What to update for better LR and PS performance

[Cornfield]

This is the spec of my PC built last year.

CPU   Intel Core i7-6700K

Motherboard   Gigabyte GA-Z170X

M.2 x4 SSD   Samsung 512 GB 960 Pro NVMe M.2

RAM   Crucial Ballistix Sport 16 GB DDR4

Video Card   GeForce GTX 1060 Mini ITX 3Gb

Power Supply   Corsair RM650

Case   Corsair 600C

In addition to the above I also have 2 x 8TB drives in raid 1

What would be the best way to improve performance for LR, PS and video editing for this configuration?

[Joe Towner]

6th gen Core i7 so nothing too far behind.  Shy of bumping up the RAM, there's not much you're system is holding you back.  Are you editing & working on files on the NVMe or a different source?

Does any of it seem slow, or are you looking to find an extra 2% performance boost?

[E.J. Peiker]

Double the RAM at minimum, if possible even more than double.  The rest of your system is pretty darn good but 16GB is on the "paltry" side these days

[Alan Klein]

I have similar but with 3.40 gigahertz Intel Core i7-4770, 256 SSD and 24gb.  When I run LR on 200mb slide scans files and Adobe Premiere Elements (video) at the same time, I haven't seen it get above 12gb.  Publishing video is slow especially when I'm doing 4K.  But no delays while editing.  Where do you see problems with your existing system?

[Cornfield]

Thanks for the replies.

I know the incremental performance improvement won't be huge but I'm preparing for an increase in file sizes.  Currently shooting 36Mp and about to upgrade to 45Mp.  Also now shooting 4k video and 360 panoramas.  My current system runs great but I like to keep up with

The NVMe is used for the OS and apps with images files on the raid discs.  There is another slot available for a second NVMe and I'm thinking of using this for my current/recent images and keeping older images on the raid drives.

Adding more RAM is probably where I'll start.

What about the graphics card?  Is it worth upgrading to a version with 6Gb?

Alan, are you saying the memory used does not exceed 12Gb when editing large files?

[E.J. Peiker]

What about the graphics card?  Is it worth upgrading to a version with 6Gb?

Alan, are you saying the memory used does not exceed 12Gb when editing large files?

Graphics card, it's not going to make much difference going from 3GB to 6GB
Absolutely you will go well over 12GB in the middle of complex tasks and even more so with higher megapixel cameras, if stitching, if using multiple layers, using plug-ins, etc.  Unless you are actively real time monitoring the memory while you are performing all tasks, you have absolutely no idea what the instantaneous memory requirements are.  Plus it will let you keep other things going in the background like music or an internet browser or whatever.  (Note the person that claims he's never gone over 12GB is using Elements which is a significantly stripped down version of Photoshop that is actually dramatically more memory efficient due to not having nearly as much inefficient legacy code and features)

Another thing for performance is to have your scratch disk for Photoshop on a very fast storage device.  In your case that would be the M.2 disk.  Even with plenty of memory, Photoshop is hard coded to take some things to scratch regardless of whether you have available memory or nit.

[Alan Klein]

Graphics card, it's not going to make much difference going from 3GB to 6GB
Absolutely you will go well over 12GB in the middle of complex tasks and even more so with higher megapixel cameras, if stitching, if using multiple layers, using plug-ins, etc.  Unless you are actively real time monitoring the memory while you are performing all tasks, you have absolutely no idea what the instantaneous memory requirements are.  Plus it will let you keep other things going in the background like music or an internet browser or whatever.  (Note the person that claims he's never gone over 12GB is using Elements which is a significantly stripped down version of Photoshop that is actually dramatically more memory efficient due to not having nearly as much inefficient legacy code and features)

Another thing for performance is to have your scratch disk for Photoshop on a very fast storage device.  In your case that would be the M.2 disk.  Even with plenty of memory, Photoshop is hard coded to take some things to scratch regardless of whether you have available memory or nit.

