PC spec for Lightroom

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GravelBen

Original Poster:

15,774 posts

233 months

Sunday 23rd June
quotequote all
This might be a question for the geeks among us...

Since the introduction of the various AI features to Lightroom (subject and object detection masking, denoise etc) I've been finding LR classic increasingly slow, unstable and prone to crashing/freezing when using those functions, requiring me to close and re-open LR each time which ends up in a fair bit of frustration and wasted time - especially when I'm processing hundreds of rally photos and at times I'll only get through a small handful of photos in between crashes.

I'm wondering if my PC is just getting too old for the demands of these new LR features, it does seem to happen a bit less frequently if I make a point of closing everything else when I'm using LR.

It was pretty high spec for its day, but about 10 years old so that day was a long time ago now - i7-4790 (3.6-4ghz 4 core/8 thread), 32gb RAM (but only DDR3 speed), GTX1050ti.

Upgrading this PC isn't a practical option due to the age and limitations of a small form factor case (Dell Optiplex), so I'd be starting from scratch.

Scouted a few options, with a bit of man-maths to justify it I'm looking at i7-13700, 32gb DDR5 RAM and RTX 4060 or 4060ti, in a gaming PC case with good cooling etc (It would be used for a bit of casual gaming too, but I'm not a serious gamer by any means).

Obviously that would be a massive leap above my current setup, and hopefully fairly futureproof for long term use / upgradability when the time comes.

What sort of PC spec are my fellow PHers using for LR and how are you finding performance and stability etc? Does the spec I'm looking at seem sensible?

GravelBen

Original Poster:

15,774 posts

233 months

Friday 28th June
quotequote all
Interesting - maybe the LR freezing/crashing is just due to my PC being that few more years older, or a more specific compatibility issue. I was keeping an eye on system load while processing some rally photos this week and the LR crashes generally seemed to be accompanied by a spike to 100% load on the GPU.

Even just with jpg files (I shoot raw for most things but jpg for motorsport) it was very laggy and often crashing every 2 or 3 photos, it has definitely got worse over the last 6 months or so and seems worse with each LR update.

I guess at 10 years old with a 4th-gen i7 it was probably only a matter of time before something became an issue and triggered a need for replacement.

Edited by GravelBen on Friday 28th June 05:59

GravelBen

Original Poster:

15,774 posts

233 months

From some further interweb research I've learnt that apparently AI functions (especially denoise) lean heavily on something called tensor cores in the GPU, which older cards like my GTX 1050ti don't even have. Reported results on other forums show massive improvement in AI denoise processing time from several minutes on older systems down to 15-20s on something more recent with a modern GPU like RTX 30- or 40- series.

I use AI denoise sparingly (partly because it takes so long) but use AI subject & sky masks pretty frequently for editing motorsport photos. Shooting motorsport in JPG means AI denoise isn't even an option there! Working through a batch I often copy+paste develop settings from one photo to another, pasting develop settings with AI masks seems to be the most common trigger of my LR crashes. So I've been forced to close and re-open LR pretty frequently anyway!

Anyway to cut a long story short I decided to bite the bullet and upgrade properly, 'buy once cry once' instead of a cheaper upgrade that would do ok for now but might run into similar issues getting out of date sooner.

So I've ordered a decent spec gaming PC with i7-13700KF, 32GB DDR5, RTX 4060ti. 2TB NVMe drive will hopefully be big enough (current PC has 512GB SSD for OS etc and 4TB HDD for storage, but only half full even with a few years of photos stored), but I can always add another drive later if needed (or just be more disciplined at moving older stuff onto external drives).

Funny comparing performance benchmarks between my current i7-4790 (4 core/ 8 thread, 4Ghz turbo) and the i7-13700 (16 core/24 thread, 5.4Ghz turbo).
But truly hilarious comparing benchmarks between the GTX 1050ti and RTX 4060ti!

Edited by GravelBen on Sunday 30th June 00:44