[dsmithhfx]

Then I wouldn't advise spending too much money on a mobile solution, Desktop PCs are much more capable than equivalent priced laptops.

This. unless you have an aching need for portability (and some do), a laptop is a complete waste of money. Also, most off-the-shelf pc's (e.g. from dell/hpaq) are either poorly specced or way overpriced for what you get, unless you buy used/refurb. Self-build using exactly the components you need (cpu/RAM/storage/gpu/psu etc), with an eye towards upgradability. It's about as difficult as following a recipe for cake, though a bit more $$$ at risk if you screw up.

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Last edited by dsmithhfx; 10-04-2017 at 05:55 AM.

[Lord Lucan]

earlier this year I purchased a faster machine ... powered by an i7-6500U, 2.5ghz, with 8mb of RAM.

I think there lies your problem

[photoptimist]

It's hard to diagnose bottlenecks from afar but it's quite possible that your long render times are due to insufficient RAM. A decent SSD should be able to read in (or write out) about 400 RAW files in under a minute. And a decent external HD on USB-C should be able to do the same in 5-10 minutes. But the computer needs to store those files in RAM to work on them. Those 400 RAW files fill about 11.4 GB memory. And if the program needs both an input copy and a rendered output copy of those files, then that's 22.8 GB. But your laptop only has 8 GB of which a large % is probably being used by WIndows and other applications. Thus, a large percentage of your rendering time might be result of the computer being forced to swap the files, intermediate images, and pieces of the final rendered image to and from the SSD.

I'd imagine Windows has some tools (equivalent to MacOS's Activity Monitor) for checking how memory is being used, how much swapping is occurring, and the total amount of reading and writing the system is doing to the disks.

If that tool shows evidence of very high levels of swappiing, then adding RAM (installing 16 or even 32 GB) might lead to much shorter rendering times.

[steve_k]

Over the years, as my photography and video have evolved, I have received conflicting advice on really matters for PP and rendering . My current k-70 has a RAW file size around 28.5 Mb, and HDD RAW of around 90mb. Individually, just about anything can manage PP on these, but when I start doing panoramic stitches in PS, my previous i5 SP3 would often stagger. Particularly when i asked it to stitch 36 HDR images--just said no. 14 was OK, mostly. Likewise, with video processing, (mainly Gopro) it was pretty good, but you really had to limit the length or it would just fall over. So, earlier this year I purchased a faster machine. Lenovo Yoga 900 . This was powered by an i7-6500U, 2.5ghz, with 8mb of RAM. Brilliant display, so the smaller size is not really a handicap in PP. It manages all the above quite well, with only the rare "not responding" moment in LR. I started using LRTimelapse shooting in RAW. This means I may have up to 800 RAW images to work with at once, and all the corresponding changes. Again, it does it quite well, but is just slow--export from the program for the finished product will take 1.5 hrs for a render of that size, or probably 45 minutes for a more normal 400 frame shoot. Likewise during the processing, reload and visual preview take quite a while. looking into this machine, I believe it has Intel graphics integrated into the CPU, could be wrong? Video editing is now done with Premiere Elements 15.
So what has the greatest effect on ability to process large visuals files efficiently? Processor speed? Graphics card? RAM? A combination of all 3? Is hyperthreading ability an advantage?

In a properly configured system CPU utilization is usually the least of your problems normal CPU utilization is usually less than 10 percent. Most CPU and performance related issues are caused by lack of RAM. What happens when you don't have enough memory is your computer starts moving older data from memory to disk and pulling back the older data when it is needed. This is what causes your performance issues. It is called swapping and you do not want this to happen if you can avoid it. So the most important item is lots of fast memory. Typically memory comes in 2 types for every computer slow and fast (cheap vs expensive). The max speed of memory is determined by the memory bus (system board) and CPU.

Also as Digitalis stated laptops are not ideal for performance and are not very customizable. The only possible exception I can think of might be Alienware as they are designed for gaming. You really need a desktop solution to get the best performance and customization options. And if you are looking to buy a HP, Dell, IBM or other manufacturers computer. Make certain it is designed to be graphics workstation. The other solution is to design and build it yourself. So here in my opinion is what you want in order.

1) System Board that supports very fast bus speeds and the most memory. These also typically require the newest processors.
2) The newest and fastest dual core processor (currently i7) you can afford. You could go Quad core but anything more would be a waste. You also don't need to buy the $1500 + extreme version of a processor. The standard offerings will suffice.
3) At least 16 GB (32 GB or more is better) of the fastest memory supported by your system board and processor. The more memory you can afford the better.
4) A good GPU / Graphics board. If your doing video you will want to use better graphics devices.
5) A fast hard drive. SSD's are the fastest but high performance sata and sas drives will perform well and also and give you more storage at lower cost.

