Image Editing shoot-out!! How fast are you?

Ulysses · Feb 25, 2002

Hey there, Mike -

Your configuration confirmed a few things that I'd been thinking about.

Mike Fitzgerald said:
Ulysses said:

1) Home brew

Click to expand...

That you're a PC head, first of all.

)

Mike Fitzgerald said:
Mike Fitzgerald said:

2) Intel P3 on Gigabyte GA-6BXC (only ATA 33 :-( )

Click to expand...

That Gigabyte makes a really, really decent board. I'm soon be getting the GA-7DXR+. Nice board, by all accounts and reviews I've read.

It seems that for the type of stuff we're doing with imaging, that the HD speed and performance is the least of our worries, though I can understand your wanting to step up from the ATA33.

Mike Fitzgerald said:
Mike Fitzgerald said:

3) 450 MHz
4) 640 MB PC133 ('coz most of it wuz cheaper than PC100)
5) 2 x 10 GB -- main 7200 secondary 5400

Click to expand...

Interesting. Are you finding yourself crunched at this point (P.S. -- I'm still managing, and I mean MANAGING, a single 10GB drive.)

Mike Fitzgerald said:
Mike Fitzgerald said:

6) Photoshop 5.5 under Windows 2000 Pro

Click to expand...

12 seconds from cold; 6.4 once cached. Significantly slower under
Win 98SE but I haven't timed it (one reboot's enough thanks — I'm
spoiled by Win 2k's stability and don't have to reboot more than
once every 2 or 3 weeks ;-)

Heheheheh.... Re-boot is my middle name. Let's put it this way: Broadband would truly be broadband if I didn't have to reboot so often.

Mike Fitzgerald said:
Looking around (and just from the feel of it) I'm happy enough with
the old crock for the time being.

Yeah. You're doing really well with your performance, exceptional actually, considering the hardware. -- Ulysses

Ulysses · Feb 25, 2002

Heheheh... OK, now we know more about your machine AND about you than we asked for.

)
-- Ulysses

Ulysses · Feb 25, 2002

Ron Parr said:
Member said:

3) processor speed (Pentium 4, Pentium 2, AMD XP+ 2.2Ghz, etc.)

Click to expand...

MP1600+ (two of them)

Hey now!!! Very nice.

Do you find that PS6 takes advantage of the multiprocessing? Or does it matter in that application?

Do you have other reasons for needing the multiprocessing? University work?
-- Ulysses

Ron Parr · Feb 25, 2002

Ulysses said:
Ron Parr said:

Member said:

3) processor speed (Pentium 4, Pentium 2, AMD XP+ 2.2Ghz, etc.)

Click to expand...

MP1600+ (two of them)

Click to expand...

Hey now!!! Very nice.

Do you find that PS6 takes advantage of the multiprocessing? Or
does it matter in that application?

It supposedly does. I haven't benchmarked it, but let me put it to you this way: One of the benefits I was hoping to reap from the second cpu was better response time from my machine while photoshop worked in the background. Nothing seems to take long enough with PS any more for this to be an issue, so I guess PS is using the second CPU.

Member said:
Do you have other reasons for needing the multiprocessing?

This is sort of like asking an auto enthusiast if he really needs the extra horsepower. What does need have to do with it?

Member said:
University work?

Oddly enough, my home machine is actually faster than any of our machines at work, so I have occasionally drafted it for number crunching duty.

Our fastest machines at work are 800Mhz Suns which are always overloaded with student jobs. Even if I could grab the full CPU, I think it would still be slower than a 1.4Gz Athlon for most things.

--Ron ParrFAQ: http://www.cs.duke.edu/~parr/photography/faq.htmlGallery: http://www.pbase.com/parr/

Jimmy Chen · Feb 25, 2002

Member said:
How does a RAID setup of two drives offer an observable advantage
over a single drive?

Drive level hardward fail over ...

jc

Ulysses · Feb 25, 2002

Jimmy Chen said:
Jimmy Chen said:

How does a RAID setup of two drives offer an observable advantage
over a single drive?

Click to expand...

Drive level hardward fail over ...

jc

-- Ulysses

Ulysses · Feb 25, 2002

Ron Parr said:
Member said:

Do you find that PS6 takes advantage of the multiprocessing? Or
does it matter in that application?

Click to expand...

It supposedly does. I haven't benchmarked it, but let me put it to
you this way: One of the benefits I was hoping to reap from the
second cpu was better response time from my machine while photoshop
worked in the background. Nothing seems to take long enough with
PS any more for this to be an issue, so I guess PS is using the
second CPU.

