Lightroom PC Config

[joedecker]

With my primary desktop editing machine nearing it's fifth birthday (I hadn't realized quite how old) I'm starting to think it's time for a replacement.  It's primarily used for working with images on Lightroom, and, to a lesser extent, Photoshop.  I'd like to sketch out my thinking so far, but I'd appreciate feedback.

- My current desktop system (Pentium 4, 1TB x2 RAID 1, 4GB ram, Windows XP, optimized catalog) is driving me absolutely crazy with stuttering, slow performance in Lightroom 2.3 (but not Photoshop CS4.)  Significant pausing and stuttering in the user-interface are distractions I don't need.  I'm not convinced that CS4 is  actually faster, but it's a lot more predictable.  I still sometimes see out of memory errors despite the memory upgrade--2.2 was worse, but it feels to me as if not all of LR's memory handling problems are solved.  That having been said, when LR works well, the UI is great for 90% of the work I need to do.  

- Currently I've got just shy of a terabyte of images.  This means that it's tractable (and it would seem, desirable) to in part be able to keep everything in on-line, internal storage.   I expect this to increase, I'd like *some* headroom in disk space, but I don't need that to be 4-5 years of headroom, I'm comfortable with the idea that I'll be putting new larger disks in the machine 2 years out.  Currently some of my images are on NAS connected with ethernet and the performance penalty is likely hurting me.

- I'm a fan of RAID mirroring not as a primary backup strategy but as another layer in the system, I've had RAID mirror disks fail and so far "insert a new disk, remirror" has gotten me back and working with absolutely no data loss quickly.  (I use external HDDs for in-house and off-site backups.)  RAID (not instead of backups, but in addition to them) helps me sleep better.  I like sleep.

So, when I sketch out what a new system would look like and that has some "room to grow" in case I end up keeping it for 3-4 years, I come down to a bunch of guesses as to what I'd like to see in a system, and a few questions.

- Proc/OS:  64-bit, maybe i7 or something quad core?  Suggestions?   I'd like something 64-bit for "room to grow" in memory over the next few years.

- Memory:  6-8 GB to start.  It's my sense "4 isn't enough" for the work I do.

- Disk:  1.5 TB or more effective storage with either data security RAID of some sort (1, 10 or 5)  If I do this on a system with fewer disks, upgrades might be easier, but that's not essential.

- Extras:  Not a lot.  Some replacement LCD (suggestions welcomed!), a few years of warranty if at all possible.  Etc.

(Any advice on where to spend up or spend less in particular with respect to LR/PC performance would be appreciated.  I've looked a good bit at Lloyd's excellent work on PS/Mac performance, but that's not quite the same thing.)

My first sketches at costing out systems like this end up with numbers in the $3K range in the PC world (Dell or my local white box vendor), $5K in the Apple world, based on including a moderate monitor and a 3-year hw warranty.  I've got a PC laptop that I use for travel, and my understannding (is this right?) is that Adobe will let me upgrade/switch platforms inexpensively but I probably can't run, CS4 at least,  Mac and PC on separate machines eve if I can run one or the other on two machines (just me as the only user).   So I keep on guessing I'll be sticking PC, not my preference, but more my preference than having to replace the laptop, or buy an extra Adobe license, plus the extra $2K in hardware costs.  If I've done my math wrong, if I just don't know how to buy cheap Apple hardware, please call me on it, but don't say "just spend the money" without justifying it, as a full-time but struggling photographer a couple thousand dollars is real money, not play money to me.

Advice, suggestions, questions, answers all welcome.  

Thanks,

--Joe

[joedecker]

Additional question I forgot to add:

Would an small extra (non-RAID?) drive for the OS be helpful.  Or some other rearrangement/configuration?

[MBehrens]

I was in the same boat as you with LR2 being sluggish and sticky sliders, etc. Upgraded to a Dell Studio XPS (7i, X58, 3GB DDR3, 2x 500GB WD, ATI graphics, Vista 64) and love it. Absolutely go for a the latest Intel technology, the new triple channel architecture is a huge benefit.

Unless you have huge images that you work with its doubtful you need 6GB. LR is a sequential processor and doesn't load multiple images at a time - develop one at a time. Tom's Hardware recently found that there is very little benefit in 6GB over 3GB for Vista and the tests they ran. Since photoshop is a lesser extent app as you say you probably don't need 6GB, then again its probably only a $100 upgrade for the additional 3GB. Be sure to get in sets of 3 to take advantage of the architecture.

