The search for a fast PC for Lightroom

Today I'm reporting on a topic that I actually have no idea about 😅 It's about (Windows-) computers. I like using them, especially with Lightroom. But I don`t really know about what's under the casing for a very long time, as I've always bought complete computers recently.

However, with the ever-increasing number of editing software, especially since the AI-supported functions, the slow speed of my PC got on my nerves, even though it otherwise runs stably. It was time for something new and that's what I was looking for in October.

During my research, I ended up delving a little deeper than I had anticipated and would like to share my thoughts and decisions today, as many photographers are likely to face this problem in the course of AI calculations and large image files.

In the end, the article is certainly not interesting for real Computer experts - but if you have an older office or gaming computer at your disposal, are annoyed by the computing times of a denoising process (e.g. with Topaz, DxO or Lightroom) and are asking yourself the question of a better system - it could be interesting for you.

What you can expect:

Which device have I used so far?
What was the problem?
What were the causes?
What was my solution?
What are the effects in practice?
My most important findings
Concluding remarks

What have I used so far?

Over the last 15 years, I've actually always had quite solid computers for the time, more than sufficient for Lightroom and Office. The requirements for these programmes were never very high. Only when I occasionally edited a film in Adobe Premiere did I reach the limits of course, but that was still okay.

Finally, I'm talking specifically about this device that I've been using since April 2018: the ‘MSI Aegis 3’ VR7RC gaming computer.

Among other things, it had:

An Intel Core i7-7700 processor
An Nvidia Geforce GTX1060 graphics card 6gb
16GB DDR4 RAM memory
A 256GB SSD hard drive, which essentially ran Windows
And a 2TB HDD hard drive for larger data

On the day I bought it, it was already a discontinued model and so this is a computer with the technical status of 7-8 years ago. For 5-6 years, the computer was absolutely sufficient for me for Office and Lightroom, until Adobe came up with the idea of implementing more and more AI-supported functions.

What was the problem?

Basically, there were 4 areas where the speed of the MSI Aegis was simply no longer practicable and slowed down a smooth workflow:

the AI-supported functions mentioned above are pretty good and make the development of a raw file much easier, but they require computing power. Incidentally, anyone who thinks that AI-supported functions are just some fancy processing steps that ‘distort’ the image result, such as replacing a sky using the Luminar software, is mistaken. Even simple masking options in Lightroom (e.g. automatic sky detection, use of the object brush, etc.) and the denoising of an image fall under this category. For example, denoising ONE unprocessed 45mp file from the Nikon Z8 (uncompressed raw format with 52mb; Lightroom version 14.01) took a whopping 2 minutes, 1:56 min to be precise at "level" 36 and of course GPU acceleration enabled. This is my main pain point.
the creation of an HDR or panorama file, which is made up of many images, is also (and has been for a long time) CPU-intensive, especially with the current mp sizes of the camera sensors and the resulting raw files. I now also create HDR more frequently, as unfortunately some of the dynamics have been lost in the course of the stacked sensors (Z8/Z9). Depending on the number of images, this also takes several minutes. Even rendering the previews usually takes what feels like an eternity.
exporting large amounts of data regularly annoyed me massively (e.g. a Lightroom catalogue or a large number of TIFF files etc), I often had to leave the computer on overnight. I have to do this more often ‘for reasons’ and that is a big point for me.
the same applies to copying large amounts of data (e.g. for data backups) to an external data carrier, whereby the performance of the external carrier also plays a role here, of course.

These were the main pain points. So the question arose, why is this actually the case?

What were the causes?

Firstly, the causes do not necessarily have to lie in the hardware. For example, Lightroom settings can also optimise or slow down the system. The photographer Stephan Forstmann once wrote this good article about this, which I can recommend. In the end, of course, it can still end up like it did for me: you realise that despite these optimisations, the hardware remains too slow.

Frankly speaking, I only realised the exact causes more and more when I was looking for a new computer and had read quite a lot (forums & tech blogs) and had also exchanged ideas with colleagues, photographers and consultants from computer retailers.

