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Author Topic: dual core . . . ?  (Read 5173 times)

dabreeze

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dual core . . . ?
« on: December 23, 2005, 01:33:06 am »

o.k., after reading so much the last few days & nights my eyes have crossed, i think i may have figured out a strategy for a fairly serious computer upgrade. i recently started working with photokit sharpener pro on sizable gallery prints (20x30ish) and you can guess what this means. 1Ds 16 bit files uprezzed with 6-8 adjustment layers yielding at times files of 2-3 gb!! kinda slows thangs down a touch!

so from my reading and consultations with my good friends/computer geeks who've helped to clarify some of what i'm just learning, i think i've reached a decent starting point:

for o/s & scratch disk, 2 fast scsi (15k) hard drives (fujitso seems pretty reasonable) probably not setup in raid 0;

a good amount of RAM (4 gb) but not too much b/c with 32 bit o/s ps doesn't access more than 2s;

matrox 128 mb PCIe video card for my twin trinitron crt monitors;

a 200-300 gb sata hard drive for internal archiving (in tandem with backup dvds);

and finally some sort of dual cpu or dual core cpu setup. my budget pretty much dictates either one very good amd athlon 64 2x 4800 dual core cpu or 2 less expensive single core amd athon 64s in a two slot motherboard (either tyan or asus).

my question is this: which would photoshop cs2 rather see? two single cores or a single dual core?

also, of course i'll do a consultation with the final builder, but have i made any fundamental errors or wrong assumptions in my component choices here. i'm  pretty much a newbie and any help would be greatly appreciated.

on a side note, i live and work in sedona, arizona as a landscape photographer. i do guided photo expeditions here and in many of the other wonderfully photogenic locations throughout northern arizona. so, in return for your good advice/suggestions, don't hesitate to ask for location suggestions if you're ever planning on coming down this way.

many thanks again in advance!

oh, and here's a nice one from this fall:

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Jonathan Wienke

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dual core . . . ?
« Reply #1 on: December 23, 2005, 08:42:30 am »

Photoshop won't know the difference between 1 dual-core and 2 single-core CPUs. Which is faster will depend on the FSB bus speed, motherboard design, cache levels, etc. There isn't a clear-cut answer as to which is faster, it will depend on the specific configurations being compared. If you're getting 64-bit hardware, there's no reason not to go beyond 4GB RAM, because XP 64 will support it, and the next version of Photoshop almost certainly will as well. Other than that, your strategy seems sound.
« Last Edit: December 23, 2005, 08:46:20 am by Jonathan Wienke »
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DiaAzul

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dual core . . . ?
« Reply #2 on: December 23, 2005, 11:29:26 am »

Potentially you are better going the two slot, single core route at this time (unless the price of dual core chips has reduced significantly). The other advantage is that you are then in a position to upgrade to dual core chips in both slots at a later date without having to repurchase a new motherboard/ram/etc. There was a review/test on this but unfortunately I cannot find it at the moment.
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Jack Flesher

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dual core . . . ?
« Reply #3 on: December 23, 2005, 12:54:28 pm »

If you buy a relatively current MB supporting either dual processors or dual core, and fill the slot(s) with relatively fast and current processors, then using the above drive and memory array you've outlined you will not likely notice a significant difference in overall performance between the two systems.  And that system will essentially be state-of-the-art for 2-D image processing.

Cheers,
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cbensen

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dual core . . . ?
« Reply #4 on: December 31, 2005, 01:19:11 pm »

// for o/s & scratch disk, 2 fast scsi (15k) hard drives (fujitso seems pretty reasonable) probably
// not setup in raid 0;

Why wouldn't you use SATA?

// a good amount of RAM (4 gb) but not too much b/c with 32 bit o/s ps doesn't access more than // 2s;

I thought CS2 did, but at any rate it really helps to have 4 gigs vs 2. For every bit of ram that Photoshop asks the OS for the OS has to keep track of it so with 4 gigs of ram your applications only get to use about 2 gigs of it.

// matrox 128 mb PCIe video card for my twin trinitron crt monitors;

I'm not up to date on video cards but I do know that Matrox fell ATI years ago.

// a 200-300 gb sata hard drive for internal archiving (in tandem with backup dvds);

Okay, her's your SATA drive, but why only 200-300gig? I recently got a 500 gig SATA drive and I'm glad I did. Its easy to upgrade a hard drive though so I can understand if you are trying to cut costs.

// and finally some sort of dual cpu or dual core cpu setup. my budget pretty much dictates either // one very good amd athlon 64 2x 4800 dual core cpu or 2 less expensive single core amd athon // 64s in a two slot motherboard (either tyan or asus).

I'm not sure of the current prices of AMDs but it seems odd that a dual core cpu is less expensive than 2 single core CPUs. And since you are going with a 64 bit CPU why aren't you going with 64 bit Windows so you can add more RAM? I'd saygo with the fastest FSB and CPU you can with the most amount of L1 and L2 cache.

