• Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
    Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.

Photoshop/Illustrator CPU preference?

Status
Not open for further replies.
F

Flipside

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Apr 18, 2003
Messages
1,027
Simple Question:

Making a PC primarily for Photoshop/Illustrator -
It will have a gig of RAM; however, I'm currently debating between a 2.4-2.8C (865PE with PAT) vs XP2500+ (NF2)
Which one is better for my needs?

This will NOT be overclocked.
 
You might want to check into this...but I thought those apps had specific optimizations for the P4.
 
A Pentium 4 will outperform an Athlon XP and A64 in these applications and other productivity software. Photoshop is multithreaded so it will run really well with a processor that has Hyper Threading enabled.

I would get a 3.0c.
 
Basically,

if you have the money to spend go with p4 3.0 and if you dont and want to save a little or just can't afford go with the 64.
 
You will never find yourself waiting for anything while using those progies. I speak from experience. Smooth sailing. The P4 was born to run those applications.
 
Doesnt matter, at all. Im sure its optimized for P4 in some wacky way, but will you notice that second quicker gaussian blur?

Youre MUCH better off getting more ram or a better monitor, or even a better pointing device/tablet
 
You will notice it quite a bit because 3DS Max 6 and Photoshop are the two programs i use all the time for model devlopement for several games i play like Morrowind. I've ran Photoshop a couple of times on Athlon XP's and there is a definite difference because of the fact they are multithreaded and Hyper Threading can give around a 25-30% boost in performance. If your working with small files in Photoshop its not too bad but when you get into the bigger stuff you'll wish you had the P4 just to save you some time loading it up so you can get started. Rendering goes much quicker if you have Hyper Threading and a mulithreaded application to work with.

And if you can afford it somewhere in there i would get two drives to run in RAID0 for another 25-30% performance increase in reading and writing large files.
 
I was wondering, for Photoshop and Illustrator, given 2 different CPUs which is better anyways?

A 2.4C Overclocked to 3GHZ
or
A 3.0C at stock speed?
 
Do to the nature of the memory controllers. Sychronus processing is the ticket. Unless of course your 1-1 on your over clock? Am I correct on this guys?
 
Originally posted by burningrave101
You will notice it quite a bit because 3DS Max 6 and Photoshop are the two programs i use all the time for model devlopement for several games i play like Morrowind. I've ran Photoshop a couple of times on Athlon XP's and there is a definite difference because of the fact they are multithreaded and Hyper Threading can give around a 25-30% boost in performance. If your working with small files in Photoshop its not too bad but when you get into the bigger stuff you'll wish you had the P4 just to save you some time loading it up so you can get started. Rendering goes much quicker if you have Hyper Threading and a mulithreaded application to work with.
Click to expand...

oh god. please tell me how the processor affects the read from the harddrive into the ram, if the bus speeds are the same. id love to hear this one. the only thing the processor does is compute numbers, as in mathmatical transforms on the data, and you do NOT do enough of that for it to be a big deal in photoshop. 3DSM that may be the case but a dual AMD system would KICK THE CRAP out of a P4 system, and most likely be cheaper.
 
Originally posted by Chelica
I was wondering, for Photoshop and Illustrator, given 2 different CPUs which is better anyways?

A 2.4C Overclocked to 3GHZ
or
A 3.0C at stock speed?
Click to expand...

I would get the 3.0c because you can overclock it to 3.5-3.6Ghz or higher usually without any kind of problem.

Do to the nature of the memory controllers. Sychronus processing is the ticket. Unless of course your 1-1 on your over clock? Am I correct on this guys?
Click to expand...

It doesn't really matter. If you stay in 1:1 it will be faster then 5:4 if the timings are the same on both. But if you overclock in 1:1 and have to loosen the timings and then you overclock in 5:4 to the same FSB speed with the timings still tight then the 5:4 will be faster. You really want to keep your timings as low as possible at all cost. For applications like Photoshop though, timings wont be as much of an issue because they use more bandwidth than anything else. Intel boards have dual channel controllers though so you have double the bandwidth as normal P4's and Athlon XP's without it.

