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tived

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What Makes Photoshop tick? CPU
« on: June 21, 2010, 09:45:12 pm »

Hi Guys,

Sitting here on the fence and contemplating building a new workstation for my Photoshop work (everything for Digital Photography), and I look at the various offerings.

I am thinking of building a Windows based machine again, looked at the Macpro (work on a Macpro too) but I feel I have better expansions options on a PC/Windows machine.
So, I have been looking at CPU's both from AMD and INTEL, i also have one of each of these in the stable already, but they are both getting a bit long in the tooth.

Now I am thinking either Xeon or Opteron, Dual processor, mainly because I can fit a whole lot more ram into these, and I think the sweet spot is the 4Gb sticks, the 8Gb sticks are too expensive atm, but most workstation boards will support both 4 and 8GB sticks, so there is room for expansion later.

I am looking for a box with about 3-5 years life-span, with various upgrades in-between, such as more memory and faster CPU's as they come down in price. The problem is if they do not continue the CPU-socket, but such is life.

So, in today's market you can get AMD Magny-Cours with 8 or 12 cores but lower Ghz or INTEL XEON Westmere with 4 or 6 cores, but higher Ghz, (yes, there is an 8-core Xeon but at USD$4k ouch) so which way to turn, INTEL has been very successful in the past 4 years.

So everything else being equal, is more cores better then higher CPU frequency? both of these platforms now uses the same memory, they can both have upto 256GB of ram if one could find and afford 16Gb sticks :-) i Am thinking 64-72GB depending on the board chosen.

Now, I know the CPU isn't the only thing that makes a difference here, GPU, #of ram, but most importantly is the hard drive speed, but more on this later

thanks for taking your time

Henrik
« Last Edit: June 21, 2010, 09:47:09 pm by tived »
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Jack Flesher

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« Reply #1 on: June 21, 2010, 10:06:18 pm »

Quote from: tived
So everything else being equal, is more cores better then higher CPU frequency?

The faster processor is generally more important that total number of cores. I think once you hit 4 cores, you start to get diminishing returns with additional cores.  So once you are at least at 4 cores, I would then lean toward the fastest processor within reasonable price.

But then I'd go Mac to begin with .  Here, there could be a good argument for the 4-core 3.33 over the 8-core 2.93.  On Mac, the downside to the 4-core machines is they only have 4 RAM slots, not 8, so I'd then also do 3x8G sticks if I bought the 4-core MacPro.

My .02,
« Last Edit: June 21, 2010, 10:08:05 pm by Jack Flesher »
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ErikKaffehr

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« Reply #2 on: June 21, 2010, 10:28:23 pm »

Hi,

I'm with Jack on this. But I'd say one more time, memory is most important. My finding is also that Lightroom very seldom utilizes even four CPUs.

I essentially agree with Jack on CPU-speed, but want to point out that 3.33 GHz is just 13% faster than 2.93.

There is a wealth of information here: http://macperformanceguide.com/index.html

Using an SSD as boot/scratch disk would probably give you best return on investment if you are working with big files, but I'm not yet there.

BR
Erik

Quote from: Jack Flesher
The faster processor is generally more important that total number of cores. I think once you hit 4 cores, you start to get diminishing returns with additional cores.  So once you are at least at 4 cores, I would then lean toward the fastest processor within reasonable price.

But then I'd go Mac to begin with .  Here, there could be a good argument for the 4-core 3.33 over the 8-core 2.93.  On Mac, the downside to the 4-core machines is they only have 4 RAM slots, not 8, so I'd then also do 3x8G sticks if I bought the 4-core MacPro.

My .02,
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tived

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« Reply #3 on: June 22, 2010, 12:06:14 am »

Thanks Jack and Erik,

I know Lloyd's excellent site but it relates on the hardware side mainly to Mac, and they are fine machines use one myself,( though it too is getting old (Quad))! and there are some parallels to be drawn on, except that you are limited in your choice of what hardware to have in your box, and how much you can fit in, but man it does look good in a Mac case :-)

Jokes aside :-)

"diminishing returns with additional cores." this was the findings 2-4 years ago, haven't things changed? I had really hoped that Adobe would have improved on their code over the past two generation from CS3->CS5. I guess I am sitting here and drawing the various constrains vs cost.

