RAM advice

grog13
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p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · RAM advice

I'm using Lightroom 11 (will soon update to v.12) with Windows 10 and wondering if more RAM will help with performance. Processor is an i5-7500 at 3.4GHz (4 cores) with a 6mb cache. Currently have 16 gb RAM. Will going to 32 gb make a significant difference, or is the processor the limiting factor?
Thanks,
Greg

Sep 04, 2023 at 07:12 PM

schlotz
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p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · RAM advice

Ram will help. You probably will notice the difference but calling it significant will depend on your point of view. The i5 is a bit limiting depending on what you would be doing within LR.

Sep 04, 2023 at 07:21 PM

EB-1
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p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · RAM advice

Yeah, it's only a 65W CPU. IIRC my 6700K (an older but stronger CPU) performance increased from 16-32GB, but I would also be looking at the SSD for an upgrade depending on what it is.

EBH

Sep 04, 2023 at 07:47 PM

gchappel
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p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · RAM advice

You can monitor your cpu and memory useage with Window's task manager.
I have found if your memory useage is over 80%, more memory may help.
If you are staying under 50% useage, adding more memory will likely not be noticable.
In my own case- I shoot with 50-60mb cameras. My panos are huge. I had 32gb and was often hitting 90-100% useage. I went to 64gb, and the difference was amazing. At times I was still hitting 70% even with 64gb, so the stuff was on sale and I went to 128gb. Much less difference than 32-64gb.
So, monitor your useage and see if memory is one of the bottlenecks. Lots of possible bottlenecks, from disk read speed to cpu-- but memory is easy to monitor and upgrade.
gary
gay

Sep 05, 2023 at 07:14 AM

CanadaMark
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p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · RAM advice

Whether or not you will notice any difference depends entirely on if the RAM is your current bottleneck. If you aren't using most of your 16GB RAM, then adding more won't make a noticeable difference. If you are maxing out your RAM (or close to it), then you will absolutely benefit from going to 32GB.

Next time you're in an editing session, open up Task Manager or any other monitoring software and check your RAM usage. If it's close to 16GB, more will very likely help. If you're only using 8 or 9 GB or whatever, it isn't going to make any difference for your usage.

Also I'm not sure about LR, but in PS you can tell the program how much RAM you are allowing it to use, so make sure that is not creating an artificial bottleneck for you.

LR is highly single-threaded aside from exporting and photo merging, so most of the time it is only using a single thread of your CPU anyway (I.e. if you're moving sliders). If you do lots of AI processing with Adobe, Topaz, DXO, etc. then a CPU/GPU upgrade is going to make a very noticeable difference there. If you are just moving sliders around in LR for the most part, you won't notice much of a difference.

Sep 06, 2023 at 10:25 AM

Zenon Char
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p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · RAM advice

16GB RAM falls within Adobe specs but as stated that is not all to consider. More won't hurt but how noticeable it will be is hard to determine. Adobe recommends 20% of free hard drive space. Unofficial rule of thumb is 100GB. That will take you further than than a jump from 16 to 32.

Another new thing you will have with Version 12 is Adobe Denoise AI. Like any AI software it is all about the video card. AI eats VRAM so the more the better.

By the way LrC version 13 will be out in about 3 to 4 weeks but I don't expect much. Adobe Denoise AI was released in April and probably in the top three upgrades in the last 6 years. It's pretty amazing. You should consider upgrading regularly. There many performance improvements, bug fixes, etc. You are paying for that.

Sep 06, 2023 at 10:47 AM

grog13
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p.1 #7 · p.1 #7 · RAM advice

gchappel wrote:
You can monitor your cpu and memory useage with Window's task manager.
I have found if your memory useage is over 80%, more memory may help.
If you are staying under 50% useage, adding more memory will likely not be noticable.

---------------------------------------------

CanadaMark wrote:
Whether or not you will notice any difference depends entirely on if the RAM is your current bottleneck. If you aren't using most of your 16GB RAM, then adding more won't make a noticeable difference. If you are maxing out your RAM (or close to it), then you will absolutely benefit from going to 32GB.

Next time you're in an editing session,...Show more →

Sep 08, 2023 at 08:38 PM

b-mhac
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p.1 #8 · p.1 #8 · RAM advice

Monitor memory usage during an editing session and double back if memory usage is close to capacity. Id also keep an eye on that i5 core and check core usage as that could definitely cause some delay.

Sep 14, 2023 at 02:49 AM

ytwong
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p.1 #9 · p.1 #9 · RAM advice

with just 16GB I suppose you can benefit from more ram. I'm sure there are other background software, dropbox? google? team? they add up.

You can monitor the CPU and RAM usage when processing.

Your machine has only iGPU?
Years ago LR does not use GPU at all but it's being used more often. You can check the link below and see which GPU accerlated functions you often use.
https://helpx.adobe.com/uk/lightroom-classic/kb/lightroom-gpu-faq.html

If you think you need a GPU, you don't need a really powerful one. Most cheaper cards are still miles better than that iGPU (no GPU, I don't think that iGPU is supported).

Sep 14, 2023 at 10:24 AM

doady
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p.1 #10 · p.1 #10 · RAM advice

Don't bother with 32GB of RAM to along with a 6-7 year old mid-range CPU. Most likely you have to upgrade the video card, but I would wait a year or two and build a entirely new computer since yours is so old already.

My 14 year old Phenom II X4 945 machine with 4GB 1333Mhz DDR3 can still run Capture One Pro 20 decently. What's been doing the heavy lifting is the Radeon 7850 video card that I added in 2013. With Hardware Acceleration enabled, Capture One will use the GPU and video memory instead of relying solely on the CPU and main memory, and I'm guessing Lightroom has a similar option.

Sep 14, 2023 at 11:16 PM


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