64-bit operating system versus DPP and PS CS2

Can anyone tell me if I will have any benefits or negatives of going with the 64-bit operating system for my next photo-computer. Also I am looking at a dual processor system using dual core processors for each processor.

Planning on using
- DPP
- PS CS2
- 1DsMkII (maybe the upgrade if it ever comes out)
- Maybe Lightroom
- Pinnacle Studio (with XL-2)
- two monitors
(rest is trivia)

I am currently looking at either do it myself or going for a Dell system (2x 3.2Ghz processors w/2GB RAM each processor)

But I have heard mixed messages on using the 64-bit OS, I have basically given up on waiting for Vista and plan to get the new computer around December, but want to make sure I am fully informed before doing so, and I may purchase early if funds permit. I am basing my decision at this time on dual processors should make a difference in PS speed and allow me to run PS and DPP at the same time without them competing for RAM like they do now. And I am looking at the 64-bit OS because it allows me to increase the RAM significantly in the future when it makes a difference.

I am also still trying to decide on the optimum graphics card for utility over price as they seem very high priced for little difference between the mid-range and the high-end (which starts to double the system cost)

So any comments or advice on my basic plan would be of benefit to me.

Thanks,

I use the exact system you say you're looking at (Dual Core, XP 64) with the applications you list. No problems at all. The only "gotcha" is to make sure that there are 64 bit drivers available for the various peripherals you use.

HP did not (and still does not) have 64 bit drivers available for my scanner, so I had to turf it and get one from a company that was future friendly. I got an Epson.

The system works great. You can load it up with memory and that way CS2 can grab it's maximum amount of memory and run optimally. And, once these applications upgrade to 64 bit, things will really fly. Overall though, I am very happy with the performance of my system as is. I'd recommend a minimum of 4GB of memory for the applications you are looking at running.

One thing though, you mention you are tired of waiting for Vista and want to buy a new system in December. Its all but guaranteed that Vista will ship in January so I'm curious why you wouldn't wait a month since you've waited this long already.

Which Photo software are now 64BIT?

Asher

A key benefit of a full 64-bit system is (will be) memory addressing. In our current world of 32-bit architecture and programs like PS that only support the base 2Gb of memory, if you are in need of utilizing more memory, then 64bit is the way to go.

Currently, there are a few tricks to get more memory addressed by PS so that we don't experience a serious slowdown when the hard drive gets used as scratch space. One is utilizing upper memory for base operations (/3g in boot.ini) that gets you a little more. I currently use a 4Gb PCI mounted, SATA connected RAMdrive that gets me beyond 2Gb.
But with 64bit Windows, virtually all of your memory will be managed by the OS to give you the needed temp space needed. So if you have 8Gb, you'll be able to work quite comfortably with that super hi-res montage or pano and not be taking alternate trips to get more coffee and hitting the head.

Several filters in PS will utilize multiple CPUs - so your apps may still compete for CPU, but certainly getting more processors will benefit your multi-tasking.

As far as video card - generally Matrox cards are considered for purists by utilizing better components, although ATi and nVidia can certainly keep up in the 2D world and tear up Matrox in the 3D world. But PS only lives in the 2D world, so spending gobs of money on the latest PCIe, 512Mb video card with multiple power connectors and uses multiple slots for water cooling will not assist you much in PS.

One key thing that is often overlooked in new boxes is the hard drive sub-system. With all the power and memory to keep you working faster, if you can't feed your craving, you'll be back to waiting. This is more important in thumbs creation and batching, but opening and saving will depend on I/O, not memory, cpu speed or quantity. Ideally, some RAID array to get more heads working for you will be advantageous for speed, as well as possibly redundancy...something to consider.

Brian.

The issue I have with consumer 64 bit systems is that the mother board supports no more than 4GB of memory, not much more than you can address with 32B systems running WinXP.

Opteron-level processors with specific mother boards can support 8GB or more.

Thus, I don't think that your proposed system provides much protection against obselesence.

Paul Burwell said:

One thing though, you mention you are tired of waiting for Vista and want to buy a new system in December. Its all but guaranteed that Vista will ship in January so I'm curious why you wouldn't wait a month since you've waited this long already.

Click to expand...

I was under the impression that currently Vista would not be available for consumers (business and home editions) until late spring 2007 at this point. Late spring to me means April/May time frame. I thought only the enterprise version would be available in January. But I have not been following it closely enough apparently.