I could go into detail about every component of my old computer, but I'll just pick out the 3 most important components that I felt were the biggest levers for improvement.

the graphics card (especially the main component ‘GPU’) has a greater impact on speed than I had assumed. I had always mistakenly only looked at the combination of processor, RAM and hard drive for performance and had also been advised in the past that an ‘expensive’ graphics card was only really interesting for gamers. That's not true (any more) and the power of the graphics card is becoming increasingly important, especially with AI-supported functions. What I also didn't realise in this context is that it even plays a role in simple export processes. Incidentally, I found that the (low) official requirements from Adobe for Lightroom are not really decisive if you want to optimise the system, see also my findings at the end of the article
for copy and export processes, everything ran via my 2 TB HDD hard drive and since it was still a simple ‘spinning HDD’ I lost a lot of time here - but at that time the SSDs were also noticeably more expensive, which is why I only took a 250 gb SSD and thought ‘the main thing is that the operating system is then on the fast hard drive, the HDD is enough for everything else’...the cock spoke...
the 16gb RAM (DDR4) is no longer up to date for my intended use and is simply too restrictive when using the computer intensively - this was also the most obvious point and I was aware of it from the outset

These were the ‘main culprits’ for the limited performance.

What was my solution?

Through the exchange and the extensive research, I had already realised that I would have to invest a certain budget if I wanted a reasonably future-proof PC for photo and video editing (I think this is only possible for a maximum time horizon of 5 years anyway). Originally, I had set a budget of 2k as the limit. And you can easily get by with that in 2024 and get significantly better performance than with the MSI Aegis mentioned above.

To be honest, I ended up a little above that, at 2.4k 🙄 This simply had something to do with the fact that I wanted to have more room for improvement in performance with this purchase, given the rapid development of the software. I also edit 4k videos with Premiere from time to time.

Now I knew my requirements and initially looked for a complete computer in the ‘gaming’ or ‘workstation’ sector, for which there are also special providers. However, I noticed that (within my budget) there was always one component that didn't fit and that no computer was 100% customised for me. For example, many computers had a Bluray drive - something I haven't used for 10 years, so why pay for it...

In the end, I decided to configure my computer myself in a computer shop and have it assembled and tested there, as I have no idea about this. The price-performance ratio was really better that way. In the end, I decided in favour of the following components, each with brief comments:

Case: ENDORFY Arx 700 Air
- Quite simple, supposedly a good airflow and glazed on the sides, I found it quite chic...
CPU: Intel Core i7 14700K 8+12x 3.40Ghz / Turbo up to 5.60Ghz / 28 threads
- Not all I7s are the same, as I found out, there are many differences and there are also many I9 processors on the market that are cheaper than this modern I7, this one was recommended to me by several people.
Mainboard: MSI MAG Z790 Tomahawk WIFI
- Solid, has everything I need, but nothing more (including USB ports, wifi, silence mode, etc.)
Graphics card: Gainward Geforce nVidia RTX4070Ti SUPER 16Gb
- I went a bit overboard here and according to my research, everything from RTX 3060 12gb is good, the RTX 4070 12gb would also be top, but I wanted real power 😉 See also my note on this in the findings below
Memory: ADATA XPG Lancer 64Gb DDR5 6000Mhz CL30 Kit (2x 32Gb)
- Good price-performance ratio for a 64 according to reviews
SSD: Samsung 990 Pro 4Tb M.2 PCIe SSD
- This component was easy to research, as almost everyone agrees on the great speed & quality here for once
Power supply: MSI MPG A850G PCIE5 850W Gold
- 1000W would be even more future-proof, but at some point you run out of money 😉
CPU cooler: Arctic Liquid Freezer III 360
- According to tests a good price-performance ratio
Operating system Windows 11 pro 64

I don't have the time to go into any detail; there were pros and cons for almost every component and a number of alternatives.

Why a PC and not a notebook? Of course, there is no right and wrong. As a photographer myself, I am ‘forced’ to sit in front of a proper hardware-calibrated monitor (in my case an Eizo from the CG series) at some point in the workflow in order to be able to carry out the final development with real precision. But I also prefer to do this on a monitor, because of the size and less because of the calibration. Even though I do a lot of preliminary work on site with my Samsung Book 3 Pro 360 when I'm travelling.

In the end, I end up sitting at my workstation anyway. And with all the possibilities of modern encryption, I feel safer when travelling if I don't have all my data on my notebook. We do a lot of travelling and things can easily get lost. Incidentally, I would have to pay a lot more for a notebook with similar performance data.

What are the effects in practice?

Of course, it's pretty impressive for someone coming from a 7-year-old computer, which is hardly surprising 😉

For me, exporting catalogues (including images) and large numbers of TIFFs has been a dream come true and it's simply incredibly fast. Yes, it was very worthwhile!

