Poll: What's the best bang for my photo PC buck?
I'm going to buy a new desktop computer to feed my digital photography appetites, and it's time to let the wisdom of the crowds steer me in the right direction.
There are innumerable options, but there's one particular choice I'm wrestling with: is my money better spent on a PC with a dual-core processor or a quad-core chip with a lower clock frequency?
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For the benefit of anybody else in my situation, I thought I'd seek expert guidance from Adobe Systems, Microsoft, Advanced Micro Devices, and Intel and publish the results, but I got conflicting answers. So I'm hoping all you readers can be the tie-breaker on what my priority should be. Feel free to vote and to share any thoughts about that issue or other performance tradeoffs in the Talkback section below.
If I were swimming in money, I could have it both ways with a computer using an Intel Extreme processor, but that's not in the cards. If I were that flush, I'd rather sink the extra money into a lens with roughly five times the usable lifespan of a PC.
To put things in perspective, multicore chips have two more processing engines on each slice of silicon. That theoretically can permit more operations in a given amount of time, but it's more complicated in practice.
With four cores, processors are hotter and therefore have to be run at slower frequencies to keep from overheating. And perhaps biggest on the list, a lot of PC software simply hasn't solved the technical challenges of splitting a single job up into multiple independent threads.
The clock speed/multicore tradeoff is illustrated in prices from Intel's newly announced Penryn generation of Core 2 chips. The dual-core E8500 with 6MB of cache runs at 3.16GHz, and the quad-core Q9300 with 6MB of cache runs at 2.5GHz, and they both have the same price of $266. One thing they have in common is a reasonably fast 1333MHz front-side bus (the pathway between the processor and main memory), but on the quad-core model that bus serves four cores instead of just two.
To set the stage, here are the computing bottlenecks that I notice most dragging down digital photography work I do with Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom: rendering and editing raw photos; converting raw photos to DNG; applying sharpening and noise-reduction filters; metadata-based searches through my 11,000-image catalog; and stitching photos into panoramas.
I recognize there are other price/performance tradeoffs, too--for example more memory or a faster hard drive for better performance when the computer does have to use the drive. But those are relatively easy to change and upgrade later.
A quad-core example of Intel's latest "Penryn" generation of processors.
(Credit: Intel)
Expert opinions
When I asked various companies what they advised, answers differed. Let's compare and contrast:
• Intel spokesman Nick Knupffer: "For digital photography, you are going to be using packages such as Adobe Photoshop that relish the extra threads that a quad-core processor brings to the table. Memory speed or bandwidth is not as crucial."
• AMD spokesman Brett Jacobs: "Given the excellent value of our quad-core Phenom and the improved performance you will see from four cores vs. two using multithreaded applications, the quad-core will offer more bang for the buck compared to a higher-clocked dual-core."
• Tim Grey, author and digital photography technology evangelist at Microsoft's Rich Media Group: "Higher processor clock and front-side bus speed on a dual-core system provides better performance than quad-core. When you consider the premium you pay for quad-core it makes the most sense to invest in the top-of-the-line dual-core. You get better performance at a lower cost."
• Adobe, paraphrased: It depends.
OK, that doesn't do justice to Adobe, which supplied fairly more nuanced information. Some Photoshop tasks can deal well with multicore processors, but others are starved for data from main memory.
"Bandwidth is a big deal," said Adobe's Kevin Connor, who manages professional digital imaging products including Lightroom, Photoshop, and the Digital Negative (DNG) format. According to one illuminating Adobe blog posting, one common Photoshop task that relies heavily on memory bandwidth is the seemingly simple Gaussian blur filter, and one common chore that can't be parallelized is the healing brush.
Things are somewhat different with Lightroom. One of its biggest chores is "de-mosaicking," which converts the "Bayer" checkerboard pattern of red, green, and blue data from a camera's image sensor into an image with red, green, and blue data for each pixel. That process can take advantage of as many as eight cores--the number available in high-end machines such as Apple's Mac Pro or those built on Intel's "Skulltrail" platform, said Tom Hogarty, Lightroom's product manager. DNG conversion, too, can use eight cores, he said.
Another advantage for Lightroom is that it can perform some tasks in the background, a natural fit for multicore. (Thank heavens: With my 3-year-old PC, I often queue up a few batches of Lightroom operations and come back later when they're done.)
Benchmark time
But wait! Let's look at some benchmarks. There are some handy ones here on CNET's review of Apple's iMac. The CNET Photoshop benchmark is a reasonable reflection of my digital photography work, but compare the scores of an iMac with a dual-core iMac with 2.8GHz Intel processors to a
Mac Pro with two dual-core Intel 2.66GHz processors (a version tested before the quad-core models were out).
Apple comes out on top on Photoshop tests, but there's not much of an advantage to four cores.