I can upgrade my current workstation to a 16 core (2x8core), 2.3Ghz box with 32GB ram for USD$2630 (2xAMD Magny-Cours, Asus Mainboard + 8x4GB RAM), and would probably have to spend similar on a HDD sub-system and a new GPU.

or I could go the INTEL way and get 3.3Ghz 2x6cores, mainboard and 32Gb ram for USD$3700, and going to 64GB is another USD$1120 (32gb)

Probably if i did the math, the Intel would probably give me the best performance, if its all about Ghz over more cores.

thanks guys, I will think a bit more about this

Henrik


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Jack Flesher

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« Reply #4 on: June 22, 2010, 12:38:57 am »

Right now, C1 is the only photo-related program I regularly use that seems to fully takes advantage of more than 4 cores. But even then, between processor speed and more cores, it's a toss-up as to which is best.  Going from 4 to 8 cores in C1 doesn't cut times in half, does more like 10 or 15% better, but at least it's noticeable.  There are only so many side-processes you can offload and why I think processor speed is worth it even at just a 15% gain -- because most programs will see that as a directly proportional benefit, and especially ones that don't multi-thread well, which most don't.  

If I had to build something up today from scratch and wanted the best bang for the buck, I'd probably spring for the fastest hex-core (one) I could find and put it on a MB that supported at least 32Gigs of RAM, and supported SATA3.  I would stripe a pair of 100G SSDs for the OS and apps.  With over 32G ram, you won't need scratch except on rare occasions, so I'd partition off a thin outer rim on a pair of 2TB seagate spinners for scratch and use the rest as my working image array.  After that, adding a second hex-core might get you a 6% gain, doubling RAM another 6%, and using all SSD's maybe another 6%... So basically doubling the cost of the initial build and getting to total state of the art hardware, you might see 15 - 20% better performance tops, but only only in some cases -- so personally I don't think that would be a worthwhile expenditure, at least for me.
« Last Edit: June 22, 2010, 12:53:31 am by Jack Flesher »
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Christopher

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« Reply #5 on: June 22, 2010, 04:39:09 am »

Quote from: Jack Flesher
Right now, C1 is the only photo-related program I regularly use that seems to fully takes advantage of more than 4 cores. But even then, between processor speed and more cores, it's a toss-up as to which is best.  Going from 4 to 8 cores in C1 doesn't cut times in half, does more like 10 or 15% better, but at least it's noticeable.  There are only so many side-processes you can offload and why I think processor speed is worth it even at just a 15% gain -- because most programs will see that as a directly proportional benefit, and especially ones that don't multi-thread well, which most don't.  

If I had to build something up today from scratch and wanted the best bang for the buck, I'd probably spring for the fastest hex-core (one) I could find and put it on a MB that supported at least 32Gigs of RAM, and supported SATA3.  I would stripe a pair of 100G SSDs for the OS and apps.  With over 32G ram, you won't need scratch except on rare occasions, so I'd partition off a thin outer rim on a pair of 2TB seagate spinners for scratch and use the rest as my working image array.  After that, adding a second hex-core might get you a 6% gain, doubling RAM another 6%, and using all SSD's maybe another 6%... So basically doubling the cost of the initial build and getting to total state of the art hardware, you might see 15 - 20% better performance tops, but only only in some cases -- so personally I don't think that would be a worthwhile expenditure, at least for me.


I can tell you that PS and LR don't use all of my 12 cores which run at 3 Ghz each. C1 does, or at least, a lot more than any Adobe product. However, compared to that C1 does not run stable on my workstation, so the better speed does not help at all. It is kinda frustrating when you see hor great 3D and audio apps are optimized for multi CPU support and how far behind our photo software still is.
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ErikKaffehr

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« Reply #6 on: June 22, 2010, 06:53:38 am »

Hi,

You should be very careful about comparing GHz on Athlon and Intel, and there are many other parameters. I'm under the impression that Intel Xeons now are superior to AMD cores. But I don't really know. Keep in mind that you essentially get what you pay for, the competition is such that prices reflect performance pretty well.

