Building a new PC for Lightroom

David Crosbie

Well-Known Member
Well, I say building. I was given a PC from my previous employer as a sorry for the contract coming to an end. I had left it in a cupboard assuming it'd be fairly low spec (which it kinda is) but actually it has some decent components.

Namely the Motherboard, which will actually accept anything up to a 3rd generation i7, DDR3 up to 2400 and SATA 6gb/s interface for a fast SSD. So I decided to see what could be done to improve it.

In the short term, it'll have the following:

-intel G2020 processor (2.9ghz dual core processor that came with it, on part with early i5's)
-8gb Crucial DDR3 PC1333 memory
-Samsung 850 Evo SSD (for boot, scratch and lightroom library)
-500GB 7200rpm HDD (for storage)
-Geforce 210 graphics (so I can get rid of the onboard)

Down the line, I'll be looking to upgrade the CPU to a probably a decent Ivy Bridge I5, and at that point I'll put in 16gb of fast DDR3.

Does anyone have any particular experience of CPU's they feel work especially well in lightroom?
 
No, sorry. I switched to Macs for my image / video editing a few years back. We have one PC with it on at work as well. It's a Dell Precision T1700 with 16GB RAM. It's Ok, but nothing special. The catalogue on it is quite small though and the main editing is done on a Mac.
 
David LR does not need a lot of resource

You say the Motherboard will accept an i CPU, the socket for the Intel G2020 is (1155) I may be wrong and often am and you already have checked this socket fitting, ignore if so.
Throwing an expensive i7 or even i5 and the CUP is where the money needs to go, braver man than myself to put it in an old motherboard, hit and miss if the motherboard would use anywhere near the potential of the CPU, if it worked at all. I'd find out for certain before hand. Even if the fittings were compatible, the BIOS system may need to be upgraded which on an old board is risky if at all possible, thankfully new boards this can be flashed, yet this still carries risk.
Compatibility of parts is a must and lower specs of RAM and CPU and motherboard which are a marriage made in heaven will always give you improved results over the most powerful parts which do not run seamlessly together which was always the problem in the past. Thankfully today we can harvest enough info online to resolve these compatibility issues.

Yes agree fully a dedicated graphics card is a must for an older board. LR can use your Graphic card as an extra resource, a tick in the performance box in preferences within adobe software is all that is needed.

SSD lubberly, seconds to boot, only problem on Windows 7 8.1 and 10 is SSD can be ejected by mistake. A quirk and seen as an external drive. Need to be a decent size if using it for a scratch disk as well, although it will, the larger the better.
and yes only have the OS with programs on this and one or more internal hard drives for files.


I got an intel CPU only by recommendation from someone I know who is experienced. It is the hub of everything and the greater the cores is far better than loading with Ram. Many used to fill their 32bit pcs with Ram and of course 32bit could never utilies it . I have 16GB and thought about the 64GB the motherboard can accept, exponentially I'd recon that I'd not see a real world difference over 32GB and decent Ram is dam expensive, also everything works very well. I am sure you know this, ignore if so. Always buy RAM in a set, they test each stick set together to optimize compatibility. Random sticks often wont function as well as the sets. Apparently.
So yes I have an Intel CPU and it runs Sigma Photo Pro, Cs6, LR, and umpteen other programs on screen drawing memory and CPU resource seamlessly, no issues with what ever.






I got fed up of of the shelf computers and built one. On reflection I'd have got the next higher CPU but that would have been greedy really. I did have lots of old parts like you have, given to me for free, but when looking into it and Sigma software can be slowish on any system for some, I decided to get parts that would last for many years hopefully. I chose a Work station motherboard that are designed to have a reliable data management system running a constant 24/7 . Also very up gradable, will take 64GM RAM and has 6 PCI sockets for a series of graphic cards or whatever takes your fancy. I could not have got this spec of the shelf at the time as it was purpose built for my own imaging needs and the software I have. I could have got an online company to build the same specs. It cost me a bit less than two thirds so they would have charged nearly thirty percent more, it took about four hours tops to assemble and boot it up with Win 7 at the time. I was a novice learn t a lot at the time and enjoyed the experience and have forgotten lots. Upgraded to the free win 10 while it has been free.

Sorry written far to much probably about nothing, but if one little thing helps I hope it does.

This is my simple system

System Type x64-based PC Win 10
ASUS P9X79-E WS. Lovely work station MB.
Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4820K CPU @ 3.70GHz, 3701 Mhz, 4 Core(s), 8 Logical Processor(s)
Installed Physical Memory (RAM) 16.0 GB GDDR5
Intel R9 270
Samsung 850 EVO SSD 500 GB
 
It should also be noted that I too would usually use a Mac. I have a Mac mini as a media system but sick of editing photos on the telly.

Was given this barebones system
For free and on finding it could be tweaked to a fairly high standard for very little money!

Put it this way. How else could you get an i7 with ssd and 16gb of ram for sub £200
 
It should also be noted that I too would usually use a Mac. I have a Mac mini as a media system but sick of editing photos on the telly.

Was given this barebones system
For free and on finding it could be tweaked to a fairly high standard for very little money!

Put it this way. How else could you get an i7 with ssd and 16gb of ram for sub £200

Well the blind talking to the sighted then, if that is the price of a i7 CPU today an SSD drive and 16GB ram I aught to have waited.
 
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