PC Build For Lightroom Classic (2025-2026)
- George Wheelhouse
- Sep 29
- 25 min read
My last PC upgrade was in 2020, and 5 years later, things were starting to slow down. Windows 11, high-resolution displays, and an increasingly resource-hungry Lightroom Classic, all nudging me towards a hardware upgrade. I don't enjoy the expense this brings, but I'm always happy to engage with the nerdier side of tech. Having now been through the upgrade, and really enjoying this super-fast PC, I figured it would make a useful blog post for others - who need to upgrade, themselves, but don't want to engage in the research and component-comparisons. So if you're a photographer using Lightroom Classic, and you're thinking about a PC upgrade, this post is for you!
Introduction
I love Lightroom. It's intuitive, provides photo library management, performs high-quality non-destructive edits, and it's regularly updated with bug-fixes and new features. But it's far from perfect. Aside from the fact that the licencing is becomming increasingly expensive and convoluted, it's also very inefficient, laggy, and makes poor use of hardware. Therefore, tailoring a PC for Lightroom Classic, is very much a case of matching the hardware to Lightroom’s particular workload profile.
I'm going to go through this new PC item-by-item, explaining my decision for each - and suggesting alternative upgrade and downgrade options. First of all, let's establish what Lightroom Classic wants from it's hardware, and which hardware components are key to a successful Lightroom build.
Disclaimer: This is an entirely independent post. I have not received any discounts or promotions from any of the brands mentioned below, and all my opinions are genuine.
Lightroom Classic: Hardware Requirements
Adobe's Recommended Spec says...
Processor (AKA CPU): 2 GHz+
RAM (AKA Memory): 16GB+
Storage: Solid State Disk (SSD) drive
Graphics Card: 8GB of dedicated GPU memory or 16GB of shared memory for full GPU acceleration and AI features such as Denoise, Lens Blur, and Reflection Removal.
From My Own Experience, I've Learned...
Processor: Lightroom Classic leans heavily on CPU-power, especially during adjustments, switching between images, and exporting.
RAM: RAM is important for Lightroom, particularly during editing and preview generation.
Storage: A fast disk is critical to minimising delays during edits, imports, and exports. I also think it's best to have your OS, Lightroom library catalog, and photos on three separate disks - allowing all three to be read/written interchagably and simulatiously, at maximum speed, to avoid bottlenecks.
Graphics Card: While GPU acceleration has improved (especially for tasks like zooming, brushing, and AI features), the GPU still plays a secondary role compared to the CPU. But use of this is expected to rise as time goes on.
Monitor: I'd been using a 2560x1440 monitor for several years, which is more than HD, but far less than the 4K, for which it was supposed to be a bridge. For this build, I wanted a noticable upgrade to at least 4K.
Lifecycle: I want to be using my PC for at least 5 years (running the latest software smoothly and efficiently). After that, it needs to retain its a chunk of its value, in order for me to sell it on, and for it to serve some else, with less demanding needs for at least another 5 years beyond me. I therefore need to think both medium-term for my needs, and long-term for the ongoing life of this machine, as part of the circular economy.
You can also get more recommendations and comparisons from Puget Systems, who maintain this reference page.
The Build: Component-By-Component
Monitor
In truth, it would require a full blog post dedicated to the monitor decision, to really go over the options and hardware considerations for this decision. To save time, I'll just summerise what my main considerations were...
Colour-Accuracy: It's important to have a high-quality monitor with accurate colour reproduction and hardware calibration support. Subtle tonal adjustments in image editing requires reliable color fidelity.
Resolution: Having upgraded previously from Full HD (1920x1080) to QHD (2560x1440), and regretted not going further, to 4K (3840x2160), I didn't want to make the same mistake again, of not getting a meaningful upgrade. So I came to the conclusion that I wanted more than 4K - for which it turns out there aren't that many options.
Size: I was upgrading from a 25" monitor, so I knew I wanted something at least that size; probably 27" or 32", as these are the common options. Size is important - not only in terms of the visual space the screen provides, but also for pixel density.
