How much memory would you consider to be enough?

[David_Cavan]

With my Surface Pro laptop reaching EOL I'm looking at going back to a desktop Windows unit. The big issue I believe is that files are larger than 8 years ago when I got the laptop and the process I am using is consistently working with JPGs in the 20-30MB range, as opposed to 5+MB when I got the laptop originally.  It is taking too long for things to process now. 

As near as I can tell the bottleneck is memory.  I will use this as an opportunity to upgrade to 5TB disks, but writing to/from disks has never been an issue when I check what is going on with a process.  I'm also aware of an upcoming decision on an appropriate video card, but today's question is about memory.  Memory is also an expensive component, so there's going to be a point at which it doesn't make sense to keep adding more. And I also know I'm asking one of those "how long is a piece of string" questions, but I'm sure people in this group have thought about this and have made the same calculations - hopefully I can learn from your experience with a more modern desktop.

Dave Cavan

https://davecavanphotographics.com/

 

 

[digitaldog]

Memory for what application? 

Photoshop has always needed 3-5X each open document (size) in RAM. 

Lightroom Classic is totally different. 

GPU these days is nearly as important to performance in the two app's mentioned as RAM and processor speeds and, on Windows, often the cause of buggy behavior (as GPUs and drivers are all over the map).

[David_Cavan]

26 minutes ago, digitaldog said:

Memory for what application? 

Photoshop has always needed 3-5X each open document (size) in RAM. 

Lightroom Classic is totally different. 

GPU these days is nearly as important to performance in the two app's mentioned as RAM and processor speeds and, on Windows, often the cause of buggy behavior (as GPUs and drivers are all over the map).

All true. Part of my issue is that I use a variety of tools, depending on the original photo and the purpose.  The big memory user is Corel Paintshop Pro when I'm running some scripts I've created. There's also Lightroom, which I use if it's just touchups, and as you say I haven't found it bogging down processing in a big way. What I'm finding is that as these tools add AI components that is definitely having an impact on performance, and I expect that trend to continue.

 

[mikemorrellNL]

I bow to @digitaldog on all things digital 🙂. You're right that AI components use up a lot of processing power. That's why I use them (as plug-in filters in Lightroom/Photoshop) sparingly! How much RAM does your Surface Pro have?

I don't know much about hardware but my experience is:

- my RAW files are 20-30 MB (JPEGS - with no resizing and at the highest quality - are about 50% of this)

- I have a newish Laptop with an Intel i7 processor, 16MB RAM and 512 GB SSD, which is generally enough for my needs. My photos are on an external 2TB SSD

- How much RAM is used doesn't only depend on Photo-editing but also on what other programs you use at the same time (Browser tabs, e-mail client, etc.)

- When I run a photoshop AI plugin filter with Lightroom and Google Chrome with 12 tabs open, my 16 MB RAM is 80%-90% utilized; at 90% it looks like Windows 11 starts swapping stuff out to SSD to prevent 'overload'; if I close most of the open tabs in Chrome then RAM usage drops to 70%

So, with larger files than I have, 16GB is IMHO the minimum RAM you'd need but 32 GB might be safer and future-proof. Expandability of RAM at a later date is also important.

 

 

[AlanKlein]

I'm running Lightroom Classic with 600MB scanned 4x5 color film files.  I have a 32GB memory but notice that the computer doesn't go above around 12GB in  use at any time even when I'm concurrently using Adobe Photoshop Premiere Elements (video program) with Lightroom.  I have a 1TB SSD and 1TB hard drive and running Windows 11.  I keep all the programs on the SSD and store pictures and videos on the 1TB HD.  

 

I agree with Mike with 16GB minimum but go for expansion slots availability if not additional memory now.  Who knows what you'll need in the future. 

[digitaldog]

Lightroom Classic isn't RAM intensive like Photoshop; it is a parametric editor. LR is far more sensitive if I can use the term, with a powerful GPU. 

LR's speed also isn't really much affected by drive speed so while an SSD is nice, don't expect to see much difference with or without a speedy drive:
https://www.computer-darkroom.com/blog/will-an-ssd-improve-adobe-lightroom-performance/

[David_Cavan]

Thanks everyone for responding - I have to deal with snow this morning, but plan to dig into this some this afternoon and will respond in some more detail now that you've caused me to think a bit more (yeah!!) 