[normhead]

7 years ago I bought a quad core i7 with a video card with 500MB of memory on an Apple iMac. it's still going strong. Investigation at the time showed, buying the best possible processor the quad core i7 and a Video card with lots of Ram, meant the most processing power at the lowest cost per however they measured that and it was suggested at the time 500 Mb video card memory was the absolute minimum. The Apple guys said this would insure it would be years before the computer became obsolete, and they were absolutely correct. Buying lower end models I used to count on $500 per year for my computers. This model cost me $2100 and my cost per year is down to $300 per year. I could have gone with a $1000 model like my laptop but it no longer receives regular operating system up grades and is becoming limited in what you can do with it.

So my advice would be buy the most expensive iMac you can afford with he best specs for what you do, or it's PC equivalent. Twice the price to buy, but half the cost in the long run, providing that what you buy uses the same grade of components Apple uses, (which unfortunately most PC companies don't.) You really have to do your homework.

[Not a Number]

A RAM drive will be an SSD for IO speed any day of the week. Since SSDs have limited write cycles you should use them mainly for static files. Put your temp directories, PS scratch drives, pagefile and any other transient files on the RAM drive. The more RAM you have the smaller the pagefile needs to be. If you clear your browser cache when you close your browser put the cache on the RAM drive too.

If you have 192 GB of RAM you're probably not going to 50-60 GB for a RAM drive unless you are running a bunch of Virtual Machines simultaneously.

[jpzk]

A RAM drive will be an SSD for IO speed any day of the week. Since SSDs have limited write cycles you should use them mainly for static files. Put your temp directories, PS scratch drives, pagefile and any other transient files on the RAM drive. The more RAM you have the smaller the pagefile needs to be. If you clear your browser cache when you close your browser put the cache on the RAM drive too.

If you have 192 GB of RAM you're probably not going to 50-60 GB for a RAM drive unless you are running a bunch of Virtual Machines simultaneously.

This will sound like a stupid question: RAM drive, as in a "physical" drive and not a "virtual" one?

[dsmithhfx]

This will sound like a stupid question: RAM drive, as in a "physical" drive and not a "virtual" one?

A RAM drive takes part of your RAM and treats it as a virtual hard drive. This has no practical application because:

1. It eats your RAM, RAM that could be used by your system and applications but has now been effectively subtracted from available RAM.

2. Whatever you store on it disappears when you reboot, so you have to copy it back to a real drive (hdd or ssd)

3. Whatever data you want to work on you have to copy to it first.

Other than all that, it is hella fast.

[kaspy]

Tons of opinions here but nobody mentioned OP has a mobile processor with 2 cores (i7-6500U), it's not powerful enough for the kind of operation you're describing. It sounds like it's working, just really slowly. Buying a mac isn't really necessary (unless you want one), and setting up a RAM drive on your computer is definitely insane.

To answer your question- for your next computer, keep in mind (just my opinion):
1. Desktop computers perform a lot better than similar priced laptops
1a. if necessary to have a laptop, get a decent CPU (see Laptop CPU Comparison - A 2017 Guide to Intel's Processor Hierarchy)
2. 16 GB of RAM is ideal but no less than 8
3. SSD
4. Dedicated graphics card is also ideal (probably only a small benefit for working on still images, but I always use dedicated graphics)

Also: Work with the images on your SSD, they will read/write a lot faster.

[AggieDad]

There is a lot of advocacy here for getting an SSD for storage.But two things seemed to have been glossed over. First SSDs are still pretty expensive and consequently folks tend to buy 256GB or 512GB sized storage. This leads to the second issue which is that with the limited size of the SSD, much of your media ends up on an external hard drive - which is not always real fast. In other words, a trade-off is often made.

As an alternative, I opted for a 3TB fusion drive which marries 128GB of SSD with a conventional hard drive. Some electronic wizardry apparently "learns" what programs and files should be kept at hand in the SSD, making the thing pretty fast - although not as quick as a pure SSD. But the cost on my iMac for 3TB of storage was the same as a 512GB SSD. For me, the external hard drive is used strictly as a backup.

The only downside to my Mac is the fantastic 27" 5k Retina display which shows every flaw in my poor photo efforts. It is unrelenting, and I will either become a better photographer because of it or I will put everything up for sale in the forum marketplace.

Whatever you choose, I wish you the best with it.

[kaspy]

There is a lot of advocacy here for getting an SSD for storage.But two things seemed to have been glossed over. First SSDs are still pretty expensive and consequently folks tend to buy 256GB or 512GB sized storage. This leads to the second issue which is that with the limited size of the SSD, much of your media ends up on an external hard drive - which is not always real fast. In other words, a trade-off is often made.

