Computer designed for Photoprocessing?

[3dogs]

I have had two computers built aimed at optimising components for running things like Photoshop.
Both have borrowed heavily from gaming components. Neither has actually delivered anything staggering despite the inclusion of top end gaming Video cards,SSD ( and 10,000 rpm Raptors) and 16Gb RAM . HP I think had one on the market a couple of years ago for A$15,000.......way out of my league.

People I am talking to at the moment are talking in terms of a programmable Graphics card ???

Anyone been down the road of purpose built photo computers at all? I'd appreciate ANY feedback,

Cheers,

Andrew

 

[Emulator]

Yes, I discussed it with a prominent specialist system builder and built my latest to their guidance for their own systems. The most significant element is undoubtedly the SSD, 250G or more, in addition to 16G RAM or more and fast adequate graphics memory 4G or more, for a good graphics card. For photo editing the large volume of data loaded and saved as well as processed at high speed is the thing that matters.

 

[The Hat]

A quad core processor coupled with double or triple rated Ram and lots of it then finished off with very good gaming graphics cart will do the business, forget about the SSD drive it won’t be needed, that works for me and my friend "Photoshop"..

 

[CakeHole]

Part of the system and if a graphics card is even worth it comes down to version of Photoshop. If you are using a version older than CS6 (only a couple or so years old) then it will have no impact as it is only from version CS6 and onwards that Graphics or GPU acceleration was introduced. Multi graphics cards and crossfire or SLI is not worth it either as the Hardware acceleration in Photoshop has (or rather it did dunno about right this second) issues with more than one card. (at least some models of card). It also apparently even if you get crossfire/SLI to work has NO performance enhancement.

Mainstream "Gaming" GPUs are not the best for this type of work either. I do not know about right this second today but for off the shelf GPUs for Photoshop Nvidia Quadro cards are what used to be highly recommended. You want something thats good at Open GL rather than DirectX for Photoshop.

An SSD is only worth it if you are regularly loading and saving images or changes or mass amounts of filters. If you are just loading one image at a time then working on that for hours it has little impact. If you are loading multiple images though and saving your work progress regularly then an SSD can help. Again though you will need a SSD of significant size if you work with large files, its pointless having one and then saving and loading your images from a big standard HDD obviously.

The two most important things from my experience in a Photoshop system or any system that processes large amounts of visual data be it photos or video is the speed and amount of RAM along with the CPU.

If you are very serious user forget AMD entirely for the CPU (Intel muller them) and go for a core i7 or if even richer and more serious a high end Xeon system. Throw in 16 Gig of Ram as a minimum. If you are going to be loading images not on your local machine (for example a client brings you them stored on another media) then having a few spare USB 3 connections may also be useful to speed up access on stuff like a thumbdrive or USB HDD. (will not make much difference to USB 2 drives but will half the load time if its USB 3 drives).

 

[The Hat]

I use CS4 with Open GL and SLI enabled twin cards each with 2 gig of ram and I never use the hard drives till I have to save my work, it runs an i7 Intel 6 core processor..

 

[CakeHole]

I thought it was only from CS6 onward that full GPU acceleration was enabled. Though i admit the only link i can find for now (only searched quick) to back that up is...
http://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Adobe-Photoshop-CS6-GPU-Acceleration-161/
quote "With Photoshop CS6, Adobe began integrating the Mercury Graphics Engine which uses the video card (via OpenCL and OpenGL) to vastly improve the performance of certain features."

Clicking on those embedded links also takes you to a adobe page where they mention issues with multi GPUs. (just under half way down the page)

HOWEVER @The Hat the way Photoshop has changed over the years it would not shock me as you say that multi GPUs are fine with some versions of Photoshop and not so fine with others. Its been subject to so many changes. I would not even be shocked if things like Graphics card performance seriously differs version to version.

PS: I know someone that has recently built a system for nothing but Video and Image editing ill email him for the specs which may help the OP, i think he spent around £2-3,000 on the beast.

