#Is it better to but a laptop or desktop for photo editing software#

Generally itвЂ™s best to pick an Nvidia GeForce card for Adobe software (look for Cuda cores), but вЂ“ with one exception вЂ“ itвЂ™s not worth spending a lot of money on one at the moment. LR6 only uses it in the Develop module, and then only with the right combination of graphics card and driver. The first five versions didnвЂ™t use graphics card acceleration. The compromise is to run the program from an affordable SSD while having a big traditional hard drive to store images.ДЇinally, thereвЂ™s the graphics card. RAW files take up a lot of space, but big SSDs are expensive. Lightroom also likes fast disk drives, so it helps to have an SSD. You can run Lightroom in 8GB, but you will start to run into problems when combining HDR images and so on. Of course, it depends on what you do, and how quickly you need to do it. Memory is the next most important thing: 16GB is OK, but more is better, and pros want 32GB or more.

ThereвЂ™s currently no great advantage to having more than four cores, though such chips will benchmark faster because they can turbo-boost two cores to higher clock speeds. Unfortunately, Lightroom is still mostly dependent on the power of the processor, so itвЂ™s best to go for a quad-core Intel Core i7, if possible. The problem is balancing the different requirements. As you already know, you want the fastest processor, the most memory, and the fastest hard drives and SSDs that you can afford. When I wrote about the best laptop for photo editing a month ago, several readers asked for advice on desktops. Looking around, I found a PC on ChillblastвЂ™s website that seems to tick all the boxes, but IвЂ™m concerned it may be over the top for my needs. On my last desktop, built with a friend, I had never-ending problems with the graphics card, which were only fixed once I replaced it. What specification would you recommend for someone with a mid-range DSLR using Adobe Lightroom for RAW files, but only as a hobby?ДЄlthough I think I probably could build my own PC, IвЂ™m not sure I want the additional faff and the risk that some components just wonвЂ™t talk to each other properly. I saw your response to a question about a laptop for a photography student and noted the suggestion that a desktop would be a better option in terms of actual capability, not to mention the ergonomic advantages youвЂ™ve mentioned in previous articles.