Really good point. I suggested using an SSD (since OP already has one) in the post above yours but now realize I usually work on raw images from my 1 TB hard drive and not my SSD (until I crammed a 3rd SSD into my laptop and have much more space ).

[ranmar850]

This is all great information.I have been considering buying a photographic processing - grade monitor to run off the laptop when I am processing at home. This could then be later married to a powerful desktop. I have never built a computer before, how hard can it be? ( :-) ) More seriously, I am looking at Task manager now, as I Export a 571 frame TL. Therse are RAW images heavily PP'd in LR, quite large individual files--I've never actually looked at finished RAW size in this before I export, but I start at around 28.5mb, pre PP. These are exported back to LRTimelapse for final rendering. This will take an hour, the actual rendering to video, once in there, only takes a few short minutes.
quick shot of TM at work on this.

[ccc_]

...4. Dedicated graphics card is also ideal (probably only a small benefit for working on still images, but I always use dedicated graphics)...

dedicated GPUs should be considered essential...imo

my software targets it first

my desktop is now i7 (5th gen) 32gbRAM memory...2gb GPU
while my laptop is i7 (7th gen) 16gbRAM and 4gb GPU (a relative inexpensive gamer)

the laptop processes images at about twice the speed of the desktop (which is very fast)

though the laptop has an SSD I've moved anything that will transfer to the copious HDD

[dsmithhfx]

This is all great information.I have been considering buying a photographic processing - grade monitor to run off the laptop when I am processing at home. This could then be later married to a powerful desktop. I have never built a computer before, how hard can it be? ( :-) ) More seriously, I am looking at Task manager now, as I Export a 571 frame TL. Therse are RAW images heavily PP'd in LR, quite large individual files--I've never actually looked at finished RAW size in this before I export, but I start at around 28.5mb, pre PP. These are exported back to LRTimelapse for final rendering. This will take an hour, the actual rendering to video, once in there, only takes a few short minutes.
quick shot of TM at work on this.

"building" a computer is a bit like lego or "erector set" (anyone remember those?). All the parts snap/plug together, and there are step-by-step instructions and guides online. The difficult parts are:

1. Make sure the parts will work with one another. The mainboard (or motherboard) will only support certain cpus , RAM modules and graphics cards. do your homework.

2. It is very easy to short-out (and thus completely ruin) electronic components, just by touching the wrong bits. Get an anti-static wrist strap and again, do your homework.

3. Some components require considerable force to snap in/out of their sockets. Not enough force and they won't be properly seated (and thus the thing won't even start). Too much force and you can break stuff. Some computer dealers will let you spec your own components, and they will put your pc together, install the os and test it for you, usually for a nominal fee (provided you buy all the stuff from them).

4. Get an adequate power supply, that is to say over-spec. A bare-minimum power supply (the kind often bundled with a case) can lead to all sorts of mysterious problems that are very difficult to diagnose without a good knowledge of electronics.

5. Buy the best-quality components you can afford (this is not the same thing as the most powerful and expensive). If cost is an issue, avoid top-of-the-line, next-gen components. Previous gen are generally much more affordable, and probably will do whatever you need for years to come. Bonus: you ain't the guinea pig.

6. Think cooling. Cooling (and the attendant noise) is a very big issue with high-performance pc's, especially in the smaller cases for e.g. micro-ATX motherboards where everything is closer together in a confined space. This is definitely something you need to plan for. It can easily be overdone -- too expensive, too complicated, too loud.

[Digitalis]

All those points and you still forgot to mention arctic silver CPU compound.

Another thing to consider is the peripherals you plan to use with the system. I work with a Wacom graphics tablet*, and it is hard to go back to keyboard and mouse for image editing**. Also which monitor you intend to buy for image editing.

Get an adequate power supply, that is to say over-spec.

When building a system I over-provision power requirements by 50%, this leaves room for expansion and most power supplies only reach their rated efficiency levels at 75% load anyway.

Think cooling. Cooling (and the attendant noise) is a very big issue with high-performance pc's, especially in the smaller cases

My current system is completely water cooled - it is quiet and very efficient, but it is complicated when it comes to maintaining it. I only recently changed from soft to hard PETG tubing to keep maintenance down.

*I also use Wacoms excellent Cintiq interactive displays in my studio.
** I use gaming peripherals as they are ergonomically designed with multi-hour sessions in mind. I use a R.A.T 7 mouse and a mechanical Corsair K70 keyboard with cherry MX silent keyswitches. Plus I do play games on my overpowered systems...why not?