Toronto Photography Meetup Group

My current pc with Vista 64 Bit installed has:
Antec P180 aluminum mid-tower case
Intel Core2 Duo E6600
4 gbs RAM
Antec TRUEPOWER TRIO 550W power supply
5 Hard Drives
a) 150GB Raptor with OS and programs
b) 1 TB caviar black drive for data
c) 1 TB caviar black drive to backup data (also have an external HD)
d) 320 gb WD drive I use as a scratch drive/LR catalogue
e) 37 gb Raptor from previous build with XP installed

I am looking to improve the performance of my machine and figure it would benefit most by having a better CPU. Not looking to upgrade to Windows 7 or a new motherboard. I am a photo-enthusiast/hobbyist, not a pro doing huge batch processes. I prefer to process each photo separately.

I don't know much about PC components but enough to know that new technology isn't always compatible with old. What is the best CPU that my Intel D975XBX2 motherboard will support?

Any other comments/criticisms of my setup are welcome. As always, I thank you in advance for your response!

Here's a chart showing which CPUs your motherboard supports. Looks like you have some flexibility in upgrading here.

http://www.intel.com/support/motherboar ... 026614.htm

I'd add more RAM first before changing a processor. 4GB is quite low these days.

After that, I'd look for faster HDDs, say something with 10k rpm platters instead?

Unless your working on very complex manipulations, most of the time, the processor is waiting for data, so feeding it as quickly as possible should be a priority.

If anything, I'd first upgrade the operating system, Vista is a complete shit

Get a SSD drive.

Universal opinion here appears to be nobody can say for certain which upgrade will net you the greatest benefit.

Put me down as a ram advocate.

Looking at the mobo specs, looks like your upgrade might only be more memory, a faster CPU and video card (what is in there now?) and Win7 64bit OS.

THANKS everyone.

Actually now that I think about it - I already DO have 8 gbs of RAM. I think it was 4 gbs when I had XP on the original build and I then increased it to 8 gbs - which was the reason for going to Vista 64.

I'm at work now so can't confirm it - but I'm pretty sure I have 8 GBs and that was the reason for me gong to 64 bits OS a few years ago.

This will tell u how many gigs of ram in ur computer..and all the other information you need about your RAm ( like latency and stuff )

CPU Z
http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/cpu-z.html

cheers


Your computer looks great to me.... just get an SSD ..
you can return if u dont like ..( get it from best buy or futurehshop )
give it a shot ..
cheers

Great link!!
I was hoping the new i7's would be compatible but I guess not. Maybe I'll update the mobo as well or hold off for a while and do a complete new build later.




Upon greater reflection I think it is 8 gbs - but wouldn't 4 gbs already be enough? I don't batch process. I render one RAW at a time and I process 30D RAWs which is only a 8 mega pixel RAW.
Do you think even with my set up ( scratch disk/LRcataloge/LRpreviews on separate drive from OS/programs and data) and processing 1 RAW at a time that my CPU is waiting for something to chew on?


Spending a few hundred bucks on Windows7 will speed things up more than a new CPU?


Yeah I'm at work right now but I am pretyy confident that I have 8 gbs. When I went to 64 bits the SSD drives were still in ther infancy/expensive and at that time the prevailing belief was that greater RAM was the most cost efficient way to improve performance.

Just curious. Would you suggest using the SSD for the OS/programs or for a scratch disk?

it sure will

Here's a tip that i use a lot when evaluating what i need to upgrade.

Open TASK MANAGER when you are doing your normal computing. So, have everything open that you normally have when you do work (email, browser, Photoshop, whatever).

Click on the PERFORMANCE tab on Task Manager. You will see Memory Usage and CPU usage, etc. While you continue to work, if your RAM usage keeps getting near the top, you know you need more ram to free up your system. If your CPU usage hits 100% a lot and slows down (which mine does when i am doing a lot of editing), your CPU can't keep up and gets a bit sluggish.

and 4Gbs wont be enough RAM i am guessing.

I'm running 4 gigs ram and don't do a lot of batch processing and I found it's sufficient. I would go with upgrading to Win7 64 bit personally.

If you want to upgrade your cpu, your mb should support the Q6600 cpu's. This would be the best cpu to use at the 975 socket mb.

Here's a link.
http://ark.intel.com/Product.aspx?id=29765&wapkw=(q6600)
You should be able to over clock these babies to run at 4 GHz. If you u/g to Windows 7, your system may run faster as well.

Good Luck.

All three would be great .. i would buy a 128 and use it for os programs and use the raptor u have for cache disk..
if you go the i7 route ..you got to change mb,Ram,power supply
you can retain ur dvd drive and ur hard disk ....

cheers

Interesting. I never thought that W7 would improve my performance more than a better CPU.
Thanks - Now I am thinking that updating a CPU on an old motherboard is a waste of money. The price of the older generation CPU's aren't much lower than the newer ones and the incremental improvement won't be cost efficient.

So for a few bucks more I might as well upgrade the mobo to a newer generation socket and take advantage of the newer generation CPU.