Drives, split up the process as much as possible. OS and apps on one, Images and catalogs on another and cache on a 3rd is popular. RAID as you see fit. My 2 drive setup works great.

[Rhossydd]

Drives, split up the process as much as possible. OS and apps on one, Images and catalogs on another and cache on a 3rd is popular. RAID as you see fit.

I think this is very important. Get very fast HDDs (WD Velociraptors) and split OS & programs on one disk, LR catalogue on another, then images can be on a slower disk(s) or RAID array.

Then just build as fast a system around them as you can afford.
I'm using a three disk raptor based system with 4gb ram & 2.4ghz Quad Core on 32bt XPP and have no real issues with performance here. Nothing special by today's standards.
It may be worth adding a decent graphics card that PS CS4 will take full advantage of too. It's a safe bet future versions of LR will need more from the graphics system as PS has done recently.

The monitor is a separate issue really. The best you can afford is a simple mantra for this.

Paul

[frugal]

I'd definitely agree that going for a separate disk for OS and applications is a really good idea. You won't need a massive drive for this but give yourself enough headroom so that you don't get annoyed 6 months from now if you run out of space.

Huge advantages here are that you know your catalogue RAID will be devoted to that kind of data, and will only be read when you're using it; this should give you faster application load times and also improve performance while using LR or similar programs as it can read application data and image data at the same time (or do things like write to scratch).

The other big advantage is that it makes OS upgrades a lot easier and you don't have nearly as many fears about what might happen to your data during the process.

Finally, if one of your RAID disks fail, you shouldn't notice as much of a performance hit when it's rebuilding as it should be able to still read and write to your OS drive (so loading programs will still be quick) while it's reading from the one good RAID disk and writing to the new RAID disk.

[joedecker]

First, thanks everyone, there's a lot of good info there.  I need to resist the urge to upgrade *everything*, though, it's easy to optimize for a really good $6000 box, I'd like to optimize for something in the $3K range or not too much more.

MBehrens:  Yeah, that Dell (the 435?) is sweet price/performance and can be configured to the specs I gave off the shelf, which is very appealing.  The general data from Tom's aside, the few specific numbers I've seen on the Mac Pro show a 20% performance improvement on Lightroom 2.1 for 64-bit over 32-bit.  But I will take your advice under consideration that more than 3-4GB or RAM may be overkill ... at least for today.  Most of my work is with 21MP images, not a lot of panoramamania.  (What I'll want in the same box 3-4 years from now might very well be different.)

Again, thanks everyone.  

--j

[Sheldon N]

You can do MUCH better for quite a bit cheaper than $3k. Don't buy Dell, build your own PC. Dell's are restricted and overloaded with bloated software demos.  Building your own is really quite easy if you are moderately comfortable with a screwdriver and popping in an OS install disk.

If I were building a system new to meet your specific needs, going for best of the best performance (within reasonable cost considerations), my total comes out to about $2200. I built my own quad core system about 4 months ago for around $1400 and it is really fast with Lightroom/CS4. I'd recommend going up to an i7 processor and loading it up with RAM. RAM is cheap, don't dare start out with just 3GB!

Here's a screen capture of my recommended shopping cart from NewEgg.com

Highlights...

i7 920 processor
Vista 64bit
12GB of RAM (6 x 2GB DDR3 1600, only $180!)
ATI 4850 Video card (high end but not bleeding edge, works really well with Open GL in CS4)
CD/DVD Burner drive
300GB VelociRaptor x 2 (1st main drive for OS/applications/Vista Paging File;  2nd drive for CS4 scratch disk and Lightroom Library Database Files)
1TB Western Digital Caviar Black x 4 (2 pairs in Raid 1 mirroring configuration, 2 TB of total storage for image files)

Keeping the OS/Applications/Windows Paging file on one drive, the library database files on a second drive, and the images on a third drive will help optimize Lightroom performance.  If you are moderately computer saavy, willing to do some reading/research, and are comfortable working with editing BIOS settings this setup would also be very easy to overclock for significantly increased performance without any added cost.

Check out a nice NEC 24" or 30" WUXi with a monitor calibrator included as a preferred monitor of choice. Total system cost including monitor would be just over your $3k budget.

