[barondla]

Desktop was XP (about 5 years old). Shoot multiple cameras (Pentax DS, K10/20D, K-7, Olympus E330 and P&S cameras). Shoot dslrs in raw. Use raw converters that come with cameras and use Elements 8. Computer was sluggish when working with raw files. Noticeable speed difference between K10D vs K20D files.

Want to be able to process raw files and do other editing for print/web use. This computer will never be used as the internet/family computer. Will leave the computer programs on internal HD. Use external HDs for all picture storage. Large internal HDs don't interest me at all. Usually 2 ext. HD are hooked up at a time. Need at least 4 USB.

Which is more important on a special purpose computer like this? More ram memory or more cores? Wanting to spend about $600-650 if possible. Kind of partial to AMD processors.

Usually research stuff like this a long time. Now I have to decide in a few days (before I run out of room on memory cards).
thanks
barondla

Check out POINT & SHOOT CONTEST # 27 in compact camera forum. Enter # 28. Any brand camera. Enter now!

[daacon]

If running a 32 bit operating system (OS) anything more the 3GB RAM is wasted. If running 64 bit OS skies the limit.

AMD and Intel are a wash IMHO - would not hesitate with either.

So if it were me :

32bit system I would spend my money on HD speed (RAID), Graphics Card, Cores (and never be state of the art here always a generation or two under) - 3 - 4GB Ram

64bit Sysem - I would spend my money on HD speed (RAID), 6 - 8GB RAM, Graphics Card, Cores (and never be state of the art here always a generation or two under)

** processing software needs to be 64 bit vesion to take advantage of extra memory , and also some software does not take advantage of cores either **

[boriscleto]

A Mac mini would be perfect. Boot Camp or VirtualBox to boot XP for Windoze only software and a real OS for everything else.

64 Bit OS, 5 USB 2 ports, FW 800. Core 2 Duo processor. 8x Super Drive.

Mac mini

Referbs start at $499 when you can find them.

[daacon]

A Mac mini would be perfect. Boot Camp or VirtualBox to boot XP for Windoze only software and a real OS for everything else.

64 Bit OS, 5 USB 2 ports, FW 800. Core 2 Duo processor. 8x Super Drive.

Mac mini

Referbs start at $499 when you can find them.

I recently set up a Mac dual boot with Widoze it was relatively simple and whatever drivers were missing (sound, graphic) popping in the Snow Leopard disk while in windoze solved that issue. Have to say was somewhat impressed. ** Boot camp only comes with Snow Leopard and higher not supported on Tiger any more - however a $30.00 upgrade disk from Leopard to Snow Leopard also works on Tiger or so I have head

I would however recommend a VM (Virtual Machine) instead of dual boot if you only spend a little time in Windoze or have a few apps ..

[WMBP]

A Mac mini would be perfect. Boot Camp or VirtualBox to boot XP for Windoze only software and a real OS for everything else.

Sigh. This is like a Pentax user dissing Nikon and Canon by implying they aren't "real" cameras. What's the point?


Neil Niekerk, the flash guru of planetneil.com, recently switched from PC to Mac and he writes about the experience here:

http://www.planetneil.com/tangents/2010/02/01/mac-centricity/

He's happy with his new Mac system and explains why. Makes sense.

But I would NOT recommend getting a Mac mini for any reason at all.


Be aware that Windows 7 has some advantages over the Mac OS at the moment. I believe that you can get some apps like Photoshop and Lightroom to run much faster on a PC running Windows 7 than on a comparably spec'd Mac - something to do with 64-bit processing, I think.

To answer barondla's question: If you're processing lots of photos, and shooting raw, you'll want as much power as you can get everywhere: quad-core processor if you can afford, lots of RAM, AND a fast hard disk too.

If you must buy in a hurry, stick with what you know and get a new PC running Windows 7. If you have time to research, you can consider a Mac if you would like to. But there's no big advantage any more to one operating system over the other. Each platform has strengths and weaknesses, but overall it's pretty much a wash. Windows 7 now has more users than the Mac OS, and the Mac OS's dominance of the digital imaging market is also a thing of the past. So feel free to buy what you like and be happy either way.

