Toronto Photography Meetup Group

Hi all:

I have a 3 year old Duo Core which is extremely slow when it comes to photo editing.

I am shopping around and my buget is around $600-$800, can you share your experience with what is the minimum I will need for photo editing? I found that PS sucks up a lot of memory and can slow down the whole operation.

Is I3 ok? or do I need I5 minimum? is i7 an overkill?

Please let me know what processor and size of RAM I will need if I want to be able to open at least 2 photo editing software at the same time. Thank you.

well on that budget I can only assume you are PC. I am currently running a Mac with a gen 1 i7 and 8gb of ram. I find it slightly sluggish but the newer gen 2 or 3 processors make up for that. you definitely want a minimum of 8GB of ram though. if you can afford it get something is an i7 quad core and 8Gb (or more) of ram. otherwise an i5 will be fine. i3 will work but will be a bit sluggish, especially if running the new Lightroom 4

If you plan to use this seriously for a few years, get fastest you can get, with as much memory as possible...don't try to save a few bucks the wrong way.

Don't know which would be better though, a new i5, or an older i7 to save a few bucks.

Bought a Gateway NV57H18h i7 2670QM, 8gb ram, 1tb hd, nVidia 630M 1gb video card. 799+tax from Futureshop.

It was the only one that I can find around that price with i7, non-Intel video card and 8gb of ram.

Bestbuy was completely sold out of a similar model with a better video card.

Staples has something similar with 750gb of ram for the same price.

Canada computers, Tigerdirect.ca, NCIX.ca, and Newegg.ca don't have anything close around that price. I can't remember what I found at Dell.ca, but I believe they were just a bit more.

I just had some experience with Hp G62 i3 laptop with 4gb ram and it's great with my Lr plus Ps workflow, the screen is very bright too