If it is definately coming out in January I may wait that extra month then. However, the other factor I read is the expectation that processor and memory costs would start rising again in January and that people should buy computers before December or wait for awhile.

So if if my info on Vista bad then I can wait a month, but if December roles around and Vista still looks like it is more then a month out, I will give up at that point.

I had not fully considered the fact that I need to check on driver availability for some of my equipment (such as printers, card readers and the like) although I had to a limited extent factored that into my costs. I currently use a Canon i9900 for when I need to make hard copy prints, but have been considering getting a larger printer (Epson leads at this point) and card readers are cheap. I do suspect I need to check on my external drives though to make sure they will all still work. That pretty much covers the peripherals I use.

As to hard drives - I seem to be somewhat focused on capacity more so then speed.
I feel based on experience that I need a main drive of at least 250GB, but that capacity apparently is not available at the highest speeds yet (at least at reasonable costs). I have considered RAID from a data protection concern, but so far the cost benefit has been minimal as I do an archive off to DVD as soon as possible so that minimizes permanent data loss. I have always thought of RAID as actually slowing down processing because the data is written to two drives instead of one, but again this is why I am asking for advice as I am no longer able to keep fully up on computers like I once could. One of the secondary reasons I have not been considering RAID options is if I go with Dell, the second hardrive is overpriced (although strangely their external drive prices are reasonable comparatively), but I want the base system to work like I want it to when I get it from Dell. I don't mind adding a second drive (or more RAM) myself, but adding the RAID function after the fact is beyond my skill set.

Anyway thanks for the comments so far, it is helping.

Nathaniel Alpert said:

The issue I have with consumer 64 bit systems is that the mother board supports no more than 4GB of memory, not much more than you can address with 32B systems running WinXP.

Opteron-level processors with specific mother boards can support 8GB or more.

Thus, I don't think that your proposed system provides much protection against obselesence.

Click to expand...

The system I am looking at from Dell supports at least 32GB of RAM, but it would cost $26,000 just for that much RAM, while the rest of the system costs about $3000. I am looking at getting it with 1 or 2Gb per processor and then upgrading to 4GB on at least the first processor. Way cheaper that way. Later if possible when the RAM comes down I will maybe max out the RAM at some point. Both of my current computers are either maxed out or very close to it. (the one running Win98SE is the one up for replacement, my XP machine has 2GB currently which is the motherboard's limit)

Tim Dolan (Longwatcher) said:

I was under the impression that currently Vista would not be available for consumers (business and home editions) until late spring 2007 at this point. Late spring to me means April/May time frame. I thought only the enterprise version would be available in January. But I have not been following it closely enough apparently.

If it is definately coming out in January I may wait that extra month then.

Click to expand...

This recent article in CIO magazine indicates the enterprise version should ship in November, and the consumer version(s) "sometime in January."

Bob

I see ... But you should check how much RAM each processor can address (depends on the mother board). That may be an issue in some apps.

Good luck

And this weekend MS announced that consumers should be able to buy a PC loaded with Vista before christmas (although the two articles I read did not say specifically when). However, you can't buy the consumer version of Vista in the stores by itself until January.

This is good news for me, if I go with the Dell I should be able to get my new system with Vista installed I hope.

Again thanks for the help,

64 bit thoughts

I spent much of the summer working upa 64 bit system, just to see what 64 bit would do if anything. I knew that no apps I use were 64 bit, but I was also interested in things like memory/scsi/PCI etc performance were.

64 bit XP has been pretty much orphaned by Microsoft, as they push on with Vista. I found their site confusing and when I spoke with them as usual, no help.

The OS actually loads pretty clean. However as one person already mentioned, it's the drivers that will literally drive you crazy.
I ended up with a Asus P5WDG2-WS board, 4GB of ram, x1300 ATI radeion PCI-E video, adaptec scsi card, Dual core 3.2GHZ.

I went low on the processor mainly because in my experience it memory that CS2 needs more than anything. I was hoping that with the 64 bit OS and the ability to address a full 4GB of ram, I would get better overall CS2 performance.

Net, it's about the same. As someone already mentioned, CS2 being only 32Bit can't take advantage of any more ram than it can with the 3GB switch turned on in a 32 Bit enviornment. In fact I believe it actually takes just a tad less on the 64 bit side.

IMO CS2's handling of memory is pretty darn bad!. It wants everything you have but can't even begin to utilize it cleanly. Large 16 bit files with layers will still hang with moves and or certain other processing steps.