Will

[tybeck]

As a regular user of both Mac and Windows computers I can objectively say that except for some specialized applications (like video, scientific data analysis, and instrumentation control system) it's a matter of personal preference and not usability or capability that will be the determining factor for most people's choice of platform. For some one who's already invested somewhat in Windows I'd just stick with that. Photo editing is not an area where your selection of platform matters unless you really like a set of programs that are only available for one platform (Aperture and RAW Developer for example).

For my opinion lots of RAM (>2 GB) and a big hard drive are going to be your best friends. Multiple cores will only help you if the programs you're using support multiple threads. I don't know if Photoshop Elements supports this and am pretty sure Photoshop does. The Bibble Pro 5 (currently in beta) is the only major photo editing program I can think of that's really touted support for multiple processors/cores as a feature. Saw a demo running on a Windows system with a total of 16 cores and it smoked.

[boriscleto]

But I would NOT recommend getting a Mac mini for any reason at all.

Why would you not recommend a Mac mini? For a single purpose computer it is ideal. Small, quiet, uses almost no power (14W when idle). Low end PCs are an eco-nightmare not to mention being loaded to the gills with crapware.

Be aware that Windows 7 has some advantages over the Mac OS at the moment. I believe that you can get some apps like Photoshop and Lightroom to run much faster on a PC running Windows 7 than on a comparably spec'd Mac - something to do with 64-bit processing, I think.

This is just completely ignorant. 64-bit programs aren't any faster than 32-bit programs, they just address more memory. Mac OS 10.6 is a 64-bit operating system but Adobe is dragging their feet in rewriting PS to run in 64-bit mode.

[WMBP]

I don't want to hijack the OP's thread here by being pulled into a fight with a member of the Syracuse Mac Users Group - a fight that I myself believe is pointless. I would mention that I LIKE Macs. I have to: I write for Macworld. :-)

I will admit that I've never been a fan of the mini. I am open to the possibility that I am completely ignorant, indeed, it's likely. But I have always bought a laptop, when I wanted a laptop, or a desktop, when I wanted a desktop, and I have never felt tempted to buy a machine that has the disadvantages of both and the advantages of neither. See Dan Frakes' review of the 2009 mini at Macworld. He gives the mini 4 mice (out of 5) but he's obviously grading on a mini-based curve. Note especially what he says about the difficulty of doing any sort of upgrade on the mini.

As for 64-bit vs 32-bit, please reread what I said carefully. I don't feel the need to defend Apple or bash Adobe, and I don't care whose fault it is that something doesn't work as well as one might like it to on a Mac - right now. This will surely be rectified in the future. And it may not even be important. I use Lightroom on a PC in a 32-bit environment and while it's no speed demon it's fast enough.

Fact remains though: The OP has been using PCs, obviously doesn't have an existing investment in Mac software and so doesn't HAVE to run Aperture. Doesn't matter that the Mac might be great: Windows 7 ain't bad, either. A Windows 7 machine is probably a cheaper, safer purchase for this buyer. I will probably buy at least one new computer this year and my next one may be a Mac. Nevertheless, I don't think "Buy a Mac" is the answer for every user.

Will

[raz-0]

Ok, here's what will make a difference.

1) RAM
For processing large RAW files, you need ram. If the entire thing can fit in RAM while being worked on, it will be faster than swapping bits int and out of swap. (case in point, went from 2.4GHz dual core amd with 2gb ram to core i7 at 2.6Ghz with 6gb of ram, smart sharpen on a k10d image went from 15-30 seconds to 5-7 seconds because it didn't need to use the disk based swap file).

1a) Memory transfer speed.
intel x58 chipsets with ddr3, triple channel, and fast memory are the top of the heap (i7 socket 1366), then i5 ddr3 dual channel and fast memory (i7 and i5 x55 chipset, socket 1156), then the everything else is more or less a push and in similar territory. x55 and an i5 chip is probably the sweet spot of cost vs benefit. Any of them are way faster than swapping out to disk, but for shopping purposes, that is best.

