What's Your Computer Rig?

bileu · 07-19-2015, 01:27 AM

Originally posted by SininStyle

if you google photoshop total ram benchmark you can get some nice results that pretty much echo what I said. https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Adobe-Photoshop-CS6-Memory-Optimization-182/page4
The more you have, the more it will use =P
Photoshop is a huge ram hog. If your going to work a 1gig photo , according to this, buckle up...its going to be a minute lol.

RAM vs Photoshop | Gavtrain.com
http://realmacsoftware.com/blog/optimize-photoshop-performance
Skim to the middle titled photoshop performance window.

I use a 4th Gen Core i7
16GB RAM
Integrated GPU
240GB SSD (for OS and Scratch disk)
3 TB Seagate HDDs (for data)

Running hackintosh OSX Yosemite with PS CS6. Runs fine on 645Z files however I'm planning to upgrade to 32GB RAM.

slip · 07-19-2015, 09:20 AM

Originally posted by stingx

4th gen Core i7
32GB RAM
nVidia GTX 600 series - nice speed bump GPU for LR 6
512 SSD for OS
2x2TB Segate hybrid drives
Synology NAS

Also add a big SSD for a photoshop scratch disk and you would be all set. I also run an SSD for windows virtual memory. Even though 32G of ram is lots, windows still uses virtual memory

Good luck

Randy

Kolor-Pikker · 07-19-2015, 12:36 PM

Originally posted by slip

Also add a big SSD for a photoshop scratch disk and you would be all set. I also run an SSD for windows virtual memory. Even though 32G of ram is lots, windows still uses virtual memory

Good luck

Randy

It's possible to force Photoshop and other applications to stay in RAM by creating a RAM disk and assigning that as the scratch disk, but do keep in mind that virtual memory is there to enable things like crash recovery, so putting the virtual space onto volatile memory is kind of doing the opposite of what the programmers intended... it'll run faster though, that's for sure.

slip · 07-19-2015, 02:57 PM

Originally posted by Kolor-Pikker

It's possible to force Photoshop and other applications to stay in RAM by creating a RAM disk and assigning that as the scratch disk, but do keep in mind that virtual memory is there to enable things like crash recovery, so putting the virtual space onto volatile memory is kind of doing the opposite of what the programmers intended... it'll run faster though, that's for sure.

That's true. With the files as big as the ones that are coming out of the Z, add a few layers on top, combine that and the RAM it takes Photoshop, Windows, and any other programs running, it doesn't take long to use up all that RAM.

Randy

bwDraco · 07-19-2015, 05:11 PM

My rig is a gaming laptop custom-built by Sager Notebook about 18 months ago (model NP8255-S, based on the Clevo P157SM platform) with some aftermarket upgrades. Here's the specs:

Core i7-4800MQ (Haswell 4C/8T; 2.7 GHz + Turbo; 3.3 GHz typical with all cores under load)
24 GB DDR3L-1600 RAM
GeForce GTX 780M (1536 CUDA cores, 4GB GDDR5)
512 GB Samsung SSD 850 PRO for OS and applications
750 GB WD Black hard drive for bulk data
64 GB Plextor M5M as scratch space

If you're looking to process RAW files from the 645Z, 6 GB of RAM isn't enough. Using one of Adam's sample images as a test on my system, RawTherapee needed more than 4 GB of memory to process a 51MP RAW with my standard edits and save it to a high-quality JPEG. 8 GB is the bare minimum for processing 645Z images, with 16 GB preferred. As for the CPU, Ricoh recommends a Core 2 Quad or better, though you'll want to upgrade to a modern i7 for the best performance.

—DragonLord

mee · 07-19-2015, 07:00 PM

Originally posted by DragonLord

If you're looking to process RAW files from the 645Z, 6 GB of RAM isn't enough. Using one of Adam's sample images as a test on my system, RawTherapee needed more than 4 GB of memory to process a 51MP RAW with my standard edits and save it to a high-quality JPEG. 8 GB is the bare minimum for processing 645Z images, with 16 GB preferred. As for the CPU, Ricoh recommends a Core 2 Quad or better, though you'll want to upgrade to a modern i7 for the best performance.