I also found Asus's understanding of 64 bit not to switft, which surprised me. I actually had more trouble getting the board stable than anything else. Yes they have drivers on their site, but they don't always work like they are supposed to and can and will screw up other things. I did find that the SATA support on this board was much better than on previous boards I had used.

Now that the box is stable, I have been tempted to pull it back down to a 32 bit XP world mainly because there is no Sony Artisian support for 64 bit and since the monitor has been dropped from marketing, you will never see anything for 64 bit.

I am sure that Vista will help on some of this, but really until apps catch up I just don't see the need. I have left this machine at a 64 bit level until I can test the new version os CS? coming next year that is supposed to be 64 bit capable.

Paul C.

Hi Paul,

Very informative post, thanks a lot. I have gone through a similar process some months ago. I have installed Windows XP-64 on a system with Asus A8N-SLI Premium MoBo, 4 GB OCZ Dual Channel DDR, Athlon X2-4600 processor, NVidia GeForce 7800-GT PIC-e video. The system was rock-stable, but not all drivers were available. I have briefly benchmarked PS and Adobe Premiere and haven't found any significant differences that would tip the scale. I have since then reverted back to XP-32 since this was to be my new production system. I can't claim to have any scientific evidence to support my findings, and it was certainly not a very extensive test anyway. I was actually planning to come back to this issue once I have taken care of the millions of other things on my to-do list ;-).

Cheers,

Cem

Thanks Paul,
Quite an informative post, clearing many doubts I had for going to 4Gb memory.

Tim Dolan (Longwatcher) said:

[snipped]
As to hard drives - I seem to be somewhat focused on capacity more so then speed.
I feel based on experience that I need a main drive of at least 250GB, but that capacity apparently is not available at the highest speeds yet (at least at reasonable costs). I have considered RAID from a data protection concern, but so far the cost benefit has been minimal as I do an archive off to DVD as soon as possible so that minimizes permanent data loss. I have always thought of RAID as actually slowing down processing because the data is written to two drives instead of one, but again this is why I am asking for advice as I am no longer able to keep fully up on computers like I once could. One of the secondary reasons I have not been considering RAID options is if I go with Dell, the second hardrive is overpriced (although strangely their external drive prices are reasonable comparatively), but I want the base system to work like I want it to when I get it from Dell. I don't mind adding a second drive (or more RAM) myself, but adding the RAID function after the fact is beyond my skill set.

Anyway thanks for the comments so far, it is helping.

Click to expand...

Whether Vista or other OS, your system drive need not truely exceed 10GB. Many systems purchased today, or just a few months ago, will likely have 2 SATA "ports" minimally. These are a type of SCSI drive and will show marked improvement over IDE, regardless of "bitness"(32/64). MS Vista seems to demand 10GB for the mere OS w/o applications, so a 250GB "system drive" is still more than you need. Then there's CPU, RAM and PCI bandwidth... yet as many have posted, apps like CS/PS prefer RAM over CPU(likely because CPUs are quick enough already).

RAID is used for two(2) purposes: offset hardware failure(RAID 1 or 5), or speed of writes/capture(RAID 0). A 64bit system offers nothing more than the calculations during writes--and to a very small degree, reads--with a RAID storage topology. Yes, a 64bit system has greater RAM bandwidth, but if the application is written for 32bit OS environments--that's all of them, today--then the 64bit system is left largely idle... and others have already posted thus.

So, 64bit is the new horizon: seek high bandwidth between RAM and CPU, and a couple 64bit slots to accomodate a 64bit storage interface with high PCI bus bandwidth as well. Store your files on a separate disk, or RAID, and leave the (largely wasted) 250GB system disk to its own controller: keep the OS on one drive, your precious data on another.... and give Matrox a look

That's all "workstation"... for a DPP server, well... that's another thread

rgds,
Dave

Hi Dave,

My intent here is not to be rude, but to be straight up. This is filled with lots of incorrect facts that do not correlate with reality and since unlearning incorrect facts is more work than learning the right ones, you are getting this response.

Dave See said:

... have 2 SATA "ports" minimally. These are a type of SCSI drive

Click to expand...

This is incorrect. SATA drives are not SCSI drives, but can be used by SAS (Serial Attached SCSI) controllers. They still make the SCSI drives with SAS connectors rather than SATA connectors and they use different protocols.

Dave See said:

and will show marked improvement over IDE, regardless of "bitness"(32/64).

Click to expand...