On my 3.0c i set it to 5:4 if i plan to overclock to 3.5-3.6Ghz. If i wanna just overclock to like 3.2Ghz then i would leave it at 1:1 because if i set it to 5:4 it would slow down my memory too much. You want to keep the memory around 200Mhz or higher but also keep the timings around 2-3-2-5 if you can.

oh god. please tell me how the processor affects the read from the harddrive into the ram, if the bus speeds are the same. id love to hear this one. the only thing the processor does is compute numbers, as in mathmatical transforms on the data, and you do NOT do enough of that for it to be a big deal in photoshop.
Click to expand...

WTF are you talking about dude. I dont think i said anything about the read from the hard drive into the RAM or bus speeds or anything else for that matter lol. I was talking about how Photoshop is multithreaded for use with dual processors and how Hyper Threading an a multithreaded application will give a good 25-30% performance increase. Thats all i said about that. And i take it you havn't done much work in photoshop because rendering is much faster on a dual CPU or Hyper Threading enabled setup.

3DSM that may be the case but a dual AMD system would KICK THE CRAP out of a P4 system, and most likely be cheaper.
Click to expand...

Lets see the benchmarks.

And heres some benchmarks with dual Opteron 240's in rendering projects against P4's and Xeons.

http://www.techreport.com/reviews/2003q3/workstation/index.x?pg=8

Anything less then dual 246's or 248's which would be out of this world in price comparison would get kicked around by a high end P4 with Hyper Threading in this applications.
 
Adobe has stated in the past couple years repeatedly that P4s are their favorite processors (over AMD or Apples). They are somewhat optimized to run on P4s and Photoshop/Illustrator do indeed like HyperThreading.

Most quick filters or adjustments speed up just a little, but it's the long arduous processing that sees the biggest gain, dealing with interpolation or many layers can see some gains with a Pentium 4.
 
Originally posted by emorphien
Adobe has stated in the past couple years repeatedly that P4s are their favorite processors (over AMD or Apples). They are somewhat optimized to run on P4s and Photoshop/Illustrator do indeed like HyperThreading.

Most quick filters or adjustments speed up just a little, but it's the long arduous processing that sees the biggest gain, dealing with interpolation or many layers can see some gains with a Pentium 4.
Click to expand...
]


Damn SSE2. Damn intel for not giving it to AMD yet.
 
Originally posted by kronchev
]


Damn SSE2. Damn intel for not giving it to AMD yet.
Click to expand...

I dont think its Intel's responsibility to constantly spoon feed AMD. The A64's have SSE2 now and the P4 is still faster in these applications because of the deeper pipelines and higher clock speeds which favor productivity software.
 
Originally posted by burningrave101
I dont think its Intel's responsibility to constantly spoon feed AMD. The A64's have SSE2 now and the P4 is still faster in these applications because of the deeper pipelines and higher clock speeds which favor productivity software.
Click to expand...

uh no, but they signed a technology sharing agreement and intel has never shared something until it was about to become outdated
 
I love it when a P4 is the proven winner in some test or application....but yet the fanboys of AMD still can't admit that it's possible or even likely. It's Intel's fault for holding them back, right? *laughs at ignorance*

Here's the deal. Intel and AMD both make amazing and fast processors. They are slightly different in HOW they do the job. Therefore...something will be better on an Intel platform, and some will be better on an AMD. As soon as some people realize this, there will be no more moronic battles over AMD and Intel. Besides...competition benefits the consumers. We should be happy to have 2 very viable choices. *again laughs at ignorance*
 
Originally posted by djnes
I love it when a P4 is the proven winner in some test or application....but yet the fanboys of AMD still can't admit that it's possible or even likely. It's Intel's fault for holding them back, right? *laughs at ignorance*

Here's the deal. Intel and AMD both make amazing and fast processors. They are slightly different in HOW they do the job. Therefore...something will be better on an Intel platform, and some will be better on an AMD. As soon as some people realize this, there will be no more moronic battles over AMD and Intel. Besides...competition benefits the consumers. We should be happy to have 2 very viable choices. *again laughs at ignorance*
Click to expand...

all im saying is that if intel would follow their agreement and give AMD processors the same level of SSE theyre using (the 64's only have SSE2 because the new intels are going to have SSE3) then things would be more compariable.
 