Pixel Density: Essentially a calculation to determine how tightly packed the pixels are on a screen. So a 27" 4K monitor has a higher pixels-per-inch (about 163 PPI) than a 32" 4K monitor (around 137 PPI). While a 32" 6K display beats that (with 220 PPI), but a 27" 6K (279 PPI) offers extremely fine resolution. Apple coined the term “Retina” for displays with ~220 PPI or higher, assuming a viewing distance of about 20–24 inches. This was my target PPI, in order to have a display where inividual pixels are imperceptable, and on-screen imagery looks natural and fantastic.
My Choice: ASUS ProArt PA27JCV (£699)
This is a 27" 5K monitor (218 PPI), with excellent colour-accuracy. The design and features are pretty basic with this monitor, and it's not very stylish, but you won't find a better quality panel/display in this in this combination of size, resolution, and price. For me, this is a great all-rounder, compromising where needed, in order to get a great bang for your buck. In use, my images look better than ever, and I have such a vast amount of screen space, operating at 5K.
Recommended Upgrade: Dell U3224KB (£2000)
I wanted this monitor so badly. It looks absolutely beautiful, the built-in webcam & speakers are great (if that's relevant to you). It just looks amazing. Size-wise it's an upgrade from 27" to 32", resolution from 5K to 6K, whilst those elements effectively balance out at 220 PPI. Unfortunately, without any meaningful improvement in PPI, the only difference to the screen is that it's larger than the ProArt. If money is no object, then why not do it, but for me, the extra £1300 is unjustifiable.
Recommended Downgrade: Dell U2723QE (£500)
If you want to save some money and compromise on the resolution (and PPI), 4K is still the industry standard, and the Dell Ultra-Sharp range is an excellent trade-off between price & specification. This is what I had in mind initially, before I got carried away with the idea of 'Retina' PPI.
Custom PC
OK, we're getting into the guts of the actual PC now, so I'm going to start off by saying, I used to buy all the components for a PC and put them together myself. During uni and the financially-tight years after, this was a vital way of saving money. However, as time went on, PC prices fell, and my standards rose. I'd also lost confidence in my ability to keep up with changes in hardware design, connectors & fiddly bits, and I didn't want to keep reading motherboard instruction manuals - more to the point, I didn't want the stress of worrying that I'd connect something incorrectly, and break something important. So for my previous PC, I'd found a UK company called Palicomp, who sell custom PCs; allowing you to choose all the components, and them to put them all together and ship out your new PC ready-to-go. This really takes the pressure off me to construct all this, and lets me sleep easy at night knowing it's not going to overheat or blow up because I got some wiring wrong. It also means that this components-based approach is one anyone can take, without requiring the knowledge to put them together yourself.
If I take the total cost of my PC and subtract the cost of the components I chose, I'm left with £350. This is essentially what I'm paying for the basic bare-bones components (before my upgrade selections below), and for professionals to perform the build. It also includes the license for Windows 11 (£119, if you buy it from Microsoft), and courier delivery. I have no complaints there, in terms of value.
Processor
The CPU is the most important element for Lightroom, and it's also the jumping-off point for a new PC, as other components such as the motherboard must be compatible.
You basically have a choice of two brands; Intel or AMD. They're both great options, pretty much on par with each other, a little like Canon and Nikon; trading places over the years. I've used AMD in the past, but for the last decade, I've been Intel, and I'm more familiar with their range. Essentially, that looks like:
Celeron: Cheap tat.
i3: Entry-level. For basic tasks like web browsing, simple office work.
i5 (or Core Ultra 5): Mid-range. For everyday multitasking and light creative work.
i7 (or Core Ultra 7): High-performance; For demanding applications like photo editing, gaming, and productivity.
i9 (or Core Ultra 9): Enthusiast-grade; For heavy workloads such as video editing, 3D rendering, and high-end gaming.
For the past decade I've used an i7, and it's great - but this time I really want to max out the processor, as this is really what makes the biggest difference to Lightroom.
What Lightroom Classic Wants in a CPU...
High single-thread performance
A processor with high single-core performance and a moderate-to-high core count offers the best balance. Over-investing in extreme core counts may not yield proportional gains, as Lightroom doesn’t scale linearly with threads.
