Computer Graphics with Photoshop

Author

Hardware Questions

Jeff

2004-06-05, 12:14 pm

What is the best Windows-based hardware for Photoshop CS? Our files are
large - 500MB +. We have been using a single processor Macintosh 867MHz G4
that has recently been equipped with OS X Panther, but find it incredibly
slow and would like to move to Windows for consistency with our CAD
workstations.

I've read tests indicating Intel P4 CPUs are better at most Photoshop tasks
than AMD Operton because of Intel's Hyperthreading and higher clock speed.

Given that a P4 chip with Hyperthreading shows up as 2 processors in the
system BIOS and will take advantage of Photoshop's multi-threaded
characteristics, will a dual Xeon machine provide much speed improvement?
The Xeon chip seems slower with 533MHz FSB and 512K or 1MB L3 cache compared
to the P4 Extreme's 800MHz FSB and 2MB L3 cache. I'm thinking that a single
P4 Extreme with Hyperthreading may be as fast as a dual Xeon box.

Intel's lead seems to evaporate in the 3D world, apparently, as AMD Operton
(installed in Tyan Thunder dual CPU motherboard with no memory sharing, for
example) seems to provide better performance in programs like SolidWorks.

What is the right graphics card to use? In 3D where OpenGL dominates, cards
like PNY Nvidia Quadro FX 4000 lead the pack. What graphics engine does
Photoshop use? What is a suitable graphics card? I assume 2D performance is
more important than 3D?

Thank you for any answers to these questions.

No Where Man

2004-06-05, 12:14 pm

You're on the right track with the hardware. A Quadro-based video card is
the best choice for a CAD workstation, and will provide excellent 2D image
quality. An alternative for best 2D quality is Matrox.

I'd also go with Intel form compatability reasons. I've seen too many AMD
based systems that don't run Photoshop (or other applications) right.

Xalinai

2004-06-05, 12:14 pm

On Sat, 5 Jun 2004 09:57:49 -0400, "Jeff" <none@none.com> wrote:

>What is the best Windows-based hardware for Photoshop CS? Our files are
>large - 500MB +. We have been using a single processor Macintosh 867MHz G4
>that has recently been equipped with OS X Panther, but find it incredibly
>slow and would like to move to Windows for consistency with our CAD
>workstations.
>
>I've read tests indicating Intel P4 CPUs are better at most Photoshop tasks
>than AMD Operton because of Intel's Hyperthreading and higher clock speed.
>
>Given that a P4 chip with Hyperthreading shows up as 2 processors in the
>system BIOS and will take advantage of Photoshop's multi-threaded
>characteristics, will a dual Xeon machine provide much speed improvement?
>The Xeon chip seems slower with 533MHz FSB and 512K or 1MB L3 cache compared
>to the P4 Extreme's 800MHz FSB and 2MB L3 cache. I'm thinking that a single
>P4 Extreme with Hyperthreading may be as fast as a dual Xeon box.

You use huge files, so go for any system that you can stuff with 4 GB
of RAM. Even if windows' process model doesn't allow for more than 2GB
per process, there will be enough room for PS plus the OS plus several
other processes running.

Processor speed is interesting but not really the bottleneck once your
workspace goes beyond available RAM.

Never go for the fastest processor. Check the performance/price ratio
then decide. Reducing the GHz by 10% sets much money free to spend on
separate disks for scratch area, a more silent cooling fan...

The processor's data cache is irrelevant: when using operations that
work on raster image data, data volume is too big in relation to the
cache size. The instruction cache is more interesting but still not
too important.

Dual or multi processor boards are of limited relevance to PS as it
does not thread very well but on a two processor board you will find
one processor devoted to PS and the other doing all the surrounding
system tasks. This beneficial effect is less strong with
hyperthreading.

>Intel's lead seems to evaporate in the 3D world, apparently, as AMD Operton
>(installed in Tyan Thunder dual CPU motherboard with no memory sharing, for
>example) seems to provide better performance in programs like SolidWorks.

>What is the right graphics card to use? In 3D where OpenGL dominates, cards
>like PNY Nvidia Quadro FX 4000 lead the pack. What graphics engine does
>Photoshop use? What is a suitable graphics card? I assume 2D performance is
>more important than 3D?

If you design the system for PS alone, even the good old Matrox
Millenium II with 8 MB memory would do. PS is strictly 2D graphics.

If any other application needs 3D power buy what you need for it - and
check whether the quality of non moving images at high resolutions is
till good.

Michael

Thomas G. Madsen

2004-06-05, 7:14 pm

Jeff wrote:

> The Xeon chip seems slower with 533MHz FSB and 512K or 1MB L3
> cache compared to the P4 Extreme's 800MHz FSB and 2MB L3
> cache. I'm thinking that a single P4 Extreme with
> Hyperthreading may be as fast as a dual Xeon box.

If you can wait a few months, you can probably buy Xeons with
800Mhz FSB:
<http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/cpu/di...0421123633.html>

I would definitely prefer the dual Xeon box over a single P4
Extreme. (A HT-enabled Xeon box will show four processors in
WinXP Pro. See: <http://www.2cpu.com/articles/43_1.html> ).
I've heard that a real dual system can give you close to 100 %
performance gain compared to a single CPU system where a HT-
enabled CPU only gives you about 20 to 25 % performance gain
compared to a single CPU with the same speed, but with HT
disabled.

