I currently have Dell XPS Win 10 PC that is 8 years old. In addition to Photoshop, I do digital painting with Corel Painter, use FilterForge, and use generative AI. This computer is now painfully slow for these tasks. I want to upgrade to a Win 11 PC with 64 gb RAM, a powerful graphics card, and an NPU if possible. I am unclear if Ryzen CPU or Intel is way to go (newer Intel chips have had problems reported). I am unsure if Dell remains reliable given comments on TrustPilot. I would greatly appreciate advice including upgrade now or wait. Thanks!
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Advice For New PC
- Thread starter Stuart
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The Point and Shoot Pro
Veteran Member
As it stands right now, for anyone wanting a creative notebook, I highly recommend the Asus ProArt series. They are exactly the thing Creative workflows scream for.
Bouldergramp
Leading Member
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Bouldergramp
Leading Member
I have had and still have Dell computers. I have had no problems whatsoever with their computers. I ignore reviews and don't ask for advice. I normally by used computers on ebay.
Carey Brown
Veteran Member
Sounds like you've got a pretty good idea of what you want and those specs lean towards the higher end. Consider getting a custom build from DigitalStorm . A custom build is not much more expensive then a similarly spec'd machine and you'll get exactly what you want and it will be upgradeable. I've purchased 3 high end machines from them over the years and have been happy with every one. I like their web site where you can pick an choose components.
Carey Brown
Veteran Member
Example build
is $3,400 but the most expensive component is the Nvidia 5080 GPU, you can save $500 by going with a 5070.
Awkward_Swine
Well-known member
I've never bought a prebuilt desktop PC in my life. I've been building my own since the 1980's! They are easier than ever to assemble and boot up too. It's fun and you can spec out exactly what you want.
Here is a good example build that I put together a couple of months ago. I'm running almost the exact same desktop for the last year, upgrading it to the AMD 9900x CPU just recently. This PC will fly for the workload you describe, and it will likely be less expensive than anything you can buy off the shelf.
Price: ~$2000 USD
- CPU AMD 9900x
- GPU Nvida 4070 12gb
- 64 GB Ram
- 2 TB nvme SSD
- Etc.
Do not trust TrustPilot for reviews. They tend to be only bad ones.
Dell is a reputable company that has been around for years. They have good quality computers that are are modern and powerful. I have been using a 27" monitor for my photo work and it is now over 9 yrs old and running great.
I build my own PCs.
I have a Ryzen 5 5600G 3.9 GHz Six-Core GPU
My recently acquired graphics card is GeForce GTX OC Windforce 3060 ver 2
I have 32 GB of RAM and use NVME drives for my storage and an SSD drive for my C
I run ACDSee Photo Studio Ultimate 2025 and include Topaz Photo AI in my workflow for Denoise and Sharpening.
Topaz will use/peak 24 GB of system memory by itself. ACDSee uses about 8 GB.
This system works fine for me. I do not use gen AI. I am not slowed down because of my hardware.
I would contact the specific sw companies you use and determine what CPU they recommend.
You will notice a marked performance improvement with whatever modern system you choose.
My system is 3 yrs old and I tend to upgrade the MB/CPU/RAM every 5-6 yrs or so.
Even though I delete a lot of my photos after processing the good ones my backup needs change more often. I bought a Synology NAS a year and a half ago with a couple of 14 TB HDDs in a RAID setup.
Good Luck!
Do you have a budget?
If you wanted something with an Intel Core 9 Ultra 285k (their latest high-end desktop CPU), an RTX 5090 graphics card, and 64GP of RAM, you're looking above $5kUS.
Intel Core Ultra 9,Windows 11 Pro,GeForce RTX 5090,64GB DDR5 Desktop Computer | Newegg.com
As for what you might need:
Photoshop Hardware Requirements
Adobe Camera Raw Requirements
Filter Forge System Requirements
None of the above appear to benefit from an NPU.
This is what Puget Systems suggests as a base machine for Photoshop:
Photoshop Workstation for Adobe Photoshop | Puget Systems
Here's one for DaVinci Resolve:
H.264 / HEVC Workstation for DaVinci Resolve | Puget Systems
As far as I know, the issues with Intel CPUs were for Gen13 and Gen14. The Core Ultra series are Gen15. (I wish Intel hadn't changed their CPU labelling.)
I'm not sure about AMD's desktop offerings with NPUs. The 8600G and 8700G are supposed to include NPUs. Their most advanced NPU equipped processors seem to be for laptops.
I'm quite clueless about the value of NPUs. The original Microsoft "CoPilot +" PCs were laptops, based on Qualcom Snapdragon CPUs (ARM technology). But that has since been extended to laptop CPUs from Intel and AMD that include NPUs.