 

[The Hat]

My Beast was over €5000 and is now looking a bit tired, maybe a new rebuild; it’s over 7 years old and still running Vista..

 

[CakeHole]

Had him reply back specs of his rig are as follows...

Intel Core i7-4930K 3.40GHz 12MB Cache Six-Core Processor (Socket 2011)
MSI X79A-GD45 Plus Intel X79 (Socket 2011) ATX Motherboard
AMD FirePro W8000 4Gig GDDR5, 4x DisplayPort/Stereo Graphics port, 4096x2160, Output
64GB 1600MHz Corsair DDR3 (8x8192MB sticks)
2x 500GB Samsung Evo Series SATA 6GB/s (SATA-III) SSDs
2x 3TB Western Digital WD3003FZEX Black Series 64MB Cache SATA 6GB/s (SATA-III) HDDs
750W Corsair RM Series 80PLUS Gold Fully Modular Power Supply
Corsair Obsidian 550D Black Midi Tower Soundproof Case
be quiet! Shadow Rock 2 CPU Cooler
Samsung DVDRW Dual Layer Writer
3 Port 2b 1a 1394 FireWire Card (for connecting some Video cameras and fast transfer etc)

Total Cost at the time of his build (six-ish months back) was £3,524.

That system kills anything you can throw at it, he basically does Video editing as a second living. Having seen it handle RAW DV video footage and RAW images in photoshop CS i can say hand on heart the thing does not even pause for breath just crushes everything in its path.

 

[stratman]

Don't forget to invest in a good monitor and calibrate it.

 

[3dogs]

Had him reply back specs of his rig are as follows...

Intel Core i7-4930K 3.40GHz 12MB Cache Six-Core Processor (Socket 2011)
MSI X79A-GD45 Plus Intel X79 (Socket 2011) ATX Motherboard
AMD FirePro W8000 4Gig GDDR5, 4x DisplayPort/Stereo Graphics port, 4096x2160, Output
64GB 1600MHz Corsair DDR3 (8x8192MB sticks)
2x 500GB Samsung Evo Series SATA 6GB/s (SATA-III) SSDs
2x 3TB Western Digital WD3003FZEX Black Series 64MB Cache SATA 6GB/s (SATA-III) HDDs
750W Corsair RM Series 80PLUS Gold Fully Modular Power Supply
Corsair Obsidian 550D Black Midi Tower Soundproof Case
be quiet! Shadow Rock 2 CPU Cooler
Samsung DVDRW Dual Layer Writer
3 Port 2b 1a 1394 FireWire Card (for connecting some Video cameras and fast transfer etc)

Total Cost at the time of his build (six-ish months back) was £3,524.

That system kills anything you can throw at it, he basically does Video editing as a second living. Having seen it handle RAW DV video footage and RAW images in photoshop CS i can say hand on heart the thing does not even pause for breath just crushes everything in its path.

What I am currently using is a 2010 build with a VERY similar spec except
Intel Core i7 870 2.93GHz 8MB CACHE and GIGA GA-P55A-UD3R P55 4xDDR3 PCIE AXTw?RAID,GLAN,SATA3 USB3 motherboard.

Feedback I am getting is saying that the video card i am using Gigabyte R5876P-2GD did next to nothing for me!! as it is so gaming centric

Apart from updating seriously the fella I am talking to is pointing me at a Video card a QUATTRO something or other that can be programmed for PScc2014.......sadly I am not able to argue with any authority.

My Monitor is an Eizo Colour Edge CG222W and its profiled weekly. I have thought to update to the 27" self calibrating unit, it was too dear, but may be a "go" if things change and i start doing too much more printing of Fine Art images.

My dilemma is this....am I just chasing more expensive toys or am i going to 'grow' into the higher end stuff and see tangible results........

Its a bloody gamble and I'm not a gambler by temperament...hence the request for input, so i can try to get to a better educated view BEFORE I launch myself off the cliff as it were

Cheers