New PC or upgrade - photo editing

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My PC is about 11 years old. See link below for details and it is starting to struggle with what I use it for which is photo editing.

It has the Core-i7 (2600) spec with 12Gb ram (max) & AMD Radeon HD 6850 graphics. I've also installed a SSD for the C: drive & running Windows 10.

I use Topaz Labe and Adobe software and my PC is a couple of generatons below what their minimum specs recommend.(e.g.Core-i5 >3GHz & 2GB of dedicated VRAM (Radeon 5870 or greater)

Ideally I'd just like to upgrade the graphics card but not sure if it will help.

As photo editing is very much a hobby and only occasional use of the PC and not a business I don't really want to spend a lot of money. I'm happy with all the peripherals as well.

Any ideas?


HP Pavilion Elite HPE-595a Desktop PC Product Specifications | HP® Customer Support
 
Don’t know which motherboard and power supply you currently have, but the processor is quite capable and 12GB RAM should be enough for what you want. This graphic card should make a significant improvement
MSI RADEON RX 580 ARMOR 8G OC Graphics Card '8GB GDDR5, 1366Hz, AMD Polaris 20 XTX GPU, 2x DisplayPort, 2x HDMI, DVI-D, Dual Fan Cooling System' https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B071Y7XJXN/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_X-ELEbWJXK34E
Edit: Just saw your spec. You’ll need to upgrade the power supply to above 500W (750-1000W) for running the graphic card from the link.
 
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Don’t know which motherboard and power supply you currently have, but the processor is quite capable and 12GB RAM should be enough for what you want. This graphic card should make a significant improvement
MSI RADEON RX 580 ARMOR 8G OC Graphics Card '8GB GDDR5, 1366Hz, AMD Polaris 20 XTX GPU, 2x DisplayPort, 2x HDMI, DVI-D, Dual Fan Cooling System' https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B071Y7XJXN/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_X-ELEbWJXK34E

Pentagron Cleveland MB??
PSU is a good one - I purchased the computer when I was in Tokyo (USA spec on 110v) and had to buy a new 220v PSU when I moved to Australia (the big bang when I switced it on reminded me that it was not a multi country PSU.)
 
Pentagron Cleveland MB??
PSU is a good one - I purchased the computer when I was in Tokyo (USA spec on 110v) and had to buy a new 220v PSU when I moved to Australia (the big bang when I switced it on reminded me that it was not a multi country PSU.)
Don’t know anything about that MB. Sorry. :(
 
I would start the machine, start nothing except Task Manager, make it large and click on the Performance tab. TM is excellent these days and gives you much more information on what is going on.

Then only do what you typically need to do with the machine for a while.

Then when you are finished, go back and look at the graphs for each element and see what you were stressing.

My guess is it will be GPU as most decent graphics software will use a GPU if you have one from what I remember.

The i7, despite being 2nd generation, is still a good CPU although this is not a huge issue if you have a decent GPU.

12GB is a pretty decent amount of memory. If per chance you are getting close the limit, make sure you run nothing else while you do editing. I'd be surprised though as even the largest images our guys at work use are hundreds of MB.

That graphics card will never set the world on fire but you could upgrade fairly substantially, for not a huge amount of money if you don't go right to the top, to improve things.

As it is, you will have to wait longer for things to be finished.

Running Task Manager will give you an idea as to what you are hitting the limit of...
 
I would start the machine, start nothing except Task Manager, make it large and click on the Performance tab. TM is excellent these days and gives you much more information on what is going on.

Then only do what you typically need to do with the machine for a while.

Then when you are finished, go back and look at the graphs for each element and see what you were stressing.

My guess is it will be GPU as most decent graphics software will use a GPU if you have one from what I remember.

The i7, despite being 2nd generation, is still a good CPU although this is not a huge issue if you have a decent GPU.

12GB is a pretty decent amount of memory. If per chance you are getting close the limit, make sure you run nothing else while you do editing. I'd be surprised though as even the largest images our guys at work use are hundreds of MB.

That graphics card will never set the world on fire but you could upgrade fairly substantially, for not a huge amount of money if you don't go right to the top, to improve things.

As it is, you will have to wait longer for things to be finished.

Running Task Manager will give you an idea as to what you are hitting the limit of...

Cheers will try that. It has always handled Adode PS and LR quite well. It is the newer Topaz Labs 'AI' that makes it struggle.
 

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