Built new PC - Looking for benchmarks.

Hi,

 

About a month back, I posted a topic asking about the best CPU for Photoshop work.

 

(see here - http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00PIn6 )

 

Had some really helpful responces and I've now just finished building said computer.

 

These are the final specs:

 

CPU - Intel E8400 - O/C to 3.7Ghz,

Mother board - Abit IP35 ProXE,

RAM - OCZ 8GbDDR2 6400 O/C to 998Mhz,

Main hard disk - 2 x Western digital 250Gb (16Mb cache) in RAID0,

Scratch disk - 1 x 74Gb Western digital Raptor,

600w Zalman PSU & a cheap XFX graphics card.

 

OS - XP Pro x64.

Photoshop CS3.

 

Went together with out a hitch, had a little trouble getting Windows to see the

Raptor, but nothing major.

 

Have to say I'm really pleased with the way it's performing, I think the HDDs in

RAID0 really make a differnce, as dose the Raptor scratch disk.

 

What I'd like to do now is bech mark it, see how my humble homebuilt PC performs

aginst other machines.

 

Anyone know of any?

Great news, Richard. Sounds like a great box.

 

"Have to say I'm really pleased with the way it's performing, I think the HDDs in RAID0 really make a differnce, as dose the Raptor scratch disk."

 

Certainly does.

 

I've read that XP64, being built on/around server 2003, can get flaky with OC'ing though. Some threads on Planetamd64 for research if you wish. And I hope to hell you've bought some fans blowing over a decent cooling system, that beauty you have there is going to get hot.

 

What was the grand total in $$$ if you don't me asking?

Thanks Garrison, yeah, I did make sure I got a beast of a heatsink - It's a Sythe Mine, huge thing, keeps core temp down to 25c idle. I only had to raise the CPU volt .05 of a volt to get a stable 3.7Ghz. I'm sure I could get 4Ghz, but I'm happy with 3.7.

 

Cost - I already had a case, optical drives and PSU so the rest of the components came to ﾣ700 (UK pounds) - not sure what that is in $.

 

The first thing I noticed is how much faster PS starts up now I have a dedicated fast scratch disk, (about half the time).

 

One thing that supprised me is that even with 8Gb of RAM photoshop uses a 85Mb page file before you even open a file.

Richard

 

I do photo and video editing. I talked to Matrox Support on the issue of speed before I built my OS last year. They say that you should have your OS on a single drive (but a RAID0 would only help) and your Scratch Disks on your RAID0. I have my Scratch disks on a RAID10 backed up with a RAID5.

 

You need a very good graphics card to help with rendering, if your going to do any rendering in Photoshop.

 

I might be all wrong on this, but if that's the fastest way to set up the Matrox RTx2 for Premier Pro, then I would think that it would be the best for Photoshop also, but who knows.

 

P.S. If you use a RAID5 or 10, don't forget about your controller card. I lost 1TB when my controller card failed on my RAID10

Unlike Premier Pro, PS CS3 does not use the GPU for rendering/processing, but that will change for CS4. http://techreport.com/discussions.x/14788

 

Super Pi is a pretty standard BM for processor speed. For 1M, you'll probably be a bit under 13 sec.

 

The folks who created CPU Z also have a BM program on their site called PC Wizard (www.cpuid.com)

 

If you Google photoshop benchmarks, you find some PS specific ones.

Take a look at http://www.futuremark.com/products/

Do you really want to take the risk of OCing this stuff? It sounds like you have more intererest in benchmarks than real word photo editing. Overclocking takes your system outside of the realm of your original question, of best CPU for photoshop. It's fine for gaming etc. but when it comes to taking care of your precious photographs, its an unneccessary risk. Anyways, all that matters is you have fun...

Charles - That's something I'd thought about - Whats faster 1x10k Raptor as a single disk or 2x7.2K disks in RAID0. Thinking about it 2x7.2 should be quicker than 1x10, but I don't know if this is the case in the real world.

 

Barry - I'm actually going to agree with you there. After the initial excitement of getting my new kit to quite decent OC I did start to think along the same lines as you and have put it back to stock speeds.

 

What I as looking for was a real photoshop bench mark. I tried the one from http://www.retouchartists.com/pages/speedtest.html and with a OC system I completed it in 25 seconds, judging by their own result tables that's pretty good. I haven't tried with my computer at stock speeds, it'll be interesting to see the difference.

 

"It sounds like you

have more interest in benchmarks than real word photo editing."

 

I can see how I'm coming across in that way, but I just spent quite a lot of time and money on this project, so the geeky side of me just has to know if I've done my job properly. ;)

:) I'll say it again...

 

"I've read that XP64, being built on/around server 2003, can get flaky with OC'ing though."

 

With the speed of drives today, I'm inclined not to go RAID anymore. The next box I build, in a few months, is going to have a single velociraptor for the OS/Apps and another velociraptor for scratch. Those things are fast.

Richard, I know how you feel. I use to build, update and rebuild my home Win PC. Loved to overclock as much as I could, and was thrilled by any little speed increase. However, once I really got into photography, I wanted speed and stability, with stability really important. The speed you want is the overall stability and speed that allows you to get your work done. There was nothing worse and time consuming than a freeze up or total crash, losing your work and having to reboot.

 

So I just went to mac and never looked back.