Graphics card for Photoshop?

hdl

Sorry for yet another "need a laptop recommendation thread", but hoping someone here will have some advice.

I've been searching or a new laptop, main use will be for Photoshop (editing photos and light graphic design, won't be using any 3d features or video editing). Aside from that it'll just be internet and Office. My 10 year old may occasionally want to play Roblox on it, but the requirements for that look pretty minimal.

At the moment I'm running on an i7-4510u with Geforce 820m and for the most part, everything runs smoothly. What I'm wondering is if I actually need dedicated graphics for Photoshop, or if the integrated graphics available now will do the job? I've been looking at a few (different price ranges), but not sure as I said, if the integrated graphics will be enough or if I should only be looking at dedicated. Thanks.

https://www.saveonlaptops.co.uk/81HN00FAUK-Lenovo-V130_2325276.html
https://www.saveonlaptops.co.uk/81AX00CBUK-Lenovo-V330_2276809.html
https://www.saveonlaptops.co.uk/NX.GDAEK.003-Acer-Aspire-F15-F5-573G_2186600.html
https://www.saveonlaptops.co.uk/NX.GP8EK.003-Acer-Aspire-7-A715-71G-57YT_2156569.html
https://www.saveonlaptops.co.uk/9S7-16J962-2073-MSI-GL62M-7RDX-2073UK_2245212.html

mordeith

Unless you're editing massive RAW files then integrated will be fine.

Alanstrainor

You use sounds light. A dedicated graphics chip is not need I would say. I'm a regular photoshop/lightroom user and it really doesn't need that much to run well. A good CPU and adequate RAM are more important here.

hdl

Thanks guys, yep, use would be light enough, no huge raw files. I'll have another browse around and see what I can find. Any thoughts on the first two laptops linked, as they both have integrated?

Alanstrainor

hdl wrote: »

Sorry for yet another "need a laptop recommendation thread", but hoping someone here will have some advice.

I've been searching or a new laptop, main use will be for Photoshop (editing photos and light graphic design, won't be using any 3d features or video editing). Aside from that it'll just be internet and Office. My 10 year old may occasionally want to play Roblox on it, but the requirements for that look pretty minimal.

At the moment I'm running on an i7-4510u with Geforce 820m and for the most part, everything runs smoothly. What I'm wondering is if I actually need dedicated graphics for Photoshop, or if the integrated graphics available now will do the job? I've been looking at a few (different price ranges), but not sure as I said, if the integrated graphics will be enough or if I should only be looking at dedicated. Thanks.

https://www.saveonlaptops.co.uk/81HN00FAUK-Lenovo-V130_2325276.html
https://www.saveonlaptops.co.uk/81AX00CBUK-Lenovo-V330_2276809.html
https://www.saveonlaptops.co.uk/NX.GDAEK.003-Acer-Aspire-F15-F5-573G_2186600.html
https://www.saveonlaptops.co.uk/NX.GP8EK.003-Acer-Aspire-7-A715-71G-57YT_2156569.html
https://www.saveonlaptops.co.uk/9S7-16J962-2073-MSI-GL62M-7RDX-2073UK_2245212.html

I think the second machine you have there would be more than enough. 8th gen processor with 8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD. The other more gaming orientated machines would be fine but I would call both of the ones above overkill for your usage. Although having a 256GB SSD and a 1TB disk might be beneficial for storing lots of photos.

hdl

Alanstrainor wrote: »

Although having a 256GB SSD and a 1TB disk might be beneficial for storing lots of photos.

Thanks. The only reason that last one made it onto the list was indeed the SSD and 1TB drive! It would be nice to have the storage, as I do tend to keep a lot of photos on my current laptop, but I suppose I do need be more organised and move them off to an ehd.

I appreciate your help, thanks very much

mordeith

hdl wrote: »

Thanks. The only reason that last one made it onto the list was indeed the SSD and 1TB drive! It would be nice to have the storage, as I do tend to keep a lot of photos on my current laptop, but I suppose I do need be more organised and move them off to an ehd.

I appreciate your help, thanks very much

Just to be pedantic you should be copying rather than moving. Backup being vital.
As Alan said above the second laptop looks like the most reasonable for your needs.

hdl

mordeith wrote: »

Just to be pedantic you should be copying rather than moving. Backup being vital.
As Alan said above the second laptop looks like the most reasonable for your needs.

Thanks, I do indeed back them up. The most important ones are backed up online, and everything is backed up to a hard drive. I suppose I mean I must get more organised about moving the copies that are on the laptop onto another external drive, if I'll only have a quarter of the space I currently have.

mordeith

hdl wrote: »

Thanks, I do indeed back them up. The most important ones are backed up online, and everything is backed up to a hard drive. I suppose I mean I must get more organised about moving the copies that are on the laptop onto another external drive, if I'll only have a quarter of the space I currently have.

Yeah, it's good to have a bit of headroom when the SSD is lower capacity.

Alanstrainor

hdl wrote: »

Thanks, I do indeed back them up. The most important ones are backed up online, and everything is backed up to a hard drive. I suppose I mean I must get more organised about moving the copies that are on the laptop onto another external drive, if I'll only have a quarter of the space I currently have.

I know we're going off topic here. But the recommendation for backups is to have at least a dual layered approach. 1 local back to usb/network drive and 1 cloud backup of all photos to an online service. This gives you the best redundancy. If the laptop suddenly disappears at very least you have all your photos to hand, and if the house burns to the ground your cloud backup will save you. I would always recommend investing in cloud storage as the free options are never enough. My 2c anyway.

hdl

Alanstrainor wrote: »

I know we're going off topic here. But the recommendation for backups is to have at least a dual layered approach. 1 local back to usb/network drive and 1 cloud backup of all photos to an online service. This gives you the best redundancy. If the laptop suddenly disappears at very least you have all your photos to hand, and if the house burns to the ground your cloud backup will save you. I would always recommend investing in cloud storage as the free options are never enough. My 2c anyway.

It's a good policy to have. I do always keep a copy on a hard drive as well as the laptop. It's the cloud end of it that I need to get better at. I admit I do use the free options, that's why it's just the more important stuff that gets backed up there. If you have any recommendations for a paid service, I'd love to look into them. Thanks.

Alanstrainor

Yep. Backblaze is a service that backs up your entire computer, all docs/photos and files. This is much more a backup service for your entire computer rather than just photos, as retrieving individual photos etc isn't really possible. But you shouldn't need to do so imo.

https://www.backblaze.com/cloud-backup.html#af3942

I use Amazon drive 1TB storage for all my photos. It is good, but different to the above, and I think more expensive.

hdl

Thanks for that, I'll check it out.