computer upgrade needed?

Hi everybody,<P>

 

I've had my first DSLR for about a year now and I'm considering upgrading my

computer setup for editing/organizing my photos. I'm currently using an HP

a705w computer with a Celeron 2.93 GHz processor and 720 MB of PC3200 RAM with a

120 GB Seagate 7200RPM hard drive (+ 500 GB external).<P>

 

I don't own Photoshop, and don't plan to own it at least for awhile. I use

Lightroom 1.4 and 2.0 Beta for 99% of what I do. On the very rare occasion that

I need to do some more involved editing, I use GIMP 2. Lightroom runs fine most

of the time but occasionally gets bogged down, especially when I come home with

a few hundred photos (which is becoming more and more common).<P>_<P>

 

 

 

So my question right now is this: should I go ahead and upgrade my entire

system? I've been looking at some dual-core and quad-core based systems, but

after some reading i'm not sure adding processor cores will give me much benefit

right now. Can Lightroom even utilize more than one core? or would I be better

off just upgrading my current system to 2 GB of RAM and leaving the rest until

down the road?<P>

Thanks in advance!<P>Adam

I'll leave most of this to the experts, but will make one comment. If your drive is packed full,

I find performance drops off significantly. If possible leave about 20% empty, and drive

speeds will improve significantly. I can't explain it, but it holds true for me. Apps seem to

crash less often too.

A new motherboard that supports an Intel Core Duo 6300 and fast RAM (DDR3 800 or DDR3 1600) 2GB, and a new HDD SATA 2, will be enough to run image aplications. The excess of RAM does not benefit performance, there is a limit where performace decays.

 

You can use your external drives via USB. Lightroom runs nicely in this configuation.

 

You know, computers technnics and hardware go too fast for buyers, so planing updating a PC for 3 years is more than enough.

 

Cheers

All Photoshop features are faster on a multiprocessor system, although some can take

greater advantage of the multiprocessor system's capabilities than others.

 

With a 64bit processor and 64bit Windows operating system, Photoshop CS3 can access

up to 6 gigs of ram. The following link explains how Photoshop CS3 utilizes hardware on

Windows machines:

 

http://www.adobe.com/go/kb401088

 

Jerry

There is no doubt that newer multi-cored hardware would make things faster for you (a dual multi-core processor box like the Macintosh tower with dual quad-core Xeons is one such pricey option), but a few upgrades to your current machine might be more cost effective for now.

 

The 2.9GHz Celeron is not bad, but a 3.2 P4 with more cache RAM would help some, and can be had for around $100.00. A gamers' version with larger cache RAM will run more $$$ but might also be helpful for PS. An upgrade to 2 GB or more of DRAM at abut $50.00 or so per GB would also help a lot. Just amek sure it will run on your hardware (low density DIMMs seem to be preferred).

 

Finally,add more hard drive space internally since that is faster than the USB bus, and SATA drives in particular are significantly faster. If you can afford it, get pairs of drives to use in a RAID setup (0+1 seems to be the best). There are 10,000 rpm SATA drives that are wicked fast though also very costly, but the drives can always be moved into your next machine. Fast drives make any virtual memory use much faster, so spending money on a 10K drive ought to be for the primary system drives (where your OS and software reside), not for backups. Hard drives vary greatly in cost-- see pricewatch.com for general ideas. Keep in mind that otherwise identical ones differing only in their cache size (DRAM) also means a difference in overall speed.

 

You can also get SATA cards for your computers PCI bus that provide connections for external e-SATA drives which are just as fast as the internal ones. This is quite a bit better than USB and Firewire provide (1.5-- 3.0 Gbps versus 400- 800 Mbps for USB or Firewire.

