How to configure your workstation for Affinity Photo

With the image editing program Affinity Photo, the British company Serif has succeeded in developing a real alternative to Photoshop. The user interface is similar, the editing options meet all professional requirements. Affinity Photo enables you to make changes to an image without overwriting the original data. The original image is saved separately, as are all sequences of changes.

The right processor for Affinity Photo

Affinity Photo doesn't have much of a processor performance requirement. Do not use the minimum requirements as a basis. The specifications of the minimum system configuration are only aimed at starting the programme. We recommend an Intel Xeon Quad- or Six-Core processor with 3 GHz or more. When selecting a processor, also consider the use of other programmes. 

speed up your memory

For simple image editing with Affinity Photo, 8 GB RAM is sufficient. If you're planning to edit high-res RAW images with multiple layers, you'll need at least 16GB of RAM. We recommend the use of 32 GB RAM with 4x8 GB modules. Rely on a workstation with 8 memory banks to be able to upgrade to 64 GB at any time at a reasonable price.

The right graphic card

Affinity Photo makes no major demands on the graphics card. We have tested Affinity Photo with a low-profile GPU, an nVidiaQuadro K600 and a high-end profile graphics card, an nvidia Geforce 2080, and found no significant difference. We recommend using an NVidia Quadro M2000 to get started. Update the graphics driver regularly. Use at least version 451.77. We install the latest NVIDIA graphics card driver 452.06 on our workstation. There is a known problem with using older versions.An nVidia Geforce 2060 as Founders Edition with smooth ball bearing fan offers a good price-performance ratio.

faster hard disk access

For the use of Affinity Photo and to shorten the loading times of your programs significantly, we recommend the use of Solid State hard disks. Since SSD hard disks do not require a magnetic disk, they are pleasantly quiet. Another advantage is the lifespan. M.2 NVME SSD hard disks are able to handle more write cycles than HDDs. Due to our positive experiences we rely on Samsung SSD of the EVO and PRO series. We  recommend Samsung 970 Evo plus alternatively a Samsung 980 Pro.