 

[paddler4]

My current desktop has 16 GB of RAM, an intel i7-10700 CPU, and a moderately high end video card, an Nvidia Gforce GTX 1660 Super. It runs both Lightroom and Photoshop fine. In Lightroom, I work almost entirely on raw files, usually in the low 30 MB. In Photoshop, I work mostly on TIFFs, and they can be enormous. The speed is fine for me.

One caution: some of the Adobe AI-based processes require a fairly high-end video system. I don't have the link, but they have posted the requirements online. My old desktop ran Photoshop OK but couldn't run some of the new functions for that reason.

[digitaldog]

Indeed, Photoshop will run fine with 16 GB of RAM and again, depending on the size of the images, this can be more than enough RAM. Bare minimum today is 8 GB. 

Some systems make upgrading RAM a snap, some not at all. I just replaced a three year old MacBook Pro having 32 GB of RAM to 64 GB because this isn't an upgradable option. And I got the fastest GPU Apple provides with an M1 chip; so far, massively faster than the older machine as expected.

But then, going back to 1990, with a Mac IIci with 8MB (yes MB) of ram, working on 15MB files (yes MB) could be agonizingly slow.  I remember having to rotate an image 2 degrees clockwise and it took 15 minutes! We've come a long way. 

Video systems and other requirements for PS: https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/system-requirements.html

Edited December 2, 2022 by digitaldog

[Gerald Cafferty]

16GB appears to be OK with my current setup.

[David_Cavan]

Thanks to everyone who responded - very useful exercise for me. 

The main reasons I'm looking at this transition are that my 8-year-old Surface Pro laptop has suffered some hardware failures that make it difficult to connect to external devices and it is not processing photos quickly enough as the photos get larger, and as software gains in function. It will still be useful as a travel computer for at least the next year or two but it is time to get a home-office machine that will allow attachments of more devices and will process photos more quickly. The Surface has an early i7 chip, 8MB of RAM, and is starting to not have enough internal storage at 500MB.

As I've dug around looking at things on the internet; asked people, including this group; and looked at various prices and configurations I've focused on a machine with at least an i7 chip, something equivalent to a NVIDIA GForce 3060 GPU (middle of that range), at least 16MB of RAM with lots of room to grow probably fairly quickly, and preferably a 256 MB SSD drive and at least a 1TB HDD with at least two extra storage slots. I'm assuming RAM and storage will grow so available slots matter but spreading cost over a couple of years would be good. I have the software, including Windows 11 upgrades, and I don't need any peripherals although would like to upgrade both screens to 4K devices sometime in the coming year. I'm starting to make some money from the photography business but I'd like to spread it as far as possible with this migration.

Thanks again to everyone. @digitaldog thanks for the links and article - here's one more I found.  Video isn't a big thing for me right now but I do want do more of it so I'm considering that in the spec. https://helpx.adobe.com/ca/premiere-pro/kb/hardware-recommendations.html but if you go full-on with video it's a whole other kind of budget.

If you'd told me 45 years ago when I started into "data processing" on IBM 32s and 34s that it would be possible to not just use, but constantly over-use billions of bytes for my hobby I would have doubted your sanity.  And yet, here we are.

[AlanKlein]

39 minutes ago, David_Cavan said:

Thanks to everyone who responded - very useful exercise for me. 

The main reasons I'm looking at this transition are that my 8-year-old Surface Pro laptop has suffered some hardware failures that make it difficult to connect to external devices and it is not processing photos quickly enough as the photos get larger, and as software gains in function. It will still be useful as a travel computer for at least the next year or two but it is time to get a home-office machine that will allow attachments of more devices and will process photos more quickly. The Surface has an early i7 chip, 8MB of RAM, and is starting to not have enough internal storage at 500MB.

As I've dug around looking at things on the internet; asked people, including this group; and looked at various prices and configurations I've focused on a machine with at least an i7 chip, something equivalent to a NVIDIA GForce 3060 GPU (middle of that range), at least 16MB of RAM with lots of room to grow probably fairly quickly, and preferably a 256 MB SSD drive and at least a 1TB HDD with at least two extra storage slots. I'm assuming RAM and storage will grow so available slots matter but spreading cost over a couple of years would be good. I have the software, including Windows 11 upgrades, and I don't need any peripherals although would like to upgrade both screens to 4K devices sometime in the coming year. I'm starting to make some money from the photography business but I'd like to spread it as far as possible with this migration.