Now, that is educational. Very interesting. And quite an advantage as I know how processor and RAM hungry PS and its siblings can be.

Member said:
This is sort of like asking an auto enthusiast if he really needs
the extra horsepower. What does need have to do with it?

Heheheh... but you KNOW, Ron, that when we are "explaining" all of this to our mates that need is precisely the way it must fit into our protocol.

Member said:
Member said:

University work?

Click to expand...

Oddly enough, my home machine is actually faster than any of our
machines at work,

Mmmm... yeah. Isn't that always the case? :--- Ulysses

Ulysses · Feb 25, 2002

I thought you were giving a PC parameter or something.

Sorry. -- Ulysses

ZipperZ · Feb 25, 2002

Ulysses said:
OK, this little thread is going to be all about the speed of your
editor and the speed of your PC. What I want to know is simple:

1) the make and model of your PC

Sony Notebook

Member said:
2) whether is is AMD or Intel (or Mac.. ok, I'm a good guy tonight)

Intel

Member said:
3) processor speed (Pentium 4, Pentium 2, AMD XP+ 2.2Ghz, etc.)

P3-800

Member said:
4) RAM type and amount (RDRAM, DDRAM, SDRAM, etc.)

512 ram

Member said:
5) Hard drive size and speed (7200 RPM, 5400 RPM, etc.)

15gigs partitioned/2

Member said:
6) image editor (Photoshop, Elements, PSP, PhotoPaint, etc.)

PS5

Member said:
Now, please re-boot up your computer. Once that is done, take a
stopwatch.
Start the timer immediately when you've clicked to start your image
editor.
HOW LONG does it take before your editor is up and ready for you to
use it?

27secs after boot

defragged both HDs, reboot again, NOW...3secs for PS to completely come up

BUT....it took 49secs for IE and this page to display at 19.2baud...lol--cheersZip

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -BFS: NOSticker Status: ON...but on upsidedownPie Chute: UnCorked Lens Cap: No dangle at any angle - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Ulysses · Feb 25, 2002

ZipperZ said:
defragged both HDs, reboot again, NOW...3secs for PS to completely
come up

Wow!! That's a significant difference after just a defrag. What's your OS again?

ZipperZ said:
BUT....it took 49secs for IE and this page to display at
19.2baud...lol

Heheheh... man. That's tough.

-- Ulysses

ZipperZ · Feb 25, 2002

Ulysses said:
ZipperZ said:

defragged both HDs, reboot again, NOW...3secs for PS to completely
come up

Click to expand...

Wow!! That's a significant difference after just a defrag. What's
your OS again?

XP Home....OS came with the Sony notebook.

i havent defragged since i pretty well got this notebook. And i just reciently manually moved all my photos to partitioned D disk. The defrag took about an hour to complete.

Member said:
Member said:

BUT....it took 49secs for IE and this page to display at
19.2baud...lol

Click to expand...

Heheheh... man. That's tough.

Cant wait til tonight when get back to reality. Should be on the road in about 5hrs. I hate doing seminars in remote areas. urgh!

--cheersZip

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -BFS: NOSticker Status: ON...but on upsidedownPie Chute: UnCorked Lens Cap: No dangle at any angle - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Woyteck · Feb 25, 2002

1) home-made PC
2) Intel
3) Celeron 800@100MHz
4) 256MB SDRAM 100MHz
5) Seagate Barracuda IV 40GB 7200rpm
6) Corel PhotoPaint 9.397

It takes about 2.5 - 3 seconds to start Corel...

Woyteck
------------
F707
(in early April '2002

)

Ulysses · Feb 25, 2002

Enjoy your DA when it arrives.

Woyteck said:
F707
(in early April '2002 )

-- Ulysses

gearedsoft · Feb 25, 2002

Ulysses said:
OK, this little thread is going to be all about the speed of your
editor and the speed of your PC. What I want to know is simple:

1) the make and model of your PC

Made by reseller

Member said:
2) whether is is AMD or Intel (or Mac.. ok, I'm a good guy tonight)

Intel

Member said:
3) processor speed (Pentium 4, Pentium 2, AMD XP+ 2.2Ghz, etc.)

667 Petnium III

Member said:
4) RAM type and amount (RDRAM, DDRAM, SDRAM, etc.)

256Mb SDRAM

Member said:
5) Hard drive size and speed (7200 RPM, 5400 RPM, etc.)

10Mb don't know the speed

Member said:
6) image editor (Photoshop, Elements, PSP, PhotoPaint, etc.)

Fireworks 4.0.2

Member said:
Now, please re-boot up your computer. Once that is done, take a
stopwatch.