 

In order of importance to improving your system speed for Photoshop CS, DRAM, CPU and then drives (unless you are low on HD space). Wne this adds up to more than 1/2 the cost of a totally new system, then quickly consider buying new. Memory is significantly cheaper for DDR2 units, so getting a 2, 4 or even 6 GB unit is much more feasible. Again, the drives are easily transferable except for the system drive which requires a bit of expertise to transfer everything efficiently. Changing the Mobo is also possible but be sure that your HP case will allow for it. Your OS may also need to be upgraded if you do so.

 

good luck!

Are you shooting RAW or JPGs? With a new system you'll see a big difference if you shoot RAW and a smaller difference with JPGs. Lightroom will use up to two cores. HD and processor speed has a major impact as you scroll from one image to another. I loaded LR and it has a 250meg footprint. Scrolling from one RAW image to another kicks the processor usage up to 80%.

 

A motherboard, CPU, RAM & HD upgrade would cost about $500, and your system would be around 4 times as fast. There would be a diminishing point of return past $500.

Thanks for all the comments! Yes, I am shooting RAW, and the picture-to-picture speed in Lightroom is what I'm starting to be impatient with. But for $500, I'd rather just buy a better base system that I can upgrade more efficiently down the road.

 

Sounds like a dual-core system might be the way to go after all. Thanks!

Re <I>All Photoshop features are faster on a multiprocessor system, </i>Thus is pure hokem; monkey poop; a super fib. Here I have used Photoshop since the beginning; we have over 2 dozen computers.Our first dual CPU unit was back in 1996.Photoshop 4 added multi cpu support. A patch of NT did; around NT 3.51 to 4. Multi cpus and multi cores dont always add a throughtput;ie they do NOT always drop a tasks time in photoshop.In fact with some operations their is NO change.Thus wiht many of our batch work having dual or quad cpus or cores doesnt drop the time at all. With some things having two cores or two cpus drops the time by 1/4 to 1/3. Thus an opperation that takes 9 econds might take 7 with dual cpus; or dual cores.

The industry is in the middle of a few changes right now. For windows users, CS4 will be offered in 64 bit and in which will allow us access to more than the 3.5 gigs of ram that the 32 bit app is limited to accessing right now. Ponder going 64 bit, and hopefully CS4 will run on XP64 as...who wants to load Vista64.

 

Another change on the horizon is the solid sate hard drives. These are essentially ram. And fly. And just like how we've witnessed ram come down in price while performance goes up, so will SSD's.

 

Who knows how many cores CS4 will use? Some filters in CS3 already uses multi threading. With all the high end xeons being used in the upper end of the graphics industry on both mac and windows platforms, I wouldn't be surprised if CS4 addressed 4 cores. Heck, octo-cores are just around the corner too.

 

The cheapest thing you could do with your box is add a raptor drive and dedicate it to scratch and up your ram to 4 gig and flick the 3 gig switch. Assuming of course you're using XP. Or get two raptors and rebuild, one for OS/apps and the other for scratch.

 

I like R Hofland suggestion as I've done it myself...invested in raptors and dragged them from box to box. I don't think you can go wrong with rpators. The mtbf rate is exceptionally high and can be trusted on a raid 0 config.

 

"But for $500, I'd rather just buy a better base system that I can upgrade more efficiently down the road."

 

That's what I'd do. I wouldn't sink money or time into your old one. You'll spend $300 min to notice a difference yet $600 will buy a 530 Dell with the q6600 and 4 gigs of ram.

Well, I'm learning that I need to better educate myself on the world of computers if nothing else. raid? scratch? not sure i've heard those terms before (at least outside the context of the bug spray and the action you perform when you have an itch).

 

will a quick-and-dirty upgrade to 2 GB of RAM not merit the ~$100 it would cost me?

 

also, just to be more thorough, I'm actually using two HDs. One is a 40 GB that holds my OS (XP SP2) and basic programs (Office, iTunes, etc). My other drive--the 120 GB, 7200 RPM Seagate--houses all of my photos and music, as well as critical programs such as Lightroom.

