I’ve trialed v9 and found moving from shot to shot painfully slow - even with photos from my Nikon D750 (24MP). My current motherboard doesn’t have enough ‘lanes’ to support higher-end GPUs, so I guess I’m in for a new PC (case, CPU, m-board, power supply, DRAM) before I upgrade from v8. But I’ll keep the question to GPUs as my next system will be built around whatever GPU I pick needs
Any thoughts? I’d love to know what the PL developers are using as their ‘testbed’ systems for the obvious reasons…
Thanks!
I’ve been wondering that myself!
Its can depend ‘moving from shot to shot’ what editing on the photos.
If no editing at all on the photos, its need to be very-very fast. If tons of AI masks, its may lag. May if you describe a bit on details.
But I’ll keep the question to GPUs as my next system will be built around whatever GPU I pick needs
As far as i see, GPU with 16GB VRAM seems fine and handle the things. I see in this forum 3-4 week ago (?) a GPU Price/Performance graph. I suggest to find it. Anyhow, GPU architecture, clock speed, memory bandwidth → fast and newer is always better. But of course its come in a cost.
I’d love to know what the PL developers are using as their ‘testbed’ systems for the obvious reasons…
I think nothing special on this. In Windows GPU with 12-16GB VRAM. May more on AMD type (due i not see too much if any issue in this forum about AMD, nVidia driver quality may vary). I think they also test it with smaller amount of GPU VRAM of course → and that’s why the describe in the release note something like: minimum 6GB GPU in the case of DP3 and AI Mask (and they not write ‘Pre-defined’ AI mask and not write DP XD2s)
In Mac world, just higher levels (i’m not to familiar on that), like 36-48GB of unified memory.
Any idea what it might have been called? Searching for “GPU Price/Performance graph” gets this thread - and nothing else…
Personally, I’m quite happy with water cooled GeForce RTX 4070 by Gigabyte (desktop), i7-14700KF CPU, 850W 80 PLUS Gold PSU, 2TB+4TB Nvme disks, 32GB RAM, working with Z8 raws (45MP). I was afraid of water cooling and lack of integrated graphic unit in CPU, but so far it works, quietly. I have both DeepPRIME and High Quality previews enabled. I get about 10mpx/s for XD2s and 20-25mpx/s for DP3 performance for jpeg batch exports (with default 2 threads/export and no Local Adjustments).
Some key points, surely missing some:
- Good power supply with some reserve, not only for possible GPU update. Poor power supplies and poor cooling (e.g. dust in laptops) cause many strange, random problems with GPUs.
- Noise level, but recent PCs tend to be OK (never had GPU with fans, though).
- Determine how much max TDP you can bear. I capped it at 200W for GPU, maybe I could bear 300W, but not more, I think (but I have quite poor airflow under my desk). Idle TDP for my RTX 4070 is about 11W, so no real problem there.
- VRAM size becomes more and more important due to AI/ML consumption. Hard to predict anything here. Of course software developers will try to keep in touch with current user base, but they may add some options accessible only to higher-end GPUs, practically unusable with older hardware. Like the DeepPRIME usability on currently fastest CPUs is questionable.
- 32GB RAM may be reasonable minimum, in the long run I would opt for 64GB, or even more if also editing video, which is resource hog. If you plan to use it for video editing, like DaVinci Resolve, go to their site for advice. Anything that will work well with it, will also work well with PL. For example, some DVR Studio use cases may require 192GB RAM and at least one RTX 5090
- PL may use only one GPU at a time. That’s common for photo editing.
I don’t have any experience with AMD or Intel GPUs, so I’ll talk about NVIDIA only. I would go for something between RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB and RTX 5070 Ti, but maybe you’ll be OK with something stronger. Take a look at The Ultimate GeForce GPU Comparison . I don’t know anyone with RTX PRO experience for home use, but some of them look really interesting (big VRAM, low max TDP, high price though):
NVIDIA RTX PRO in Desktops
https://www.nvidia.com/en-gb/products/workstations/professional-desktop-gpus/rtx-pro-4000/
NVIDIA RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell
See also https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/ , GPU Database | TechPowerUp .