Originally posted by kronchev
all im saying is that if intel would follow their agreement and give AMD processors the same level of SSE theyre using (the 64's only have SSE2 because the new intels are going to have SSE3) then things would be more compariable.
Click to expand...

What makes you think AMD even wanted SSE2 for their Athlon XP's? I dont remember anyone ever saying that AMD tried to get it and Intel wouldn't let them have it. AMD could have given the on-die controller scheme to Intel but they didn't and there's no way of knowing that Intel even wanted it at the time. Nobody is holding ither one of these processor firms back. Its their own responsibility to come out with new tech and stay on top. You can't blame one or the other because they didn't give them everything they were using at the time so its "fair".

I mean what exactly had AMD given to Intel? All the x86 architecture was from Intel, MMX, SSE, SSE2, and now SSE3 instruction sets are made by intel. AMD had MMX and SSE at the time along with using Intel's x86 architecture back then. Then alot of the tech AMD is using comes from several of the companies they have bought out and taken over. AMD is alot smaller and doesn't have the huge R&D budget of Intel but thats not Intel's fault.
 
Originally posted by burningrave101
What makes you think AMD even wanted SSE2 for their Athlon XP's? I dont remember anyone ever saying that AMD tried to get it and Intel wouldn't let them have it. AMD could have given the on-die controller scheme to Intel but they didn't and there's no way of knowing that Intel even wanted it at the time. Nobody is holding ither one of these processor firms back. Its their own responsibility to come out with new tech and stay on top. You can't blame one or the other because they didn't give them everything they were using at the time so its "fair".

I mean what exactly had AMD given to Intel? All the x86 architecture was from Intel, MMX, SSE, SSE2, and now SSE3 instruction sets are made by intel. AMD had MMX and SSE at the time along with using Intel's x86 architecture back then. Then alot of the tech AMD is using comes from several of the companies they have bought out and taken over. AMD is alot smaller and doesn't have the huge R&D budget of Intel but thats not Intel's fault.
Click to expand...

Amen, brother...keep hope alive!
 
I am pondering why its Intel's responsibility to share in a timely matter what it has spend millions in r and d on to acheive a competitive advantage.

American business does not work that way. They agreed to share technology when its expediant and AMD would be sueing if Intel was not meeting its obligations. Intel shares just enought to keep it out of antitrust litigation and that is all.


I am not an Intel fan boy just another businessman who is sick and tired of left wing socialist views that only quash productivity and inovation.

AMD is alive today due to inovation, That inovation is the result of a need to survive. Take that need away , competition dies and inovation along with it.

Freedom to inovate and reep the benifits of hardwork is the foundation of American enterprise.

Get over it or live in a country that believes in redistribution of weatlh and the subsequent sub standard of living it entails.
 
Originally posted by jacuzz1
live in a country that believes in redistribution of weatlh and the subsequent sub standard of living it entails.
Click to expand...

You sir, just described communism!!

Wonderful post, BTW.
 
Originally posted by djnes
I love it when a P4 is the proven winner in some test or application....but yet the fanboys of AMD still can't admit that it's possible or even likely. It's Intel's fault for holding them back, right? *laughs at ignorance*

Here's the deal. Intel and AMD both make amazing and fast processors. They are slightly different in HOW they do the job. Therefore...something will be better on an Intel platform, and some will be better on an AMD. As soon as some people realize this, there will be no more moronic battles over AMD and Intel. Besides...competition benefits the consumers. We should be happy to have 2 very viable choices. *again laughs at ignorance*
Click to expand...

I totally agree. I'm really an AMD nut, always had AMDs, and my next rig will be AMD too (I think). I just stick with 'em because I have more knowledge of them. But I also think Intel's are far from bad too. ;) Heck, it could even outrun my computer, and so what? Being given a Pentium based computer, I'd be more than happy, as long as I get to keep my Athlon though. :p

But, back on topic, I'm pretty sure a Pentium would be better for these graphic applications. Then again, for some "light" work (web pics at 72dpi, or amateur-ish/enthusiasm editing), I don't think it'd make a HUGE difference. It's when you work on multi-layered, 8x10 300dpi pics that you'll notice the biggest improvement.
 
