New computer recommendations

[Maxie]

I need to update my graphics computer, whats the minimum requitements taking into account Photoshop with AI.
I6, I7 or I9?
Ram 16 or 32?
Graphics card?  Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Ti?
Whats is recommended?

[blue moon]

Get one of these before the price goes up.
https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/p/workstations/thinkstation-p-series/thinkstation-p3-tiny-workstation/30h00015us
Bump memory to 32 gb and you should be good. I just bought 3 of them.
Pierre

[OhNoPrinting]

If you have time (to read) and money to invest, the people at Puget Systems make amazing computer and are also researching and blogging about the effects of different hardware in the field of content creation. (spoiler: if money doesn´t play a big role: go Intel CPU and Nvidia Gpu)

https://www.pugetsystems.com/?s=photoshop

I on the other hand are very budget mindful, so I went for the AMD route: still a lot of power (just not the best) for a reasonable price. (Ryzen 3900/ Radeon 6800xt /64 Gb Ram)

Really, find the application you are using the most and start from there. Because most Benchmarks take 3d in gaming as the consideration, while you need the specs for Photoshop or Illustrator.  (quick tip if using adobe software: choose a Intel cpu with high single core speed, you don´t gain too much from more cores, the gpu doesn´t play any role in Photoshop if it is newer then 2017 and go for lots of fast RAM)

Two things also to consider: Nvidia has Cuda cores and your Ai software might be build around that and don´t save on the amount of Ram. I just tried to separate a big layout and even with 64gb ram I ran into an error. (I tried to work in 1200dpi for these sweet halftones)

[zanegun08]

Unless you have some software that cannot run on a Mac, I would just get an iMac if a desktop.

I work from a 13" MacBook Air M2 with 16gb ram and it handles complex photoshop and illustrator files really well.  For 99% of work it's more power than I'd ever need, and I have an external monitor setup but it's nice to be mobile as well as most of our work is by email.

If you have software that has to run on windows, I'd keep a PC for a RIP or something.  Apple stuff just works, and last many years my previous laptop was 10+ years old and still works so it was a major upgrade to the MacBook Air M2.

I tried a couple times to get a Microsoft Surface as I thought it could be a benefit for the drawing tablet and being able to use it quickly as a tablet, but I just cannot get used to windows, and they did not perform nearly as well with photoshop and illustrator, I bought and returned two, one cheaper, and one more powerful.

However, the price may not be as easy in the country you are in, but I think the extra up front cost is well worth it, and if you can buy it and return it if you don't like it is an option.

[Sbrem]

I'll second Mac, I go back to a MacPlus with one meg of RAM, and they are fairly trouble free. I had one major issue about 3 years ago when I tried one of those "clean up" programs, which then made itself the admin of my machine, and I was locked out of 40K emails. Hours on the phone, and going through many levels of experts, Apple solved my problem, for free. It was a 7 year old computer, way off AppleCare.

Steve

[mk162]

Get one of these before the price goes up.
https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/p/workstations/thinkstation-p-series/thinkstation-p3-tiny-workstation/30h00015us
Bump memory to 32 gb and you should be good. I just bought 3 of them.
Pierre

We run all Lenovo Thinkstations(except for the DTS machine) here and couldn't be happier. They just run.

[ebscreen]

I recently built a new comp with some heavy duty hardware and I gotta be honest I didn't see any
wow factor improvement over the last build that was at least 7 years old. I think we're at a weird point in the
hardware/software battle where programmers can't make software anymore bloated to use the power
of todays hardware haha. That said, I don't play video games which is likely where the majority of
hardware development is aimed.