It's worth adding that you should look at the system requirements (on the software provider's website) when working out your new specification. The most demanding software applications are going to be your photo processing and Neat Image. Also bear in mind that the main benefit of spending more and getting a better CPU or more RAM is to make things happen a little faster. If you are happy to wait an extra 5 or 10 seconds for the most demanding tasks to complete (in my experience, that's Neat Image noise reduction), then save yourself some money on the specifications. So an Intel i5 processor with 8GB of RAM will work but an i7 with 16GB RAM will work considerably faster.

In addition to the Intel CPUs (processors like the i5 and i7) there are also equivalents produced by competitor AMD. These are just as good and sometimes a little less expensive for the same processing power.

I have ordered my new computer and hopefully it will do the job. I have yet to decide on which noise reduction software to get. I will wait until I have the new system as this one will probably die....thanks everyone, much appreciated. Robin