The Best Recommended Hardware for Adobe Photoshop

Adobe's world-class imaging and design software is at the core of just about every creative project, from photo editing and compositing to digital painting, animation and graphic design. From social posts to photo retouching, banners to beautiful websites, everyday image edits to total transformations - whatever you make, you can make it better with incredible tool. Learn more about what specifications you need for the best Adobe Photoshop PC.  

Recommended Hardware for Adobe Photoshop

Processor (CPU)

The CPU stands as a cornerstone in any Photoshop workstation. Despite the growing significance of GPU acceleration with the most recent version from 2024, currently, the CPU's selection predominantly dictates the overall system performance.

However, it's crucial to note that a CPU's theoretical power doesn't invariably translate to superior performance, especially considering Photoshop's limitation in effectively utilizing numerous cores. In several instances, investing more money might yield poorer performance, emphasizing the significance of selecting the appropriate CPU over opting for a pricier alternative.

Currently, the leading CPU for Photoshop is the Intel Core i9 14900K, renowned for its exceptional single-core performance. For those considering alternatives, Intel's 13th and 14th Generation line-ups merit attention, consistently outshining their AMD counterparts across various aspects within Photoshop. For individuals mindful of budget constraints, and to counter my previous argument with AMD chips, the Ryzen 5 or Core i5 models serves as excellent starting points with the AMD chips coming as a much cheaper alternative.

Finally, there's little justification for investing in high-end AMD Threadripper or Intel Xeon processors, as their price-to-performance ratio is thoroughly eclipsed by the consumer-grade Ryzen and Core range of CPUs.

Memory (RAM)

Determining the amount of RAM required for your Photoshop tasks is contingent upon the size and number of images you'll be handling. As a general recommendation applicable to all our systems, we advise a minimum of 16GB of RAM.

However, Photoshop's memory usage can escalate rapidly, underscoring the importance of ensuring sufficient system RAM availability for optimal performance and workflow efficiency.

We suggest the following memory amounts depending on the average file size you will be editing.

Graphics Card (GPU)

For Photoshop, it is extremely important to have a supported GPU, but the actual power of that card will not make a major impact on performance. Opting for the chart-topping RTX 4090 would be considered an unnecessary purchase as the vastly cheaper RTX 4060 offers only slightly less performance. The VRAM is something you don't need to take too much notice of as most of the current cards today come with 6GB or more meaning even with a 4K monitor you won't see any performance dips with higher resolution displays.   

Both Geforce and Quadro cards from NVIDIA (2019 onwards) support 10-bit colour should your monitor support it. This is also motherboard and CPU dependant.

Finally, we recommend NVIDIA GPUs over AMD as they not only offer better performance but also a more stable experience overall with regular updates to drivers and the addition of 'NVIDIA Studio' drivers which are aimed towards content creators using non-gaming applications.

With that being said, our recommendation would be to select a NVIDIA based graphics card with around 4/8GB of VRAM such as the RTX 3050 or RTX 4060.  

Storage Drives 

Photoshop isn't a demanding application on your hard drive however, a faster drive will see that your files are quickly accessible. Multiple drives will provide the optimal performance as you can assign them particular tasks.    

For your OS drive (C: drive) we suggest a NVMe SSD as it greatly improved the overall experience of Windows, loading into programs, boot times and searching for files.

Your Project Drive will be your main drive, where all your assets, project files and installation would be installed. For this a NVMe SSD is our go to as the cost of these have significantly come down over the years almost matching the much slower SATA SSDs.

The Media Cache or Scratch Drive is used for temporary storage for assets and files that don’t fit in the memory. Due to the high performance requirements we would again suggest an NVMe SSD to allow the best performance possible.

Additionally, a Storage Drive would be useful in order to keep the finished projects in a safe place. High capacity SSDs and Hard Drives are great to locally store the files inside your PC. We recommend having an external back-up via a NAS (network attached storage) or USB Hard Drive, just incase.

Please note, that the above configuration is for the most optimal performance. Two fast performance drives are suitable for Photoshop, a simple OS and Scratch drive would suffice.  

Our recommended Desktops for Photoshop

Below is our top recommended desktops for both Photoshop and Lightroom users. If you have any questions or would like a custom desktop configured please fill out our form which can be found under the PhotoPro desktops. 

Why Choose Utopia?

Super Fast m.2 NVMe as Standard

We understand the importance of speed when it comes to Photoshop. That's why every one of our photo editing desktops is equipped with SuperFast PCIe Gen 3 SSDs as standard, ensuring a seamless experience in Photoshop and Lightroom. Say goodbye to those days of waiting around for your PC to boot up – now you can dive right into editing without missing a beat.

Hand-Picked CPUs for Smooth Editing 

CPUs play vital role in delivering exceptional results. That's why each of our photo editing workstations have been selected with our top pick CPUs for ensuring lightning-fast performance. Say farewell to frustrating lags and hello to a smooth, efficient workflow that empowers you to bring your creative visions to life without delay.

Photoshop Users with Expert Knowledge

In our team, we're fortunate to have a dedicated group of individuals who are truly passionate about photography. Whether it's capturing the magic of weddings, the essence of portraiture, or the breathtaking perspectives from drones, you'll find someone who shares your enthusiasm, especially for those magical moments during the golden hour.

Ready to configure your own workstation?

Free 3 Month of Adobe Creative Cloud

Get complimentary membership with the purchase of selected ASUS products.*

* Terms and conditions apply. For more details, please read the full terms and published on the event page.

Frequently Asked Questions with Utopia Sonox Workstations

Connect with the Adobe community by following the links below

• Official Adobe Website
  
• Adobe Photoshop Twitter/X
• Utopia Discord