For instance, different CPUs may have different amount of cache, different number of memory channels of different speeds.

Perhaps the smartest move is to wait. Adding memory and possibly using an SSD for scratch disk may give most benefits.

Best regards
Erik


Quote from: tived
Thanks Jack and Erik,

I know Lloyd's excellent site but it relates on the hardware side mainly to Mac, and they are fine machines use one myself,( though it too is getting old (Quad))! and there are some parallels to be drawn on, except that you are limited in your choice of what hardware to have in your box, and how much you can fit in, but man it does look good in a Mac case :-)

Jokes aside :-)

"diminishing returns with additional cores." this was the findings 2-4 years ago, haven't things changed? I had really hoped that Adobe would have improved on their code over the past two generation from CS3->CS5. I guess I am sitting here and drawing the various constrains vs cost.

I can upgrade my current workstation to a 16 core (2x8core), 2.3Ghz box with 32GB ram for USD$2630 (2xAMD Magny-Cours, Asus Mainboard + 8x4GB RAM), and would probably have to spend similar on a HDD sub-system and a new GPU.

or I could go the INTEL way and get 3.3Ghz 2x6cores, mainboard and 32Gb ram for USD$3700, and going to 64GB is another USD$1120 (32gb)

Probably if i did the math, the Intel would probably give me the best performance, if its all about Ghz over more cores.

thanks guys, I will think a bit more about this

Henrik
« Last Edit: June 22, 2010, 06:55:20 am by ErikKaffehr »
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tived

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« Reply #7 on: June 22, 2010, 07:50:28 am »

Quote from: ErikKaffehr
Hi,

You should be very careful about comparing GHz on Athlon and Intel, and there are many other parameters. I'm under the impression that Intel Xeons now are superior to AMD cores. But I don't really know. Keep in mind that you essentially get what you pay for, the competition is such that prices reflect performance pretty well.

For instance, different CPUs may have different amount of cache, different number of memory channels of different speeds.

Perhaps the smartest move is to wait. Adding memory and possibly using an SSD for scratch disk may give most benefits.

Best regards
Erik

AMD, is trying very hard to be competitive, so you may get better Ghz/Cores for your buck then with Intel which is going at a premium, AMD haven't had a rising star, well, since the Opteron 2xx series (vintage 2005~2008), the beginning of the Dual Cores, and it was due to the way they had structured their memory internally on the CPU Core. where Intel had the memory on the northbridge, if memory serves me right. Intel has obviously learned from this mistake and the result is the current crop of Intel processors that you see around.

There is no doubt that INTEL is very strong at the moment, AMD really has to pull out some magic rabbits. I personally am hoping that they are able to do so with this new processor, if they can get the Ghz up, they will be a force to be reckon with. Obviously this is more prevalent in the Server market, then in our little world (or I should say my little world :-) of a Photoshop dream machine)

I very much would like to support the underdog as you may have noticed, but as this conversation has taken place, I am leaning more towards the Intel platform, as do need build a faster system to keep up with the ever increasing file sizes that I have to work with.

I really appreciate your input here, thanks very much, its something we can all learn from

Henrik

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Jack Flesher

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« Reply #8 on: June 22, 2010, 10:41:04 am »

Quote from: ErikKaffehr
You should be very careful about comparing GHz on Athlon and Intel, and there are many other parameters. I'm under the impression that Intel Xeons now are superior to AMD cores.

excellent point.  Some of the Xeons and i7's now do an automatic turbo boost to one or two of the internal cores increasing clock rates by 15 to 20% while taking the other cores offline to keep heat under control.  In this way they offer a speed boost for programs that are not ideally suited to multiple cores, and this can represent a significant performance boost for those programs.  

