do photo editing software rely more on ram, cpu or gpu speed?

[Gooshin]

for most of the known image and photo editing softwares, which parameter is most important and which is least important?

i'm thinking of building a specialized rig for photo editing work only, because my current system is awesome but was built for gaming and is also very loud (3 fans!)

[hinckc]

Hi Gooshin,

Short answer:
yes.

Long answer:

All these things come into play (though probably least the GPU speed).

It depends a lot on what software you're using and what operations you're considering.

I'd keep the RAM and CPU speed high, perhaps compromising on the graphics card. But in addition to the things you've mentioned, consider motherboard clock rate (FSB, or front-side bus speed), hard-drive speed, as those things impact most of the large data transfers you will be doing with a K20D...

RAM will impact your ability to edit huge stitched panoramas, and make it faster when you have 10 photos opened. But then your hard-drive speed probably has just as much impact because your system will probably be paging your RAM at that point anyhow...

Adobe CS3 appears to make use of both CPUs when I'm doing a folder full of RAW->JPEG conversions, so I'm guessing that it might even make use of a quad-core. If your photo converter isn't written to take advantage of multiple CPUs, then having a quad-core won't really help that aspect, but it would likely make everything else faster while you were doing a conversion in the background.

Just as with a camera, buy the best you can afford just at the time you need it. If you post the spec'ed components you're putting together, a pointed recommendation would be easier.

-Chris

[procyon]

GPU does not accelerate photo editing. Mainly since photos are not 3D. For 2D you are unlikely to see any difference between different cards. Integrated will also do nicely (well I guess if you have a 30 inch monitor there could be some problems).
CPU and RAM are far far more important.
RAM is more important if you like to work on several 16-bit images simultaneously, with a bunch of other apps also in constant use.
CPU helps cut down batch processing time, and also makes the changes visible faster after you have tweaked some filter/raw converter parameters.
Also don't forget hard disk speed.
Photoshop likes to keep a lot on disk.
Also a fast disk makes the photos and software load much faster.

[Gooshin]

this is what i'm thinking

CPU: Canada Computers - CPU > Desktop Intel Processors : Intel Pentium Dual Core E2180 Socket LGA775, 2.0 GHz, 800 MHz FSB, 1MB L2 Cache, 65nm (Retail Box) (BX80557E2180).

75$

HD: Canada Computers - Hard Drives > Desktop Drives > 3.5" SATA Drives : Seagate Barracuda (ST3500320AS) 7200.11 SATA NCQ 3.0Gb/s 500GB 32MB Cache (OEM).

75$

RAM (x2): Canada Computers - Memory > Desktop Memory > DDR2 1066 PC2-8500+ : OCZ (OCZ2P10664GK) DDR2 PC2-8500 1066 MHz Platinum Series 4GB(2x2048) Dual Channel Kit .
230$

MoBo: Canada Computers - Motherboards > Socket LGA775/T : Asus P5QL-E Socket 775 Intel P43 + ICH10R Chipset Dual-Channel DDR2 1066/800/667MHz Gigabit LAN 8-channel High Definition Audio PCI Express 2.0 x16 Slots 6x SATA 3Gb/s 1600Mhz FSB .

120 $


i have a spare case, power supply and a DVD/CD w/rw

so i get a

2.0 duo core @ 8 gigs of ram and a 32mb/cache HD for 500 bucks., which i'm hoping can run without cooling fans (1 at most)

this will primarily be for Adobe Lightroom running on Vista 64.

[deejjjaaaa]

Originally Posted by procyon

GPU does not accelerate photo editing.

that is only until adobe & others start using GPU - because it is possible and developers has libraries from nVidia / AMD(ATI) / Intel to use the power of GPU even not for a 3D stuff...

[tybeck]

Originally Posted by deejjjaaaa

that is only until adobe & others start using GPU - because it is possible and developers has libraries from nVidia / AMD(ATI) / Intel to use the power of GPU even not for a 3D stuff...

Aperture already does this and since Apple built CoreImage into MacOS X a bunch of other Mac photo editing programs are starting to use the GPU to assist in image processing and display. On my systems I have found RAM to be my largest bottleneck.

[ghelary]

Originally Posted by procyon

GPU does not accelerate photo editing.

Just a pinch of salt for that statement, you'll find around the web that Aperture have a reputation to rely on GPU while Lightroom is supposed to rely more on CPU.

Adobe have made some declaration that they will work in close relationship with NVIDIA to take advantage from GPU.

Basically, a GPU is a massively multicore processing unit, the idea of using this processing power for pararel calculation is coming it way and we are seeing now some "homemade" and "professionnal" supercalculators based on GPU.

The consumer application that can take the highest benefit from parallel processing is precisely image processing (either 3D or 2D)

Now it is true, that it is much easier to code for a single core.

Regarding the configuration, it's all about tradeof, if you are limitless about your budget go and see and the setup of Mac pro, they are the reference for professional solution for photo and cinema editing.