Thanks again to everyone. @digitaldog thanks for the links and article - here's one more I found.  Video isn't a big thing for me right now but I do want do more of it so I'm considering that in the spec. https://helpx.adobe.com/ca/premiere-pro/kb/hardware-recommendations.html but if you go full-on with video it's a whole other kind of budget.

If you'd told me 45 years ago when I started into "data processing" on IBM 32s and 34s that it would be possible to not just use, but constantly over-use billions of bytes for my hobby I would have doubted your sanity.  And yet, here we are.

I use Premiere Elements for 4K video slide shows with minor clips. Recommended memory is 8gb minimum (i have 32gb but it worked fine with 124GB in my last machine and never got over 11-12Gb running use).  32gb minimum is recommended by Adobe for Premiere Pro.  I find Premiere Elements fine for home use. 

[digitaldog]

3 hours ago, AlanKlein said:

Recommended memory is 8gb minimum (i have 32gb but it worked fine with 124GB in my last machine and never got over 11-12Gb running use).  32gb minimum is recommended by Adobe for Premiere Pro.  

Actually:

https://helpx.adobe.com/premiere-pro/system-requirements.html

It worked fine with 124GB in your last machine, I'll bet! 😜

Edited December 3, 2022 by digitaldog

[AlanKlein]

11 hours ago, AlanKlein said:

I use Premiere Elements for 4K video slide shows with minor clips. Recommended memory is 8gb minimum (i have 32gb but it worked fine with 124GB in my last machine and never got over 11-12Gb running use).  32gb minimum is recommended by Adobe for Premiere Pro.  I find Premiere Elements fine for home use. 

124GB should read 24GB.

[digitaldog]

1 hour ago, AlanKlein said:

124GB should read 24GB.

You realize you can edit your posts (and improve their accuracy after yet another correction 🤔)

 

 

[samstevens]

Quote

How much memory would you consider to be enough?

At my age, enough to remember what I did last weekend would be most welcome. 😲

[rodeo_joe1]

The desktop Win 10 machine I just put together runs PS, Topaz AI and Sony's 16 frame pixel-shift software just fine with 32GB of RAM. Although Sony's software is still quite slow, its speed isn't memory dependent. I think it's just inefficiently written and doesn't make full use of the CPU threads available. 

The two 16GB DDR4 3.2GHz memory sticks cost about £100 UK the pair, and a 1TB NVME 'drive' (with a 1.5 GB/s transfer rate) about the same. So there's really no reason to stint on memory or 'disc' storage space these days. Neither of those things are difficult to fit or upgrade in a PC motherboard either. 

[mikemorrellNL]

On 12/3/2022 at 12:40 AM, David_Cavan said:

Thanks to everyone who responded - very useful exercise for me. 

The main reasons I'm looking at this transition are that my 8-year-old Surface Pro laptop has suffered some hardware failures that make it difficult to connect to external devices and it is not processing photos quickly enough as the photos get larger, and as software gains in function. It will still be useful as a travel computer for at least the next year or two but it is time to get a home-office machine that will allow attachments of more devices and will process photos more quickly. The Surface has an early i7 chip, 8MB of RAM, and is starting to not have enough internal storage at 500MB.

As I've dug around looking at things on the internet; asked people, including this group; and looked at various prices and configurations I've focused on a machine with at least an i7 chip, something equivalent to a NVIDIA GForce 3060 GPU (middle of that range), at least 16MB of RAM with lots of room to grow probably fairly quickly, and preferably a 256 MB SSD drive and at least a 1TB HDD with at least two extra storage slots. I'm assuming RAM and storage will grow so available slots matter but spreading cost over a couple of years would be good. I have the software, including Windows 11 upgrades, and I don't need any peripherals although would like to upgrade both screens to 4K devices sometime in the coming year. I'm starting to make some money from the photography business but I'd like to spread it as far as possible with this migration.

Thanks again to everyone. @digitaldog thanks for the links and article - here's one more I found.  Video isn't a big thing for me right now but I do want do more of it so I'm considering that in the spec. https://helpx.adobe.com/ca/premiere-pro/kb/hardware-recommendations.html but if you go full-on with video it's a whole other kind of budget.