(Credit: CNET Networks)Mac Pro's time to complete the test: 120 seconds. iMac, just a smidgen slower at 125 seconds. The big question here is to what extent the raw-image processing in Photoshop correlates with my own raw-image processing done in Lightroom. Even if Lightroom is much better with multicore, the Photoshop tests aren't a great advertisement for paying for four cores.
When I asked CNET computer guru Rich Brown for his advice, he steered me toward the iMac, in part because Photoshop scores higher on Mac OS X than on Windows. (A Velocity Micro system with a 3GHz dual-core Intel processor had a significantly lower score of 157 seconds, for example, and a Hewlett-Packard system with a 2.4GHz Intel quad-core processor was even worse at 178 seconds.)
Although I'm not opposed to switching from my current Windows setup to Mac OS X, I don't think it's likely. For one thing, I'd have to repurchase some software. More significantly, Apple's lineup doesn't match my needs: the Mac Pro is too expensive, the Mac Mini is too anemic, and I dislike the iMac's lack of expandability, 4GB memory limit, and built-in monitor.
Another non-issue is picking the best laptop. Sure, all the cool kids are forsaking their immovable behemoths for svelte machines, but I already have a reasonable laptop when I need mobility, and for my home machine I want the better price-performance ratio and need the expandability.
Benchmarks notwithstanding, I'm leaning toward quad-core right now. First of all, there's the Lightroom abilities. Second, with the newer generation of processors from both Intel and Advanced Micro Devices, there's less of a premium for quad-core. Last, I'm hoping my machine will last into the era when desktop software catches up with multicore processors.
So that's my opinion. What's yours?
Stephen Shankland writes about a wide range of technology and products, but has a particular focus on browsers and digital photography. He joined CNET News in 1998 and since then also has covered Google, Yahoo, servers, supercomputing, Linux and open-source software, and science. E-mail Stephen, or follow him on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/stshank.
Having Photoshop take 200 ms to perform a task instead of 100 ms is nothing, compared to the hassle of having to reprint everything six times to get the color right, 'cause you couldn't see the full color depth on your screen.
/P
multiple CPUs. With a dual core, you're already getting 2 CPUs. Splitting a
job in two buys you a lot (and I'll take 2 (not too much) slower CPUs over 1
fast one almost any day). Splitting it in 4 seems to tax the OS's ability to
really make use of all 4 on one image. It's no where near 4 x faster in my
experience, and you're lucky to even get 3x faster (unless recent versions of
everything has changed that story). So, I'd take 2 x 3Ghz over 4 x 2Ghz.
(However, I liked my dual 867 G4 over my single 1.6 G5 a few years back).
Even with large multi-layered files (250Mb files), on today's machines,
PhotoShop is so fast that, there's really not enough work to do to bother
with too many extra CPUs. So, most tasks will be done faster on the faster
CPUs because they won't challenge a 4-cpu system anyway.
Sharpen your average 300dpi scan of a 4x5 transparency, and it'll be over
so fast, those 4 cpus never got a chance to even warm up. As the going
gets a little tougher, I'm betting 2 x 3Gz will get tasks done faster than 4 x
2Ghz ones.
Now, if you're trying to do really long processes on multiple images at the
same time, then yeah, 4 CPUs is likely a bigger advantage to you because
now it's as much about bandwidth as it is speed. So sharpening 6 x 100MB
files in parallel all the time, I'd probably want the 4 core system.
I'm sure like Adobe says: "it depends" on which filters and tasks you tend to
do a lot, but for me, I prefer a drag racer over the 18-wheeler when it
comes to editing photos.
Now, movie rendering... that's another matter. More cores is good stuff
there.
-- gw
most of the time..right?
Even if you are just dealing with photo editing a quad can start to pay off if you are using version cue, or some other workflow product in the background.
I just built and overclocked a quad core system. Prior to this I had a dual core hell, i mean dell. I can see major improvements when running everything I would normally be using (dreamweaver, homesite, photoshop, word, version cue, and some additional design tools). If I am just using photoshop to edit a personal photo without all my extra web dev stuff... then there is little noticeable improvement over the dual.
BOOT to OSX and/or Windows, you are way ahead of the game.
Why would you buy an OS limited box that can't run both?
Most programs won't be optimized for quad-core for some time
to come.
processors from Apple's web store for a bit over $2000. Same
warranty as a brand new machine.
They may be a bit steep in price, but they are made for exactly the
kind of work you're doing.
The Brett Jacobs byte is interesting to me because he pushes the AMD quad product, but he slips in the qualifier: "..and the improved performance you will see from four cores vs. two using multithreaded applications.." This means - only multi-threaded apps need apply - all others back to the slow line.
Correct me if I am wrong here, but I think most apps still don't even take advantage of the multiple threads or CPU's so it's a bit like buying a Ferrari to drive around on the local Go-Kart track. Great Ferrari - but it looks kind of silly negotiating the track.
Steve Cherry
www.DailyFrame.com
Also, I'd make sure to get at least 4gb of RAM. Preferably 8gb, if you can afford it. 16bit panoramas require serious amounts of RAM! My 2GB MacBook is insufficient for these kinds of tasks.