"Re All Photoshop features are faster on a multiprocessor system, Thus is pure hokem;

monkey poop; a super fib."

 

You should apply for a job as an Adobe software engineer since you claim to know more than

they do!

"Gerald Skrocki wrote"

 

""Re All Photoshop features are faster on a multiprocessor system, Thus is pure hokem; monkey poop; a super fib." You should apply for a job as an Adobe software engineer since you claim to know more than they do!"

 

Umm ... it's actually a direct copy/paste from Adobe tech support ...

 

http://kb.adobe.com/selfservice/viewContent.do?externalId=kb401088&sliceId=1

 

"All Photoshop features are faster on a multiprocessor system, although some can take greater advantage of the multiprocessor system's capabilities than others."

Adobe doesnt have to convert files on a daily basis like I do with photoshop. thus is doesnt matter if they run some special candy cane goosed BS marketing files that always work quicker with multicore or multicpu systems. <BR><BR>Here I have to live in the REAL world; away from Adobes BS wrong statements; where TIME IS MONEY.<BR><BR> Here I get files that when we process them thru photoshop DO NOT run any faster with a multicore or multi cpu system; WITH OUR SPECIFIC BATCH.<BR><BR> Thus many of these conversions actually are single processes and convert almost exactly at the clock speed and nothing else. a conversion on a 3.7 ghz box is almost exactly 2.5/3.7 the time of a 2.5 ghz box; 1/3.7 the time of a 1 ghz box. When the batch is run on a dual core box or dual cpu; the task manager is at 50 percent; and the batch DOES NOT convert any faster than a single cpu/core box. <BR><BR>It dosnt matter in my business if folks drink the koolaid; are dumb and believe the Adobe lies; or simple answers for beginners and amateurs.<BR><BR> Here with <b>my </b>batch conversions many DO NOT convert any faster with a dual; quad cpu; or dual or quad core system. Thus the FALSE statement of Adobe of <i>"All Photoshop features are faster on a multiprocessor system, although some can take greater advantage of the multiprocessor system's capabilities than others."</i> IS GOOD FOR AMATEURS; since there is NO BUSINESS SENSE INVOLVED. One can throw money at the the problem even if there is no improvemnt at all; with no testing with ones own files; drink the koolaid; your computer will work quicker based on faith; not facts. <BR><BR>Here we have some batched that run faster with duals; the main batch we run does not. Thus running the batch on a dual or quad buys one nothing at all. Adobes tech support is made for beginners; folks starting out. It does have "holes" in their blanket statements; some of these errors have been preached for over a decade.<BR><BR> For the beginner; assuming a dual is going to always help is probably ok; since new folks and amateurs don have specfic goals or tasks like a print shop does. One of the batches we run is the same as from when "batch" was first added to photoshop. Thus we have experimented with all the variables with OUR specific batch. We do know more than Adobe with our batch; we have converted probably a million files using a dozen boxes; from quad cpu ppros to quad core new cpus of today.<BR><BR>

With ADAMS machine he should add more ram. Here we have many Pentium III's that have 768 megs; many with 1 gigs. We even have a PPRO with 1 gig of ram; a decade old box. With some other P3's and P4's theya re at 2 gigs; some P4's have 2.5 or 3 gigs or more. Adding ram is simple; its cheap today. Add ram to you current computer; what you have is not much at all by todays standards

"Here with my batch conversions many DO NOT convert any faster with a dual; quad cpu; or dual or quad core system."

 

I don't really care either way - my quad core extreme edition gives me all the performance I need - however it's entirely pssible that you're hitting disk I/O limits whilst Adobe have setup their reference systems in a way that eliminates that potential bottleneck.

