Ivy Bridge Graphics

[travismcgee]

<p>I'm thinking about building a new computer since my current machine is pretty slow when running Lightroom. Do you think the onboard graphics in an i7 ivy bridge processor would be good enough for Lightroom and Photoshop, or should I shop for a graphics card too? I'm not a gamer, but I watch work-related videos sometimes and YouTube occasionally. Many thanks.</p>

[lwg]

<p>I find Photoshop and Lightroom to be fine when using the integrated graphics on the new Macbook Pro, which uses Ivy Bridge. I haven't compared the integrated to the GForce card, but it seems fast enough.</p>

[bgelfand]

<p>I suspect the graphics would work. However, I understand the Intel Open CL drivers do not work with Photoshop CS6, yet. I am not sure about the Open GL drivers.</p>

[EricM]

<p>My guess, is that for LR you could get by without a video card but for PS, I would think spending $80 on a 1 gig card card and relinquishing the task of graphics from your cpu and ram, is a good idea.</p>

[Wouter Willemse]

<p>As far as I know, Lightroom does not use the graphics card in any meaningfull way. PS CS6, however, can use it, but I still have not seen real benchmarks showing the difference. For watching video, the Intel graphics are perfectly OK.<br>

I'm looking at the same, and since I do not use Photoshop, I'll probably go without a graphics card and spend the extra money on more memory. If I'd be using Photoshop CS6, I'd get a cheap NVIDIA card probably, though, for the GPU acceleration, as Eric states above.</p>

[lex_jenkins]

<p>I'm not sure that still photo editing software and video players care much about our graphics hardware.</p>

<p>After working out some initial bugs and importing all my photos, trial versions of Lightroom 3.x and 4 ran very well on my desktop - AMD Athlon II 3.1 GHz quad core with integrated nVidia graphics. So does streaming HD video from Hulu, YouTube, Vimeo and others. But even playing older games like Half-Life 2, and the lack of a good graphics card shows.</p>

<p>But, oddly enough, my laptop with AMD 1.65 GHz E-450 APU and integrated Radeon graphics beats the pants off the desktop in Portal (a 2008 era game). In that respect AMD's vaunted Vision/Fusion APU concept works very well. But the laptop can't match the desktop in batch editing photos, or even in importing photos into Picasa (which could be due, in part, to the 5400 RPM HD). The laptop handles HD video very well - any glitches are more likely due to my low end DSL Wi-Fi.</p>

[bruce_rubenstein]

<p>Doing computational processing on graphics hardware has been turning out to be harder for programmers to do than first imagined, so very few programs support it in any meaningful way. The graphics portion in the Intel CPUs is dedicated, graphics processing hardware; it's not being done in the CPU. Good DDR3 RAM costs $100/16gB. <br>

What I did, I'm basically only running LR 4.1, was to get an IB CPU that has HD4000 graphics (I'm using a i5-3570k with a 20% OC) and skip the graphics card. With the O/S, programs, scratch disk (everything except the photo files) running off a SSD it's very fast. </p>

<p>Adobe has articles on maximizing performance like this one for LR: <a href="http://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom/kb/optimize-performance-lightroom.html">http://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom/kb/optimize-performance-lightroom.html</a> I'm sure they have similar ones for CS6.</p>

 

[waltflanagan]

<p>This article shows some of the performance improvements with OpenCL GPU acceleration. </p>

<p>http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/photoshop-cs6-gimp-aftershot-pro,3208.html</p>

<p>Only a couple of functions in Photoshop can actually use the GPU. AFAIK nothing in Lightroom can use it. Since you don't play games you'll be fine with the integrated graphics. As Bruce mentions, the SSD and RAM are better investments. You did use the word "building" so I'm assuming that means desktop. In the future if these programs get more GPU acceleration you can always add a dedicated graphics card.</p>

[bgelfand]

<p>Lex wrote:</p>

<blockquote>

<p>I'm not sure that still photo editing software and video players care much about our graphics hardware.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Until CS5 was released, I would have agreed with you. CS6 makes even more use of the graphics card as an accelerator. You may read about the features in CS6 that use Open GL and Open CL here:</p>

<p><a href="http://forums.adobe.com/message/4289204">http://forums.adobe.com/message/4289204</a></p>

<p>Photoshop is not the only software to make use of graphics card to accelerate processing. WinZip 16.5 also uses Open CL on Radeon (AMD) graphics cards. The difference to Zip files is significant - a factor of 4x or better.</p>

 

[lex_jenkins]

<p>Thanks, Bruce, Walt and Brooks. I'll read those before deciding on a graphics card for that lone PCI slot in my desktop.</p>

[bgelfand]

<p>Here is a better article from Adobe describing Open Gl and Open CL use in Photoshop CS6.</p>

<p><a href="http://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/kb/photoshop-cs6-gpu-faq.html">http://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/kb/photoshop-cs6-gpu-faq.html</a></p>

<p>The article lists which features are accelerated by the GPU and which features require a compatable GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) to work at all. It also lists the features that are accelerated by the GPU in CS5.</p>

<p>I was in error when I wrote the Intel Graphics was not supported. The article lists Intel P3000 and P4000 graphics as "tested" (and I assume they passed the test).</p>

 

[travismcgee]

<p>Thanks, everybody. I want a super graphics card because....well, I just want one, but I guess I really don't need it.</p>

<p>Use some caution with overclocking however. I have a 2.4 GHz quad-core that I'm running at 3.2 GHz and I was getting all the girls until Lightroom started corrupting my image files. And I mean the image files, not the catalog. For example, in one folder of photos from a fishing trip I had a photo of a river and a photo of a fish. After Lightroom got done, I had two copies of the river, with different exposure settings, and no fish. Lightroom ate my fish. Once again, not just in the catalog, but in the actual image files stored on the hard drive. It happened in a few other folders as well. I am seriously pissed. </p>

