# Computer spec, will this do?



## Colin S (Aug 29, 2012)

I'm very new to Lightroom, and likely to stay inexperienced as I seem to spend forever waiting for anything to happen, not Lightroom's fault as my old computer is creaking at the seams, so time for a new one.

This is the basic spec I'm considering, I'd be very grateful if you think this will be OK or if anyone can suggest any important changes they think I should make to this.  It will of course be running 64 bit Win 7 and Lightroom 4.1.  I don't use PS.

Many thanks for your help.

Colin

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 Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Processor i7-3770 (3.4GHz) 8MB Cache

ASUS® P8Z77-V LX: USB 3.0, SATA 6GBs motherboard

16GB KINGSTON HYPERX GENESIS DUAL-DDR3 2133MHz X.M.P

1GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 550 Ti 

2 x 2TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD2002FAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)

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## Hal P Anderson (Aug 29, 2012)

Colin,

Welcome!

That's plenty.  A better machine than mine, and LR is _snappy_ for me.

Hal


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## Jim Wilde (Aug 29, 2012)

Coincidentally (as in yesterday) we pushed the button on my son's new system. He's a gamer, so has slightly different needs, but the spec we came up with looks remarkably similar to yours:

Same CPU
Same MB, though we went with the Sabretooth variant because of it's TUF armour and 5 year warranty
Same 16gb of RAM
Installing the nVidia 680 (cos he's a gamer!)
Also installing an SSD for OS and Programs, with a 1TB Caviar Black for data.

As I expect to 'inherit' this system when he moves on to the next one, I'm perfectly happy with our choice, I'm sure Lightroom will fly on it.

One thing you might want to consider (apart from maybe an SSD) would be a liquid cooler for the CPU.....some LR functions are quite CPU intensive, so having the CPU cooled by more than fans is a great comfort.

Welcome to the forum, BTW.


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## Colin S (Aug 29, 2012)

Hal thanks for the welcome and the opinion.  Jim I have specced for a liquid cooled CPU and lots of case cooling as I thought that Lightroom was CPU heavy.  I did consider an SSD for the OS and programs, but I'm not a heavy user, just a hobby bird photographer, processing and printing pictures for my own benefit, so within reason speed is not my main concern, reliability is more important for me and both of my sons' SSDs have failed, so I was kind of put off.  However, ever willing to take advice, what size would you recommend if I was to go that route?

By the way I'll probably be pairing this with one of the new Asus PA248 monitors.

Colin


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## Jim Wilde (Aug 29, 2012)

Well I'm not an SSD expert at all, but we've gone with the 240Gb Intel 520 Series. Smaller might suffice, but his games often come in at huge sizes so we wanted to be safe.

Re the monitor, treat yourself and get 2!  I recently bought a pair of HP2475W monitors, really pleased with them.


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