the road. Once all the Bitcoin miners had their fill.

My current PC is 6-7 years old. Ram is a big issue for me. Lightroom is not good for 42mp Raws with the current hardware.

I set up a new i7 7700k 4.2ghz Imac last weekend. I tested lightroom with the GPU acceleration on and off. I think the GPU slows things down, and creates an unpleasant, Flip from processed Raw, then resets, then rerenders. I was told this is due to loading the data via PCI to the GPU ram.

[JJMack]

I stopped building my own years ago.  I just went to pcpartspicker.com to see it  had a build with the CPU my son's machine has. There was one system there https://pcpartpicker.com/b/nZxG3C All in all that system and my son machine are quite similar the one there had cheaper ram and display adapter but had a ssd twice the sized as my son's and also had a cheap 2TB HDD.  It Cost $1200 to build where my son's machine cost $300 more was $1500.   IMO that the machine came with the OS installed Ready to run and has 3 years of service more than made up for that $300 expense.  What is the cost of Window 10 Pro, time it take to research order the parts and assemble the parts cost.  That cost is not listed on the home builds sites. IMO it more than $300...

[Picturequest]

Since my current PC was built in late 2010. My computer is about 7 years old. So building a PC every 7 years is not a big deal. I enjoy, the hour of plugging things in. Mainly since I have a 52" LCD display I use, I have an extra ATX case, Can reuse my PSU, Have a ton of harddrives. I only need the 4 components.

I just read Coffee Lake i7 8700k 6/12 cores comes out in about a month. Really great specs for Maybe $350. So about $50 more than the current i7 7700k 4 core.

I like to get the fastest (in reason) newest tech, since it needs to last 6-7 years.

Look at Apple. They just refreshed the imac. The last update was over 2 years ago. If you did not wait for the new version, you'd already have a 2 year old system/.

For most of my computing my current PC is fine. The new one will be 2.5x faster. I want to have 32gb ram, m.2 start-up disk, and run a 4k monitor.

So for something I use 10 hours a day for work. Investing $800-900 in this upgrade is not really a bad thing. And I can have my current PC as a back-up.

Thanks

Guys.

[JJMack]

Picturequest  wrote

I like to get the fastest (in reason) newest tech, since it needs to last 6-7 years.

Yes reason is important I always look at PassMark  site to see what looks reasonable to me. There are some surprises to be found there. The top one is never reasonable.

And some interpretation is needed how can a processor be top in one chart and bottom in and other Price alone does make one processor great performance count also.

[JJMack]

In my wifes machine I have three displays hooked to its Nvidia K2200 two 20" 4:3 1600x1200 displays and a $380 Dell 24" 4k  IPS from Amazon.

[Picturequest]

Nice monitors. After playing with my uncles 5k Imac screen, 1080p just doesn't cut it. Particularly on high res 42mpx files.:-)

[D Fosse]

A couple of years ago I threw out all my extra monitors and settled on a single good one. I've never looked back.

I'm sure my work has improved. Instead of keeping track of all those distracting panels on the right and thumbnails on the left, none of which I really need, I can concentrate on the work that needs to be done.

I don't have a 4K monitor now, but I imagine the main benefit is that you can go to 100% and still have a sense of the whole.

[JJMack]

With Photoshop's UI scaling issues it nice to have Low and High resolution displays on your system and not use Adobe 2x UI... Screen captures