<p> </p>

[sravan]

<p>Spend your money on an SSD and use a card reader to read the files and import them. Also remove the option to write back the changes to metadata. This will ensure that lightroom does not write to any image files for any reason. If you still have the problems with the file corruption, then it is not due to lightroom.<br>

Such issues happen on import when lightroom is writing files and not during regular use.</p>

[travismcgee]

<p>Thanks, Sravan, but I use a card reader and I have two SSDs installed - one for the OS and one for the Lightroom catalog and images. This didn't happen on import, it happened during editing. Lightroom was really acting up. Sometimes the little thumbnail in the filmstrip would change without me doing anything. A flower would magically change to a sunset in front of my eyes. Or I would click on a thumbnail of a flower and see a large image of a boat. I thought it was a corrupted catalog but it actually changed the individual images on the hard drive and now I have multiple copies of the same image with different names and some images are simply gone.</p>

<p>You are correct in that I don't think it's Lightroom itself or I would be screaming bloody murder. I did a Google search and can't seem to find anyone else complaining about this. I think it's a problem with my computer. I was probably overclocking too far or my core voltage was too low or something. That's how I'm going to approach it. The computer was unstable and therefore Lightroom was unstable and the images were corrupted during read/write operations or during file renaming or something. Of course, if Lightroom 4.1 wasn't so criminally slow I wouldn't have had to overclock so far, which is why I'm thinking about a new computer..... Cheers.</p>

 

[bgelfand]

<p>Dave wrote:</p>

<blockquote>

<p>I want a super graphics card because....well, I just want one, but I guess I really don't need it.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Super graphics card are power hogs and heat producers. Super graphics cards will require a larger power supply. That extra powere ued eventually ends up as heat, which requires more and better ventillation of your computer case.</p>

<p>One thing no one has mentioned about power is that most home base board plugs are wired for 15 amps; many times more than one room shares a breaker. Add a couple of computers with monitors, a laser printer, a scanner to the normal baseboard plug load of lights, and you could exceed the 15 amp limit. There would be nothing like printing a page on the laser printer and having the breaker trip to cause problems with the computer and possibly file system.</p>

<p> </p>

[travismcgee]

<p>Right, you are, Brooks. My computer room is much warmer than the rest of the place and I get a low-voltage alarm when my girlfriend turns on the hair dryer. No tripped breakers yet, but I'm tempted to rewire the box to dedicate a circuit to the toys in my man cave. Who needs dry hair?</p>

<p>Bigger, faster, more powerful! I want a Porsche too, but I drive a 12-year-old pickup truck. Sometimes you need to limit yourself. Right now I just want freakin' Lightroom to stop eating my fish.</p>

<p> </p>

[bgelfand]

<p>Hi Dave,</p>

<p>I built my present computer two years ago - that's "forever" in electronics years - an i7 Lynnfield system with 8 Gigabytes of memory. For a graphics card, I chose a card with an AMD (ATI) Radeon 4650 chip with 512 Megabytes of DDR2 memory on the card; the card does have a 128 bit memory path. It runs CS5 (and everything else I have) beautifully. I have a Corsair 650 watt power supply with power to spare. I chose the graphics card as a "place holder" intending to replace it with a more powerful card, if necessary.</p>

<p>As more and more software takes advantage of Open GL and Open CL, I may replace it in the next year or so with a card with a Radeon 7000 chip that has 1 Gigabyte of GDDR5 memory and at least a 128 bit wide memory path. Another reason to replace it is the latest AMD drivers no longer support the 4650 chip.</p>

<p>In your position, I would consider one of the new Z77 based motherboards and use Intel's Smart Response Technology<br /><a href="http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/architecture-and-technology/smart-response-technology-brief.html?wapkw=intel%c2%ae+smart+response+technology">http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/architecture-and-technology/smart-response-technology-brief.html?wapkw=intel%c2%ae+smart+response+technology</a></p>

<p>Obviously, with a P55 motherboard, I have not tried it, but it looks like a good solution to the SSD cost/performance problem.</p>

<p>If you get a board that support the PCIe 3.0 specification, you could use the Ivy Bridge P4000 graphics for now, and when PCIe 3.0 graphics cards become mainstream and are available at reasonable prices, add a graphics card if you think it will help.</p>

<p>As for Lightroom, I do not have it. From what I have read, Lightroom does "non-destructive" edits, so the original file should be available.</p>

[lex_jenkins]

<p>If you're not committed to Intel and aren't sure about future video needs (including gaming) you might consider the AMD Fusion/Vision processors with integrated video. The A-series (A10 being the most powerful) may do the trick cost effectively, without having to worry about which video card to get.</p>

<p>I recently bought a cheap Lenovo laptop with AMD E-450 APU and the darned thing runs Portal better than my 3.1 GHz Athlon II quad core desktop (which predates the Fusion/Vision processors, so my desktop has puny integrated video). The laptop handles my modest photo editing chores just fine. Barely gets warm even after a couple hours of 3D gaming or HD video.</p>

<p>I'd never seriously considered AMD over Intel until this year, but they offer some pretty good values, especially in the low and mid priced laptops and desktops, and leave money in the budget for more RAM, a better HD and other stuff.</p>

[EricM]

<p><strong>There would be nothing like printing a page on the laser printer and having the breaker trip to cause problems with the computer and possibly file system.</strong></p>

<p>I use one of those battery back-up/surge projector units and have roughly five minutes to save files and power off when the rest of the house is dead. It's saved my bacon a few times in storm season.</p>