[Pål Jensen]

Time for new PC. I have googled the issue but not being much wiser, although it seems like the consensus is that i7 is not worth it.
I had settled on a PC with i7 with 16BG RAM and 1TB SSD disc. Right now the exact same PC is available with the i5 processor (the only difference) at $500 less. Any thoughts?

[ehrwien]

500$ is quite steep for the difference in performance. I guess it would shave off much less than half of the conversion time needed, and you'd be unlikely to notice reaction time improvement while making adjustments.

BUT all that does depend a bit on which i7 and which i5 exactly. There are several generations of those, are they from the same generation, and even in each generation there are multiple i5s and i7s. Many, I guess all, photo editing softwares also make use of fast graphics cards, is one (the same?) included in both machines?

[Kozlok]

As a suggestion, Do a web search for “photoshop benchmarks” and then put in the exact CPU name. It should be I7 1170k or some other number. Do the same for the I5. Compare. If they are the same generation chips and similar clock speeds, it won’t make much difference. If they are different generations, the performance may be significantly different.

[Not a Number]

May be of some use:
Which CPU Should You Buy? Intel Core i5 vs. i7 | PCMag

How Many Cores Is Enough?

Simply put, a Core i5-equipped system will be less expensive than a Core i7-equipped PC, if all else is equal. But in most cases, if you're comparing apples to apples (that is, a desktop chip to a desktop chip, or a laptop chip to a laptop chip, and the same generation to the same generation), the Core i5 will have fewer, or dialed-down, capabilities. A Core i7 will typically be better for multitasking, media-editing and media-creation tasks, high-end gaming, and similar demanding workloads. Often, though, the price difference will be small, so it's worth playing around with the online configurator of whatever PC you're buying to see if you can afford a Core i7-powered machine.

When you're using software that can leverage as many cores as it can get (modern content-creation programs, like the ones in the Adobe Creative Suite, are excellent examples), the more cores you have in your CPU, the faster it will perform.

[normhead]

Many good points in that article. 10 years ago when I got my i7 4 core iMac, Macworld did ac omparisin, and found that the i7 was the cheapest way to buy processing power. And that computer still performs at a high level, though I've barely used it since I go my 8 core M1 Mac mini.

The reason for looking at Apple numbers is, the rest of the platform is apples to apples, where as some companies may beef up thier i7 platform, and some cripple it.

But as pointed out in the article, the use of multiple cores helps out only with software that has been configured for multiple cores. When you have a company like Apple you can be sure your software, most of it provided by Apple will be updated to take advantage of the new hardware, free of charge. Looking at the software I own, almost none of the third party software has been updated for the 8 core M1. My Apple software 90% of what use, just flies, non Apple software, same as always. And there in lies the issue. If your software isn't from a company that upgrades for available chips (much harder to do in the Windows world than in the Apple world, you will see no difference. If you don't have supporting hardware to match the speed of the processor, it's wasted.

From 10 years ago, the i5 wasn't much better than the i3. The jump from i3 to i5 was about 20% improvement in performance. i5 to i7 was about 60% (if and only if the hardware had been configured to take advantage of the 4 core i7.)

While the numbers may not be the same, I expect the numbers would be similar. But in the Windows world, as much depends on who manufactures the motherboard and how the hardware is configured as it does on chip speed. You need to compare whole systems, not just what chip is in it.

I recently got a message from one of my third party vendors that they would sell me an update that would take advantage of the M1 chip for $40 or so. I bought the software about 6 months ago... I no longer send that company money.

[subsea]

From my experience, depending on the software that you using, you may get a larger performance gain by increasing RAM and the number of cores your processor has. This is especially true if the software is multithreaded to take advantage of more cores and RAM. At a minimum, I would suggest 32GB of RAM. Also, your graphics card may play a significant role if your software is configured to take advantage of it.

[Pål Jensen]

As a suggestion, Do a web search for “photoshop benchmarks” and then put in the exact CPU name. It should be I7 1170k or some other number. Do the same for the I5. Compare. If they are the same generation chips and similar clock speeds, it won’t make much difference. If they are different generations, the performance may be significantly different.