Are you sure about that? I think an i5/8GB is your functional minimum.

That said, if you have the money for a 645Z setup.. a few hundred extra for an i7 and 16GB isn't going to break the bank I suspect. And memory is CHEAP right now, so little excuse not to have at least 8GB if not 16! But I still think they're niceties and not requirements. i5/8GB is your functional minimum, then 16GB, then i7 as necessities.

bwDraco · 07-20-2015, 03:53 AM

Originally posted by mee

Are you sure about that? I think an i5/8GB is your functional minimum.

That said, if you have the money for a 645Z setup.. a few hundred extra for an i7 and 16GB isn't going to break the bank I suspect. And memory is CHEAP right now, so little excuse not to have at least 8GB if not 16! But I still think they're niceties and not requirements. i5/8GB is your functional minimum, then 16GB, then i7 as necessities.

What I meant here is that you want a decent quad-core processor—2C/4T, as in a Core i3, may not be enough. An i5 (4C/4T) will certainly do here, but let's not forget that photo editing of this scale is very computationally demanding.

---------- Post added 07-20-15 at 06:56 AM ----------

Originally posted by mee

The max ram in Windows 8 Home is well above this (I think 128 GB iirc) so it is only an issue with Windows 7 and below.

Windows 8.1 (Core) and Windows 10 Home can handle up to 128 GB. Windows 8.1 Pro and Windows 10 Pro support 512 GB (!) of memory, as well as two physical CPUs (two sockets).

---------- Post added 07-20-15 at 07:47 AM ----------

Did some more testing using the Monument Valley image in the PentaxForums.com official review. With the standard sharpening, contrast, and saturation adjustments applied, a bit of defringing, and high-quality NR enabled (for experimental purposes; not needed or recommended in this shot), RawTherapee needs about 5.4 GB peak memory to process the image and save it to a best-quality JPEG. (When processed correctly, 645Z output is nothing short of breathtaking 😮.)

While RawTherapee has high memory requirements due to its 96-bpp (32 bits per channel floating-point) pipeline, you definitely need at least 8 GB of memory to be able to perform any non-trivial post-processing work on 645Z RAWs. I have no experience with Photoshop or Lightroom, but I can imagine these programs have similar memory demands with images this large.

—DragonLord

Last edited by bwDraco; 07-20-2015 at 05:08 AM.

Ratcheteer · 07-20-2015, 05:34 AM

Originally posted by FrankC

X99 and a i7-5930K

i consider the x99 epic waste of money if your not going to use the other pci-e slots, ddr4 no real world performance gain DDR4 Haswell-E Scaling Review: 2133 to 3200 with G.Skill, Corsair, ADATA and Crucial
if your not a overclocker don't even consider the K chips also the performance difference in photoshop 4 cores(i5) vs 6 cores(i7) = only 15% performance increase due to communication between the cores being the limiting factor (more cores lower the gains)

mee · 07-20-2015, 06:35 AM

Originally posted by Ratcheteer

i consider the x99 epic waste of money if your not going to use the other pci-e slots, ddr4 no real world performance gain DDR4 Haswell-E Scaling Review: 2133 to 3200 with G.Skill, Corsair, ADATA and Crucial
if your not a overclocker don't even consider the K chips also the performance difference in photoshop 4 cores(i5) vs 6 cores(i7) = only 15% performance increase due to communication between the cores being the limiting factor (more cores lower the gains)

I think so too. And z97 for single k processors, could get away with h97 for non-k (since I think z boards only bring OC and extra pcie x16 slots/SLI compared to h boards)

That said, I'm not sure if h97 will get support for 5000 series processors if that makes any difference whereas z97 should. for 6000 we'll all need new mobos anyways due to different pin count on the cpu... plus DDR4.

donesteban · 07-20-2015, 07:54 AM

2011 iMac 27" Core 5, the cheapest configuration, no SSD. Only thing I changed is upgrading the RAM to 24 GB. Lightroom works fine with less, but Hasselblad Phocus is eating a lot.

