PC gaming question, I don't know anything about PC Gaming.

I have a question, I am a photographer and have an average laptop and average Macbook pro to edit photos in Lightroom.

However, after working with image software for a while, it starts to slow and sometimes crash (with both lap tops).

Now, I have always been a console gamer, and never explored the PC gaming territory, but I have been tempted to start PC gaming.

My question is, if I get a high end PC rigged for gaming, would the experience in other software like Lightroom also improve?

Sorry if dumb question, but I want to know if I would kill to birds with one stone if I get a PC for gaming.

The short answer is yes.

The long answer is:

Gaming PC's are such because they have the horsepower to run demanding games for extended periods of time, and the cooling systems to ensure that they are adequately ventilated to prevent thermal throtteling (which is what I assume is one of the problems with your laptops).

For productivity tasks like Photo-manipulation you will want a bit more RAM and CPU power than what your typical gaming PC needs, I would say at least 16GB of RAM, an SSD, and an Octocore AMD processor or an i5-7 Intel Processor.

This sort of set-up would be ideal for productivity, especially if you don't need the mobility of laptops daily. Powerful desktops offer the best performance per dollar.

@RJLateralus: It depends on the specs of your laptop and what you define as "high end" PC. There really isn't a difference between a gaming PC and a normal PC other than the word "gaming." You could get a PC and call it a gaming PC, but have worse specs than your laptop. My Moms mac has a better CPU than the PC I use to game with, but my Mom's Mac doesn't have a video card and, well, the fact it's a Mac, make it a terrible PC to use for gaming. Since my PC has a video card and more memory and it runs Windows, make it a better choice for gaming.

Also if you're interested in building your own just give us a budget (probably around 1-1.3k for what I would consider "high-end") and I can pick out parts for a PC that will smoke the pants off both games and Lightroom. If your budget is a bit tighter than that then we can probably work something out too.

@General_X: I'm a professional web developer and I've never had more than 4GB of RAM ever before. I've been a PC gamer for 25 years, also.

yes. go for it. gaming is waaay better on pc and if you go 3930k or 4930 / x79 motherboard with say 32gb 2133mhz ram and nvidia titan (if you can afford it) you'll love it for photoshop, lightroom, video editing etc..

get a good ips monitor as well.

Web dev isn't exactly the most resource intensive task. When you start working at print resolutions that average 3x the size of web resolution that's where RAM gets chewed up. I'm a graphic designer and my work computer only has 4GB of RAM, let me tell you it is not enough for my Photoshop + Illustrator + InDesign workflow when I work on print projects.

Photoshop will quite happily use all the ram you give it. I've run out of ram on photoshop (I have 6GB). Something as simple as merging several high resolution images together (i.e. making a panorama) will quite easily do it.

@SKaREO I quite often use 4GB of ram anyway just from running lots of programs at once. I wouldn't recommend 4GB ram anymore, 8GB is more suitable these days for enthusiasts and gamers. That said, I wouldn't consider 16GB overkill, and it certainly would help over 8GB with heavy photo or video work.