If you'd told me 45 years ago when I started into "data processing" on IBM 32s and 34s that it would be possible to not just use, but constantly over-use billions of bytes for my hobby I would have doubted your sanity.  And yet, here we are.

Your specs look good.

Essentially, I suspect that your choice of 'C-drive' SSD capacity depends on your file storage strategy. I'm very lazy so when I recently upgraded my Laptop, I moved all my 'document' files that used to be stored on my (physical) D (data )'hard drive' onto my new SSD C drive under a "D folder' . Photos took up the most space on my old D drive so I moved these out to an external SSD drive.

If the bulk of your photos are on external drives, then almost all of your (SSD) C drive is available for programs. In that case, 256 GB should be plenty for now. But depending on your needs, I humbly suggest that (looking forward) you should perhaps be looking for 512 GB (perhaps expandable from 256 GB ) of built-in SSD storage rather than 256 GB. My previous 3-4 year old Laptop with 128 GB 'C drive' (SSD) capacity continually ran out of space to install programs. I now have a laptop which (according to internet) has 512 GB SSD. My C drive properties give the storage space as 1024 GB. Whatever, I still have more than enough SSD ('C') space to install (temporary) programs and data that I often use. I must admit that I can't be bothered to clean up unless necessary 🙂.

Expanding RAM from 16 MB to 32 or even 64 MB is relatively easy because RAM doesn't store any long-term programs or data. I have no idea of how easy or difficult it is to expand an SSD 'C drive' containing installed programs and data. I hope that others can provide more advice.

My gut feeling is that an SSD 'C-drive' with 512 GB capacity would give you more 'future-proof' space than 256 GB. Though 512 GB may be much more than you need now.

It's just a fact that Windows and other programs continue to slurp up more disk space for installation and more processing power (especially RAM) to run efficiently.

Personally, I try to buy hardware that will last me at least 4-5 years.

FWIW, I do voluntary work to help (mostly elderly) people sort out computer problems. TBH for people with 8 (or 10 or 12) year-old computers, there's not a whole lot that I can do except to advise an 'upgrade'.  With current web technologies, their performance is slow and they can't upgrade to newer versions of operating systems. In many cases their operating systems are no longer supported.  So well done for deciding to upgrade!

Mike

 

Edited December 4, 2022 by mikemorrellNL

[David_Cavan]

1 hour ago, mikemorrellNL said:

Your specs look good.

Essentially, I suspect that your choice of 'C-drive' SSD capacity depends on your file storage strategy. I'm very lazy so when I recently upgraded my Laptop, I moved all my 'document' files that used to be stored on my (physical) D (data )'hard drive' onto my new SSD C drive under a "D folder' . Photos took up the most space on my old D drive so I moved these out to an external SSD drive.

If the bulk of your photos are on external drives, then almost all of your (SSD) C drive is available for programs. In that case, 256 GB should be plenty for now. But depending on your needs, I humbly suggest that (looking forward) you should perhaps be looking for 512 GB (perhaps expandable from 256 GB ) of built-in SSD storage rather than 256 GB. My previous 3-4 year old Laptop with 128 GB 'C drive' (SSD) capacity continually ran out of space to install programs. I now have a laptop which (according to internet) has 512 GB SSD. My C drive properties give the storage space as 1024 GB. Whatever, I still have more than enough SSD ('C') space to install (temporary) programs and data that I often use. I must admit that I can't be bothered to clean up unless necessary 🙂.

Expanding RAM from 16 MB to 32 or even 64 MB is relatively easy because RAM doesn't store any long-term programs or data. I have no idea of how easy or difficult it is to expand an SSD 'C drive' containing installed programs and data. I hope that others can provide more advice.

My gut feeling is that an SSD 'C-drive' with 512 GB capacity would give you more 'future-proof' space than 256 GB. Though 512 GB may be much more than you need now.

It's just a fact that Windows and other programs continue to slurp up more disk space for installation and more processing power (especially RAM) to run efficiently.

Personally, I try to buy hardware that will last me at least 4-5 years.

FWIW, I do voluntary work to help (mostly elderly) people sort out computer problems. TBH for people with 8 (or 10 or 12) year-old computers, there's not a whole lot that I can do except to advise an 'upgrade'.  With current web technologies, their performance is slow and they can't upgrade to newer versions of operating systems. In many cases their operating systems are no longer supported.  So well done for deciding to upgrade!