The other important bottleneck item for performance is RAM throughput.  Obviously a MB and CPU's that can fully utilize 1066Mhz or 1600Mhz DDR3 RAM is advised.
« Last Edit: June 22, 2010, 10:41:32 am by Jack Flesher »
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tived

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« Reply #9 on: June 22, 2010, 10:12:09 pm »

Hi guys,

just to quote Annandtech: http://www.anandtech.com/show/2978/amd-s-1...l-s-6-core-xeon. Interesting read.
"AMD still won’t have a chance if your application does not scale well with extra cores. In that case you are better off with the higher clocked and better per-core performance of the Intel CPUs. But it is unclear if Intel will prevail in truly multi-threaded software now that a grim and determined AMD is willing to offer two CPUs for the price of one just to win the race.  "

and at the end
"The bottom line is: is this twelve-core Opteron a good deal? For users waiting to use it in a workstation we have our doubts. You’ll benefit from the extra cores when rendering complex scenes, but in all other scenarios (quick simple rendering, modeling) the higher clocked and higher IPC Xeon X5600 series is simply the better choice."

so I guess this sort of answers my own questions. However its interesting how the AMD CPU fares against the Intel CPU, as I said an interesting read.

Another advantage to the AMD is that it supports up to 24 DIMM slots vs INTEL 18 slots, so it will be cheaper to fill with cheaper priced RAM.

Food for thoughts, it would be interesting to see how PS and Digital Photo related programs perform on both, i guess we are seeing the INTEL side already in both Mac and PC workstations atm.

Thanks for sharing

Henrik
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tived

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« Reply #10 on: June 22, 2010, 10:33:27 pm »

Quote from: ErikKaffehr
Hi,

You should be very careful about comparing GHz on Athlon and Intel, and there are many other parameters. I'm under the impression that Intel Xeons now are superior to AMD cores. But I don't really know. Keep in mind that you essentially get what you pay for, the competition is such that prices reflect performance pretty well.

For instance, different CPUs may have different amount of cache, different number of memory channels of different speeds.

Perhaps the smartest move is to wait. Adding memory and possibly using an SSD for scratch disk may give most benefits.

Best regards
Erik


I think you will find that the AMD has real Cores where as INTEL is using HT core. The memory as I understand it is running faster now on the AMD vs the INTEL. It is the scalability that will be the issue.
Having done a bit more reading now, I think that the way i understand PS to run, it will mostly be benefiting from the faster CPU. However, when we look at other programs such as C1 and some of the Pano programs, they will most likely scale better.

I am still a month a way before making my final decision (need to beg for the funding first :-) )

thanks

Henrik

PS: I did this very thing to an older Macpro Dualcore 2.6Ghz, I added SSD drives and more memory to it, and it was a bit like it had rejuvenated, it was more so noticeable as the boot SSD drive died to a power surge and I popped in the old disk, boy was it suddenly slow. So yet, if you want to make a cheap upgrade to speed up your computer, definitely add SSD drives to the working drives, such as boot, and scratch disk. The more the better
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ErikKaffehr

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« Reply #11 on: June 22, 2010, 10:37:45 pm »

Hi!

My work is with simulating nuclear power plants, quite different from photography, but we used to use a lot of computing power.

A couple years ago we had one of our computers filled to the roof. It was running on a 4 Intel Xeon computers wit 2GHz and had about 95% CPU-load. We replaced it with 4 3GHz Intel Xeons and got no measurable advantage. After that we had an another computer with 4 AMD Opterons at 2.8 GHz, that computer was about two times faster, CPU load went down to about 50%.

Recently our company bought six computer with dual 3.33 GHz Xeon computers for running simulation of the reactor core. These computers were to slow, and I had to find some better ones. After digging trough benchmark data I came up with a Quad Core Nehalem Xeon  which was also above 3 GHz, that computer could run our programs with just 50% load on two cores.

You cannot really compare CPUs on clock speed alone, the clock speed is interesting if you compare processors belonging to the same family. It's hard to know which family and generation a processor belongs to. But sometimes processor speed simply doesn't matter.

It's a good idea to learn to use the "Activity Monitor" on Windows to find out what the bottlenecks are, be warned it's not very easy.

