Have you made a mistake in your action?
Have you made a mistake in your action?
I bought a new PC with an Intel i9 14900KF, 64GB RAM, an NVIDIA 4060 Ti 8GB, and I plan to use it for photo editing in Lightroom, making music, and playing Fortnite with my son. I’m facing a problem: my speakers keep buzzing with ground loop noise when the GPU is under load. I sent back the first GPU for coilwhine, but now the noise persists even without music. It seems the issue isn’t just the GPU but also the setup affecting audio. The Lightroom Mobile works fine, but Classic didn’t meet my needs for syncing photos. Should I have chosen a better GPU and a more capable CPU? Or is Lightroom using my CPU more than expected?
Coil noise and buzz may stem from various factors in a computer. It's important to detail everything, such as the power source (power strip, UPS, direct wall outlet, etc.) and the grounding quality of your home.
I wasn’t sure if I got the right setup for editing photos and making music. The Groundloop noise is something I have to live with. I’ve been trying different fixes, but now it’s working, though I can’t use my display at over 60Hz without it getting too loud.
The ground loop issue can usually be resolved using a ferrite choke on the audio cables. This isn't the ideal fix, but it's simpler.
They’ve tried using that cable, but it didn’t work. I got better results with the same power source and a different method for the power cables. To prevent the audio cable from picking up interference, you might need to adjust its placement or shielding.
My main concern was whether I chose the wrong setup for editing photos and creating music. I’m using Lightroom Mobile now, which makes me feel confident. Still, I wonder if a better GPU would have helped. I thought my photo work ran on the CPU, but it actually happens on the GPU. Since I don’t do video editing, I think I’m fine.
I work with Lightroom Classic. My old setup was a GTX 1080 for editing. After switching to the RTX 2080 TI, performance improvements were minimal. The biggest boost came after upgrading to Windows 11 and doing a clean install. Everything felt noticeably smoother. Upgrading to the 12600K also provided a better experience. GPU power isn’t crucial for photo work.
Most photo editing tasks don’t require heavy GPU usage; usually the GPU isn’t needed unless you’re applying a filter or resizing an image. That said, an iGPU can still face challenges, but the trade-off is often just more time spent. When working with layered artwork—such as for animation—handling 200 layers at 4K resolution in a paint program can quickly reach around 13GB (about 64MB per layer without compression). The GPU, however, rarely processes more than one layer at a time, sending it to the CPU for compositing. Each interaction forces the image to be re-uploaded as a texture, making the process mostly CPU-dependent. Only when you interact with the canvas does the GPU get involved, then it updates the image on the CPU. For photography, newer systems are usually sufficient unless you need an OS upgrade. In music production, the same principle applies: more RAM means more layers, instruments, or effects. The CPU often becomes the bottleneck unless you’re doing live edits like rotation or zooming, which then rely on the GPU for display. When you release the tool, it runs on the CPU and refreshes the image. For video editing and animation, especially FBF or cut-out work, the GPU is heavily used during decoding, while encoding is less demanding unless you’re exporting to YouTube, where quality standards are strict. If your system experiences a buzzing or ground loop when the GPU runs, it’s usually a ferrite choke issue. For serious music projects, investing in a dedicated sound card is advisable—built-in cards often use low-quality Realtek chips and may not handle high-end audio well. Plugging speakers into a monitor with a stereo line-out can improve sound quality. Not all motherboard audio outputs are bad; check both front and rear ports. On my 4th-gen system, the onboard audio only produced noise when connected to the front jack because the cable was close to the GPU. My newer 14th-gen and older 11th-gen systems stayed quiet, but used a USB connection, which can introduce latency if the CPU is busy. With high-CPU tasks, this can cause audio dropouts. Professional setups typically use PCIe cards with hardware ASIO, avoiding the latency issues of PCIe solutions. Unless you’re working in real-time, the audio difference is usually negligible.
Which jack are you connecting your headphones to? The distinction between an iGPU and your 4060 Ti becomes important only when using specific filters. If you're satisfied with the gaming performance, your GPU appears adequate for your needs. Possibly a lower core count would work too (like i5 or i7 from the 14***KF line). If you handle CPU rendering, that might affect things. I don't know much about your music requirements, but I doubt it's that big of an issue.