Most Lightroom tasks—like brushing, spot removal, and UI responsiveness—are single-threaded. Fast per-core speed makes these feel snappy.
Multiple cores for exports and previews
Tasks like batch exporting, preview generation, and AI-based features (e.g. Denoise or Generative Remove) scale well with more cores.
Fast cache and memory access
Large L2/L3 caches and support for fast DDR5 memory help with image data throughput, especially when working with large RAW files.
Thermal and power efficiency
Sustained performance matters more than short bursts. A CPU that can maintain high clocks without throttling is ideal.
My Choice: Intel i9-14900K (£302)
This is the 14th generation of i9 processor. The 15th (Core Ultra 9) is now out, but I'd prefer to get one that's been out for a while, and is stable, with good compatibility, rather than jump on the newest release as soon as it's out. As for it's suitability for Lightroom, it features…
24 cores (8 P-cores + 16 E-cores): Lightroom uses P-cores for responsiveness and E-cores for background tasks like exports and AI processing. This hybrid setup is well-suited to its workload.
Top-tier single-core performance: The 14900K leads the pack in per-core speed, which directly benefits Lightroom’s brushwork, masking, and UI responsiveness.
Large cache (36MB L3): Helps with rapid access to image data and metadata, reducing bottlenecks during editing and preview generation.
DDR5 support and PCIe Gen 5: Enables faster RAM and SSD access, which complements Lightroom’s disk-heavy operations like catalog loading and image caching.
High Clock Speed Without Overclocking: You could overclock this processor; setting it to run at 6Ghz. But there's really no need, since running at a baseline of 3.2Ghz, it automatically boosts it's Performance-cores to 6Ghz when Lightroom demands it. Outside these moments, it runs slower & cooler, using less power.
Recommended Upgrade: Intel i9-14900KS (£629)
Slightly faster single-thread performance for brushwork and masking.
Better thermal and voltage behavior under load, ideal for sustained exports or AI tasks.
No change in architecture - just a more refined version of the 14900K.
Not worth the money for me.
Recommended Downgrade: Intel i7-14700K (£202)
Fewer E-cores than i9, but still excellent for exports and multitasking.
Still fast for Lightroom UI and masking, just a touch less snappy.
Easier to cool, quieter under load—especially in airflow-conscious builds.
Having used an i7 for a long time, I can vouch for their applicability for Lightroom use. Personally, I think the extra £100 for the i9 right now is worth it, but if you're not looking for something that high-end, the i7 will do a good job.
Processor Fan
Once you've chosen you Processor, you need to consider the appropriate cooling. This was another reason I prefer to use a third-party such as Palicomp these days, as I can trust that they will only fit something appropriate, and I won't have to worry about compatibility issues, or my processor overheating and melting.
My Choice: Be Quiet! Pure Rock 3 - Ultra Quiet Option - (AIR) (£40)
Effective cooling is certainly the number one thing you need from a processor fan, but for me, a close second is low noise. I can't bear a droning background hum, so I want all my PC fans to be as quiet as possible. The Be Quiet! range is certainly that, and having used them for the past 5 years, I knew I could trust them again.
Note that this fan also includes an appropriate heat-sink, which draws heat from the top of the processor and up into the large (120mm) near-silent fan.
Recommended Upgrade/Downgrade: Honestly, I don't feel qualified to pick specific alternatives here. There are certainly upgrades available, using water cooling, and there are cheaper, louder fans out there too, if you want to save money. But I'm not going to pick particular options, as there are many, and their pros and cons are not strictly relevant to Lightroom. I would just recommend ensuring that they're quiet, so you have a peaceful photo editing environment to spend time in.
Motherboard
It seems like the motherboard choice used to (20+ years ago) be a big decision, and a large proportion of the cost of the PC. That's no longer the case, and I think, provided you don't want anything specific or exotic, you can't really lose these days. You just have to ensure that your motherboard is compatible with the processor, RAM, and graphics card you want (which a third-party like will Palicomp verify).