They are both 11. generation. Apart from the CPU the machines are totally identical; HP Pavillion 27 all in one. .One (i5) is on special offer until the 10. of january. The one with i7 is not. Explaining the large price difference.

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Last edited by Pål Jensen; 12-25-2021 at 10:57 AM.

[StiffLegged]

Save on the i5 and spend the saving on more RAM. You already get an ssd with either machine and that’s the other big performance plus in these machines. You can never have too much RAM.

[Oldbayrunner]

There's a lot more to it then whether they are an I7 or I5. You touched upon it with the Gen 11 as both then would be 8 core processors which means a lot when your dealing with newer core intensive games or photo processing software. The next factors to consider is the graphics card and ram, being the type it is , speed & how much is available. Photoshop & Lightroom can do alright with 16gb DDR4 2666mhz or higher with the newer faster ram being DDR5 and higher MHZ but that addition at a much higher cost. It all boils down to cost.

I just upgraded mine to a new I7 8 core 32GB DDR4 2666 with a faster graphics card and it makes all the difference in the world speed wise vs my older I5 quad core DDR4 2400mhz with 64GB ram, especially running the newer upgraded Lightroom & Photoshop. The bottleneck was the quad processor, so having more ram didn't/doesn't do squat if your bottlenecking in either or both your processor and/or graphics card. One can be using less than 15-20% ram and if your processor is shuffling files at 100% through the cores your going to be running slow no matter how much ram you have. Just my CPU upgrade was close to $1000.00, well worth it to me. I already have a great IPS monitor.

So with those being Gen 11 processor wise either should do fine for photo processing.

[normhead]

I just upgraded mine to a new I7 8 core 32GB DDR4 2666 with a faster graphics card a

On my 10 year old i7 you can see the processor, all 8 cores, working in Activity Monitor... it's rare I'm using even half my processing power. As you say, the processor is unlikely to be the bottle neck.

Every now and then when converting hundreds of RAWs into TIFFs and saving them to an HD or something like that, I max it out.

[Oldbayrunner]

On my 10 year old i7 you can see the processor, all 8 cores, working in Activity Monitor... it's rare I'm using even half my processing power. As you say, the processor is unlikely to be the bottle neck.

Every now and then when converting hundreds of RAWs into TIFFs and saving them to an HD or something like that, I max it out.

Sorry Norm but that is an impossibility to have a 10 year old 8 core as Intel didn't come out with an 8 core processor until Generation 9 in Mid 2015 , the I7 6 core wasn't introduced until late 2011 using DDR3 1600MHZ max ram otherwise they were 4 cores. I think your confusing it with your Mini Mac. And yes with an 8 core one should rarely see more than 1/2 the cores loading.

In any case I've been using computers since 1976 & building them since 1980 and most certainly have monitored my old 4 core processor slow loading at 100% starting with the 2020 versions with both of the software I have mentioned, consistently watching them slow load using 100% of my cores on initial load and that is with 64GB 2400mhz ram. When 2022 Photoshop came out it and Lightroom became excruciatingly slower to load then I cared to deal with and if I were using several layers it would bottleneck my processor. Software is and can be CORE loading intensive slowing the computer down while shuffling files in and out of the cores.. For several years I have recognized and had the need to upgrade my computers due to software requirements. Just as currently if you do not have certain mfg #'s or generation of Intel processors you can't upgrade to windows 11. Now with all of this said if one is not using as processor intensive of software then it is something that shouldn't be a problem.

[BigMackCam]

Sorry Norm but that is an impossibility as Intel didn't come out with an 8 core processor until Generation 9 in Mid 2015 , the I7 6 core wasn't introduced until late 2011 using DDR3 1600MHZ max ram otherwise they were 4 cores.