1b) shared memory/graphics card.
Graphics cards don't make post processing faster. But they sure can make it slower. You just want to make sure the graphics cared has dedicated memory on board, and doesn't use shared memory. Shared memory can eat up a lot of your RAM, and cause contention for access to the RAM.

2) 64 bit OS.
SO, you want more than 2gb of ram, 4 is honestly probably enough to process raw files depending on the undo algorithm for your software. However, to get all 4GB, you need a 64 bit OS. It's not that it is faster, it is that it gives you access to more memory, and the threshold for processing 10MP or larger RAW as fast as possible all in memory is above that line.

3) swap files/page files/scratch disk (2 hard drives)
Next thing to speed things up for PS, dunno if it applies to elements, is to have two physical hard drives. OS page file goes on one, PS scratch disk goes on the other. That way there is no contention between OS paging things to disk and PS paging things to disk. So when you do have to swap, it is as fast as possible. A hardware ram disk would make it even faster, but now you are dealing with real oddities that are expensive. It's spiffy fast though. (not SSDs, devices that look liek a 3.5" drive tray with sticks of RAM in them rather than flash memory.) You can also star RAIDing drives for speed and whatnot, but youa re talking a lot of hasle for minimal returns. New SATA drives at 7200 RPM are probably all you need.

4) multiple cores
You want at least 2 cores. You will be running at least the OS and the APP, so you will use two cores. Some of PS is multi-threaded, and will benefit from yet one more core. So quad core is even better. Anything above quad will probably be irrelevant.

5) PRocessor speed.

Image processing = math. Right now, the i5 and i7 chips are the king of the hill for that. Core 2 chips are next, AMD is currently bringing up the rear, but used to be on top. A 2.4Ghz i7 and i5 will be abotu the same speed ion terms of processing images, core 2 duo and quad next, then the high end amd chips. With intel, the sweet spot is the i5 chips, AMD is so cheap, go quad core and get as many Ghz as you can.

[glanglois]

Last year, an industry mag ran a little article on multi-core systems.

An industry analyst confidently argued that image processing was particularly well-suited for a multi-core architecture and users benefit from going that direction.

The Intel rep noted that it depended greatly on the application. Much more cautious.

The Adobe rep noted that, barring some filters, Photoshop is single-threaded and therefore clock speed had a greater impact on most common tasks than number of cores. Adobe was looking at expanding support for multiple cores but the rep was very cagey about the timeframe.

A non-expert (me, as it happens) believes that re-writing the basic Photoshop code to take advantage of multiple cores is a major job. Won't happen without a good reason and until the time is right - for Adobe, not us.

That same non-expert (still me) notes that processor reviews often document performance on a series of Photoshop actions, and goes on to note that your experience may differ greatly if your actions do not precisely match those of the review suite.

Cache size and speed and memory speed have an impact, as well. HD read/write speed shouldn't be a big deal as you should have what you need in memory. If not, fix that first.

I realize that this didn't answer your question but I wanted to insert a few discussion points.

I will be in the market later this year and will follow this discussion closely. My existing 3-year-old AMD X2 at 2.6 GHz does fine (for me) with Elements 7.0 and Lightroom working on single images. I don't often do batch processing so I have no comment here.

Noiseware takes 8-12 seconds per image. I'd like to improve that but I don't use Noiseware often enough to get excited. Using Pentax and Panasonic (ZS-3/TZ-7), the luminance noise I get usually doesn't bother me enough to fuss with. Or perhaps I'm lazy.

I use an external HD (2 TB) for photos and back up to another (1.5 TB) that I remove from my home after each backup. As always, please plan for a catastrophic and totally unexpected HD crash. You will have one.

Please don't forget to verify recovery from your backup. I know people who once were happy with their backup strategy. Until they found out that their backups were faulty/corrupted/failed. We really, really don't want to learn this after our main HD is toast.

