What nVidia card for Lightroom and Photoshop?

PhilBurton · May 4, 2019

Lightroom runs very slow on my desktop system, which is itself pretty old by now. The current card is an nVidia GTX 660. Not sure about how much VRAM. So "how much" video card performance do I need to really speed up Lightroom. Photoshop would be a secondary use for this card. I am not a gamer.

I am a buy-and-hold kind of PC user, so I expect that I will use this card for at least five years. Within a year I will probably get a really high quality monitor with close to 100% of Adobe RGB color space. But given my budget (and the need for my "chief financial officer" to approve the purchase), that monitor will not be 4K or 5K. So how much VRAM do I need.

If it matters, I am about to start scanning thousands and thousands of Kodachrome slides and B&W and color negatives to TIFFs, which will be developed in Lightroom, with dust and scratch removal done in Photoshop.

I think within a year I will replace the motherboard/CPU/RAM, but that's the subject of a different post.

Thanks.

Phil

PhilBurton · May 12, 2019

Anyone? If you are satisfied with the performance of your video card, please post the model. If you aren't please also post that model.

Ariston · May 12, 2019

I have an Nvidia card I am not happy with on Aftershot. It's a mid to low end card, though, and not new. I'll try to post which model later. I think it shiuld work better than it does with an i5 processor and only 12mp files.

Ko.Fe. · May 12, 2019

No idea. I have two in each PC. It isn't really big deal. Nothing heavy for any processor. You need to pay attention for video card if you are 3d gamer. You might have issues elsewhere. Like slowing down hard drive, memory or overheating.
I run my LR on much older than five years PC with dedicated video card, btw.
Our daughter was using LR on the advanced laptop for editing of hundreds photos after each gig.

faberryman · May 12, 2019

The new Enhance Details feature of Lightroom uses your graphics card for processing. How long does it take to process a file using that feature with your present setup?

Ariston · May 12, 2019

Mine is a GeForce GTX 950, and it is disappointing.

cramej · May 13, 2019

If the release date of that card (2012) is any indication of the age of your computer, your money would be better spent on a new computer. The card itself isn't bad - it's likely that other bottlenecks exist and you wouldn't really get any better performance dropping an new video card in an old machine. Something with a i7/Ryzen7, SSD and 16+ GB ram would be plenty. Even the 5 series of both Intel and AMD would be ok on a budget.

PhilBurton · May 13, 2019

cramej said:
If the release date of that card (2012) is any indication of the age of your computer, your money would be better spent on a new computer. The card itself isn't bad - it's likely that other bottlenecks exist and you wouldn't really get any better performance dropping an new video card in an old machine. Something with a i7/Ryzen7, SSD and 16+ GB ram would be plenty. Even the 5 series of both Intel and AMD would be ok on a budget.

I am planning to replace my 2012 rig in stages. (Intel 3930k + 16 GB). First a new vid card soon, then a whole new MB/CPU/RAM later this year or maybe early next year.

The rest of my system wouldn't change, except maybe for an NVMe drive instead of the SATA SSD I have now. Same HDDs for bulk storage and backup.

jim10219 · May 13, 2019

Lightroom and Photoshop don't tax video cards. Video cards are taxed by 3D processing. Now if you were running Premier or After Effects (or video games), then you would be wise to invest in a decent video card. But for LR and PS and other 2D photo software applications, it won't matter. One video card will be just as good as the next because none of the data will be processed by the video card. It will all be processed by your CPU (there are a few rare exceptions like CUDA cores which are rarely utilized in the real world). You're better off spending that money on fast hard drives and as much RAM as you can afford. That will decrease load and processing times and make it more stable. Also, make sure to get a decent motherboard.

faberryman · May 13, 2019

jim10219 said:
Lightroom and Photoshop don't tax video cards. Video cards are taxed by 3D processing. Now if you were running Premier or After Effects (or video games), then you would be wise to invest in a decent video card. But for LR and PS and other 2D photo software applications, it won't matter. One video card will be just as good as the next because none of the data will be processed by the video card. It will all be processed by your CPU (there are a few rare exceptions like CUDA cores which are rarely utilized in the real world). You're better off spending that money on fast hard drives and as much RAM as you can afford. That will decrease load and processing times and make it more stable. Also, make sure to get a decent motherboard.

The latest version of LR has the Enhanced Details feature which taxes the video card.

jim10219 · May 13, 2019

faberryman said:
The latest version of LR has the Enhanced Details feature which taxes the video card.

I guess that's true. I shouldn't have said it won't tax your video card, but rather something like it will rarely utilize use enough of even a modest video card to put a strain on it. It really only works for a limited number of effects and even then, only when working with a limited number of file types. In the end, the processing power from a fancy video card doesn't save you much time in the real world unless you're batch processing one of those specific effects (which aren't usually ones you would be batch processing anyway, like puppet warp). So it would do little to actually increase your user experience. It may save you a handful of seconds per hour of work. You'd still be much better off spending that money on a fast hard drive, lots of fast RAM, and a stable motherboard (plus a good CPU, of course).

I will say that you should get some kind of video card though. While some motherboards allow you to shove the GPU duties onto the CPU, it comes at the cost of CPU power, and forces the CPU to stop and wait on data that could be processed elsewhere, greatly increasing your wait time. With even a cheap video card it opens up parallel processing. But when you consider the price to actual performance ratio that comes from a video card versus other computer components, it's not a good place to spend your money. Not when it comes to 2D applications like PS and LR anyway.

faberryman · May 13, 2019

jim10219 said:
I guess that's true. I shouldn't have said it won't tax your video card, but rather something like it will rarely utilize use enough of even a modest video card to put a strain on it. It really only works for a limited number of effects and even then, only when working with a limited number of file types. In the end, the processing power from a fancy video card doesn't save you much time in the real world unless you're batch processing one of those specific effects (which aren't usually ones you would be batch processing anyway, like puppet warp). So it would do little to actually increase your user experience. It may save you a handful of seconds per hour of work. You'd still be much better off spending that money on a fast hard drive, lots of fast RAM, and a stable motherboard (plus a good CPU, of course).

I will say that you should get some kind of video card though. While some motherboards allow you to shove the GPU duties onto the CPU, it comes at the cost of CPU power, and forces the CPU to stop and wait on data that could be processed elsewhere, greatly increasing your wait time. With even a cheap video card it opens up parallel processing. But when you consider the price to actual performance ratio that comes from a video card versus other computer components, it's not a good place to spend your money. Not when it comes to 2D applications like PS and LR anyway.

I have a late 2011 Mac Mini. Enhanced Details says it will take six minutes to run. At the end, the image is corrupted. So the OP should see if it runs on his current setup.

Photo Engineer · May 13, 2019

I have a GTX760 and it appears to be super fast.

PE

L Gebhardt · May 13, 2019

AMD might get you more card for your money. I use a RX580 8GB card in my Hackintosh. It’s plenty fast for LR and Photoshop and drives multiple 4K monitors without issue. I bought it for editing video, which it does very well with final cut. But if I was in your shoes I’d get the new CPU, MB and RAM before the GPU. The integrated graphics on the latest Intel chips work just fine LR and Photoshop.

John51 · May 14, 2019

If you have a spare hdd, try a bare bones XP install and see how LR performs.

If it's now fast enough for you, a KVM will let you switch between pcs. ie. current pc for LR and other non online apps, new(ish) pc for online stuff.

What nVidia card for Lightroom and Photoshop?

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