// my question is this: which would photoshop cs2 rather see? two single cores or a single
// dual core?


They look the same to photoshop.

// also, of course i'll do a consultation with the final builder, but have i made any fundamental
// errors or wrong assumptions in my component choices here. i'm  pretty much a newbie and
// any help would be greatly appreciated.

Good luck, hope some of this helped.

// on a side note, i live and work in sedona, arizona as a landscape photographer. i do guided
// photo expeditions here and in many of the other wonderfully photogenic locations throughout
// northern arizona. so, in return for your good advice/suggestions, don't hesitate to ask for
// location suggestions if you're ever planning on coming down this way.

Sweet!

// many thanks again in advance!

// oh, and here's a nice one from this fall:

Nice photo!
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jani

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dual core . . . ?
« Reply #5 on: January 01, 2006, 10:03:58 am »

Quote
// for o/s & scratch disk, 2 fast scsi (15k) hard drives (fujitso seems pretty reasonable) probably
// not setup in raid 0;

Why wouldn't you use SATA?
Obviously because he thinks that a 15k RPM disk might give better performance than a 7.2k or 10k RPM disk.

Quote
I'm not sure of the current prices of AMDs but it seems odd that a dual core cpu is less expensive than 2 single core CPUs.
It's odd that you should think so.

(Read up on CPU production to find out why it's cheaper to manufacture one chip than two.)
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Jan

61Dynamic

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dual core . . . ?
« Reply #6 on: January 01, 2006, 01:27:52 pm »

Quote
for o/s & scratch disk, 2 fast scsi (15k) hard drives (fujitso seems pretty reasonable) probably not setup in raid 0;

Save yourself some cash and don't bother with SCSI. SATA drives these days are quite quick and a SCSI setup wont benefit you much considering the additional cost. SCSI is best suited for high-end server applications or video editing where absolute HDD speed is a must.

FYI, If you do RAID, do not use the RAID drives as your primary boot drive. It only adds another element that could go wrong with Windows. The OS should have its own drive separate from the RAID system.

Quote
and finally some sort of dual cpu or dual core cpu setup. my budget pretty much dictates either one very good amd athlon 64 2x 4800 dual core cpu or 2 less expensive single core amd athon 64s in a two slot motherboard (either tyan or asus).
The Dual-Core solution would be more cost effective. If you go for two processors then you have to buy server-level motherboard which generally require the use of ECC RAM. This can add a lot to the cost of things.

I don't know what the costs are currently but when I was pricing my system a few months back it was a good $600 cheaper for a dual-core setup (and that was when they first hit the market) than a two-processor setup.

Quote
my question is this: which would photoshop cs2 rather see? two single cores or a single dual core?
As said before, either setup would look no different to CS.

Quote
The other advantage is that you are then in a position to upgrade to dual core chips in both slots at a later date without having to repurchase a new motherboard/ram/etc
Just for anyone else who is reading this, that is only applicable to 64-bit AMD chips. Single-core and dual-core Intel chips are not swappable.
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Richard Marcellus

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dual core . . . ?
« Reply #7 on: January 02, 2006, 09:46:11 pm »

In case you were not aware of this, for the best performance your Photoshop scratch disk should be physically separate from your OS and programs. For my scratch I use a 20 gig partition of a 250 gig drive that is otherwise used for storage. You shouldn't partition your OS disk for the scratch volume. Some people recommend a bigger scratch disk, but with my file sizes, I don't find that the scratch file gets anywhere close to 20 gigs.

Regards,

Richard
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RomanJohnston

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dual core . . . ?
« Reply #8 on: January 03, 2006, 01:04:32 pm »

I just built a AMD DualCore 4200+ system...3GB of ram, and 4 SATAII Drives.

3 - 300Gig Drives for os/storage/partitions
1- 74Gb Raptor for my scratch disk.

I have a few external drives also for backup.

2 seperate video cards...but I still havent learned how to apply seperate profiles to seperate monitors yet...but I know you need seperate cards to do so....as even if its a dual head card...only one color profile can be associated.

I did this because of my new D2X....and it rips through those files like butter. Even panos put together quickly....very happy with the setup.

Havent tried or seen results from a dual (seperate) CPU setup...but if your considering dualcore.....from my perspective....it's worth every penny.

Roman
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dabreeze

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dual core . . . ?
« Reply #9 on: January 03, 2006, 10:05:30 pm »

thanks everybody for your feedback. lots of good stuff here. when everything's up & running, i'll report back on what works.
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ToddT

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dual core . . . ?
« Reply #10 on: January 04, 2006, 11:04:32 pm »

Check out  http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-10442_7-6389077.html Intel vs. AMD duel cores.

Also look into the AMD Opterons. Lower price and higher performance than the X2 with some over clocking.
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