Since last December, introduction of GeForce 50 series, there are notorious problems with nvidia drivers. PL9 gets much more affected than PL8, but hopefully the situation will get more stable by the spring.
My work is mostly high volume with very high ISO (like cameral concerts, indoor sports), up to 3,000 photos per event on input, 50-400 for output. Previously I’ve used D4(16MP), D780(24MP), and now it’s mostly Z8(45MP) at ISO up to 12,800. If you edit just a few photos a week, you may have different needs.
The Nvidia 60-series GPUs are said to be in production and sampling to OEMs and add-in board makers. Both laptop and desktop chips.
OMG, sounds they’ll never get their drivers stable…
EDIT: The gossip says that 60 series will be released in Q1 2027. Sigh.
I posted this in another thread. Yeah, I’m an outlier, but it works very well. Love the Arc GPU.
This is a fairly new computer that was built for me in the spring. The processor is the Core Ultra 7 265K, part of the Intel’s Arrow Lake group, which has a pair of Intel’s third-gen Neural Compute Engines, which Intel says has AI performance of 13 TOPS. Supposedly the first Processor built for AI home computer. All I know is it’s fast as heck.
Intel Core 7 Ultra 265K processor
Asus Prime Motherboard, can’t recall which
G.Skill Ripjaws S5 32 GB (2 x 16GB) DDR5-6000 CL36 Memory
Inland QN450 1TB M.2-2280 PCLe 4.0 X4 NVMe SSD
Sparkle Guardian OC Arc B570 10 GB Video Card
Montech X3 Mesh ATX Mid Tower Case
I can tell you it rips through Deep Prime 4 applications in seconds, and AI masks show up instantly if the area is recognized.
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I have a 5070Ti with 16GB VRAM on a win 11 machine and it runs well and fast (my processor is i7 1470kf ). 32GB system RAM seems very helpful as well. Even then, years ago I used to be able to have both Photoshop and Photo Lab open simultaneously and export directly into PS, do some editing, save, and then export the next image from PL etc. Now on my current machine Photoshop will often crash if I also have PL open - I guess both PS and PL have gotten more resource intensive - both like to have the lion’s share of VRAM for example and both now have resource hungry AI actions - one step forwards, two backwards for my workflow. I now have switched to processing all the raws first, closing down PL and then doinfg what I want in PS.
4080 with 16gb of VRAM works very well for me
3070 with 8gb has constant problems
Number of PCIe lanes or speed of those lanes should not have much impact, as long as you have PCie slot free, your old motherboard might be up to a task.
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I can remember using DxO Optics Pro 8 on a Lenovo laptop with i3 processor and built-in graphics. It ran just fine. Fast, no crashes (obviously the software has changed immensely since then).
Now, I’m holding off upgrading to Photolab 9 because I’ve only got an i5 desktop with 20GB RAM and a 6GB GPU. It seems I have to save up to buy a supercomputer first. This adds considerably to the cost of an upgrade.
It is still interesting to read of peoples experiences though, as bugs get ironed out and practical hardware recommendations come forward.
FWIW I also have an i5 box, but with 32G of DDR4 RAM.
I’ve ordered most of the parts I need to build a new box (and I’m paying extra to make it quiet as fan noise drives me crazy). I got the i5 for my current PC because it was the best performance for 65W or lower TDP - and lower watts used means lower noise to dump the heat.
If you look at that thread linked in the post above this one I’ve detailed some of my choices, but even spending the extra for a quiet build, I’m at $1150 before I add a GPU, which’ll be $300 or $600, depending on which one I opt for. I’d guess you could reduce that to $1000 if you don’t care about quiet. Agreed that it makes v9 a lot more expensive (and I’ll probably opt out until v10 because my finances are far from unlimited). $1300 doesn’t strike me as a ‘supercomputer’ level expense - but I 100% see where you’re coming from.
I also use Affinity Photo 2, which seems to perform fine on my i5 / 32Gb box, but there’s a v3 coming soon. I haven’t used PS since they went rent model, never used LR so I can’t speak to either of those - but there don’t seem to be any PP apps that require fewer resources as newer versions come out. This’ll be my first complete build in more than ten years so my current i5 (which cost well over $1000 in parts) doesn’t owe me anything. Hope I do as well with the one I’m about to build…