Mike

 

Thanks Mike, much appreciated - it was definitely time to make the upgrade. I bought the Surface Pro in 2014 for my new business back then, and it has definitely paid it's dues. This year of impatiently waiting for things to process pushed me over the edge. The laptop will still suffice as a travel device, and if used less I might get several years of that kind of use so I'm not really losing anything I think.

I was concerned about the small size of the SSD drive as well.  I have a separate machine that I treat as a file-server on my network, my wife uses it to run her business.  It has 4TB of hard drives plus a SSD for programs so I've learned a bit through managing that machine. That's where I keep my photo archives, hence I don't have to worry about that kind of storage for this new machine. Essentially I keep about 90 days of photos on my "working machine" as I make the first cut, etc. and then they move to the larger storage machine. I can access those files easily across the network when needed. A funny thing happened though just as I was getting to the end of the configuration last night. I had already decided to upgrade the SSD to 500GB, and then one of those last-minute Cyber Monday specials popped up and I could upgrade to a 1TB SSD plus a 1TB hard drive for a total of $50 (Canadian, which is like $12.45 in real money) . So that was an easy decision.

[David_Cavan]

4 hours ago, rodeo_joe1 said:

The desktop Win 10 machine I just put together runs PS, Topaz AI and Sony's 16 frame pixel-shift software just fine with 32GB of RAM. Although Sony's software is still quite slow, its speed isn't memory dependent. I think it's just inefficiently written and doesn't make full use of the CPU threads available. 

The two 16GB DDR4 3.2GHz memory sticks cost about £100 UK the pair, and a 1TB NVME 'drive' (with a 1.5 GB/s transfer rate) about the same. So there's really no reason to stint on memory or 'disc' storage space these days. Neither of those things are difficult to fit or upgrade in a PC motherboard either. 

I think that's right about memory and disk - I definitely want enough for now, and enough spare slots to upgrade later if (when?) required. You are right about the efficiency of some software, or perhaps the lack of it. I find that the Canon RAW processor, although quite effective, seems to be the slowest thing on my machines.  I have the Topaz AI and a couple of other bits of Topaz software and I'm really interested in how they run on this new machine. There's definitely room for improvement from those in my workflow.

[Jochen_S]

I have no clue, but buying less than 32GB for a "somewhat serious" Windows machine seems not worth fuzzing about; +/- 50€. 

If you 'll hit a store, ask about your RAM upgrade option's price. I'm sure a board with 4 instead of 2 memory slots costs more? Will that difference nudge you to buy 64 GB for starters? 

[httpwww.photo.netbarry]

If you are getting a desk top, you will want a lot of memory for your graphics card as a lot of programs are throwing the processing there. If your desktop will allow you to add memory as time goes by, I would recommend 32GB  should be fine and allow you to have a few programs and browsers open. Actually system ram is one of the least expensive components to upgrade. 

[David_Cavan]

6 hours ago, Jochen1664876637 said:

I have no clue, but buying less than 32GB for a "somewhat serious" Windows machine seems not worth fuzzing about; +/- 50€. 

If you 'll hit a store, ask about your RAM upgrade option's price. I'm sure a board with 4 instead of 2 memory slots costs more? Will that difference nudge you to buy 64 GB for starters? 

The configuration I'm closing in on will have 32MB because of some good discounts available.  That's double the 16 I was initially thinking but listening to what this group and some others are telling me it is the right thing to do. Based on advice about the GPU I pushed that up a bit as well, so the cost is beyond my original budget but at this point I'm going to bite the bullet.  My wife reminded me I hadn't spent anything for that past two years and in that time I've gone full-time pro, so in her mind some investment made sense. Upgrades are hopefully at least two years away, at which point who knows, right?

[glen_h]

Many now have memory that you can't increase later.

The one I am writing this on is a MacBook Air with 4GB, but I have another with 8GB.

Most desktop machines allow upgrade, but not all laptops or tablets.

(Apple Mac Mini is one desktop that, in some models, does not allow later change.)

Edited December 5, 2022 by glen_h

[joseph_smith3]

IMO the minimum specs recommended by the software providers are way to low. Their minimums and not high enough for my desires. 

 

I use windows laptops and desktops. For RAM, 32 GB to 64 GB. The graphics card/GPU minimum depends on what software you run now and plan to run. AI intensive programs require expensive graphics cards unless you plan to wait for minutes while a single image is processed.