I may be mistaken, but I do believe that in general photoshop is faster on P4's. Been a while since I saw benchmarks though, so you might want to double-check that.

Erik
 
Originally posted by emorphien
8x10 300ppi pics at 8bit color aren't that big. :D
Click to expand...

Yeah right. Tell this to the G3s we had at school. :p Still, you knew what I was trying to explain here. :D
 
Originally posted by jacuzz1
I am pondering why its Intel's responsibility to share in a timely matter what it has spend millions in r and d on to acheive a competitive advantage.

American business does not work that way. They agreed to share technology when its expediant and AMD would be sueing if Intel was not meeting its obligations. Intel shares just enought to keep it out of antitrust litigation and that is all.


I am not an Intel fan boy just another businessman who is sick and tired of left wing socialist views that only quash productivity and inovation.

AMD is alive today due to inovation, That inovation is the result of a need to survive. Take that need away , competition dies and inovation along with it.

Freedom to inovate and reep the benifits of hardwork is the foundation of American enterprise.

Get over it or live in a country that believes in redistribution of weatlh and the subsequent sub standard of living it entails.
Click to expand...

:rolleyes:

I'm not going to turn this into a political debate, because ill win, youll get mad, and this thread will be locked

as a "business man" you must understand what an AGREEMENT is. im sure intel was well within their "rights" to do what they did, i'm saying that they're only doing that to screw over AMD. AMD hasnt had a profit for the past...how many years? Is that innovation? If AMD died out you think thered be innovation and competition? I'm all for a free market but I'm NOT for irresponsible greedy companies. Intel hasnt shared that technology readily because then AMD would make a profit, taking a few precious dollars from intel's 9 figure profit, which in fact DOUBLED this year. DOUBLED. You think that they would even NOTICE the money lost (its not even money lost at this point) if AMD could compete effectivly? You think thats "encouraging competition and innovation" by stifling the competition?
 
Originally posted by jacuzz1
Thats interesting. I wonder how the numbers would look with multiple apps running like they would be on my machine?

PS: You will note they used a slightly modified benchmark measurement app. What opitmizations, i mean moddifications did they do?
Click to expand...

just a little FYI, multithreading was to make up for intel's shitty long pipeline, so it probabily has the same multitasking abilities as the A64
 
Originally posted by kronchev
just a little FYI, multithreading was to make up for intel's shitty long pipeline, so it probabily has the same multitasking abilities as the A64
Click to expand...

Stop trying to peddle your fanboy ideals here....I asked a simple question, and you're just clouding the facts with your incessantly rambling.
 
Originally posted by Flipside
Stop trying to peddle your fanboy ideals here....I asked a simple question, and you're just clouding the facts with your incessantly rambling.
Click to expand...
He's right though, the long pipeline somewhat necessitated multithreading.
 
Originally posted by djnes
I love it when a P4 is the proven winner in some test or application....but yet the fanboys of AMD still can't admit that it's possible or even likely. It's Intel's fault for holding them back, right? *laughs at ignorance*

Here's the deal. Intel and AMD both make amazing and fast processors. They are slightly different in HOW they do the job. Therefore...something will be better on an Intel platform, and some will be better on an AMD. As soon as some people realize this, there will be no more moronic battles over AMD and Intel. Besides...competition benefits the consumers. We should be happy to have 2 very viable choices. *again laughs at ignorance*
Click to expand...

exactly :D

to wit: The Advantage that an AMD 64bit processor would have is in the memory addressibility,
which would be applicable to an increasing number of productivity applications (but not Photoshop)

Breaking Through the 2 GB Memory Ceiling
 @ Workstation Planet


Excerpts:
"With CPU clock-rates heading towards 4 GHz and beyond, the top of the line 32-bit processors found in most PCs these days are fast enough to tear through intense simulations, modeling, and data mining tasks. These chips, however, and to a large degree the entire x486 architecture, are limited because they can deliver only 2GB of RAM per application. Although that is more than enough memory for the average computer user, the average workstation user requires more.