I was using PS Premiere Elements not PS Elements.  Premiere is a video program.  I just checked and saw 10mb memory use with processor running 80-100% while I had Lightroom open editing 200mb film scan images and also publishing using Premiere elements at 4K 3840x2160 video at 30p (frames) (30mbps) video.  I also had a news video playing from internet.

Could it be that my SSD 256 is absorbing additional memory? 

In any case, I have 24gb so I should have enough memory.

On epother things, a 30 minute publishing of the above 4K video from Premiere Elements takes about 90 minutes.  I'm assuming that length is due to the speed of the processor since I'm pushing 90-100% of the cpu. 

[Shiftworker]

Add more RAM and another SSD/ NVME drive to use for the CAT and preview cache. Any overclocking facility on the mb? if so you may want to consider this to bump up performance. If your DATA is on a single spinning drive this will be a bottle neck for video editing so 4 spinning disks in RAID 0 will ramp up data access and use your 8Tb drives for backup.

[bassman51]

Thirty years of IT experience informed me that the first thing to do is to max RAM, unless you are sure there is another bottleneck. 

[degrub]

for improving video editing - more real cores - i understand 8 is a reasonable compromise on cost/performance and max memory and max clock (over clock ?)
for LR and photo editing - 4-6 cores + max memory + max clock.

[Frodo]

I have a brand new system with i7 8700, 16GB 2600 MHz RAM, program files and LR catalog in 500GB Samsung 970 NVME, inage files on Seagate Enterprise HDD.
Exporting 50 5DsR files in LR6 is almost 3 times faster than the first gen i7 and 8GB RAM on the previous desktop. Exporting slightly slower when image files on SSD not HDD. CPU runs 100% but only 60% of the RAM and disk access is negligible.
RAM use goes up 75% when merging 3 5DsR files.
I conclude 16GB RAM is sufficient for LR6. I only have PS Elements, not full PS.

[E.J. Peiker]

Thirty years of IT experience informed me that the first thing to do is to max RAM, unless you are sure there is another bottleneck.

27 years on the hardware side and 10 on the software side - agree 100%!

[fdisilvestro]

Another vote for max RAM first. Also remember to check the preferences for applications such as PS, Premiere Pro & After effects (don't know what you use for editing videos) since you  can configure the maximum amount of RAM used by those Adobe applications.

In my experience 16GB RAM runs out pretty quick and applications such as Premiere Pro & After effects will easily max 32GB RAM too.

[Joe Towner]

RAM, and a 'working' NVMe or SSD drive.  If your workflow can allow a copy from cards to ssd - copy from ssd to RAID set, work on files on SSD, update copies on the hard drives.

[Cornfield]

RAM, and a 'working' NVMe or SSD drive.  If your workflow can allow a copy from cards to ssd - copy from ssd to RAID set, work on files on SSD, update copies on the hard drives.

Thanks, Joe that is the solution I have opted for with 64Gb RAM and installing an SSD to hold files from last few months.

[nemophoto]

Not to be facetious, but using another software program! I say that laughingly because I use Lightroom and swear at it because it seems no matter what I do, it's a slug! (I have a Ryzen 1800x, 32GB of RAM a Samsung m.2 970 Pro SSD for my C:, and second SSD for my scratch disk, and a GTX 1080. So, not exactly a slug of a system). But you are on the right track. Memory and a second SSD. Make sure to use the 2nd SSD as your scratch disk. The cost of the "regular" SSDs have dropped a lot. I just bought 2 1TB Crucial MX500 SSDs from B&H for $185 each.

[Frodo]

Thanks, Joe that is the solution I have opted for with 64Gb RAM and installing an SSD to hold files from last few months.

Please report back on any changes in performance.
I doubt that the additional RAM will make much difference to LR speed.  But happy to be proven wrong!  An excuse to move from 16GB to 32GB!