So, what's a fast computer?

[PeterAit]

I bought a top-of-the-line desktop system about 4 years ago for my photo work. It has served me well, but now that I am starting to work with huge stitched panoramas (e.g., 50,000 x 7,000 pixels) it often seems slow. Maybe that's just the nature of the beast, but I would not mind speeding things up a bit. Here are my specs. How much speed improvement might I expect from an up-to-date system? Thanks.

- Windows 7 64 bits
- i7 CPU at 2.93 GHz
- 12 GB of RAM
- 2 hard disks in RAID 0 for boot and programs
- 2 hard disks in RAID 0 for Lightroom catalog and image files

[stamper]

Is that Windows 7 64 bits Professional? You would need the Professional version if you wanted to double the Ram

[PhotoEcosse]

Probably the biggest improvement you will experience with a more modern machine will come from having SSDs as well as HDDs.

[george2787]

We would need to know where are you waiting more, for example booting or opening PS will be maybe 5 times faster in a new machine with SSD, but that only counts as 0,1% of my daily workflow so it won't be worth a full system upgrade.

If you are using sticking programs i think massive amounts of RAM will help cut times (64 GB and up) but that can be applicable to your current system, try to determine how much memory are you using to avoid running out, stitching and rendering times can easily duplicate.

CPU intense apps will benefit from newer models, higher clock speed and more efficiency should give you a 30-40% speed boost with the same number of cores, if you are using multi threaded apps and go for 6-8 cores that can be improved.

And if you are using GPU intense apps such as Capture one and find yourself waiting a lot, a good graphics card will speed it drastically, but if you use Lightroom GPU won't make any difference... once again you will have to research what you need 

[Alan Goldhammer]

We also need to know what software you are using for the panos and what the possible bottle neck might be (CPU or RAM).  Certainly Photoshop can do better with as much RAM as you can throw at it and the newer i7 CPUs will offer some more advantage relative to what is on your old machine.  As noted by others the maximum amount of RAM is dependent on which version of Windows you have and your hardware.  Win8 can support more RAM than Win7.  If you want more than 32GB (4x8GB RAM modules) you are looking at a higher cost motherboard.

EDIT:  http://robertoblake.com/blog/2014/01/building-photoshop-cs6-computer-2014/ might be helpful in considering what to spec out if you go for a new computer.

[John Hue]

Probably the biggest improvement you will experience with a more modern machine will come from having SSDs as well as HDDs.

This. You could mount 10k rpm HDD in RAID0 and still not match the half of the speed of a single SSD. If you want ultimate speed, RAID0 two fast SSD. It will not only speed up the program istelf as some might say, it'll also speed up the program while using it (opening new modules, basically every operation that look into the hard drive to load rarela used files), as well as drastically speed up photo browsing.

Just remember one thing, SSD are not made to store files, a SSD can fail more easely than a good HDD. If you want ultimate security and speed, use a SSD (the bigger, the faster, that's how this technology works) and backup automaticaly on a RAID1 HDD system. I'd still recommend to put the files you're working on on the SSD otherwise you'll lose a lot of the advantages...

[PeterAit]

I think I may be expecting too much when dealing with these huge panos. In other words, some operations just take some time when you are dealing with a 32,000 x 6,000 pixel 16 bit image! When I have both LR and PS open and am running a process on the image in PS, such as Focus Magic, it can take 60 seconds or more. Task Manager tells me all 8 cores are cranking away at 99% and that almost all of my RAM is being used. I have Win 7 Professional so perhaps I will add some RAM to my 12 GB. Thanks for all the input.

[analoguey]

How much of I/O is happening? Moving your image files to an SSD and. Separate SSD for virtual memory should boost your speed up.
Also - not sure why you use both LR and PS together, but I'd imagine using one photo-processing software at a time is better.
LR and PS both store enough recent files in temp - so might involve lot of HDD operations.
Are your files larger than 1-2GB each?

[Alan Goldhammer]

Just remember one thing, SSD are not made to store files, a SSD can fail more easely than a good HDD.

How so?  New Samsung PRO SSDs have the same warranty length as WD Caviar Blacks, 5 years.

[Ken Bennett]

The new version of PTGui has been rewritten to use the GPU for additional processing power. If you're using that app, then a graphics card update might be a good inexpensive upgrade that will help with this specific task. They are claiming very large gains in the speed of stitching.

(My elderly iMac can't take advantage, alas.)

[John Hue]

How so?  New Samsung PRO SSDs have the same warranty length as WD Caviar Blacks, 5 years.