My Choice: ASUS PRIME B760-PLUS (£42)
I like ASUS, they're a solid upper-mid range brand, and I've used their motherboards for decades. This particular motherboard supports the other hardware components I've chosen (as referenced above), as well as supporting 3 NVMe M.2 storage drives, which we'll come to below. It also features several fast USB ports on the back, which may come in handy.
Recommended Upgrade: ASUS PRIME Z790-P (£152)
Designed for high-performance builds, the Z790-P features DDR5, PCIe 5.0, and onboard Wi-Fi. Ideal for Lightroom users working with large catalogs, its robust bandwidth and upgrade headroom make it a future-proof foundation for serious creative work. For me, this is a bit OTT, but particularly if you need wifi for your PC, this slightly faster board might be worth the extra cost.
Recommended Downgrade: Asrock B760M-H
This is a micro-ATX board, meaning it's smaller than standard - and it could fit into a smaller case. So this might be something you consider. However, you will likely need a large/standard ATX case in order to fit the processor fan and graphics cards required for a Lightroom build. It supports DDR5 memory (discussed below) and dual NVMe M.2 slots (although my disk plan below requires 3). It's a compact yet capable choice for Lightroom users prioritising fast RAM, scratch disk performance, and smaller form-factor.
RAM
If the processor is the brain of the computer, then RAM is its short-term memory; rapidly storing and retrieving the data needed to keep tasks running smoothly and responsively. Though 64GB RAM is not uncommon, or unaffordable these days, my previous PC had 32GB (DDR4) RAM, and Lightroom generally never used more than half of it, so I don't think I need an upgrade on that front. Though I will be leaping to the next generation of RAM; from DDR4 to DDR5, which will offer higher bandwidth, translating to faster previews, smoother brushwork, and better multitasking in Lightroom. As well as improved power efficiency.
Note though, that RAM is one of the easiest components to upgrade in the future, so it doesn't require the kind of future-proofing considerations that other components might. Almost all motherboards contain 4 slots for RAM, so provided you only use 2 initially (in my case 2 x 16GB sticks), you can always add another 2 sticks of RAM at a later date, if you find you need it.
My Choice: 32GB DDR5 5600Mhz - ADATA Lancer (£72)
For large catalogs and high-resolution RAW files, 32GB of RAM is ample, in my opinion. It ensures smooth multitasking and prevents bottlenecks during batch exports or when running Lightroom alongside Photoshop. I've never used ADATA Lancer before, but a quick google confirms they're legit. 5600Mhz isn't the fastest, but it's fast enough, I think, and as much as anything, I don't find RAM exciting enough to linger for longer.
Recommended Upgrade: 32GB DDR5 6000Mhz - CORSAIR RGB (£92)
Of course there's always an upgrade. You could upgrade the size (to 64GB) or the speed (to 6000Mhz), or both. In this case, I think speed is the way to go. To be honest, I think maybe I should have gone for this option. Not that I've had issues with the RAM I chose, but on paper this is quite a justifiable upgrade for the added speed, and to a lesser extent, a more trusted brand.
Recommended Downgrade: 32GB DDR5 4800Mhz - ADATA (£62)
It's hard to save money here. Of course you could go for something slower, like this, but for the sake of a tenner, it doesn't seem like a good idea.
Graphics Card
OK, for me this is the trickiest item for consideration (I'm simply less familar with the rapidly progressing tech in this field), and I don't think I ultimately made the right choice.
Lightroom famously under-utilises GPUs, which are arguably more appropriate for the kind of computation required for image processing than the CPU, which they do lean on. However, Adobe are making more and more use of the GPU over time, particularly as they introduce AI features such as de-noise, distraction removal, etc. I based my decision on looking at this growing trend, and wanting to be ahead of the curve, with a graphics card to last a long time to come. I'm most familiar with the nVIDIA GeForce range, which are the market leaders, so all of my selections are within that range.
