Core i7 - Worth the Upgrade? *Photographers Special*

[stingray072]

Thinking about building a new system...and I need your expert help oh mighty insanelymac members

 

Current Setup:

 

Dell 5150 Desktop

Intel Pentium D @ 2.5 (I think?)

3GB RAM

2x160GB HDD (one for 10.5.6, one for XP -even though I never use the XP one)

Geforce 8600 GT 256

 

 

I'm starting to do a lot of RAW image editing and I'd like a bit more snap. What kind of components are most essential for image editing. I'm pretty sure Aperture takes advantage of multicore but what's most important - CPU, RAM, GPU?

 

I'm thinking about a core i7 setup but maybe that would be overkill for Apple's Aperture?

 

Also any suggestions on a component combination that works perfectly together? I would like to be able to do the installation once and then just do apple's updates without worrying about crashing my system every time....

 

Thanks for your input!

[Narayana]

I am actually building a machine for a similar purpose, stingray. I am sure the processor, ram, and video card (especially in aperture) will play their parts well, but I assume the whole process would be a lot snappier if you had quick hard drive(s).

 

I, unfortunately, can't afford more than what I have bought already...so the 15K RPM drives are going to have to wait while 7200s dutifully play their part. I am currently working on a Core Duo MacBook (2.5" 7200RPM)/Drobo, so I am sure this machine will be substantially faster (and maybe I can even scan film, encode video, and read wikipedia at the same time).

 

Should get most of my parts in tomorrow.

[noNix]

Aperture uses Core Image / Quartz Extreme, and although you dont mention it, the latest version of Photoshop is GPU enabled for extra exeleration. 10.6 Snow Leopard is alco going to take more advantage of the graphics card, so I would advise getting the best graphics card you can afford.

[TomCom]

I'm not so sure you really need a Core i7. Buy one if you can afford it ; you'll be "future-proof" for many years, but where Narayama is right is that you'd have better performances with a quick hard drive for your OS, apps and scratch disk. For that use, an SSD would be great, and you'd better buy a Core 2 Quad (a Q9950) with an SSD than a Core i7 without one.

[stingray072]

Thanks for all the info guys...hadn't really thought about the HDDs.

 

The main problem that I want to fix is that when I'm editing in aperture and I change a setting, like sharpness for example, there's a significant lag from when I move the slider to when I see a change in the picture.

 

Not sure what I need to change most to see improvement here-hdd seek time, gpu, cpu/motherboard?

 

 

SSDs are super expensive though and seems to be getting mixed reviews about price vs. current mechanical drive speeds. Only thing substantially improved I see is the seek time and I'm not sure hot much that will make a difference in the photo editing. Any thoughts?

 

Size isn't a huge issue because after I'm done working on a project I usually export it to my raid over gigabit-but I do need enough space for all my apps and to keep some things on the computer.

 

 

 

Also TomCom did you mean the Q9550? I'd heard a lot of people recommending this proc but the 920 i7 is only about 50 bucks more (and true the motherboards are more expensive) but when overclocked it seems leaps and bounds ahead of the other quad cores.

 

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/overclocked_cpus.html

 

Thanks again for all the info guys....keep that knowledge flowing....

[pirloui]

Right now i7's are still expensive, if I where you I would start with a nice video card, then keep it and get a i5 or cheaper i7 next year.

Aperture uses the GPU.

Also, you could get a hard drive, any new HD will be quite faster than your 160GB's.

A 1TB 7200rpm drive with two platters (for example) will be both cheap, future proof and fast.

[TomCom]

A 1TB 7200rpm drive with two platters (for example) will be both cheap, future proof and fast.

 

 

It's a good start, but search for ssd performances on YouTube and you'll be amazed:

 

 

A good SSD like OCZ Vertex or the Last Intel Postville X25-M G2 (codename Postville) is twice as fast as a good 1TB HDD in read/write, and latency is 0.2ms vs. 12 at least for a standard 7200RPM HDD.

 

Prices have dropped a lot recently and you can get 128GB for about 300$. Capacity is important since all SSD of 120GB and higher based on Indilix controller are faster than 60GB and lower devices.

 

About your settings in Aperture, it's a CPU issue. Yours is not fast enough to calculate in real time. And the bigger the picture, the longer it will take.

[stingray072]

Yeah it seems to me that the CPU is probably the main issue here.

 

As far as HDD's though I'm still not convinced. I've seen multiple threads with two Caviar Black 640GBs in RAID0 getting well over the 200MB/s line which is definitely comparable to the SSDs I've seen.

 

Only main difference I see access time and I'm not really sure what kind of real difference that will make. Anyone care to enlighten me?

 

Also I'd like to upgrade the GPU but don't want to spend too much. The 8600 is decent but it ranks pretty low on benchmark scores now. But if its not really impacting my Aperture performance, then decent I am fine with. Could always upgrade later

 

And yeah...the core i5 / new i7s look great. Any recommendations on where the sweet spot seems to be?