Minimum recommended windows pc specs

[Chintan]

I've been using my surface device to edit photos and I've come to the conclusion that it is nowhere near enough powerful for photo editing.

 

My workflow is mainly using develop persona - changing exposure, white balance, lens correction, tone curves, detail refinement etc. I have a lot of photos still pending, almost 2000 actually

 

I'm thinking of getting a new laptop. But I don't know which would be good enough for affinity photo

 

I was thinking of a laptop with these minimum specs

 

• Screen: 17 inch, 1080p
• RAM: 12GB
• Processor: i7, 7th generation
• Hard drive: 1TB 7200rpm
• OS: Windows 10

 

The thing I don't know is what graphics card to include so that it can run smoothly without any issues. Should it be NVIDIA 940 or 965 or higher? And what size? 2GB or 4GB?

 

When I'm editing RAW files on my surface, it takes me at least 6 minutes per photo. If I try editing on my 5 year old laptop, it does it in 2 minutes but after 20-25 photos, affinity slows down and crashes

 

So I need something that is significantly better than what my 2 devices above can do

 

Any suggestions? Specifically from anyone who has a workflow similar to mine

 

Thank you

[verysame]

That's probably one of the hardest things to figure out.

From my experience, I would say it's purely random and I wouldn't expect anything based on the specs.

I tried it on different machines with unfortunately same results: it works great until it I "break it" when I add several layers, masks, adjustments...

One machine is Quadro/Dual Xeon E5 2620 with 32GB win7x64 of ram and SSD the other is Dual Titan X/Dual Xeon E5-2650 with 64GB and SSD on win10.

You would expect great results and yet I was disappointed. Nonetheless, other user reported better experience with different and lower configurations.

 

All that said, for a decent machine I would consider an SSD drive, more ram, and a decent Nvidia from the 10x generation.

It's vague, but I don't feel I can recommend anything really coming from my experience. I've been insisting on this topic for quite a while now, hopefully soon or later we'll see improvements in this area.

[anon1]

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[emmrecs01]

1. get a Quadcore (like real quad, not dual core with hyper threading) 

 

 

+1.

 

I notice you said were considering an i7 processor; yes most definitely, and get the highest spec of these that you can afford.  My computer spec is in my signature; I've never had cause to regret going for the (then) "best CPU" I could afford.

 

As for GPU, my Radeon is pretty "middle of the road" so I think, again, the advice would be "get the best you can afford".

 

Jeff

[verysame]

 

 

1. get a Quadcore (like real quad, not dual core with hyper threading) 

 

 

 

+1.

 

 

 

Not really, no. Like I said in my previous reply and in other posts, I'm running Affinity on a 6 core and even 8 core machine, performance is not great.

[Chintan]

So my budget is 1000USD max - can I get a decent laptop with the specs I've outlined above at that price?

 

And is 2GB graphics card enough or should I consider 4GB?