Best regards
Erik


Quote from: tived
Hi guys,

just to quote Annandtech: http://www.anandtech.com/show/2978/amd-s-1...l-s-6-core-xeon. Interesting read.
"AMD still won’t have a chance if your application does not scale well with extra cores. In that case you are better off with the higher clocked and better per-core performance of the Intel CPUs. But it is unclear if Intel will prevail in truly multi-threaded software now that a grim and determined AMD is willing to offer two CPUs for the price of one just to win the race.  "

and at the end
"The bottom line is: is this twelve-core Opteron a good deal? For users waiting to use it in a workstation we have our doubts. You’ll benefit from the extra cores when rendering complex scenes, but in all other scenarios (quick simple rendering, modeling) the higher clocked and higher IPC Xeon X5600 series is simply the better choice."

so I guess this sort of answers my own questions. However its interesting how the AMD CPU fares against the Intel CPU, as I said an interesting read.

Another advantage to the AMD is that it supports up to 24 DIMM slots vs INTEL 18 slots, so it will be cheaper to fill with cheaper priced RAM.

Food for thoughts, it would be interesting to see how PS and Digital Photo related programs perform on both, i guess we are seeing the INTEL side already in both Mac and PC workstations atm.

Thanks for sharing

Henrik
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Bart_van_der_Wolf

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« Reply #12 on: June 23, 2010, 03:57:13 am »

Quote from: ErikKaffehr
You cannot really compare CPUs on clock speed alone, the clock speed is interesting if you compare processors belonging to the same family.

Hi Erik,

I very much agree. Processors can vary in their efficiency for different tasks. They also vary in the amount of cache memory, and in the RAM memory interface. Even the memory chips themselves have different specs which may or may not play well with the processor(s). Also the types of progamming optimization can work better with one processor type than with another.

Many variables.

Cheers,
Bart
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tived

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« Reply #13 on: June 23, 2010, 04:13:12 am »

Quote from: BartvanderWolf
Hi Erik,

I very much agree. Processors can vary in their efficiency for different tasks. They also vary in the amount of cache memory, and in the RAM memory interface. Even the memory chips themselves have different specs which may or may not play well with the processor(s). Also the types of progamming optimization can work better with one processor type than with another.

Many variables.

Cheers,
Bart


Hi Erik and Bart,

thanks for replying.

I can't remember what model of Macpros but around 2008, and but we played around with various tasks, and timed them. What surprised me, was that my old Opteron performed some photoshop tasks faster then a more current model Macpro, despite having more ram and faster CPU's. Now, its not fair of me to say this, because I can't back it up with stats, but needless to say, we were both very surprised with our findings, of course then Mac released a newer model and my victory was short lived. But my point is, as its also shown in the www.annandtech.com site that in some tasks the AMD architecture wins hands down, despite being slower, but that sword has a sharp edge on the other side too :-) there are more situations where it currently isn't the fastest.

So yes, its very dependent on the task at hand. It would be really interesting if someone from Adobe could help point out what it really is that makes Photoshop tick. I have posted a note to Jack Nack, but we will.

Erik, wow, interesting work! Next time you are looking for a new computer, maybe head over to www.2cpu.com there is some good knowledge there.

Thanks

Henrik
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« Reply #14 on: June 26, 2010, 10:16:33 am »

Just a quick remember CS4 and CS5 now both use the graphics card you don't need anything too powerful but it will certainly be much smoother.

Best of luck with the new machine.
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Jack Flesher

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« Reply #15 on: June 26, 2010, 11:36:35 am »

Quote from: ImplantImages
Just a quick remember CS4 and CS5 now both use the graphics card you don't need anything too powerful but it will certainly be much smoother.

Best of luck with the new machine.

Actually, in my tests, the Open GL still isn't very effective when you're working with large files -- web images yes, large MF print files definitely no.  I've gone back to leaving it off in CS5 since I get much smoother screen redraws and sizings with it off.  And my card is not slouch, a GTX 285 with 1G VRAM running in my Mac Pro.  However, the better card still helps CS with things like brushes, less lag when drawing.

Cheers,
« Last Edit: June 26, 2010, 11:38:43 am by Jack Flesher »
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