Please excuse too basic question. I am finally fed up of loooooong processing time with my LG Gram and decided to go for an eGPU. How much faster would processing be compared to no GPU at all? I was thinking of some variation of RTX 5060 mounted on an AOOSTAR AG02
Thanks
I note that in the US, Costco has a very VERY well configured Lenovo 5i laptop with an RTX 5060 GPU selling for US$1300. Add a $200 thunderbolt docking station and youāll be all set. The 5i laptop has a pair of internal SSD slots so if the original 1Tb isnāt quite enough for you, there are as many DIY options as you can think of.
Hello,
here is the update to my chart at the beginning of September (all explanations with the first post on this topic with data from June 2025).
Four new GPUs have been added:
ā¢ The Nvidia RTX 3050 (6 GB): it offers 20% of the performance of the Nvidia RTX 5090 for ā¬195. If you find an additional small promotion, you can consider upgrading an old configuration at a lower cost.
ā¢ The Nvidia RTX 5050 (8 GB): at ā¬260 for a score of 32%, it is currently the most economical card.
ā¢ The Nvidia RTX 5060 Ti 8 GB: for ā¬60 less than the 16 GB version, it offers the same performance with DxO as the 16 GB version.
ā¢ The AMD RX 9060 XT 8 GB: unlike Nvidia, the loss of 8 GB of video memory reduces performance compared to the 16 GB version. Performance drops from 60% to 48% to save ā¬40: itās not worth it. Itās better to go for the RX 9060 XT 16GB.
Prices remain stable compared to the summer. Even though Nvidia has lowered the official prices of certain models, this has not yet been reflected in the most popular models, which are often out of stock.
I recently bought an AMD RX 9060 XT 16GB with 3 fans for ā¬400 and Iām very satisfied.
I use it to process 20/50 Mpixels photos with Photolab 8, using Deep Prime and Deep Prime XD algorithms.
Since the heat spreader is very large, fans are generally stopped.
The total board power max consumption is 70-80 Watts, therefore my 500 Watts power supply is fully sufficient.
If I would have bought a board with 2 fans, the heat spreader would be smaller, and I would have saved only ā¬20.
All reviews about graphical cards suggest 16 GB VRAM to safeguard the investment over time.
Processing times are now lower than one tenth of previous (Intel UHD 750 embedded in the cpu).
Recent RTX PRO 6000 Max-Q looks interesting. Slightly more fp16/fp32 tflops than 5090 at about half max TDP (300W vs almost 600W). The ugly: launch price $8565 
As if Ā£1,000+ wasnāt ridiculous enough for a GPU.
I remember when I picked up a new 980Ti for ~Ā£500. I paid about Ā£550 for my 1080Ti second-hand and itās still going strong after many years.
Hmmm. Thatās interesting. My MacBook Pro 16" M4 24GB 1TB only cost ā¬3299 (Ā£2770) all in. Are you sure Windows machines, sufficient for DxO, are cheaper than Macs after youāve bought all the necessary add-ins?
I just downloaded PL9 and installed it and it works fine.
Sorry if Iāve misunderstood but I havenāt made such a claim, in fact, I donāt know how Windows vs. Mac stacks up in terms of available performance for Ā£xxx.
For just the graphics card though, I find Ā£1,000+ for a higher-end one to be incredibly expensive as a cost (and as I say, it used to be half that).
In my country (UK) the RTX 5080 (16gb) begins around Ā£900 but has come down a bit since launch, and thatās for the ācheapestā 5080 going. Most are Ā£1,200+
Most 5090ās are ~Ā£2,000 (!) and thatās just for the GPUā¦ not the CPU, RAM, SDD, motherboard, case, monitor etc. etcā¦
So, how much would it cost for a āready to goā Windows machine that would support PL9, if you include the extra GPU?
Iām sorry but again Iām not sure!
The PC Iām using right now? I built it around 10 years ago and besides adding a little storage and changing the 980Ti for a 1080Ti, itās exactly as it was back then.
https://www.reddit.com/r/buildapcforme/comments/1ep0mqf/midrange_gaming_pc_for_700_uk/
Thereās a couple of links here that look like theyād lead to reasonably functioning machines. One is Ā£700, the other Ā£1500-2000.
Iām not āupā on modern component pricing so I couldnāt tell you if these are great systems for running PhotoLab. The systems in the Ā£700 link have a couple boasting just 16GB of RAM so Iād double that to 32GB these days.
I guess it goes without saying that the more money you throw at (this), the better the components you can buy and the better PhotoLab should run.
Last year I realized that the overall response time is slowly decreasing with PL (Intel i7-8700, 3.20GHz, 32GB, 2x NVMe for instant access, 8TB HD partitioned data grave, GTX 1060 6GB, custom built in 2018 for low noise, no gaming).