I can't imagine that the difference in FSB speed on P4 and
Xeon changes that a whole lot. Well, maybe a little but I don't
think that the P4 Extreme would be faster in Photoshop than
dual Xeons with the same clock speed. Remember that Photoshop
is SMP aware: <http://www.2cpu.com/articles/6_1.html>.

> What is the right graphics card to use? In 3D where OpenGL
> dominates, cards like PNY Nvidia Quadro FX 4000 lead the pack.
> What graphics engine does Photoshop use? What is a suitable
> graphics card? I assume 2D performance is more important than
> 3D?

You're right. Photoshop is a 2D program so it doesn't use all
the fancy 3D functions you can find in many graphic cards
nowadays. I would look for graphic cards with excellent image
quality instead of going after 3D buzz words. Matrox cards is
quite popular among Photoshop users. They're not fast when it
comes to 3D but the image quality is second to none.

--
Regards
Madsen

Tacit

2004-06-05, 7:14 pm

>What is the best Windows-based hardware for Photoshop CS? Our files are
>large - 500MB +.

That's relatively large, but not huge.

>We have been using a single processor Macintosh 867MHz G4
>that has recently been equipped with OS X Panther, but find it incredibly
>slow and would like to move to Windows for consistency with our CAD
>workstations.

In what way would this offer you "consistency"? What are your goals? Do you
intend to transfer files back and forth? Do you intend to run your CAD software
on your Photoshop PC? If you aren't going to be running your CAD software on
the Photoshop CD, what do you intend to gain by switching platforms?

Right now, the best Photoshop platform, hands-down, is the G5. In addition to
being fast, it also offers higher productivity; if your goal is maximum profit
from your investment, it's easily the way to go.

If, on the other hand, profit is less important, and you need to run PC
software on your Photoshop machine, a P4 is not a bad choice, provided you get
a system with a lot of RAM and the fastest frontside bus available.
--
Biohazard? Radiation hazard? SO last-century.
Nanohazard T-shirts now available! http://www.villaintees.com
Art, literature, shareware, polyamory, kink, and more:
http://www.xeromag.com/franklin.html

Al Dykes

2004-06-05, 7:14 pm

In article <40c1df80.286320843@news.t-online.de>,
Xalinai <xalinai_Two@xalinai.de> wrote:
>On Sat, 5 Jun 2004 09:57:49 -0400, "Jeff" <none@none.com> wrote:
>
>
>You use huge files, so go for any system that you can stuff with 4 GB
>of RAM. Even if windows' process model doesn't allow for more than 2GB
>per process, there will be enough room for PS plus the OS plus several
>other processes running.
>
>Processor speed is interesting but not really the bottleneck once your
>workspace goes beyond available RAM.
>
>Never go for the fastest processor. Check the performance/price ratio
>then decide. Reducing the GHz by 10% sets much money free to spend on
>separate disks for scratch area, a more silent cooling fan...
>
>The processor's data cache is irrelevant: when using operations that
>work on raster image data, data volume is too big in relation to the
>cache size. The instruction cache is more interesting but still not
>too important.
>
>Dual or multi processor boards are of limited relevance to PS as it
>does not thread very well but on a two processor board you will find
>one processor devoted to PS and the other doing all the surrounding
>system tasks. This beneficial effect is less strong with
>hyperthreading.
>
>
>
>If you design the system for PS alone, even the good old Matrox
>Millenium II with 8 MB memory would do. PS is strictly 2D graphics.
>
>If any other application needs 3D power buy what you need for it - and
>check whether the quality of non moving images at high resolutions is
>till good.
>
>Michael

For you, disk I/O speed is everything. IMHO you want a SCSI-based
system (at least for the adobe workfiles and your working images)
because of the reduced CPU cycles required to read and write the PSD
files.

I'd base the system on a mobo that had built-in SCSI+raid. Get two
36GB 10k rpm SCSI disks ($130 each.) Set them up a a stripe set and
put the OS+swap+PS temp files+applications and your active PSD files
this disk array. NTFS, of course. You can add one or more huge
IDE/SATA disks for your photo collection, but the work-in-progress can
store on the SCSI file system.

My most recent experience with IDE disk is with a premuim PATA disk
and a SATA disk connected to the same motherboard. HDtach test
reported that the PATA disk transferred data at 30MB/sec @ 30% CPU and
the SATA disk was 40mb/sec @ 40%CPU. (AMD Athlon 2100) IDE reats too
much of the CPU. If you are reading/writing 500MB files a SCSI system
will be much more interactive.

I'd buy an AMD64-based system and use it with 32-bit software. When XP
and PS for AMD64 come out you'll be ready. If you invest in max RAM;
3GB, (I don't think the 4th GB of RAM gets you much performance in
32-bit mode windows.) You won't have to buy it again if/when you
switch to 64bit systems.

--
Al Dykes
-----------
adykes at p a n i x . c o m

jjs

2004-06-05, 7:14 pm

In article <20040605133155.13763.00000267@mb-m27.aol.com>, tacitr@aol.com
(Tacit) wrote:

> Right now, the best Photoshop platform, hands-down, is the G5. In addition to
> being fast, it also offers higher productivity; if your goal is maximum profit
> from your investment, it's easily the way to go.

I dare say most people say they want productivity but when it comes to
buying an $8000 computer, they change their minds. (When someone whines
about what a good computer costs, check his vehicle. If it's a SUV that he
drives 2 miles to work, just be sure to laugh out loud out of range.)