Then, get a good monitor. As the other fella said, CRT is better if you have the required space for one.
If you plan on printing some of your creations, maybe you should get a monitor calibrating device as well.
To put this in perspective, I have 3GB now and I spend a lot of time waiting as the computer swaps memory data on the disk. The problems are that I run several applications simultaneously, and that digital photographs suck up a lot of memory no matter how efficient the applications and the underlying OS use memory. It's only getting worse as images get bigger, and raw files get more bit depth, and software such as Lightroom caches many images in memory as you work.
If 20% can actually use more than 2 cores then you got to look at....
1. How much time you spend in those 20% apps?
2. Even though those 20% can use 4 cores, how much improvement is there over a dual core? Does it take a benchmark for you to notice?
Do you tweak every pixel in your output or are you just doing a little cropping because your design and talent are present before the exposure is made?
BTW at higher speed most of todays software will run better. In a few years more processors will help but it is only 2008, not 2012
Adobe says that both the # of cores and Memory Bandwidth are issues depending on what you are doing. You know what you do so you know which you will it. Potentially both issues. I'm going to assume that you will hit both. That means balacing your quad core with memory bandwidth. CPU speed wasn't so much the issue. I'd stick with 2ghz as a lower limit though. For the applications that can't use your quad cores...raw CPU speed matters. My 5 year old POS laptop at 3GHZ beats the snot out of my 1 year old 2GHZ dual core laptop for most tasks since most software can't handle the dual cores.
The last hint you dropped was a 4GB memory being "low". 32 bit Operating Systems can only see 3.X gigs. X varies a bit based on factors that I don't get. To get more than 4GB if that's what you will really need you will need a 64bit OS. That may cause you to need to upgrade to 64bit software...or maybe Adobe already has that in the bag.
Your main concerns seems to be Dual vs. Quad processor, yet you compare computer systems as a whole rather than individual processors!
What you need is to get those two similarly priced Intel processors you mentioned and stick them in two identical systems, and only then do your benchmarking!
Things like memory speed and latency, as well as hard drive performance will affect your results greatly.
Rather than supporting multiple threads, maybe Microsoft should fix the problems in Windows that stop us from getting done what we pay to get done.
Look at a workstation class system that can do 2 dual-core CPUs, price it with one CPU to start, so you get the better clock speed. Later, you can add a 2nd dual-core CPU if you find you can benefit.
Yes, get the fastest memory you can, if it's an Intel CPU of course, that means Front Side Bus speed. ECC, too, is nice, especially if you have long-running sessions or jobs. And ECC memory is usually standard in workstations. I'm sure you already know to get as much memory as you can.
And, here is a tip for disk I/O: get a system with RAID built-in, and use RAID 0 (striping). That's if you're using SATA disks. You can spend more on faster SCSI disks, but SCSI (or SAS) costs more per GB and you need special disk controllers. Tom's Hardware had an article where 2 Raid 0 7200 rpm disks were as fast as or faster than a 10,000 rpm WD Raptor. Sure, you don't have redundancy if a drive fails, but that's what backups are for... Use Ghost or DriveImage or something to give you a quick restore.
I have found good values on HP's (Compaq) refurbished price list. I'm still running a 4-year old Compaq W2K system bought refurb, and my wife's 4-year old W2K Compaq laptop is still running fine.
These are "business" systems, not consumer. And, HP regularly runs specials. This half of January frequently sees good deals, as they want to clear out inventory.
HTH, & good luck.
--
David Strom
(not the writer)
Perhaps you have all you want. I've not met an enthusiast like that, but I've certainly not met everyone.
What's missing here is the amount and nature of the photo work. When I hear of walking away from batch jobs, I think this getting more complicated than two versus four processors.
Maybe the real answer is to swap out machines more often than three years, as opposed to trying to accurately predict the future of computing. (Yes, I know I've split an infinitive, so what?)
- On second thought, good poll!
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by tenbosch
January 23, 2008 6:59 AM PST
- Steve,
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Reply to this comment
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(29 Comments)I originally dismissed this poll as ridiculous and a waste of time. But, then I read it! :) I also appreciated the fact that you are replying to some of the posts. So, with that...
I think in the short term, you'd be happy sticking with your windows platform. It's definitely the budget friendly way to go. Plus, as you mention, the upgrade capabilities are seemingly endless.
On the other hand, I'm just amazed at the capabilities of my newly purchased iMac 24". Photo editing abilities aside, everthing else seems so well blended together. The hardware is amazing enough to stare at. It's definitely taking this newb awhile to get used to how the 'mac' people do things, but I'm sold and a convert. (but I don't want to make this a religious discussion...)
Given your status at CNet, don't you have the ability to try out both and run through a more rigorous comparison? Don't get me wrong, the poll is a great idea and I love reading the comments...