Caching large databases, working with large 2D image files, modeling building plans in a CAD program, rendering complex machinery in an MCAD program, and running weather simulations all require the manipulation of large files in real time. And that often requires more memory than a 32-bit system can deliver.

On a 32-bit system, any given application will be limited to an allocation of 2GB of RAM, and the CPU limits the amount of RAM in the system to 4GB. This doesn't mean that a workstation with 4GB of RAM is always going to have 2GB going to waste. This 2GB limit applies to the resources that can be drawn by any one application. With 4GB, two different applications could crank through operations with 2GB of RAM each with the swap space never getting touched. Still, many workstation applications require more than 2GB to efficiently complete a single task.

The 64-bit Solution
The latest 64-bit chips, such as AMD's Athlon 64 and Intel's Itanium 2, have twice the memory registers of a 32-bit chip, but the total memory that can be accessed is much more than double. A 32-bit processor can access up to 4.3 billion memory addresses for a total of about 4GB of physical memory. A 64-bit processor could conceivably access over 18 petabytes of physical memory. If you are sorting a database with terabytes of information, than 64-bit addressing can make a big difference

Some applications are limited to 2GB even on 64-bit systems. Adobe's Photoshop has a 2GB RAM limit and Adobe has no plans of increasing it, even though Apple's latest operating system supports 64-bit extensions; Adobe says 2GB is plenty for the image editor's functions. Plus, using a Power Mac G5 with 4GB of RAM does enable users to work in Photoshop to the limits of its RAM allocation while, in the background, Final Cut Pro works steadily through a file conversion without impacting the speed of Photoshop.

If you need to manipulate large files or work with models in excess of 2GB, migrating to a 64-bit processor and operating system is essential. And with a bunch of 64-bit chips reaching the market, a host of 64-bit-ready Linux distributions, and a growing number of off-the-shelf applications, it is increasingly affordable to break the 2GB memory ceiling."
Click to expand...

of course if your an Intel Fanboy there is always the Itanium :p
if this was an important metric

Id say go with the P4 (and I own dual Opterons)
based on the parameters you mentioned and the use ;)
 
Originally posted by Flipside
Stop trying to peddle your fanboy ideals here....I asked a simple question, and you're just clouding the facts with your incessantly rambling.
Click to expand...

too bad that im right. i never said HT didnt do anything, i said it was compensating for a poor design, emo boy.
 
so what is your friend planning on using photoshop for? are they planning on using any other applications and if so is it going to be for web based publishing, print publishing or both?

I use photoshop on both intel and amd systems daily, but its normally for commercial print work, which taxes the system exponentially more than web based work.

I dont notice much (if any) of a difference, but I am not constantly editing photos, mostly I am resizing or using acrobat to resize and enlarge photos to cover the full papersize. They definitely smoke the G-4's at work, the design department is getting new G5 1800's next week. The designers that stop by the shop are most impressed with my xp2500 system and I have been telling them they will get pretty much the same feel with their new boxes.

BTW the technology sharing everyone referring to here is a patent sharing agreement. They are allowed to freely use each others patented technology, that allows for the companies to not have to work around each others technology.
 
I love how this fanboy debate can so easily glaze over a good point made by Kronchev:

It does not require processing speed or efficiency to more quickly open a document from hard drive into RAM. So this bullshit about things *loading* faster on P4s is just that. Absolute and total bullshit.
 
Originally posted by M1ster_R0gers
so what is your friend planning on using photoshop for? are they planning on using any other applications and if so is it going to be for web based publishing, print publishing or both?
Click to expand...

She's going into media arts at university after a few years freelancing it and teaching herself. It'll mostly be for print publishing, but it will vary.
 
Originally posted by kronchev
just a little FYI, multithreading was to make up for intel's shitty long pipeline, so it probabily has the same multitasking abilities as the A64
Click to expand...