My Choice: nVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 TI 16GB - HDMI-DP - GDDR7 (£700)
I knew when I ordered this, that it was a big investment, for a serious graphics card that would not let me down. This card excels in GPU-accelerated Lightroom tasks like AI-based masking, denoise, and batch exports. Its 8960 CUDA cores and 280 Tensor cores offer ample headroom for multitasking, with space for future-proofing. However - as soon as it arrived it was so big, and so heavy, I kind of realised I'd gone too far with it. It's a fantastic graphics card, but it's way OTT for Lightroom. I'm now just hoping Adobe lean into graphics cards way more in the near future, in order for me to justify this expense. In reality, I think this card will remain overkill for it's entire lifetime, as it ambles along at 1% of it's capacity, wishing it had more to do. Honestly, it's the size of my arm, and it cost nearly and arm and a leg.
Recommended Upgrade: nVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 16GB (£950)
I couldn't, in good faith, suggest you go any more OTT than I did. But if you want it, it's there. The only justification for this would be further future-proofing, in the expectation that more GPU power will benefit upcoming versions of Lightroom.
Recommended Downgrade: nVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16GB (£480)
The 4060 Ti is a generation older that the 5070, but still delivers solid Lightroom performance at lower power, making it ideal for quiet, efficient builds. It shares the same VRAM capacity (16GB), but its GDDR6 memory and fewer cores limit throughput in particularly intensive (eg AI) tasks. However - it's still more than capable for most photographers - including myself, and it's what I should have got. So if you're copying this build, and want to find somewhere to save money, this is it.
In reality, you could even scale down from there, too, and go for the GeForce RTX 3060 at £225. That's lower than I'd go, but if you're pitching your spec lower than mine, that's perfectly valid.
Power Supply (AKA PSU)
It's hard to get excited about a PSU, but I estimated that for my choice of processor, RAM, graphics card, and disks, I would need up to around 850 Watts of power, to cover spikes in demand. If you're unsure how to guage this for you own system (assuming you're not sticking to my choices), a quick google will give you a ball-park figure. For me, there are four main considerations for a PSU:
Power rating, in watts. A low-spec Lightroom machine might be OK with 500W, and something very high-spec might need up to 1000W. You do need to make sure that if all your components draw power at the same time, they will have the power they need, and you'll avoid 'brown-outs' & crashes.
A trusted brand. Delivering power to your PC components consistently, and reliably is important to keep them running soothly, so I think it's wise to use a good brand here.
Noise. As before, I want all my components to be as quiet as possible, within reason.
Connectors. You need to ensure that the PSU has the right connectors for your components. It's highly unlikely they wouldn't do for the motherboard and graphics card, but you may need to check for your (eg SATA) disk drives, etc.
My Choice: 850W PSU - BE QUIET! System Power 10 Gold (£93)
More pricey than I expected, but it's a step up from the power I've needed in the past, too. It's a good brand, and it's quiet.
Recommended Upgrade/Downgrade
I don't have anything specific for these, as I'd recommend somthing quiet in the 850W range. But you could go up to 1000W or down to 700W, depending on which other components you're using.
Disks
It's important for Lightroom to be able to read from the following sources simultaneously:
The OS: The Windows and Lightroom installation files.
Your lightroom catalog files and caches.
Your original photo RAW files.
Therefore, I like to have each of these on a different disk, to remove bottlenecks, and allow reads/writes for all three as fast as possible.
In terms of storage tech, the slowest is an old HDD (containing spinning disks), then an SDD (fast), then an NVMe drive (super-fast). And guess what; the costs are the inverse of their speeds. Benchmark tests of Lightroom in practice show only a little improvement (if any) between using SDDs and NVMe drives, meaning that if you already have SDDs to re-use, that's perfectly valid. However, since I don't, and I'm future-proofing as much as I can, I'm going to use NVMe drives for each of the above.
OS Drive
I would have been fine with a 500GB drive for this, but the options are more limited for that size these days (as they're less commonly desired), and the speeds of the 500GB NVMe drives available via Palicomp are slower - which I wasn't going to compromise on.
My Choice: 1TB ADATA Legend 860 M.2 NVMe 6000MB/s(R)-5000MB/s(W) (£70)
In the end I decided I'd rather have a good 1TB fitted than a smaller, slower drive to save £10, or buy a faster 500GB drive elsewhere and fit it myself. It's not really that big a deal in the grand scheme of things, and I've skimped on disk space in the past - which is fine for the short/medium term, but can leave you with a disk that's effectively pointlessly small a few years later.