Not an impossibility, as they had hyper-threading - and activity monitoring would show all cores, physical and logical. My old laptop from 2012 (I think) had an i7-4700MQ with four physical cores, but two logical cores for each of those. Processor monitoring showed eight cores in total, but of course four of these were virtual. I'm pretty sure that's what Norm was seeing too...

[gatorguy]

There's a lot more to it then whether they are an I7 or I5. You touched upon it with the Gen 11 as both then would be 8 core processors which means a lot when your dealing with newer core intensive games or photo processing software. The next factors to consider is the graphics card and ram, being the type it is , speed & how much is available.. .

I just upgraded mine to a new I7 8 core 32GB DDR4 2666 with a faster graphics card and it makes all the difference in the world speed wise vs my older I5 quad core DDR4 2400mhz with 64GB ram, especially running the newer upgraded Lightroom & Photoshop.

According to what I've known to be true, until now at least, a fast high-end graphics card means little to Lightroom as it currently can't take full advantage of the increased graphics resources. A couple of GB's VRAM is sufficient I think. A recent i5 or better processor (I use an AMD Ryzen 7 in an Alienware R10) more and faster RAM (IMO anything more than 32GB is overkill unless doing a lot of video) and SSD's over HDD are of far more importance for photo processing in Lightroom, or Photoshop for that matter. .

Topaz, for it's part, does make better use of your GPU than Adobe does, and DxO DeepPrime is fully optimized for fast GPU's. So yes, depending on what specific programs you may intend to use a robust video card may be beneficial. If in doubt and it's not much more then opt for more VRAM in a higher-end GPU. Otherwise if money is a factor I'd spend it on the CPU and RAM.

My personal recommendation if you're not interested in building out your own system is look at mid-range gaming computers. They've worked really well for me'

https://support.dxo.com/hc/en-us/articles/4409120188817-System-requirements-for-DxO-PhotoLab
https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/system-requirements.html
https://support.topazlabs.com/article/18-system-requirements
https://www.on1.com/products/photo-raw/specs/

[Oldbayrunner]

Not an impossibility, as they had hyper-threading - and activity monitoring would show all cores, physical and logical. My old laptop from 2012 (I think) had an i7-4700MQ with four physical cores, but two logical cores for each of those. Processor monitoring showed eight cores in total, but of course four of these were virtual. I'm pretty sure that's what Norm was seeing too...

Hyper threading can increase processing It's great for gaming but it isn't a cure all as there are still some tasks it isn't as efficient such as image editing. Instead of taking my word on it, I quote from HP;

Will hyper-threading improve my computer’s performance?

According to Intel
[1], hyper-threading your cores can result in a 30% increase in performance and speed when comparing two identical PCs, with one CPU hyper-threaded. In a study published on Forbes, hyper-threading an AMD® processor (Ryzen 5 1600) showed a 17% increase in overall processing performance
[2].
Despite these results, hyper-threading your cores isn’t always the go-to solution. There will be tasks in which the speed of your processor does not increase despite hyper-threading. This is due in part to the fact that not all applications and strings of data can efficiently load into a multi-thread core.
In an experiment carried out by bit-tech.net, a hyper-threaded Intel i7 Core was compared to a single thread Intel i7 Core after being put through a few different tests
[3].
When it came to image editing, multitasking, and power consumption, the hyper-threaded counterpart did worse than the single thread.
However, it performed the same or better when it came to Handbrake Video Encoding, the Overall Custom PC Benchmark Score, and playing the popular game Crysis.

Gatorguy
very true when it comes to just image editing & video editing difference.
Just keep in mind those product requirements are the bare & recommended minimums... not what can make a software run at it's optimum performance.

I've probably interjected too much. I know what and how I want my system to run and have it built for that to keep me happy. Each person's level of comfort, Software they use and what equipment they use can be different and that is fine...

For the OP it sounds as if your headed in the right direction.

[Not a Number]

You can have too much RAM if you rarely or never use it. If your system workflow is CPU bound more RAM won't make much difference. If you RAM is slow to begin with adding more slow RAM won't make much of a difference. Many factors to consider. But it mostly depends on what you are doing on your computer.

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