Not with a single drive solution. Since no hard drive on the market can saturate a PCI bus it will make little difference. And a multi-drive SATA controller on a PCI bus will be limited by the PCI bus. With multi-drive solutions the non-blocking point to point topology of SATA will make a difference if the host bus is fast enough.

Dave See said:

MS Vista seems to demand 10GB for the mere OS w/o applications, so a 250GB "system drive" is still more than you need. Then there's CPU, RAM and PCI bandwidth... yet as many have posted, apps like CS/PS prefer RAM over CPU(likely because CPUs are quick enough already).

Click to expand...

I disagree here and the PS experts are wrong. Where I tend to have to wait on PS is the CPU. These horrific RAM lags I hear about are not a fact of life when considered from a professional workflow perspective (i.e., how is my time most productively spent).

Dave See said:

RAID is used for two(2) purposes: offset hardware failure(RAID 1 or 5)

Click to expand...

Do not forget RAID 3, 4, and 6 plus some exotic variants.

Dave See said:

, or speed of writes/capture(RAID 0)

Click to expand...

RAID 3, 4, 5, and 6 will all increase the sustained write speed of a reasonable system too to a lesser degree.

Dave See said:

. A 64bit system offers nothing more than the calculations during writes

Click to expand...

This makes no sense. What the 64-bit extensions to the x86 ISA offer are more registers on the CPU which can map to a ~10% performance boost in some cases.

Dave See said:

--and to a very small degree, reads--with a RAID storage topology.

Click to expand...

This is not uniformly true. A dedicated RAID processor should mask CPU variation.

Dave See said:

Yes, a 64bit system has greater RAM bandwidth

Click to expand...

This untrue. My system has the same exact RAM bandwidth regardless of whether or not a 64 or 32 bit OS is used (128 bits wide IIRC).

Dave See said:

, but if the application is written for 32bit OS environments--that's all of them, today--then the 64bit system is left largely idle... and others have already posted thus.

So, 64bit is the new horizon: seek high bandwidth between RAM and CPU,

Click to expand...

This is untrue. What 64 bit offers is the ability to address more RAM.

Dave See said:

and a couple 64bit slots to accomodate a 64bit storage interface with high PCI bus bandwidth as well.

Click to expand...

This is not true either. 32 bit CPUs can have PCI-X 64 bit slots. The interface width of an interface (PCI, PCI-X, PCI-Express, ...) has no direct correlation to whether or not the one is using a 16, 32, or 64 bit CPU & OS.

all the best,

Sean

Sean DeMerchant said:

Hi Dave,

My intent here is not to be rude, but to be straight up. This is filled with lots of incorrect facts that do not correlate with reality and since unlearning incorrect facts is more work than learning the right ones, you are getting this response.


This is incorrect. SATA drives are not SCSI drives, but can be used by SAS (Serial Attached SCSI) controllers. They still make the SCSI drives with SAS connectors rather than SATA connectors and they use different protocols.

Not with a single drive solution. Since no hard drive on the market can saturate a PCI bus it will make little difference. And a multi-drive SATA controller on a PCI bus will be limited by the PCI bus. With multi-drive solutions the non-blocking point to point topology of SATA will make a difference if the host bus is fast enough.

I disagree here and the PS experts are wrong. Where I tend to have to wait on PS is the CPU. These horrific RAM lags I hear about are not a fact of life when considered from a professional workflow perspective (i.e., how is my time most productively spent).

Do not forget RAID 3, 4, and 6 plus some exotic variants.

RAID 3, 4, 5, and 6 will all increase the sustained write speed of a reasonable system too to a lesser degree.

This makes no sense. What the 64-bit extensions to the x86 ISA offer are more registers on the CPU which can map to a ~10% performance boost in some cases.

This is not uniformly true. A dedicated RAID processor should mask CPU variation.

This untrue. My system has the same exact RAM bandwidth regardless of whether or not a 64 or 32 bit OS is used (128 bits wide IIRC).

This is untrue. What 64 bit offers is the ability to address more RAM.

This is not true either. 32 bit CPUs can have PCI-X 64 bit slots. The interface width of an interface (PCI, PCI-X, PCI-Express, ...) has no direct correlation to whether or not the one is using a 16, 32, or 64 bit CPU & OS.

all the best,

Sean

Click to expand...

Hi Sean,

Yes there are a couple "untruths" and omissions in my previous post to which you've responded. That's what make forums so constructive! Thanks.

rgds,
Dave

Thanks guys for making OPF work!

Asher