Hardcore photo processing PC

T

tubular

Gawd
Joined
Apr 10, 2008
Messages
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Ok, so I just bought the Nikon D800 (it takes 36 megapixel images for those unfamiliar). Furthermore for those those that aren't familiar, this camera takes an average lossless compressed RAW file at about 40mb per image. When editing and using this file it becomes pretty damn huge.

Anyways, I currently have a i7 920 system on windows 7 pro 64bit oc'ed at 3.2ish ghz with 12 gb triple channel ram. Also I have two radeon 6950's running together in crossfire (I am also a big gamer). Furthermore, I am running three IPS 24" panels at 1920x1200 each and an occasional 47" 1080p TV in addition.

Anyways, I would like to see a significant improvement upgrading to any newer mobo/processor/ram combo. I am not looking for small improvements, I can wait another year or two if I wont see a big change. (my PC destroys any game I throw at it these days). What I would really love to see is faster processing of my RAW photo files.

Anyways, to answer those common questions the FAQ advised.........


1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming & Nikon Capture 2 (as well as other less intensive stuff)

2) What's your budget? Would love to spend under 2 grand on the upgrade. Remember, I have two newish 6950's (running in crossfire) so I won't have to buy those. Also, I have 12 gb of corsair dominator triple channel ram (2gb per slot currently). Also my power supply should still be good to go (read below for details)

3) Which country do you live in? St. Louis, MO

4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? I want a new case (FULL TOWER ONLY) (with usb 3.0 on front port), mobo, processor, memory if I need it

5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Have a KINGWIN Mach 1 ABT-1220 power supply. Will reuse my two MSI 6950's for sure. Will reuse RAM if I can. Have lots of HD space, though I am ok upgrading to more space. NOTE: currently I am running RAID 1 with a 3rd HD running backup on the raid 1 array (this runs as a manual (every 3 months or so) back up). All my HD's are currently 1tb WD Caviar Blacks.

Furthermore I won a free Antec h20 920 in their gaming contest (because I own at battlefield). Would love to reuse it.

6) Will you be overclocking? If I need to, otherwise I'd rather keep my heat down.

7) What is the max resolution of your monitor? What size is it? 1920 x 1200. 24" This won't change. These are expensive IPS panels.

8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC? Next 3-6 months I think?

9) What features do you need in a motherboard? Raid, Crossfire, USB 3.0, Sata whatever is good these days. I already have an ASUS Xonar 7.1 sound card, though I also have the Corsair 1500 (which bypasses it, le' sigh)

10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? Windows 7 pro 64bit
 
My immediate thoughts are that 1) maybe the 12 GB still isn't enough for your image manipulation (24 GB might do the trick?) and/or 2) you may want a processor that has more cores/can run more threads.

The current ivy bridge processors are still limited to quad core and should be somewhat faster at the high end, but I'm really wondering if a 6 core processor may be what will do the trick? That means you are either looking at a socket 2011 board or installing one of the gulftown processors in your current board (may require a BIOS update).

My inclination would be to get a gulftown processor like the i7-980 and boost your system to 24 GB.

Processor: i7-980 - $642
http://www.amazon.com/Intel-i7-980-...O22O/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1339767599&sr=8-3

and

Memory: 24GB Corsair 1600 DDR3 - $155
http://www.amazon.com/Corsair-Venge...3M6A1600C9/dp/B004UPTEH6/ref=pd_bxgy_e_text_b

I'll let other people make suggestions for the 2011 processor route (or other choices entirely).
 
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Unfortunately the image manipulation programs I use don't even make use of the current 12gb of ram. I think I am mostly hitting a processor 'brick-wall'
 
This really depends on whether the programs being used are highly multi-thread and can use 6-cores or not.

I mean for the price of the i7-980 alone you could go to the local Microcenter and pick up a 2600k/2700k, decent, mobo, and 32GB of ram. Yes, there is one in St. Louis. Buy online and for about $90 more you could get a current Ivy 3770k.

Now I found this comparison of the i7-990X and the i7-2600K. (Note it looks like they are testing using only 4GB and 6GB of ram) http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/core-i7-2600k-990x.html

They do tests in Photoshop CS5 and Light Room 3, both stock and overclocked @ roughly the same clock speed. The 2600k is faster in CS5 while the 990x is faster in Lightroom. However the 2600k uses much less power.

I think as compared to your current overclocked 920, a mid-4s overclock 2600/2700k would be a sizable step up while reducing both power usage and heat generation. Whether its enough to justify the upgrade is up to you.

On a side note I think you'd see a massive boost in productivity moving to SSDs or an OCZ RevoDrive for work and then using the WD drives for storage/backup.
 
I'm out of my element here, but am inclined to believe the CPU may not be the limiting factor ; while not the fastest CPU out there, an overclocked i7 920 is no slouch, either. Does overclocking your 920 further yield any performance benefit? Most 920's will easily hit 3.6ghz+.

Don't know what applications you're using, but have you looked into scratch disk / ram allotment settings? Perhaps a ram disk setup or at least an SSD would be a more judicious use of funds? Also might look into an nvidia card for CUDA acceleration, if applicable.

I'm sure someone w/ more hands-on experience with this type of use case will chime in...
 
Maybe the 2600k wouldn't be a bad idea.

I really don't want to do much oc'ing because I really really hate the heat generation.

As to the hard drives, running two black caviars in a raid 1 setup don't give SD speeds, but it is really fast. I'm not having any problems with my write or read speeds, so I don't want to upgrade or change the harddrives. The problem is in the processing speed. The main application I use is Nikon Capture NX 2 (better for working on individual RAW Nikon files than photoshop or lightroom), which really doesn't make very good use of multiple cores.

Would CUDA make that much of a difference? I don't think that the program has graphics acceleration.
 
tubular said:
Maybe the 2600k wouldn't be a bad idea.

I really don't want to do much oc'ing because I really really hate the heat generation.
Click to expand...

Even with a mid-4s OC, the 2600k will run cooler than your current CPU.

Also CUDA can make a large difference but the program has to support it.
 
When you are processing images, leave the task manager up and see if your CPU is getting pegged at 100%. If it is, then that's your bottleneck.

Nikon Capture 2 from 2.3.1 and upwards makes use of multiple core processors; they do NOT benefit from CUDA Tech. However if you are using Adobe's Photoshop, then CUDA tech is highly recommended.

Also when you are editing these images, take a look at your physical memory usage. If it's upwards of 10GB or higher, adding more RAM will most likely benefit you.

What's the specific RAM you have? Might not be compatible with SB or IB processors.
 
Skillz said:
When you are processing images, leave the task manager up and see if your CPU is getting pegged at 100%. If it is, then that's your bottleneck.
Click to expand...

On the other hand, if the CPU utilization becomes very low even with heavy processing, then there is a bottleneck somewhere else in that system.
 
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