If you want a realistic setup :
For motherboard : Asus (I have a friend who makes video editing, and he crashed enough motherboards to says that Asus is definitively a go)
For CPU :
- If you go monocore, look for the higher Athlon 64
- If you go multicore, go Intel Core Duo or Quad,
For memory, look for the maximum bus speed that can handle your motherboard, and take brand Samsung, Corsair and so on. I would say that 4GB is reasonable for graphic application at the moment, I not sure if more would be used.
For graphic card, I would say NVIDIA because they support a lot their implementation of C++ for applications that are not games, so if an application try to take advantage of the GPU, I would say it will work better with NVIDIA.
For Hard Drive, take at least 2, one for Data and one for OS, SSD are very expensive at the moment (it will be accessible in 2009) but the last raptors are really good from what I know.

Make regular backups, disks do crash.

Try to make a coherent configuration regarding your budget, if you take middle range elements, take everything middle range.

Regards,
Guillaume

[sewebster]

Not sure if this is useful, but I have a Macbook with an Intel Core Duo 2.0 GHz, 2 GB of 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM. Integrated Intel GMA 950.

Lightroom 1.4 is ok, but when switching between a bunch of photos at 100% it often gets slow "rendering larger preview." If you are trying to compare between a bunch of shots this can be annoying. My system is obviously not so upgradeable since it is a notebook, but I'm not sure which components are the bottleneck. The larger previews seem to take about 5 seconds to generate.

[cpopham]

Originally Posted by Gooshin

2.0 duo core @ 8 gigs of ram and a 32mb/cache HD for 500 bucks., which i'm hoping can run without cooling fans (1 at most)

I would strongly advise you to get a faster processor than that.

For just another $50 you can get a 2.53GHz core 2 from that site you linked to.

If anything, I'd switch the 8gb of ram for cheaper ram (but still 8gb) and spend the difference on a faster processor.

[Spex]

>Gooshin: thath configuration looks fine, but you should definitelly take some other CPU. First of all, the one you choosed is Core Duo which is a 32-bit processor, and Vista 64 won't even work on it. Core 2 Duo are 64-bit processor, and they also utilize more cache memory and higher FSB frequency, which all contribute in quite better performance than Core Duo
On the other hands, on Vista 64 you can't run 16 bit programs and lot of older hardware since thera are no drivers for Vista 64. Altough that shouldn't be some problem, at least for me, since ther is no such olod hardware that I would use
Also, check out reviews of that motherboard, since some motherboards could have problems with memory working on highest specified speed. Don't know excatly why, probably because higher numbers are always best selling, but that doesn't mean it will work 100%

[Gooshin]

Originally Posted by cpopham

I would strongly advise you to get a faster processor than that.

For just another $50 you can get a 2.53GHz core 2 from that site you linked to.

If anything, I'd switch the 8gb of ram for cheaper ram (but still 8gb) and spend the difference on a faster processor.

hence my initial question.

i'm currently running the elusive E8400 chip, and 3.25 (win xp) of ram, i havent bothered OC'ing my chip yet, although with my cooling capabilities i'm very confident at pushing it a 3.7ghz zone if not 4.0 ( a friend of mine ran the E8400 into 4.0 reliably)

but this system will be LOUD, its already loud, and when i crank up the power to my fans it sounds like a vaccume cleaner, no joke.

plus i might have a roomate soon so thats why i'm thinking of getting a slightly diffrent breed of a desktop that wont run games but is to be used exclusevly for photowork.

[Spex]

Try with larger and slowlier fans
I have E7200 with original fan mounted and some cheap case with 2x12 cm fans and 400W power supply with 12 cm fan, and it's really quiet...

[Gooshin]

i gotz dis

i was thinking of just buying new fans... i dunno, i just feel like having two computers

[davef]

Hi Gooshin. Here's my $0.02 worth.

Raw processing and editing eats CPUs and memory. My experience is with Photoshop, ACR, Corel and Bibble. I doubt the others are much different as they need to do the same calculations.

See if your software will exploit multi-core CPUs. Likely needs OS and application support to truly exploit.

A decent graphics card is important but it doesn't need to be an ultra fast gaming one. You do need to be able to fine tune the colour and gamma to get proper colour balance.

If it's Windows, I expect most of the developers will program graphics via DirectX API rather programming the GPU directly. I assume the MacOS has a similar API.

If you want to get away without a cooling fan, you'll need a top drawer CPU fan and a high quality power supply. Look for the low noise ones -- they make a huge difference. Alternative 2 is to look at liquid cooling for the CPU and GPU. They are pricey but can be effective.

Try to get by with one hard drive in the case. They give off a huge amount of heat that needs to be removed from the case.

Consider a notebook (Wintel or Mac) and use you existing rig for back end storage as well as gaming. Won't have as much raw horsepower but the performance gap (video and CPU) has closed noticably in the past couple of years as has the price gap.

Dave

[deejjjaaaa]

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