Question Low budget prebuild

[neilcaff]

Hello,

So we really need to get a new PC for my brother asap and the cheapest we could find right now would be a prebuilt one. What we're looking at has an i7-3770s CPU, no GPU, 16GB RAM, and SSD. Is it good enough to run Photoshop, possibly Illustrator too? He doesn't do any 3D work, and no gaming either on PC, so it's primarily just Photoshop that would be its heaviest workload. I know the CPU is an old model but we really need a new one for him asap and we don't have much budget-wise. We're thinking of getting this for now and just upgrade with a GPU, or an entirely better new one, when we can. Thank you for your time!

 

[Lafong]

I've used Photoshop on weaker CPUs.

An older version of Photoshop that I still use.

Does he do semi-advanced stuff on Photoshop? I don't.

I'd think with 16 RAM it would be at least tolerable for an ordinary user that wasn't trying to make money with Photoshop.

 

[neilcaff]

I've used Photoshop on weaker CPUs.

An older version of Photoshop that I still use.

Does he do semi-advanced stuff on Photoshop? I don't.

I'd think with 16 RAM it would be at least tolerable for an ordinary user that wasn't trying to make money with Photoshop.

Thank you for the response and input. I'm not sure how advanced stuff he'll do, he needs it for school. I also run Photoshop on my laptop, which has an even older CPU and way less RAM, and I get to work on large files. But it has a 2GB Nvidia GPU, so that might be a factor. So my main concern is this prebuild one we're looking at has a bit stronger CPU and much more RAM, but no GPU.

 

[Lafong]

Are you in a situation where he can be REFUSED from the class because of his PC?

Will he be using current version of Photoshop? It may be enormous and require immense CPU power. I have no idea.

I ran PS CS2 version 9.0 successfully on an Intel i5-2500 with integrated graphics. Fairly basic stuff....resizing, color correction, some filters, gamma correction; auto this, auto that; curves, saturation adjustments, etc.

No "layers", no "masks", nothing beyond what I taught myself to fiddle with jpegs and tiffs.

I don't recall waiting more than a very few seconds for anything.

My average jpeg file size is maybe 500 kb. Are his going to be 500 MB?

I still use it on my current PC (6600k).

Your brother's CPU is somewhat stronger than my i5. Extreme case....it might take 60 seconds to do something that the typical PC in his class could do in 30 seconds.

Would that be a show-stopper?

I had 4 GB RAM on my i5-2500. Your brother has 16.

Not sure, but I think the integrated graphics in the i5-2500 is somewhat inferior to the integrated graphics in the 3770s.

3770s graphics specs per Intel:

Processor Graphics ‡ Intel® HD Graphics 4000
Graphics Base Frequency 650 MHz
Graphics Max Dynamic Frequency 1.15 GHz
Intel® Quick Sync Video
Yes
Intel® InTru™ 3D Technology
Yes
Intel® Flexible Display Interface (Intel® FDI)
Yes
Intel® Clear Video HD Technology
Yes
# of Displays Supported ‡
3


i5-2500 specs per Intel:

Processor Graphics ‡ Intel® HD Graphics 2000
Graphics Base Frequency 850 MHz
Graphics Max Dynamic Frequency 1.10 GHz
Intel® Quick Sync Video
Yes
Intel® InTru™ 3D Technology
Yes
Intel® Flexible Display Interface (Intel® FDI)
Yes
Intel® Clear Video HD Technology
Yes
# of Displays Supported ‡
2

 

[neilcaff]

Are you in a situation where he can be REFUSED from the class because of his PC?

Will he be using current version of Photoshop? It may be enormous and require immense CPU power. I have no idea.

I ran PS CS2 version 9.0 successfully on an Intel i5-2500 with integrated graphics. Fairly basic stuff....resizing, color correction, some filters, gamma correction; auto this, auto that; curves, saturation adjustments, etc.

No "layers", no "masks", nothing beyond what I taught myself to fiddle with jpegs and tiffs.

I don't recall waiting more than a very few seconds for anything.

My average jpeg file size is maybe 500 kb. Are his going to be 500 MB?

I still use it on my current PC (6600k).

Your brother's CPU is somewhat stronger than my i5. Extreme case....it might take 60 seconds to do something that the typical PC in his class could do in 30 seconds.

Would that be a show-stopper?

I had 4 GB RAM on my i5-2500. Your brother has 16.

Not sure, but I think the integrated graphics in the i5-2500 is somewhat inferior to the integrated graphics in the 3770s.

3770s graphics specs per Intel:

Processor Graphics ‡ Intel® HD Graphics 4000
Graphics Base Frequency 650 MHz
Graphics Max Dynamic Frequency 1.15 GHz
Intel® Quick Sync Video
Yes
Intel® InTru™ 3D Technology
Yes
Intel® Flexible Display Interface (Intel® FDI)
Yes
Intel® Clear Video HD Technology
Yes
# of Displays Supported ‡
3


i5-2500 specs per Intel:

Processor Graphics ‡ Intel® HD Graphics 2000
Graphics Base Frequency 850 MHz
Graphics Max Dynamic Frequency 1.10 GHz
Intel® Quick Sync Video
Yes
Intel® InTru™ 3D Technology
Yes
Intel® Flexible Display Interface (Intel® FDI)
Yes
Intel® Clear Video HD Technology
Yes
# of Displays Supported ‡
2

No, I don't think it will come to that.

As for the Photoshop version, probably not the latest. In my experience, CS6 has always been the most stable for me, but CC 2019 runs just fine.

For the average file size, 500MB is a little too much, but I did once experience working on a project with a size like that, and I managed to get through it well. For context, my laptop's CPU is i5-3210m, 6GB RAM. But again, my laptop has a GPU so that might have had a play in it. This prebuild we're looking at doesn't have GPU, but it has far more RAM at 16GB, so it's my main concern that if having no GPU will have major effect on the performance.