Keep us posted!

[boriscleto]

I don't want to hijack the OP's thread here by being pulled into a fight with a member of the Syracuse Mac Users Group - a fight that I myself believe is pointless. I would mention that I LIKE Macs. I have to: I write for Macworld. :-)

I have no desire to hijack this thread either. So this will be my last post on this thread. Having been a Mac user for 15 years and an officer of a Mac users group it's sometimes hard to be objective.

I will admit that I've never been a fan of the mini. I am open to the possibility that I am completely ignorant, indeed, it's likely. But I have always bought a laptop, when I wanted a laptop, or a desktop, when I wanted a desktop, and I have never felt tempted to buy a machine that has the disadvantages of both and the advantages of neither. See Dan Frakes' review of the 2009 mini at Macworld. He gives the mini 4 mice (out of 5) but he's obviously grading on a mini-based curve. Note especially what he says about the difficulty of doing any sort of upgrade on the mini.

Do you know anyone who has actually upgraded a computer recently? I don't know anyone who has upgraded a computer for a few years now. The only upgradeable computer Apple sells is the Mac Pro and the OP has no need for a $3,000 8-core workstation. The OP's need was for a single use computer, RAW conversion and light editing. In my opinion that is the sort of thing the mini is ideal for. If the OP already has a monitor and peripherals there is no need to add to the ewaste problem in this country.

Fact remains though: The OP has been using PCs, obviously doesn't have an existing investment in Mac software and so doesn't HAVE to run Aperture. Doesn't matter that the Mac might be great: Windows 7 ain't bad, either. A Windows 7 machine is probably a cheaper, safer purchase for this buyer. I will probably buy at least one new computer this year and my next one may be a Mac. Nevertheless, I don't think "Buy a Mac" is the answer for every user.

There is no need to invest in Mac software. Macs run Windows just fine. I run Windows XP, Ubuntu Linux and OpenSolaris on my mini. Boot Camp and VirtualBox are both free, all you need is a Windows install disc. As far as Win7 being safer, there is just far too much malware out there for Windows to ever be considered safe.

raz-o I do a lot of PS work, have to it's my job. If you have enough ram you Photoshop won't be using swap files. Only time I ever have it go to a swap is when I am switching/using Indesign, Photoshop and Illustrator all open at once. I have 2 drives but they are mirrored so there is no real increase in swap writes. And yes since I do full color layout my files tend to get huge.

Barondla, what actually happened to your desktop? Power supply? You might be able to fix yours cheaply enough to keep it as a backup.

My home system, which is required to do the same type of work was built by Dell. I called them and got a system that is almost as powerful as the one I have at the shop. For about $1200. But it's dual monitor, higher end graphics card and a few other things I wanted but didn't necessarily need.

[barondla]

Thanks for all the insight people. I am doing a quick study of it.

Graphicgr8s, my computers problem started a few weeks ago. Always leave computer unhooked from wall ac. Last few times on bootup it would get stuck on opening screen and I would have to reboot again. Then it lost track of the usbs - could find external hard drives anymore. Unhooked them and rebooted to re find them. Worked fine again. Now it can't even save save files to external HDs. Says too long of a path. Acts like its saving files (spent 1 hour on 1g card). But they aren't there.

Hooked HDs to internet computer and all works well.
thanks
barondla

Thanks for all the insight people. I am doing a quick study of it.

Graphicgr8s, my computers problem started a few weeks ago. Always leave computer unhooked from wall ac. Last few times on bootup it would get stuck on opening screen and I would have to reboot again. Then it lost track of the usbs - could find external hard drives anymore. Unhooked them and rebooted to re find them. Worked fine again. Now it can't even save save files to external HDs. Says too long of a path. Acts like its saving files (spent 1 hour on 1g card). But they aren't there.

Hooked HDs to internet computer and all works well.
thanks
barondla

My guess is your hard drive is failing. Just replace that.

[Kerrowdown]

A macbook pro for me, the biggest I can afford