Ratcheteer · 07-20-2015, 05:47 PM - **1 Like**

Originally posted by mee

I'm not sure if h97 will get support for 5000 series processors

well the Asus H97M-E works with a Xeon E3-1285V4 (its a broadwell) so it should support upto i7 5700 processors

itshimitis · 01-23-2016, 04:28 AM

I'm pondering a change. I'm caught between an iMac 27 5k at home with 16GB RAM or this PC based laptop. The only issue is going from Mac back to PC. My wife has already done it as she found Mac's integrated video card was holding her online gaming back. What do you think?

This below comes out at £2600 including tax. The iMac with similar specs has a similar price but not the same portability. If I didn't travel so much, it would be a no brainer to go with the iMac as I think that has a more powerful processor :4.0GHz quad-core Intel Core i7, Turbo Boost up to 4.2GHz

LA_Photographer · 01-28-2016, 08:06 AM

Mid 2014 MacBook Pro. 2.5 GHz I7 processor with 16 GB or RAM and a 500GB SSD drive. Since I am nearly always traveling, I use several 2 TB Lacie drives for backups (and one that always stays at home). Overall I'm pretty happy with the rig (though a large 4k monitor would be nice), but since upgrading my camera rig to the Z (and getting a Sony A7RII for a backup camera) I have noticed a bit of lag when working with such large files. Hopefully the next gen of Macbook Pros will have a much larger memory capacity.

07-19-2015, 05:11 PM	#50
bwDraco Veteran Member Join Date: Jul 2010 Location: New York Photos: Albums Posts: 1,071	My rig is a gaming laptop custom-built by Sager Notebook about 18 months ago (model NP8255-S, based on the Clevo P157SM platform) with some aftermarket upgrades. Here's the specs: Core i7-4800MQ (Haswell 4C/8T; 2.7 GHz + Turbo; 3.3 GHz typical with all cores under load) 24 GB DDR3L-1600 RAM GeForce GTX 780M (1536 CUDA cores, 4GB GDDR5) 512 GB Samsung SSD 850 PRO for OS and applications 750 GB WD Black hard drive for bulk data 64 GB Plextor M5M as scratch space If you're looking to process RAW files from the 645Z, 6 GB of RAM isn't enough. Using one of Adam's sample images as a test on my system, RawTherapee needed more than 4 GB of memory to process a 51MP RAW with my standard edits and save it to a high-quality JPEG. 8 GB is the bare minimum for processing 645Z images, with 16 GB preferred. As for the CPU, Ricoh recommends a Core 2 Quad or better, though you'll want to upgrade to a modern i7 for the best performance. —DragonLord Last edited by bwDraco; 07-19-2015 at 05:51 PM.

01-23-2016, 04:28 AM	#57
itshimitis Pentaxian Join Date: May 2011 Location: All over the place Posts: 3,535	I'm pondering a change. I'm caught between an iMac 27 5k at home with 16GB RAM or this PC based laptop. The only issue is going from Mac back to PC. My wife has already done it as she found Mac's integrated video card was holding her online gaming back. What do you think? This below comes out at £2600 including tax. The iMac with similar specs has a similar price but not the same portability. If I didn't travel so much, it would be a no brainer to go with the iMac as I think that has a more powerful processor :4.0GHz quad-core Intel Core i7, Turbo Boost up to 4.2GHz Attached Images Last edited by itshimitis; 01-23-2016 at 04:37 AM.

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07-19-2015, 01:27 AM	#46
bileu Junior Member Join Date: Feb 2015 Location: Lahore Posts: 31	Originally posted by SininStyle if you google photoshop total ram benchmark you can get some nice results that pretty much echo what I said. https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Adobe-Photoshop-CS6-Memory-Optimization-182/page4 The more you have, the more it will use =P Photoshop is a huge ram hog. If your going to work a 1gig photo , according to this, buckle up...its going to be a minute lol. RAM vs Photoshop \| Gavtrain.com http://realmacsoftware.com/blog/optimize-photoshop-performance Skim to the middle titled photoshop performance window. I use a 4th Gen Core i7 16GB RAM Integrated GPU 240GB SSD (for OS and Scratch disk) 3 TB Seagate HDDs (for data) Running hackintosh OSX Yosemite with PS CS6. Runs fine on 645Z files however I'm planning to upgrade to 32GB RAM.

