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My mum needs a new laptop, and will be using it for work to some degree. I'm struggling to find out if the newer integrated Intel UHD graphics will run it? It won't be any heavy use but she is prepared to get something with a Nvidia card if needed.
I've read the Adobe guide but I'm not 100% clear how the UHD fits in and wether there are different specs of integrated graphics or not.
Would be looking at 8gb Ram minimum, SSD and I5 regardless of the above to future proof to some degree.
Laptops and Intel aren't something I'm looking at, but I've been saving up for a new desktop and the AMD Ryzen+Vega APU's get better reviews/benchmarks.
Maybe consider looking at laptops with a Ryzen 3700U + Vega10?
I'm working from this page https://helpx.adobe.com/uk/photoshop/kb/photoshop-cc-gpu-card-faq.html
The Vega isn't listed so again I don't know how well that handles photoshop, I've seen a few with Vega 8 too. Some of the limited reading suggested Intel processors were better for Photoshop but I'd need to look again to see why that was the opinion.
There is a statement saying If your cards is not listed above, but meets the following requirements, you can assume that it works with the latest version of Photoshop:The card was released in the year 2014 or afterwards
It has the minimum amount of graphics processor VRAM required for Photoshop (512 MB). The recommended amount of VRAM is 2 GB or more, though.
Again for the integrated graphics I can't see VRAM mentioned
I'm certain the integrated graphics will work, it'll be about the performance. There are system aspects to that too, e.g ram, disk etc. I bought two new laptops recently and opted to get the Nvidia option, but it's a balance of cost. Imho the integrated graphics have been getting better recently. (Full disclosure, I work for Intel)
Again for the integrated graphics I can’t see VRAM mentioned
They usually share the system memory, which is a blessing and a curse, lots of it (relatively, because it's cheap and multi functional), but DDR4 is a lot slower than DDR5 and DDR6 found on graphics cards, and it's shared. On Desktops 3200MHz DDR4 memory is almost nudging on the lower end of DDR5 speeds and seems to be the tipping point of the cost Vs benefit, but you're unlikely to find that on a laptop or off the shelf PC.
Photoshop and it's ilk aren't something you really want to run at the minimum system requirements. Even my ancient laptop will boot up Photoshop. Actually working at a decent rate is a different matter!
I think photoshop is built to use CPU a lot more than the GPU though, some bits use the GPU but I'd go more off the number of cores, multi-threading, clock speeds than the GPU.
Totally get the not running wel with bare minimum spec but dedicated graphics seems to mean £600 upwards. I'll have a look and see what the price difference is like.
I think photoshop use will be every now and again and mostly cropping and other basic tasks
As per @thisisnotaspoon - It really doesn't matter what graphics card you use with Photoshop. PS does not use the graphics card for accelerated calculations etc and it entirely undemanding on it.
It is however very memory and CPU intensive so you want as many cores/threads on the CPU as possible and as much RAM as you can afford. It also uses a swap file quite heavily so an SSD is a must as well.
So you want something Ryzen based as they have more cores/thread per £ than Intel and at the very minimum 8gb of RAM and preferable 16gb and an SSD. The on-board Vega APU's on the Ryzen chips are excellent for more graphics intensive work anyway so you'll be reyt.
Lenovo have discounted their products today (bank holiday thing).
Well its ordered. Lenovo with the following-
16gb 3200Mhz Ram
I5-1035G1 1/3.6GHZ turbo, 4 core/6mb cache)
256gb SSD
NVIDIA GeForce Mx330 2GB 64bits
£543 all in with three year warranty. Card is hopefully a price compromise between the 1050 (another £60) and integrated and in theroy other spec looks good.
Good price that for the spec and will be ample for running PS and general office apps and faffing.
@dannybgoode, photoshop certainly can make use of a GPU. List in the link below from Adobe.
https://helpx.adobe.com/uk/photoshop/kb/photoshop-cc-gpu-card-faq.html
I think photoshop use will be every now and again and mostly cropping and other basic tasks
wouldn't worry about performance then, it'll run fine on any laptop. runs fine for basic stuff on this yin, 6 year old comp with iris 5100.
It's only in recent years that photoshop has started using the graphics card, it didn't far years and it does need to use it.
Unless you are doing intensive stuff I wouldn't worry about it.
Mibby try and get a shot of a similar computer with photoshop installed and try out some of your tasks and see how it goes.
@AdamT - for certain very specific effects yes but nothing that a decent CPU and ram configuration won’t do pretty much as well.
I certainly wouldn’t get hung up on graphics card spec for general PS use. Pro users would get some value but for what the OP describes then the graphics chip is not important.