That shitty long pipeline is the whole reason it can't be beat by an Athlon XP of the same relative speed in ratings and why it can scale to such high speeds. And if Intel's technology is so shitty why does AMD consistantly continue to base their processors around Intel made technology? x86-64 is just a teeny little addon to an already extensive x86 architecture made by Intel so AMD has done very little in ways of technological advancement. They can't even seem to come up with some descent instruction sets that any software developers want optimize their products for. An on-die controller and good floating-point is all that AMD has really got going for them right now. Later on they will have the advancement of 64-bit processors but Intel is scheduled to have out Xeon cores along with Prescott cores with EM64T (extended memory 64 technology) between 3rd and 4th quarter and thats when Microsoft is suppost to release xp-64.

It is clear that Intel has based their EM64T off AMD64 but there are minute differences that could or could not come into affect after we have both processors out on a 64-bit OS. The differences comes down to seven instructions. One instruction is unique to Intel, and the other six are supported by both Intel and AMD but not always in the same execution modes. Thus Intel's reluctance to guarantee that 64-bit software will always be compatible with both 64-bit architectures, although Intel does promise to run the same 64-bit operating systems as AMD64.

Games and multimedia favor deeper pipelines and higher clock speeds. If you dont believe me then do a little research into it. The clock speeds have to be high enough to keep the pipelines filled at all times though. Otherwise there are negative effects. Why is the A64 ahead right now in gaming? Is it cause of changes in their architecture? More registers? No not really. Its all the on-die controller. Games are all about low latency and several applications adhere strongly to low latency. Having the memory controller in the Northbridge really slows things down compared to having it on the chip itself and it running at the same speed as the processor. Intel is also suppost to start incorporating on-die controllers in upcoming chips.

And FYI multithreading has been around for quite some time. Multithreading was made for dual processor and greater configurations not Hyper Threading. Hyper Threading takes advantage of those extra threads though. I'm sure you probably meant Hyper Threading though right? I hope so.

And FYI an A64 cannot multitask as quickly as a P4 w/ Hyper Threading. How could it? It doesn't have anything to take advantage of multi threaded applications. If it did it wouldn't lag behind in encodeing, rendering, productivity software that is multithreaded, and of course multitasking.

The only thing that AMD does different is a different approach to the same thing. Fewer pipelines that do more work is not "more efficient". Its just a different way of doing it that in fact cannot outperform processors with a greater amount of pipelines in most areas unless it has something to come to its aid like an on-die controller vs. a controller stuck in the northbridge. Fewer pipeline stages isn't better and more efficient because you can't move as much data through those fewer pipelines. More pipelines can move more data though and get the job done much faster but the only problem is the branch prediction and the fact it will take almost twice as long to empty the pipes each time a mistake is made. If there is good branch prediction on the processor though and the clock speeds are high enough to keep the pipes full that more "efficient" processor wouldn't have a chance to be ahead if both processors had the same addons such as on-die controllers. You notice how most of the time the A64 only beats out the Pentium 4 in gaming by 5-10 fps if that and in a few games like Q3, Jedi Knight 2, and Comanche 4, the P4 even leads. Stick one of those on-die controllers on the P4 and i bet the scores reverse.

It does not require processing speed or efficiency to more quickly open a document from hard drive into RAM. So this bullshit about things *loading* faster on P4s is just that. Absolute and total bullshit.
Click to expand...

I think you guys need to go work with Photoshop for a while because i dont think half of you have a clue what your trying to say. Noone is talking about the time it takes for it to get from the Hard Drive to the RAM. After the data comes from the RAM to the processor, the processor has to use that data and render the object in Photoshop. Were not talking about kiddy pics here lol. I do modeling where you create large objects that end up being thousands of polygons. The data coming off the hard drive to the RAM is just raw data. The processor then has to take that and render the object. And in gaming utilities like the software that comes with Morrowind you have to move around in a 3d world that is completely rendered while you work on your project and it is very taxing on the CPU. I've done it on machines without Hyper Threading, namely my 2.26Ghz P4 and its slow as hell sometimes.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top