Colin; what is happening with the one batch I run is that the CPU is at 100 percent; the HDA is idle; its crunching thru converting a say a vector file to a raster; upsizing or downsizing an image; etc. The bog is in the CPU; its converting.<BR><BR> Theses boxes have enough ram so there is no puking to the HDA. The file open and save times are zitch compared to the number crunching task. With this specific batch we do the task time drops directly with clock speed; almost perfectly. Thus a 3.3Ghz box will do the task in 1/10 the time of a 330Mhz; a dual 3.3 Ghz dual core does it in the same time as the single core. IF one messes with the computer and moves files will batching; the dual core unit is more robust; it has the other core for other programs; its free since the cpu usage for both combined is 50 percent; one core is at 100 percent. We might batch these files on one of our old 2.5 Ghz P4's and say Batch A might be 2 hours; If the same batch is run on a 3.5 Ghz; it takes almost exactly 120 minutes times 2.5/3.5= 86 minutes. One can redo the test with another 3.5Ghz box with a different BUS speed;ram speed and its about the same time. We are just busting thru a mess of pixels; the bottleneck is the CPU speed itself.<BR><BR> WE Basically break the bottleneck problem up into many smaller jobs; I run each one on another box; many batches in parallel;if required. <BR><BR>Its interesting to see a dual or quad core machine running at 100 percent for many hours; the cpu at full tilt. There is no disk I/o bottleneck; the save file time is very small compared to the entire batch time. The ram speed is a very slight variable with our batch; abit of a yawn. Here I dont have all the performance I need; there is no end to bloaded files the public create; or weird PDF variants with inverted byte orders and CMYK stuff; weird fonts.<BR><BR> Basically I would like to buy a single core 33 Ghz CPU so we could cut the time of the 3.3ghz boxes by 1/10th!. <BR><BR>In one computer chassis an older IBM we have 12 models of the same mother board; we varied cpu speed; added custom HDA controllers with 10K rpm drives; did a giant matrix to figure the batch we do bottlenecks. <BR><BR>One might get a file from a customer and I have to break it down since its a weird file; so it will not tie up say a 60,000 dollar printer for 1 hour; sinces its a bastard file. Thus the job is killed; printer freed up and a custom btahc created to bust apart the weird file variant to something thats easy to print. Or I have to make a custom batch to throw a curve into a mess of images; convert older file variants to modern versions; downsize bloaded images;upsize others; reduce a super giant mural sized file down for a smaller printers requirements.

Adam; Your box has two memory slots. Since you NOW have I think 768 megs; that means you have a 512 and a 256 meg module. The standard ram with thses was 512megs. For 50 bucks you can swap out the 256meg guy and add a 1024 meg; for 100 you can swap out both. For images going from 768megs to 1.5gigs for 50 bucks is a no brainer; going to 2 gigs will be a less of a boost for the amount of added dollars. <BR><BR>Having dual or quad cores is nice; its doesnt always add a 2x or 4x boost; sometimes its just some; some none. It radically adds the ability to juggle more tasks; is the latest in thing since cpu speeds have risen little. The gamers use alot of the dual and quad features; with pphotoshop it dependson the tool or feature used. Here I have found that sometimes there is no boost with dual cores; unlike the Adobe claims. Here I just max out the ram on every box that deals with images. Thus our old dream machine from 1994 is a 75Mhz with 72 megs ram; our dual core 64bit 3.3ghz box has 8 gigs of ram.

"IF one messes with the computer and moves files will batching; the dual core unit is more robust; it has the other core for other programs; its free since the cpu usage for both combined is 50 percent; one core is at 100 percent."

 

that's all I needed to hear. dual-core it is then. thanks again everyone.

"Colin; what is happening with the one batch I run is that the CPU is at 100 percent"

 

Do you mean CPU @ 100% or one of the cores at 100%? If the CPU is in fact at 100% on a multi-core processor then you're working all two/four cores to the max - if that's not faster than a single core CPU at 100% then something doesn't add up - what are the "excess" cores doing?

Lightroom 1.4 NEF to JPG conversion on different CPUs:

 

http://techgage.com/article/intel_core_2_quad_q9450_266ghz/6

great link, thanks Bruce.