[jpegman]

Joe

Here is some more fuel for the fire - Check out Scott Byers Blog (Scott is a Principal Scientist at Adobe) at  http://blogs.adobe.com/scottbyer/

Also check out his Photoshop World Sept 2007 Powerpoint Presentation with Adam Jerugim on Photoshop Performance for a full rundown on testing Adobe did and results interpretation  at http://blogs.adobe.com/scottbyer/PSWorldPe...on_Expanded.pdf  

Of note, on hard drives - he makes the blog statement (in his March 08, 2006 "Reap What You Measure" Blog:

"Even worse, if the system paging file and Photoshop's scratch file are on the same physical drive (meaning you only have one set of drive heads), what will often happen is that Photoshop wants to read a new tile into memory from it's scratch files, but the memory it's trying to read that into has been paged out - so a little gets paged in (operating systems have annoyingly small page sizes), Photoshop continues trying to read in it's tile, a little gets read in, then more of the place it's trying to read it into needs to get paged back in, then a little more gets read, then...  Well, you get the idea.  Now, when both Photoshop scratch and the paging file are on the same physical disk, each of those little flips between reading the scratch file and paging in the memory to read it into forces the drive head to go to that part of the disk.  Photoshop will now be running about the slowest it could run on your machine."

Hank

[Tklimek]

Just for comparison, I configured this system for $2300 at Dell.

I recently just had a bad experience with Dell (tried to return a part 9 days past their very short 21 day return policy; they didn't budge, I'm ticked off)....but.......this system matches up not too badly with Sheldon's home brew (not exactly the same but close).  I've had home brew systems most of my life and one thing I can say is sometimes they work perfectly.....and other times they require more effort to ensure complete system compatibilty.  One thing you get from Dell or any other very large system seller is GUARANTEED compatibility; you never have to worry about things like...."will this memory play nice with this motherboard?".  And if anything goes wrong with your homebrew....YOU are the warranty and support system.  With large system integrators, you can have THEM fix things (during various warranty periods, etc).

Anyway, I used to be a 100% advocate for homebrew systems, and have since changed my view.  My current system is a Dell which I purchased which works just fine.  My typical suggestion to folks looking for new systems is homebrew is great *if* you like to muck about and consider yourself a PC enthusiast; otherwise store bought systems may not offer as much customization but offer other advantages.

Don't forget Windows 7 is due by the end of this year and I would recommend that 64bit system; most folks who have used it (I've played with the beta) heartily recommend it over Vista.  By the way, Windows 7 will be last 32bit operating system from Microsoft; all future systems will be 64bit or better.

Here is the list of components that created at Dell:  


My Components
PROCESSORS Intel® Core™i7-920 processor(8MB L2 Cache, 2.66GHz) edit
WARRANTY AND SERVICE 1Yr Ltd Hardware Warranty, InHome Service after Remote Diagnosis edit
OPERATING SYSTEM Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium Edition SP1, 64-Bit edit
OFFICE SOFTWARE No Productivity software pre-installed edit
MEMORY 8GB Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM at 1066MHz - 4 DIMMs edit
HARD DRIVE 1.5TB Data Security RAID 1(2x1.5TB SATA 7200 RPM HDDs) edit
ADDITIONAL HARD DRIVE 1.5TB 7200 RPM SATA Hard Drive edit
OPTICAL DRIVE Single Drive: 16X CD/DVD burner (DVD+/-RW) w/double layer write capability edit
MONITORS No Monitor edit
VIDEO CARD ATI Radeon HD 4850 512MB edit
SOUND CARD Integrated 7.1 Channel Audio edit
SPEAKERS No speakers (Speakers are required to hear audio from your system) edit
KEYBOARD Dell USB Consumer Multimedia Keyboard edit
MOUSE Dell Laser Mouse edit
MODEM No Modem Option edit
My Accessories
SECURITY SOFTWARE McAfee SecurityCenter with anti-virus, anti-spyware, firewall, 15-months edit
My Service
REMOTE ACCESS Dell Remote Access, free basic service edit
DATASAFE ONLINE BACKUP Dell Online Backup 2GB for 1 year edit

ALSO INCLUDED WITH YOUR SYSTEM
Studio XPS Studio XPS 435  
Adobe Software Adobe® Acrobat® Reader 9.0 Multi-Language  
LABELS Windows Vista™ Premium


Cheers....