Photos Drive
This drive needs to be the largest, at 2TB, since my photo library currently sits at around 1TB. My previous PC was using old-school HDD tech for this (re-purposed for backup drive, below), so upgrading this to NVMe should provide a noticeable speed boost when switching between, or browsing photos.
My Choice: 2TB WD Black SN770 M.2 NVMe 5150MB/s(R)-4850MB/s(W) (£120)
I like WD drives, and the WD Black range is their fastest range, aimed at gamers.
Recommended Downgrade: WD Blue
If you need less space, get less space. If you're looking to compromise on speed to save some money, the WD Blue range is still excellent, and the real-world speed difference is likely to be very subtle.
Lightroom Drive
Like the OS drive, I think 500GB would have been ample here, but I decided to upgrade to 1TB simply because the prices were so similar, and having more space is always more safe in the long-term.
My Choice: 1TB WD Black SN770 M.2 NVMe 5150MB/s(R)-4900MB/s(W) (£75)
This is the same as the Photos drive, but the smaller, 1TB version. I would have used this same model for the OS too, but I figured that if I ever want to remove/replace any of these drives, it would help if they were all slightly different, so I'll know which one to remove when I'm looking at the motherboard.
Recommended Downgrade: WD Blue
As before, you can always get a smaller drive, to save on costs. And the WD Blue range is a good option if you're happy to compromise slightly on speed..
Backup Drive
Lastly, I want a separate drive, to use for backups. This doesn't need to be fast, so HHD will be fine, and I had my 2TB HDD drive which I was previously using to store my photos on my old PC.
In fact, this drive is actually two 2TB HDD disks, which were configured within Windows as one "Storage Space". This means that although they're physically two disks, they act together as one, and the PC/Windows sees them as one. But when you saves files to that drive, all the data is saved to both disks; creating baked-in redundancy and resiliance, like a RAID configuration. This is a really handy feature of Windows, that is little publicised.
I'll cover backup policy more fully below, but I would always recommend you have some kind of backup drive in your possession, and using HDD and/or Storage Spaces is a solid option for this.
Case
Now you have all your components, you're going to need something to house them all.
PC cases come in all shapes and sizes, but most commonly ATX or micro-ATX. If you have a smaller, micro-ATX motherboard, you might be able to get a micro-ATX case too, but I'm going to need an ATX-size, which is the standard size.
Back in the day, my budget for a case was around £15, and I'm sure there are still cheap and cheerful cases around. Last time around I prioritised sound-dampening, and went for a mid-range option. This time I splashed the cash on something stylish!
My Choice: FRACTAL North - Black - Mesh (£112)
As soon as I saw the FRACTAL North case, I had to have it. It features real wooden panelling on the front, and if that makes me weak and shallow, then so be it! It's really the most handsome & stylish PC case I've come across. I went for the black version, with brass buttons and detailing on the top, and wallnut panelling on the front. I also chose the mesh version, rather than the tempered glass, as I don't want a window showing me the PC internals.
One thing of note with this case is that the two large (140mm) intake fans on the front are relatively low-quality, and thus very loud at the upper end of their speed. The speed of these fans is linked to the temperature of the CPU, so when the CPU is ambling along unburdened the fans are slow, and when the CPU has to work, it heats up and the fans speed up in correlation. Noise is not something I can tolerate, and these fans are way OTT for my needs anyway, in terms of cooling requirements. So I used the Q-Fan Control in the BIOS to define a manual fan speed preference - never going above 50% speed, whatever the CPU does.
I definitely recommend doing this if you have this case, but it is vital to ensure that you are modifying the front case fans, as intended. Not the CPU fan - which must respond fully to the CPU temperature (we chose the CPU fan eariler, and it's nice and quiet, even at full speed). Fortunately, not only is the CPU fan labelled as such within the BIOS (see screenshot above), but these changes are also applied live, so it's easy to increase the speed of the fans in turn, to determine which one(s) you're affecting.
Recommended Upgrade: I really don't think there's a case I'd rather have.