If you wanted something with an Intel Core 9 Ultra 285k (their latest high-end desktop CPU), an RTX 5090 graphics card, and 64GP of RAM, you're looking above $5kUS.
Intel Core Ultra 9,Windows 11 Pro,GeForce RTX 5090,64GB DDR5 Desktop Computer | Newegg.com
As for what you might need:
Photoshop Hardware Requirements
Adobe Camera Raw Requirements
Filter Forge System Requirements
None of the above appear to benefit from an NPU.
This is what Puget Systems suggests as a base machine for Photoshop:
Photoshop Workstation for Adobe Photoshop | Puget Systems
Here's one for DaVinci Resolve:
H.264 / HEVC Workstation for DaVinci Resolve | Puget Systems
As far as I know, the issues with Intel CPUs were for Gen13 and Gen14. The Core Ultra series are Gen15. (I wish Intel hadn't changed their CPU labelling.)
I'm not sure about AMD's desktop offerings with NPUs. The 8600G and 8700G are supposed to include NPUs. Their most advanced NPU equipped processors seem to be for laptops.
I'm quite clueless about the value of NPUs. The original Microsoft "CoPilot +" PCs were laptops, based on Qualcom Snapdragon CPUs (ARM technology). But that has since been extended to laptop CPUs from Intel and AMD that include NPUs.
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Dell is hit or miss.
Dealing with their tech support is nothing like it used to be and some do better on that part but if your computer breaks they'll often get it fixed faster than the rest.
The downside is that other than their power supplies the parts are usually cheap and thermally pushed a bit too far so you lose some performance.
But if you get a good deal on one it's not bad. And some of their OEM video cards have been decent.
Last year I had to deal with Dell service and you just need to know that they have a script and will ask a bunch of questions that are going to be unnecessary especially if you've done trouble shooting already. For me it was a monitor so it was pretty straight forward, here's a photo of the whole thing with the pixels that are bad and some other easy things and then they sent out a replacement.
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The Point and Shoot Pro
Veteran Member
All of my systems (right now) are dell computers. I have not had an issue with any besides self inflicted damage. Now mine are from 2021 and previously. If I were buying a desktop system I would buy the parts and put it together, or get someone to do so. I never did this because when I bought my XPS workstation, I got the entire system with the 2070 super graphics card for the same price as just the card was going for individually.
That being said, I have had great use from my dell systems. I bought my 18 year old son who has autism a MSI gaming laptop because he needed something to play space engine with, and I never had the time to wait for a dell to come in the mail. That's the only non dell machine in our home. I would have preferred a G series for him but could not wait.
I have computers from Dell, HP, Lenovo, and now Cyberpower. The one from Dell is the only one that failed after a relatively short time of just over 2 years. I have 2 Lenovo's and both are still rock solid. I recently transformed an 8 yo Lenovo desktop into a NAS running Truenas Scale.
Just some other things.
By NPU do you mean a CPU based on? They are really weak next to the NVIDIA ones and not really offered on desktop yet.
The only option for that is going to be the Framework desktop:
But that's the top end AMD CPU with a pretty large integrated GPU. But this will still be slower than many Nvidia GPUs.
For the CPU most are really fast now so the big question is how many cores do you need? Check the programs you use but there's often a lot that uses just a single core. And in that case you could get say an 8 core Ryzen instead of a 16 core one at over double the price (on the Intel side an i5 vs i9) and put that money into the GPU.
By NPU do you mean a CPU based on? They are really weak next to the NVIDIA ones and not really offered on desktop yet.
The only option for that is going to be the Framework desktop:
But that's the top end AMD CPU with a pretty large integrated GPU. But this will still be slower than many Nvidia GPUs.
For the CPU most are really fast now so the big question is how many cores do you need? Check the programs you use but there's often a lot that uses just a single core. And in that case you could get say an 8 core Ryzen instead of a 16 core one at over double the price (on the Intel side an i5 vs i9) and put that money into the GPU.
What kind of service are you asking about?
Dell, for example, does in-home repairs. That's through local contractors. I'm not sure how available that might be in rural areas.
I presume that Digital Storm doesn't do that.
Dell's reputation for being unreliable comes from 20 years ago. I know this because my university had computer labs full of failing Dell PCs (which were repaired under warranty) and I also owned a Dell from that era which didn't last long.
But as you know, Dell PCs are very different today.
But as you know, Dell PCs are very different today.
The Point and Shoot Pro
Veteran Member
That sounds about right. My Dell workstation from around then has 2 motherboard temp sensors fail.
So basically it sounds like a jet engine whenever it runs until the whole board is replaced.
Even by the end of the 2000s I've had pretty good luck with them.
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