Copying feels like it happens at the speed of light and I can now see the preview of the HDR composition after just a few moments - what a relief! I apologise for the imprecise wording, but feelings have to come out here too 😅

Frankly speaking, I would like the denoising to be even shorter, but here I can give you some figures: as already mentioned above, a 45mp raw (52mb) on the MSI Aegis took 1:56 minutes at strength 36 and with GPU acceleration enabled. Now, with the new computer, it's exactly 11 seconds for the same image - Hallelujah 😁 Incidentally, the calculation forecast even only shows 6 seconds for the 45mp images. However, until the images are (automatically) stacked, the image including preview thumb is visible in the catalogue and the improved image is displayed in large size, it was 11 seconds. I'll see if I can reduce that too.

After all, that's a good 10 times faster than the Aegis and is also a great help here! I'd also like to mention that according to benchmark tests, even most current McBook Pros with an M3 chip in the €3,500 - €5,000 price range need about 20-26 seconds to denoise a 45mp file, so even Apple can't do magic and nVidia seems to harmonise very well with Adobe here.

Incidentally, there are also 3 nice side effects: the new computer is significantly quieter (actually not audible in ‘office mode’) than the MSI Aegis, has a much faster WIFI and more and better performing USB ports. The only disadvantage I've noticed so far is actually the weight - the Aegis was smaller and lighter. But that's irrelevant for a desktop computer that I don't move around at all.

My most important findings summarised:

Self-configuration is worthwhile in the end and is not particularly complicated in retrospect - this way I get components that are 100% tailored to my needs from specialist retailers and have a top price-performance ratio, as I can do without components that are not particularly important to me and can prioritise the important things (e.g. drive, LAN, USB, connections, etc.)
A professional assembly of a self-configuration is hardly significant in terms of price (during my research it was between 80-140 € and I had the impression that it is partly negotiable, depending on the configuration)
Investing in a good graphics card (especially in the main GPU component) is very worthwhile; not only for gamers, but also for image processing with AI masking, denoising, HDR, export processes, rendering, previews, etc.
On the processor side, an I9 is not necessary to achieve very good performance data (see time for denoising)
I wouldn't go below 64gb in terms of RAM, especially not with a view to future file sizes (maybe over 45mp?) and system requirements
For the ‘board’ (incl. peripherals), it is important to make sure that a silent mode is also supported if you also want to run the PC for Office and this is desired - the configuration mentioned is super quiet
I would only equip the entire hard drive space with fast and now affordable SSDs and no longer use HDDs at all - except perhaps for external storage due to high data volumes and the associated costs

At this point I would like to point out a special feature:

I noticed during my research that ‘experts’ repeatedly point out the (namely quite low) nominal requirements of Adobe for Lightroom, which are far below a 4070 TI Super and 16gb for the graphics card, for example. S

Accordingly, it is often deduced that investing in graphics cards, RAM and processors above a certain category/price range brings hardly any advantages, and this is usually justified in a seemingly plausible way. So much for the theory.

On the other hand, however, there is practice: for example, the many testimonials from Lightroom users who have replaced ONE component of their PC configuration (e.g. better graphics card) and then compared the performance. Or the benchmark tests, some of which were initiated by users in forums, naming the respective configuration and test.

This shows a different picture and suddenly the computers with a high-quality CPU, 64 RAM and e.g. 4070 graphics cards are ‘coincidentally’ faster than those computers that only fulfil the parameters recommended by Adobe. In my opinion, this discrepancy is important for the selection.

Final remark

One thing I took away from the research: a certain ‘diffuse’ information situation in the assessment of configurations and the inconsistency on the part of connoisseurs and experts is even worse in the computer industry than in the photography industry 😅 If I ask 100 ‘connoisseurs’ about an optimal configuration for a certain budget, I will certainly get 100 different answers.

And yet you always notice a few common denominators and I have simply tried to work with them. That's why I deliberately refrained from talking about brands and models in my findings, but simply tried to abstract which features are important according to my findings.

Incidentally, I ended up having the computer built by Krotus Computer in Bochum, where I also received good and detailed final advice and also found the prices to be fair (no sponsorship here!).

So much for my thoughts on this topic, and now I hope you enjoy your further research if you're still looking 😉

Best regards,
Thomas