Oh, and unless your OS is already on an NVME drive that, would be a useful upgrade as well.
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It is.
The motherboard is PRIME H410M-E
There’s a slot for a second RAM module bringing RAM up to 16, but I’d prefer higher as I use the PC for video editing as well. I’ll explain that to my techie.
No idea. I assume it was new when the technician built the PC.
Don’t know if this is relevant but the drive on my PC is Model Samsung SSD 860 EVO 500GB.
64GB max in that board, not that I think you would need that much.
I genuinely wonder why he put it in there. Though with only 8GB of system RAM not having to carve out RAM for the integrated graphics will have helped performance a bit and, as @hairbear said, if there’s a specific application that can be offloaded to the card - like focus stacking - it might well be faster than having the CPU do it.
The worthwhile upgrades will be more RAM and an NVME drive if one isn’t already installed.
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OK, that’s a solid state drive so faster than an older hard drive which has physical moving parts but still slower than NVME as it is limited by having a SATA interface - even in your PC an NVME drive will transfer data at a raw speed about 3-4x faster (up to about 2GB/s compared with 550MB/s).
After totting up the cost of all these upgrades, flogging the computer and getting a new one might be more cost-effective IMHO.
Given that an M4 Mac Mini costs £600 ish.
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£800 for the 16G model with 512G of disk.
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Apple Silicon Macs don’t need as much RAM as Intel computers though, because it’s very closely integrated on the mothrboard. It’s nice to have, of course, but not as vital.
I used to happily edit 4K video on an M1 Mac Mini with 8GB.
Anyway just a thought. 
You might be right but I can’t see m/b integration as the reason - how much RAM you need depends on your working set size. Tight m/b integration might give you faster speeds and the M series CPUs seem to be pretty performant - single core M4 beats (just) an intel i9-4900K and draws half the power doing it.
But I quoted the price of the base 16GB model so I’m not saying you would need 32GB in a Mac mini as well.
But it is £799 in the UK, 949€ in France whereas I would expect @Bonzocat to be able to upgrade his C meaningfully for 350€, less if he just buys a single 8G stick of SDRAM (though he might have difficulty matching the one that’s already there).
Yes, that’s 350€ which is largely unrecoverable so looking at a new machine might be reasonable - CPUs have moved on a lot in the last 6 years, as have graphics cards.
On the “amount of RAM” question it occurred me that the reason that a Mac might get away with less than a PC is probably due to the lack of a need to run anti virus and, indeed, the generally smaller amount of crud and extraneous processes that they accumulate.
In the same way that I’d expect to be able to get useful work out of less memory if a machine is running Linux
One of the things that puts me off Mac (apart from Apple OS) is the issue with legacy software. I use the original Nik Silver Efex still, but my understanding is that this is not compatible with the more recent AOS versions. I don’t know what @Bonzocat is using, but it might necessitate replacing or renewing software too.
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I shall stick with my old W11 PC, upgraded, as I may be using Helical Focus or Zerene Stacker for focus stacking. My PC was slow, struggling with focus stacking using Photoshop Elements/Elements+, but it was easy-peasy with the other two.
I didn’t see any noticeable difference between Helical Focus (172€) and Zerene Stacker, (162€) except that ZS took a little longer to process than HF, but not enough to groan about.
Photoshop Elements/Elements+ takes an eternity in comparison!
I have ON1 Photo Raw 2026 already, which will focus stack, but keeps crashing every time it finishes processing. And it will only accept 14 photos to focus stack. A little window appears saying so if you offer it 15 photos!
It’s a toss-up for me – either HF or ZS.
Can’t say I’m that impressed that Photoshop Elements leaves a process running even when not open - “Adobe Elements Auto Creations 2026” which can consume significant CPU resources.
Apparently it is “processing your photos to apply Smart Tags, Face Recognition, or curating auto-creations” (says Google AI).
I’m sorry?!? Effing what??? Without asking my explicit permission to do that and being clear if any data or metadata is transmitted to Adobe.
That’s not even in the same universe as acceptable.
Yes, it can be turned off but that’s not the point.
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You said it…!
I decided to go see my computer technician for 2 reasons.
(1) Windows 11 Updates stopped installing early in 2026, and despite the best endeavours of Claude AI, the problem wasn’t resolved, so Claude wrote a short report outlining the problem for the techie.
(2) When I started using focus stacking using Photoshop Elements/Elements+, the computer was very slow, needing, I thought, more RAM.
However, the computer somehow managed to self-heal regarding Windows Updates and is now fully UpToDate after not being so for the last 3 months. How it did so I have no idea!
And now I have the bees’ knees of focus stacking, Helicon Focus, my computer doesn’t seem to need any more RAM. Might get more RAM though if I can do it myself. We shall see.
So, more or less back to normal, and thanks for your time!
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I downloaded a 7-day trial of Adobe Photoshop & Lightroom Classic, and from the little use I’ve made of them so far, they are, obviously, far superior to my Adobe Photoshop Elements 2026.
I’ve had ON1 since 2015 and ON1 Raw 2026 version is a disaster - constantly downloading and installing never ending ‘assets’, or crashing, so, I might just go for it and rent Photoshop & Lightroom, for 1 year, when the 7-day trial is over.
A renewed interest in photography and a good reception from the 500px image library is spurring me along - 3 photos are licensed and 1 of them taken on as exclusive by Getty Images - so why not I ask myself. You only live once!
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If you don’t need digital asset management then consider DXO photolab or (slightly more expensive) Capture 1 as non-subscription alternatives to Adobe.
FWIW I’ve never had the same experience as you with On1, and 2026 is just fine, but it’s important you feel comfortable with what you use. I expect to leave Lightroom when my subscription expires in December.
it’s not a cheap option for sure, unless like me you can write it off as a business expense, but you are getting the Rolls-Royce option IMHO.
You will sometimes see licences offered on Amazon at a discount - I think these are bulk-buy OEM licences that are being resold, but they do seem to work.
Main thing with Adobe is to keep a sharp eye on when your annual licence expires, and then cancel it just before! A substantial discount offer will usually magically appear as you go through the cancellation process!
I have the full Creative Cloud suite and I pay £30.34 a month for it instead of the “official” price of £66.49 a month. Simply because each year I threaten to cancel!
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