07-19-2015, 09:20 AM	#47
slip Veteran Member Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: 2 hours north of toronto ontario canada Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 3,535	Originally posted by stingx 4th gen Core i7 32GB RAM nVidia GTX 600 series - nice speed bump GPU for LR 6 512 SSD for OS 2x2TB Segate hybrid drives Synology NAS Also add a big SSD for a photoshop scratch disk and you would be all set. I also run an SSD for windows virtual memory. Even though 32G of ram is lots, windows still uses virtual memory Good luck Randy

07-19-2015, 12:36 PM	#48
Kolor-Pikker Veteran Member Join Date: Dec 2014 Posts: 344	Originally posted by slip Also add a big SSD for a photoshop scratch disk and you would be all set. I also run an SSD for windows virtual memory. Even though 32G of ram is lots, windows still uses virtual memory Good luck Randy It's possible to force Photoshop and other applications to stay in RAM by creating a RAM disk and assigning that as the scratch disk, but do keep in mind that virtual memory is there to enable things like crash recovery, so putting the virtual space onto volatile memory is kind of doing the opposite of what the programmers intended... it'll run faster though, that's for sure.

07-19-2015, 02:57 PM	#49
slip Veteran Member Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: 2 hours north of toronto ontario canada Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 3,535	Originally posted by Kolor-Pikker It's possible to force Photoshop and other applications to stay in RAM by creating a RAM disk and assigning that as the scratch disk, but do keep in mind that virtual memory is there to enable things like crash recovery, so putting the virtual space onto volatile memory is kind of doing the opposite of what the programmers intended... it'll run faster though, that's for sure. That's true. With the files as big as the ones that are coming out of the Z, add a few layers on top, combine that and the RAM it takes Photoshop, Windows, and any other programs running, it doesn't take long to use up all that RAM. Randy

07-19-2015, 07:00 PM	#51
mee Veteran Member Join Date: May 2010 Posts: 7,403	Originally posted by DragonLord If you're looking to process RAW files from the 645Z, 6 GB of RAM isn't enough. Using one of Adam's sample images as a test on my system, RawTherapee needed more than 4 GB of memory to process a 51MP RAW with my standard edits and save it to a high-quality JPEG. 8 GB is the bare minimum for processing 645Z images, with 16 GB preferred. As for the CPU, Ricoh recommends a Core 2 Quad or better, though you'll want to upgrade to a modern i7 for the best performance. Are you sure about that? I think an i5/8GB is your functional minimum. That said, if you have the money for a 645Z setup.. a few hundred extra for an i7 and 16GB isn't going to break the bank I suspect. And memory is CHEAP right now, so little excuse not to have at least 8GB if not 16! But I still think they're niceties and not requirements. i5/8GB is your functional minimum, then 16GB, then i7 as necessities.