Recommended Downgrade: Game Max Silent Gaming - Black (£62)
This was the case I used for my previous PC. It's essentially designed for sound-insulation, and runs very quiet. It's internally sound-isulated on every side, it's quieter than the FRACTAL North case, and at half the price, it's a great choice, if a lot less stylish.
Extra Case Fans
As well as having intake fans at the front of the case, I like to have exhaust fans too, in order to help generate a nice flow of cool air into the case at the front, across the components, and out the back. These aren't essential, but I like to be confident I won't have problems with overheating, especially in light of reducing the speed of the front case fans.
Pure Wings make super-quiet fans, and it makes such a difference to have that cooling without the noise. The FRACTAL North case only has one space for a fan at the rear, so I have the other one at the top.
Recommended Upgrade: N/A
Recommended Downgrade: Go without, or use cheaper fans.
Though for cost, I think the Pure Wings are well worth it, and you'd be better saving money elsewhere.
Backup Process
Again, like the monitor, this could be a blog post of it's own, but I'm going to keep it very light, purely in the context of what's needed for a new PC build.
I follow the recommended "3-2-1 Strategy" of data management and disaster recovery planning, and I would always suggest other photographers (and anyone who values their files) do the same. Briefly, this rule states you should have:
3 copies of your data: One primary (working) copy, plus two backups.
2 storage devices of your own: For the primary copy and the first backup.
1 off-site copy: The third copy should be stored remotely, either in the cloud or at a physically separate location.
I am applying this via:
Primary copy of my photos on my NVMe Photos drive., and my Lightroom Library on my Lightroom drive.
Second copy of each goes into my Storage Space Backup drive.
I use FreeFileSync to automate this backup, 15 minutes after I log into Windows (to avoid clashes with any start-up services and processing, and to give me an opportunity to retrieve a backup file or stop the processes, if feel I need to).
My third copy is via pCloud Backup.
I used to use a backup-specific service called BackBlaze, but they kept raising their subscription price to the point where they were more expensive than general cloud storage services, such as Dropbox, iCloud, OneDrive, etc, all of whom offer more features and easier file retreval.
I would recommend pCloud as they are located in Switzerland, which requires strong data security, and they have servers in the EU, offering the world's most stringent encryption and data privacy protections. They also offer a one-off Lifetime licence, which pays for itself in around 4 years. I used them for backups, sharing files with clients, and syncing files across devices.
It's very important to plan your backups as part of any new PC build, so it works smartly and effecively, rather than dealing with it as an afterthought - or ignoring it alltogether.
Full PC Build, Optimised for Lightroom Classic
Here's a full breakdown of the components and cost of this PC...
Custom PC: Base Price | £350 | |
Processor | £302 | |
Processor Fan | £40 | |
Motherboard | £42 | |
RAM | £72 | |
Graphics Card | £700 | |
PSU | £93 | |
OS Drive | £70 | |
Photos Drive | £120 | |
Lightroom Drive | £75 | |
Case | £112 | |
Extra Fans | £30 | |
Sub-Total | £2,006 | |
Monitor | £699 | |
Total | £2,705 |
Desperately Justifying The Cost
There's no ignoring the fact that this PC cost me a lot of money, and considerably more than I've ever spent on a PC in the past. But it's also a considerably better PC than I've ever had in the past. So here's where I try to tell myself, and to a lesser extent, you that this is a good price for the PC I now have.
OK, well the monitor is great, and although I could have saved a few hundred pounds by settling for a 4K one, I'm happy with this beautiful 5K screen. For me, that's £699 which is totally separate from the £2,006 I spent on the PC itself, as they're independent upgrades.
For the actual PC, I'm mindful of the cost over the full life of the device. From the outset I intend to use this PC for 5+ years, and then sell it for something in the region of £500-£1000. This time around, I sold my old PC for £550, so that's a significant chunk towards the cost of the new one. For this one, if I consider a pessimistic sell-on price of £500 for this PC in 5 years time, subtract that from the ~£2000 up-front cost, I'm left with £1500, which equates to £300 a year, or £25 a month. Not bad, given what a great bit of kit it is, how much I use it, and how much it improves my digital editing workflow.
