Advantages of multi processor systems?

BC
Posted By
Bill_Cheal
Aug 1, 2008
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310
Replies
3
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Closed
I am considering getting a new system to use for my photo processing applications. I see that Adobe has releases LR v2.0 which supports 64 bit OS and has announced that CS4, when ever it is released will also support 64 bits, well at least for Windows. This being the case, switching to Vista 64 seems to be the way to go. BUT what about the processor? The choices seem to be a quad core version from either Intel or AMD or moving higher, a Intel Xeon processor. This gives me two more choices, use two 5100 series processors for a total of four cores or go up to two 5400 series processors for a total of eight cores. The 5100 series approach seems to use less power that the 5400’s and can be clocked faster. Also, last year I had the opportunity to quickly run a bench mark with CS3 on a Dell dual Xeon workstation running Windows XP 32 bit OS. It appeared that the the system only managed to make use of only 4 of the 8 processors.

I have done a fair amount of searching and have not found any good answers to the question of which processor configuration will give the best performance. To keep this discussion reasonable I would like to limit it to one quad core processor vs. two dual core Xeons vs. two quad core Xeons.

Hopefully some of you will be able to shed some insight. It any of the Adobe folks would care to comment, it would be appreciated. I suspect that Adobe has looked into this issue and has lots of information. The question then would be can they share it? Maybe not.

Bill
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F
Freeagent
Aug 1, 2008
As a quick answer quad-core seems to be the current sweet spot, but who knows how future versions of PS will behave. You could future-proof and go as high as you can afford.

However, that also means making sure you have the latest technologies all across. There’s no point in emptying your bank account for a CPU if you have to change to a mobo with a different socket in two years.

My own basic philosophy is to stay in the upper-mid price range and upgrade often. The cutting edge stuff is half the price next year.
DM
dave_milbut
Aug 1, 2008
personally, i’d go with the core2duo for "bang for the buck", and spend the saved money on adding more memory.

like FA says, by the time you need another (2 years, 3?) there’ll be better out there. the quads don’t buy much for the money right now.
SP
Sid_Phillips
Aug 5, 2008
I run a Xeon Quad Core 2.33GHz at work and a Core 2 Duo 2.66GHz at home. Both are very fast, but the Xeon Quad Core is significantly faster. Is it a difference between going home at 5:00 vs. 6:00? Nope, more like 5:00 vs. 5:10 at best. But it does make the workday more pleasant.

I would go with Vista 64, 8GB (or more) of RAM and something like a Core 2 Quad Q6600. Pop a $40 cooler on that bad boy, overclock to 3.0+ GHz and watch it fly. For more fun, get a Skulltrain motherboard and add a second CPU when your apps can take full advantage of 8 cores.

And install an nVidia 9800GX2 graphics card – CS4 is supposed to take advantage of advanced GPUs.

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