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Configuring a new PC, and have some questions…

Michael Seltzer

New member
Hi All,

Okay, on to the next question.... I'm putting together a new PC (probably from CyberPowerPC--unless there are other thoughts), and am trying to decide between a 3930K and a 2600K (or 2700K) as the cpu. I use Lightroom, Photoshop (with some pluggins), Painter, and a few other programs (Photomatix, and I'm still trying to us Lightzone for some tasks). I always have Lightroom running, and often a couple of others at the same time. If PS is chugging on something, I'll go over to LR (or maybe onto the net, or…) to do some work. However, if PS returns fairly quickly, I usually stay with that, or may switch over to another program but more or less serially. I also work with some fairly big, multi-layer files (100 megapixel, 1GB), and my old MB Pro is slow and getting slower.

The online discussion seems to vary. AnandTech says there is almost no performance gain in PS with 6 cores over 4; Tom's Hardware says there can be as much as a 30% gain with some of the multi-threaded filters. I'm not sure how much of PS is multi-threaded (or likely to be in CS6), and if what is is what I use. Also, I don't know what 30% really means. If merging to HDR takes 60 seconds on the 2600, and 40 seconds with the 3930, I can live. But if the mixer brush (or Painter's watercolor brushes) follows my pen stroke in real time on one, and jerks along behind so slowly I never know for sure where the stroke is going in the other--that's a big difference. Finally, I don't know how the cpu will affect the other programs I use, or how taxing my multy-tasking might be.

Anyway, I was wondering if anyone had experience with/knowledge of this and could offer any thoughts, advice, etc.

Thanks, Michael

(Btw, I'm also not sure how much of a graphics card I need. I assume I don't need anything like the Nvidia Quadro's, or AMD 7970, but what level should I aim for? Thanks again.)
 

Michael Seltzer

New member
Thanks Cem. Good information in that thread. I read it before, and did so again--picked up some things I didn't remember from the first time through. And it sounds like your working environment is similar to mine, though I'm not certain if you multi-task as much as I tend to. (That's my wife' biggest concern: she thinks I still behave like a developer, downloading apps and pluggins, and running several things at once. She wants to make sure I get enough of a computer that she doesn't have to listen to me complaining about how slow it is all the time.)

I posted this now as we are a year down the road from your thread (close to an epoch in computer time) to see if anyone had any new info. I'm particularly interested in whether the 6 core cpu's provide any advantage over the 4 core cpu's. Or whether I should put the money elsewhere.
 

Cem_Usakligil

Well-known member
Thanks Cem. Good information in that thread. I read it before, and did so again--picked up some things I didn't remember from the first time through. And it sounds like your working environment is similar to mine, though I'm not certain if you multi-task as much as I tend to. (That's my wife' biggest concern: she thinks I still behave like a developer, downloading apps and pluggins, and running several things at once. She wants to make sure I get enough of a computer that she doesn't have to listen to me complaining about how slow it is all the time.)

I posted this now as we are a year down the road from your thread (close to an epoch in computer time) to see if anyone had any new info. I'm particularly interested in whether the 6 core cpu's provide any advantage over the 4 core cpu's. Or whether I should put the money elsewhere.
I think I can summarize my results, after working for more than a year with this system, as follows:

1) Raw processing power (ie number of perations per second) is beneficial for everything. But we are talking about marginal improvements when you add some 300MHz by going to the next processor.
2) The number of CPU cores help in Lightroom but not as much in CS5. However, multitasking is smooth sailing when using windows 7 64 even when a certain application hogs all the cores. The system is never unresponsive.
3) The memory is the least critical. I regularly work with panos of more than 10GB in size and RAM is merely 12GB. I was prepared to upgrade to 24GB but there was never a need for.
4) SSD for the OS and another one for the scratch are essential for the responsiveness of the system.

So to answer your question of 4 cores versus 6, you are not likely to note the difference in CS5 but LR and some other progs such as SNS-HDR may benefit but only when you push them to the limit. My recommendation would be the 2600, just easily overclock it some 20% and you are there. :)

PS: I do multitask all the time even when stitching panos or creating HDR. As I wrote above, my system is always responsive, a dream to work with.
 

Bob Rogers

New member
I bought a new PC recently. I got it from Dell Outlet. It's an 8 core Xeon at 3 Ghz. It's amazingly fast. I don't need 8 cores, but the machine was cheap, so I figured why not?

At work I have a 3.1 ghz Xeon with 4 cores. I multitask extensively, frequently having 8 programs running at once. I haven't found anything that I do in Photoshop to ever even max out one core, let alone all four, but I do have processes in other programs that will run for minutes at a time, and it's great to be able to switch to another program and have it run at 100%. Doing run of the mill stuff I don't notice a difference between 3.0 and 3.1. I have an IT friend who says that for the most part you won't notice a difference of less than 10%.

Interestingly, my RAM usage is typically under 3 Gb, and it never swaps to virtual, which used to be a regular occurrence in XP.
 

Adrian Wareham

New member
Actually, there are almost always hosts of programs running. If nothing else, the interrupt program prefers having an idle core now and then to stop misbehaving programs. That's part of the reason computers have gotten more stable. It used to be "push the program through and pray they don't have to restart" ... now it's "if there's trouble, the interrupt program has the highest priority, and there's no need to restart the whole PC."

Linux/Unix/OS-X/FreeBSD/etc have worked similarly as long as I can remember. They're designed to give very few programs a high priority, as a means of increasing stability. Apple lets a handful of carefully-coded programs have higher priority so their graphics and music will run without any hesitation. Windows just interrupts anything that doesn't respond long enough- so you do get more frozen programs, but you can run more programs.

/EndRant
 

Bob Rogers

New member
Right now I have 88 processes running under Windows 7, but 80 of them average zero percent CPU. ;-) Not counting file folders, I have 11 actual applications going.

I have some problems with applications programs crashing from time to time, but I'm thinking that's poor coding in the applications. So far I haven't had Windows 7 crash once, nor ever fail to give me access to the task manager immediately. This is a big improvement over XP.
 

Adrian Wareham

New member
Look at total CPU time for the processes to see which ones are really running. Most processes don't exactly take a full second to do something quick (and it doesn't refresh CPU use any faster) ... though that quick thing still COULD make them crash. Maybe.

Almost every Win7 I've used crashed more often than my Linux box, and Linux Mint, when downloaded, comes with most of the non-free codecs. Properly setup, I always did more, did it faster, and had more options.

One must simply remember that Linux is updated way more frequently than Windows, and by people in their free time. The fact that it's even close to competitive as far as stability (even if not always) is downright astonishing.
 
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