It is a well known fact that SSDs are fallible, despite what manufacturers say. I have witnessed only one HDD fail in almost 15 year assembling and repairing PCs for me and friends/family. On the last 3 years, I've had 2 of my own SSD fail and the one of my better half's as well, and those were "working" only when the PC was turned on, as opposed to the HDDs which were running 24/365 on a home server. OEM SSDs are more prone to fail than retail ones. It may be more of a personal opinion but it's one shared by many others from what I have heard / read.

Also when a HDD fails, it can often be repaired, even temporarily, even if the operation is expensive. If it's not a hardware fail, there are software tools able to dig back files that have been erased or corrupted due to software error. When a SSD fails, there is (at the moment) absolutely nothing you can do.

I am in favor of electronics over hardware regarding computers (I switched to the Ipod Touch as soon as it was announced just because it has a flash memory as opposed to the Ipod Classic), but IMHO SSD are not just there yet.

[Alan Goldhammer]

It is a well known fact that SSDs are fallible, despite what manufacturers say. I have witnessed only one HDD fail in almost 15 year assembling and repairing PCs for me and friends/family. On the last 3 years, I've had 2 of my own SSD fail and the one of my better half's as well, and those were "working" only when the PC was turned on, as opposed to the HDDs which were running 24/365 on a home server. OEM SSDs are more prone to fail than retail ones. It may be more of a personal opinion but it's one shared by many others from what I have heard / read.

We clearly don't have as long a track record with SSDs relative to HDDs.  I remember having a Compaq some years ago and the HDD would fail every 12 months or so like clockwork.  There have also been periodic QA/QC with HDDs even in recent years.  I've yet to have an SSD fail but this is only a 2 year snap shot right now and only on 10 machines.  I don't run anything 24/7 and the HTPCs I've built which all have HDDs in them seem to be doing just fine though they go into sleep when inactive.  I've just built a new one with a Crucial 512GB SSD for DVR purposes and it will be interesting to see how it holds up. 

From a "theoretical" perspective, things without moving parts should have an advantage.

[jrsforums]

It is a well known fact that SSDs are fallible, despite what manufacturers say. I have witnessed only one HDD fail in almost 15 year assembling and repairing PCs for me and friends/family. On the last 3 years, I've had 2 of my own SSD fail and the one of my better half's as well, and those were "working" only when the PC was turned on, as opposed to the HDDs which were running 24/365 on a home server. OEM SSDs are more prone to fail than retail ones. It may be more of a personal opinion but it's one shared by many others from what I have heard / read.

Also when a HDD fails, it can often be repaired, even temporarily, even if the operation is expensive. If it's not a hardware fail, there are software tools able to dig back files that have been erased or corrupted due to software error. When a SSD fails, there is (at the moment) absolutely nothing you can do.

I am in favor of electronics over hardware regarding computers (I switched to the Ipod Touch as soon as it was announced just because it has a flash memory as opposed to the Ipod Classic), but IMHO SSD are not just there yet.

I had a problem with an early Crucial SSD.  Support told me that SSDs need idle time to "clean up" things....in fact, most could be recovered by 12hrs of power on without signal cable attached.  I do know the technical details.

This was reinforced when I got a new Samsung 840EVO.  There were 3 options for set up.  The safest data mode set the power settings to never power off or sleep. 

So, I guess the message is, run them 24/7.....which I do with my HDs anyway. HDs do fail......I find in 3-5 years.  So the real message is back up everything you can't afford to lose or don't want to spend days reconstructing.

[BernardLanguillier]

The new version of PTGui has been rewritten to use the GPU for additional processing power. If you're using that app, then a graphics card update might be a good inexpensive upgrade that will help with this specific task. They are claiming very large gains in the speed of stitching.

(My elderly iMac can't take advantage, alas.)

Indeed, GPU and fast disk are key.

On my Mac Pro 2013 with 2xD700 GPUs, PTgui needs 7 seconds (seven) to stitch and save to a fast TB2 array (500+ MB/s actual write speed) a 80 megapixel pano. 350 megapixel would take longer (it is not linear) but still very fast. That is in fact far from being a very large pano for PTgui.

Cheers,
Bernard
 

[Justan]

From the dept of fwiw, I use a last generation enterprise class server for doing the workup on my panos. My main steed uses a 6 drive raid 5 array plus multiple processors each with multiple cores.

You can get any of a large variety of these servers slightly used on ebay and elsewhere for not a lot of cash. Plan on replacing the drives of whatever you get.