At the beginning of 2025 and after much consideration, I replaced my tried and tested GPU with an RTX 4070 12 GB (+ PSU). Since my motherboard uses PCIe 3.0 x16 and in order not to halve the transfer rate, I decided against one of the (less power-hungry) PCIe 4.0 x8 cards.
Now Iāve just updated to Win 11 and also PL9, which works quite well so far - apart from some limitations with predefined AI.
Iām afraid I built my current machine for Ā£1300+but that was without the case which would have cost me approximately Ā£70.
It is an Asus Rog with a 12 generation Intel chip (I9 12900) and water cooled with 32K of memory and an AMD 68000 video card with 16 K of memory. This does not include the power supply which is a 1 kW as I already had it. This would have added somewhere between Ā£150-Ā£230 to the overall bill.
So if youāre capable then do built your own, it does work out cheaper, but I donāt think you can do the same with Mac.
Only costs ā¬3299 for a i6 " laptop?? Yikes. With just 5 minutes of checking, in the US I can get an HP Windows 11 desktop for around $2500 USD (ā¬2155) which will be more than capable of running PL 9. it includes 32GB of ram, an Nvidia RTX 5070 graphics card, a 2 TB SDD drive and a 42" 4K curved wide screen monitor. For another few hundred dollars I could even upgrade that very significantly. I could build a better specād one myself with the same monitor for closer to $2000 USD. Converting what you paid to dollars I canāt even imagine spending close to $4000 USD for such a low specād a 16" inch Windows 11 laptop. What a rip off. No wonder most people in the world are still using Windows over Macs.
Mark
Iāll let you know when I finally find something suitable and buy it because I have to get a new desktop machine to replace my (too old to be Win 11 compatible) Win 10 box.
Meanwhile, about 18 months ago I bought an Intel Core i7 13th gen CPU, 16 GB RAM, an RTX 4050 GPU and 100 % sRGB panel for about Ā£1000 GBP. Iāve yet not tried to install PL9 on it but Iām hopeful it will cope, but I wonāt be surprised if the GPU isnāt up to the task.
Fortunately, I got out of Windows development, found that Apple give their Xcode tools for nothing, along with a whole bunch of other free software and ended up writing a lucrative custom iPad app for an aeronautics company.
The last version of Windows I used was XP and, once I had tasted the fruit, there really was no going back - even though it will be sometime before I migrate to the heap of s**t that is macOS Tahoe.
Our whole IT environment is based on Apple with iPhones, iPads, MacBook Pro, Mac Mini and Studio Displays.
And, as I mentioned, I didnāt have to do any of the gymnastics I see so many people resorting to just to get PL9 to work well.
Not forgetting that, if you donāt need a laptop, thereās always the Mac Mini M4 24Gb 1TB for only ā¬1449 and either keep your old screen or pickup something cheap.
Mac Fangirl? You bet 
Ultimately, itās a question of preference.
If I have professional requirements in terms of integration and productivity but no in-depth IT knowledge, an Apple computer is the right choice for me.
If I have the IT knowledge and the time and patience to go with it, an optimized Windows computer is a better alternative.
Most users do not have the opportunity to invest these amounts of money or time (in either Apple or Windows computers) and are dependent on constantly optimizing their Windows computers. If, for example, this forum did not have the excellent performance table of graphics cards for Photolab, most users would be groping in the dark. This is also where the pitfalls lie for operating system and graphics card problems, which most users can only solve with difficulty with forum support. For this group, it is not a question of Windows or Apple computers, but a question of āfrustration tolerance.ā
@Joanna, so youāre saying that the last Windows operating system you had extensive experience with was Windows XP which was released in 2001 and replaced by Vista in 2007? Youāre using your experience with a Windows operating system released 24 years ago to pass judgment on the current version of Windows. Seriously?
Maybe Windows 11 users should be comparing the current version of Windows 11 to whatever version of Mac OS was in use in 2001. Based on your experience that seems like a fair comparison.
Mark
Yup! But I have had hours of endless amusement trying to help friends who have later versions of Windows, who seem to have far more problems than my friends with Macs.
@Joanna, I love having these Mac vs Windows discussions with you. They make my day.
I donāt know who your friends are or what kind of help they need that requires them to seek assistance from an expert Mac user with little experience with Windows operating systems since Windows XP. As a retired IT software developer and user support professional I still have contact with a few hundred relatives, friends, neighbors, and ex colleagues who are all happily using Windows 10 and Windows 11 with minimal issues.
Based on my professional experience, Windows users in general seem to spend more time learning how their operating system works. Some Mac users are just not interested in making the effort or are easily confused by technology. Happily, for them, they have āone size fits allā Macs as a fallback. 
Mark
Iām planning to upgrade my old RTX 2060 6GB in November / December. I had my eyes on the RTX 5060 TI 16GB. This test suggests I should put the RX 9060XT 16GB on top of my listā¦
And by the way, do you have a direct link to the test?