Todd in Chicago

You can do MUCH better for quite a bit cheaper than $3k. Don't buy Dell, build your own PC. Dell's are restricted and overloaded with bloated software demos.  Building your own is really quite easy if you are moderately comfortable with a screwdriver and popping in an OS install disk.

If I were building a system new to meet your specific needs, going for best of the best performance (within reasonable cost considerations), my total comes out to about $2200. I built my own quad core system about 4 months ago for around $1400 and it is really fast with Lightroom/CS4. I'd recommend going up to an i7 processor and loading it up with RAM. RAM is cheap, don't dare start out with just 3GB!

Here's a screen capture of my recommended shopping cart from NewEgg.com

Highlights...

i7 920 processor
Vista 64bit
12GB of RAM (6 x 2GB DDR3 1600, only $180!)
ATI 4850 Video card (high end but not bleeding edge, works really well with Open GL in CS4)
CD/DVD Burner drive
300GB VelociRaptor x 2 (1st main drive for OS/applications/Vista Paging File;  2nd drive for CS4 scratch disk and Lightroom Library Database Files)
1TB Western Digital Caviar Black x 4 (2 pairs in Raid 1 mirroring configuration, 2 TB of total storage for image files)

Keeping the OS/Applications/Windows Paging file on one drive, the library database files on a second drive, and the images on a third drive will help optimize Lightroom performance.  If you are moderately computer saavy, willing to do some reading/research, and are comfortable working with editing BIOS settings this setup would also be very easy to overclock for significantly increased performance without any added cost.

Check out a nice NEC 24" or 30" WUXi with a monitor calibrator included as a preferred monitor of choice. Total system cost including monitor would be just over your $3k budget.

[Sheldon N]

Not to beat up on Dell... but there are a couple important factors to note if you're comparing spec list to spec list.

The eVGA motherboard will be much better than the Dell, more slots, more expandability, and better performance/better chipsets. Not to mention you can actually control the computer vs. having a locked down Dell BIOS.
 
i7 Processors/MB's do best with DDR3 memory in groups of 3 chips, either go 2GBx3, or 2GBx6. Going w/4 Dimm's will be detrimental to performance.

The speed of the OS drive and the speed of the scratch disk are hugely important - which is why I recommended the two raptor drives. Even faster is doing a two drive RAID 0 setup for each volume (OS & Scratch), but that would have ended up with 8 hard drives in the case and would have been less failsafe due to RAID 0 vs single drives.

With just a two volume setup you are forced to consolidate two of three important factors (OS/Paging, Scratch/Library DB, and working image files) onto a single drive, to the detriment of performance.

If you configure the hard drives the same in the two machines (1.5 TB drive x 3  vs. 1TB x 4 & 300GB Raptor x 2) then the price of the homebuild system goes down almost $500.

The ability to overclock a the CPU does not exist with Dell (locked BIOS) but is actually quite easy with a homebuild system. For no added cost you can make a few simple adjustments and have a 3.2 or 3.4Ghz processor instead of the stock 2.66Ghz.  It's incredibly easy... just google "How to OC i7 920" and the top five results are excellent How To articles. Dell wants an extra $1000 to upgrade from 2.66Ghz to 2.93Ghz.


Yes, any of these computers are going to be excellent performers but there is a significant price/performance advantage to the homebuild system. If someone wants a warrantee and doesn't feel comfortable doing it themselves, then there's nothing wrong with getting the Dell.

[Pete Ferling]

If you get the Dell Precisions (and expect to pay a whole lot of $$$), you'll get some solid machines.  I have a ten year old Precision 420 Dual PIII, which has been relegated to online surfing and basic PC stuff, that still gets daily use and it's all original hardware - zero issues.

I just retired a Precision 620 (that replaced the 420) in favor of a BOXX 7400, also pricey, but another custom built to take the heat kind of machine.  Just like Macs, such machines are high end hardware and designed to work, but at a price -which is cheap in considering that even though I can build or repair my own.  I have little time to do so, and cannot afford to be down and miss deadlines.

However, if budget is your primary concern or limitation, you can build a better machine than buying a low end PC for the same money, but expect to spend more time on the backend with maintenance, bug hunts and upkeep.