07-20-2015, 03:53 AM	#52
bwDraco Veteran Member Join Date: Jul 2010 Location: New York Photos: Albums Posts: 1,071	Originally posted by mee Are you sure about that? I think an i5/8GB is your functional minimum. That said, if you have the money for a 645Z setup.. a few hundred extra for an i7 and 16GB isn't going to break the bank I suspect. And memory is CHEAP right now, so little excuse not to have at least 8GB if not 16! But I still think they're niceties and not requirements. i5/8GB is your functional minimum, then 16GB, then i7 as necessities. What I meant here is that you want a decent quad-core processor—2C/4T, as in a Core i3, may not be enough. An i5 (4C/4T) will certainly do here, but let's not forget that photo editing of this scale is very computationally demanding. ---------- Post added 07-20-15 at 06:56 AM ---------- Originally posted by mee The max ram in Windows 8 Home is well above this (I think 128 GB iirc) so it is only an issue with Windows 7 and below. Windows 8.1 (Core) and Windows 10 Home can handle up to 128 GB. Windows 8.1 Pro and Windows 10 Pro support 512 GB (!) of memory, as well as two physical CPUs (two sockets). ---------- Post added 07-20-15 at 07:47 AM ---------- Did some more testing using the Monument Valley image in the PentaxForums.com official review. With the standard sharpening, contrast, and saturation adjustments applied, a bit of defringing, and high-quality NR enabled (for experimental purposes; not needed or recommended in this shot), RawTherapee needs about 5.4 GB peak memory to process the image and save it to a best-quality JPEG. (When processed correctly, 645Z output is nothing short of breathtaking 😮.) While RawTherapee has high memory requirements due to its 96-bpp (32 bits per channel floating-point) pipeline, you definitely need at least 8 GB of memory to be able to perform any non-trivial post-processing work on 645Z RAWs. I have no experience with Photoshop or Lightroom, but I can imagine these programs have similar memory demands with images this large. —DragonLord Last edited by bwDraco; 07-20-2015 at 05:08 AM.

07-20-2015, 05:34 AM	#53
Ratcheteer Senior Member Join Date: Dec 2013 Posts: 223	Originally posted by FrankC X99 and a i7-5930K i consider the x99 epic waste of money if your not going to use the other pci-e slots, ddr4 no real world performance gain DDR4 Haswell-E Scaling Review: 2133 to 3200 with G.Skill, Corsair, ADATA and Crucial if your not a overclocker don't even consider the K chips also the performance difference in photoshop 4 cores(i5) vs 6 cores(i7) = only 15% performance increase due to communication between the cores being the limiting factor (more cores lower the gains)

07-20-2015, 06:35 AM	#54
mee Veteran Member Join Date: May 2010 Posts: 7,403	Originally posted by Ratcheteer i consider the x99 epic waste of money if your not going to use the other pci-e slots, ddr4 no real world performance gain DDR4 Haswell-E Scaling Review: 2133 to 3200 with G.Skill, Corsair, ADATA and Crucial if your not a overclocker don't even consider the K chips also the performance difference in photoshop 4 cores(i5) vs 6 cores(i7) = only 15% performance increase due to communication between the cores being the limiting factor (more cores lower the gains) I think so too. And z97 for single k processors, could get away with h97 for non-k (since I think z boards only bring OC and extra pcie x16 slots/SLI compared to h boards) That said, I'm not sure if h97 will get support for 5000 series processors if that makes any difference whereas z97 should. for 6000 we'll all need new mobos anyways due to different pin count on the cpu... plus DDR4.

07-20-2015, 07:54 AM	#55
donesteban Senior Member Join Date: Feb 2013 Posts: 124	2011 iMac 27" Core 5, the cheapest configuration, no SSD. Only thing I changed is upgrading the RAM to 24 GB. Lightroom works fine with less, but Hasselblad Phocus is eating a lot.

07-20-2015, 05:47 PM - 1 Like	#56
Ratcheteer Senior Member Join Date: Dec 2013 Posts: 223	Originally posted by mee I'm not sure if h97 will get support for 5000 series processors well the Asus H97M-E works with a Xeon E3-1285V4 (its a broadwell) so it should support upto i7 5700 processors

01-28-2016, 08:06 AM	#58
LA_Photographer Junior Member Join Date: Mar 2015 Posts: 37	Mid 2014 MacBook Pro. 2.5 GHz I7 processor with 16 GB or RAM and a 500GB SSD drive. Since I am nearly always traveling, I use several 2 TB Lacie drives for backups (and one that always stays at home). Overall I'm pretty happy with the rig (though a large 4k monitor would be nice), but since upgrading my camera rig to the Z (and getting a Sony A7RII for a backup camera) I have noticed a bit of lag when working with such large files. Hopefully the next gen of Macbook Pros will have a much larger memory capacity.