So I might hold off for a year and upgrade the whole rig. HEE hee, Then again I've been thinking of upgrading my 30D and always convince myself it is still adequate for my hobbbyist needs. I really try hard to stay off of the upgrade treadmill for camera and computer equipment. i prefer to plow my money in to travel and seeking photo-ops and using my current gear to it's max.

If you know and if it isn't too technogeekie for me to understand, what is it about W7 64 bit that would improve my performance over Vista 64?

Potatoeye is just drinking the win7 cool aid. There is no reason to upgrade to win7 from vista for performance, especially if you are on 64bit already.

Windows 7 was my idea.

I only drink water

You will definitely see a speed increase with Windows 7 over Windows Vista. Whether or not it's more than a new CPU, that really depends on the CPU. Having said that, Windows 7 is significantly more stable, less memory intensive, and overall faster than Windows Vista ever was.

I just got that .. lol.

Actually Windows 7 was my idea

For me Vista 64 has been extremely stable with this mobo - I can't remember it ever crashing on me - ok maybe twice in 2 years so I am in no rush to replace either of those. Which is why I am really surprised that so many people are suggesting I upgrade the OS!!

But not as surprised as I was when vkhamphi claimed to be the progenitor of Windows 7 cuz I always assumed he was to blame for Windows Millennium.

OK, now that I'm home I can confirm that indeed I already have 8 GBs of RAM - 2 sticks of DDR2 800 RAM.
So I don't need more RAM. Getting another OS to improve the speed of rendering a single 30D RAW file seems counterintuitive to me. I assumed it's the ol' CPU that is being max'ed out any time I process a single small 8 megapixel 30D RAW. Though I don't doubt W7 has substantive benefits over Vista I don't know if it is the OS bottle-necking the process of rendering a single RAW file. I don't dispute that generally you get better performance overall with W7 - but would it provide significant perceptible performance increase with the task of rendering a single 30D RAW file with Lightroom?

If it doss, then that's good news for me. I won't mind upgrading the OS since I'd probably be using it still when I do a complete new build next year or so. Whereas buying a new second generation CPU for myolder mobo is not cost efficient since I'll want a newer generation CPU when I do my next newer generation socket mobo build.

oh yeah and I have a NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT vid card. I know Photoshop now has access to RAM on the vid card. Does LR as well? If so then this might be an upgrade to consider.

I have been trying to improve the performance of my computer for photo editing for a while now.

I have 8GB ram and I have never seen it all in use. I upgraded to an SSD and though windows boots faster and things feel snappier overall, I actually saw very little improvements in photo editing. When I look at my systems stats when editing RAW photos in LR, my quad core Q9400 2.66 GHz cpu is always pegged at 100% and disk I/O is not loaded and memory is not loaded. I would say that the cpu is definitely the way to go.

(I was just looking at some reviews of the latest and greatest intel i7 quad cores and based on them, an upgrade would be approximately twice as fast as my current cpu and I could cut the LR RAW develop section open time down from 8 seconds to 4 seconds! Ah, too many toys to get and so little money to get them with...)

I upgraded mine last summer after prices starting falling on the i7 and after LR 3 became available. LR 2 ran ok on my older computer, an AMD 3800 dual core overclocked and aircooled, but I knew LR 3 would be a resource hog. I was running 32 bit XP Pro, running 3 Gb RAM and was having delays in quickly going through photos in LR's Development screen.

I upgraded every area I could, but only getting middle of the road performance items (price wise) and all those little upgrade choices added up to a much faster PC with a Windows rating of 7.4

The good thing is that all the components are much cheaper now than last summer. If I had a chance to redo anything, I think I would get the unlocked i7 875K instead which comes without a CPU fan which I ended up not using anyway.

Honestly, everything flies now. Photoshop 12 now opens in less than 3s, LR3 navigation is extremely fast. All my working photos are on a RAID array in an external housing, but with the motherboard SATA connection its fast (all my photos are RAW files for 5D MKII, 1Ds MKIII and 7D). Exporting photos from LR used to take awhile. I think it used to take 300 photos close 45-60 minutes to export, and now it takes about 7 minutes.

My build:
Intel CPU i7 870 2.93 GHz (mildly overclocked to 3.52 GHz because air cooled only)
RAM 8 Gb
Windows 7
Gigabyte P55A-UD4P motherboard
OS on 80 Gb Intel SSD
Secondary HD (scratch disk) Raptor 120 Gb
Corsair GS800 Power Supply
GeForce GTX 460 Nvidia
Antec 1200 case - changed from Antec P180 as I needed more room
Scythe NINJA CPU cooler (huge ... barely fit in case as you can see in the pics)

ok, then I may have misread. I do quite a bit of editing in PS, and i transfer them from LR as 16 bit TIFFs from an 18 MP sensor, so whenever I work up to multiple layers, the system takes a while to respond.

Checking my task manager equivalent, I find that I use almost 100% of my 8GB, and I'm swapping up to 3+GB... For me, I figure I need more RAM.

I suppose only using LR, one pic at a time, with 30D RAW files, 4GB should be sufficient? As others would say

Since CS4 PhotoShop can access the vid card's Ram(GPU) if the vid card supports OpenGL. Does anyone know if LR also supports OpenGL?