Upgrade mid 2010 for Lightroom ?

3gb ram is a joke. Upgrade your CPU to six core and max out your memory to 24gb (3 x 8gb - triple channel so use three memory sticks)

Here's an option:

$350 (used X5690 3.46GHz 6-core)
$240 (24GB RAM)
$400 (512GB Apple Blade PCIe SSD + adapter)
------------
$990 Total upgrade.

Using GeekBench (64-bit) your CPU would likely score around 16,000. Roughly 2X current 64-bit average of 8,400 for your machine.

Apple blade SSD's have R/W around 725MB/sec or 6X improvement over a normal platter HD. That can add significant snappiness by itself. Full TRIM support.





Cheaper:

$200 (used X5680 3.33GHz 6-core)
$120 (12gb ram)
$200 (500GB SATA SSD)
-------------
$520

GeekBench around 15,000-15,500. (1.8x improvement)

Regular SATA SSD's won't have TRIM support (there are work-arounds prior to 10.10, but Yosemite is a hassle) but should offer roughly 2x R/W unless you add a PCIe/SATA adapter, but at that point your @3.5x and almost the same cost as an Apple blade SSD.

Just food for thought. You won't match the single core performance with used 4 year old CPUs, but should see improvement none the less. Wouldn't have dual GPUs either, but lots of GPU's fit


.

iTundra said:

Thank you. I might try some upgrades and see what they do. If I'm going to plunk down $1k though I'm wondering if it wouldn't be best to invest that in a new machine and relegate my old one to rendering or something.

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Hi,
I use my 5,1 for LR too. I originally had just 3Gb Ram but when I went to 12Gb and I noticed an immediate difference in LR. Later after that I upgraded to a W3690 cpu as well which gives the whole machine a kick, well worth it, no need to spend $1k to get a considerably quicker machine that you wont just feel in LR!