My Custom Lightroom PC Compared To... Customised Dell PC - Pro Max Tower T2 Desktop - No Monitor (£2,272)
I customised this Dell PC to match my spec as closely as I could, and it comes up over £200 more expensive, without looking nearly as handsome.
The Dell features a "Core Ultra 9 285K" processor, which is essentially the 15th generation of i9, which is the sucessor to my i9-14900K, though with fewer threads (24 vs 32) and slightly lower turbo speeds. The main advantage this chip offers with with AI; featuring an NPU for AI tasks, and an intergrated GPU. But I did choose to go with the well bedded in 14th gen i9, so I had to expect the 15th gen to improve on it somewhere.
As far as graphics card options, I picked the option most in line with my GeForce 5070 Ti (£700); selecting the GeForce RTX™ 5060 for £503. This is a noticably weaker GPU in every respect, but considering mine was OTT, the 5060 in the Dell is lower in the band of acceptibility, but probably better value, and a sensible choice.
Aside from that the main changes are less customisation for the disk drives (fewer options from Dell), and RAM brands.
Although the Dell is a lower spec for more money, the margins are relatively tight, and it might offer a simpler buy for many, so a credible option. I did go through the Dell site myself before I bought mine, and I prefered the value and flexibility of my more custom build.
My Custom Lightroom PC Compared To... Apple Mac Studio (£5,199)
The Mac Studio is about on par with my PC.
For CPU-based tasks like exports, my PC has the edge, but the Mac has the edge when it comes to AI features (Masking / Generative Remove), and Catalog browsing.
Although my PC is ultra-quiet, the Mac Studio is near-silent.
When it comes to futureproofing and upgrades, the PC is far better.
As for the price, the Mac Studio is over £3,000 more expensive, comparing base machines. If you include monitors (my ASUS ProArt PA27JCV @ £699 vs the equivalent 5K Apple Studio Display @ £1,499), that's a total of £2,705 vs £5,999.
My Custom Lightroom PC Compared To... Apple Mac Pro (£8,199)
I guess I'm missing some knowledge about the Mac Pro, but it doesn't really seem any higher spec than the Mac Studio, and is still about on par with my PC, depite the additional jump in price.
Again, my CPU has faster clock speed and more threads, but the Neural Engine of the Mac M2 Ultra benefits Lightroom's AI features.
Although my PC is ultra-quiet, the Mac Pro is near-silent.
When it comes to futureproofing and upgrades, the PC is far better.
The Mac Studio is over £6,000 more, comparing base machines.
Both the Mac Pro and the Mac Studio can be paired with either the 5K Apple Studio Display (£1,499) or the 6K Pro Display XDR (£4,599), each of which are more handsome and better built than my ASUS ProArt PA27JCV, but don't improve on the 218 DPI. The price of the Pro Display XDR is frankly insane.
Conclusions
This PC is an absolute powerhouse on paper, and that's reflected in use. I've been using it now for 6 weeks, and it's very slick, running Lightroom Classic as smoothly as I've ever known it. Speed of exports isn't that high on my list of priorities, but that's had the most noticable improvement - as the jpegs now fly out the door. Brush Mask, and AI Masks now all operate faster, with virtually no lag in any Lightroom feature except for Lens Blur, which is a very rare use-case.
Of the PC costs, my only real regret was splashing out on a graphics card to ensure it is never the bottleneck for Lightroom. But in the end I have something that's massively overkill. I should have saved myself £220 and got the GeForce 4060 Ti.
Asside from that, I love this PC! If I had to pick a favourite component, it would be the a tough call between the super fast processor (so glad I made the jump from i7 to i9), and the handsome wallnut panelled case :-)
I hope this post has been useful to someone out there. It does veer away from my usual image-based posts, but I wanted to share the research I'd done for those unsure about what features and components you might need to run Lightroom Classic as it's best.
If you found this useful, you can find my other Long Read posts on my blog, and you can subscribe to recieve future posts by email. If you have any comments or questions, please leave those below, and I'll get back to you. Especially if you prefer Macs to PCs and want to trade inane insults.
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George