Start the timer immediately when you've clicked to start your image
editor.

HOW LONG does it take before your editor is up and ready for you to
use it?

11 seconds

Member said:
Thanks for the interesting data you'll be able to provide.

--

Ulysses

E'Mahn · Feb 25, 2002

Ulysses said:
Yes, I know that.

What I'm talking about is optimization where you'd see a difference
in performance, where you'd see "only" a moderate improvement with
a twin drive setup.

How does a RAID setup of two drives offer an observable advantage
over a single drive?

The only purpose of a RAID 0 array is to extract additional performance a set of hardware. Since data are "striped" across multiple disks, you are able to use two different disks to simultaneously access data for a single file (or database or whatever). While drive 1 is fetching one byte, the second drive is fetching the next byte before drive 1 is even done yet (this is oversimplified, since the stripe size is not really a single byte, but you get the idea). So right there you have an important increase in speed. By putting the two drives on two different IDE channels you get even more of a performance boost because you have effectively doubled your data bandwidth. This is an effective means of increasing HD performance, even with just 2 drives.

The graph in the following link shows the difference you can see in performance in a standard 1 drive setup vs. 2 drive RAID vs. 3 drive RAID vs. 4 drive RAID.
http://www4.tomshardware.com/storage/00q1/000329/fastrak66-14.html

The performance increase is seen mainly in throughput (bandwidth) and not access times, but in any case, the performance increase definitely gives you an "observable advantage". With two cheap 7200 rpm (or even 5400 rpm) IDE drives in a RAID 0 array, folks are seeing as great or greater throughput than with a much more expensive 10,000 rpm Ultra2 SCSI drive. The major downside is the inherent reduction in reliability since a failure of either drive will result in a total loss of data.

All that said, few applications today benefit much from fast HD bandwidth. Image editing, however, is one that should see benefit.

Ulysses · Feb 25, 2002

Ahhhh... now this is the info I was looking for.

Thank you very much, E'Mahn, for further explanation. I'll check out that link tonight.

E'Mahn said:
The only purpose of a RAID 0 array is to extract additional
performance a set of hardware. Since data are "striped" across
multiple disks, you are able to use two different disks to
simultaneously access data for a single file (or database or
whatever). While drive 1 is fetching one byte, the second drive is
fetching the next byte before drive 1 is even done yet (this is
oversimplified, since the stripe size is not really a single byte,
but you get the idea). So right there you have an important
increase in speed. By putting the two drives on two different IDE
channels you get even more of a performance boost because you have
effectively doubled your data bandwidth. This is an effective
means of increasing HD performance, even with just 2 drives.

The graph in the following link shows the difference you can see in
performance in a standard 1 drive setup vs. 2 drive RAID vs. 3
drive RAID vs. 4 drive RAID.
http://www4.tomshardware.com/storage/00q1/000329/fastrak66-14.html

The performance increase is seen mainly in throughput (bandwidth)
and not access times, but in any case, the performance increase
definitely gives you an "observable advantage". With two cheap
7200 rpm (or even 5400 rpm) IDE drives in a RAID 0 array, folks are
seeing as great or greater throughput than with a much more
expensive 10,000 rpm Ultra2 SCSI drive. The major downside is the
inherent reduction in reliability since a failure of either drive
will result in a total loss of data.

All that said, few applications today benefit much from fast HD
bandwidth. Image editing, however, is one that should see benefit.

-- Ulysses

Loren Charif · Feb 25, 2002

HP 8570C
Intel
PIII
SDRAM 320

20 Gig (almost full...about to add another) not sure of speed, but I suspect 5400
Mostly PSP 7.04, just testing out PSE Evaluation Version

11 Seconds

Loren

Ulysses said:
OK, this little thread is going to be all about the speed of your
editor and the speed of your PC. What I want to know is simple:

1) the make and model of your PC
2) whether is is AMD or Intel (or Mac.. ok, I'm a good guy tonight)
3) processor speed (Pentium 4, Pentium 2, AMD XP+ 2.2Ghz, etc.)
4) RAM type and amount (RDRAM, DDRAM, SDRAM, etc.)
5) Hard drive size and speed (7200 RPM, 5400 RPM, etc.)
6) image editor (Photoshop, Elements, PSP, PhotoPaint, etc.)

Now, please re-boot up your computer. Once that is done, take a
stopwatch.

Start the timer immediately when you've clicked to start your image
editor.

HOW LONG does it take before your editor is up and ready for you to
use it?

Thanks for the interesting data you'll be able to provide.

--

Ulysses

Amando Hernández · Feb 25, 2002

1) the make and model of your PC
Dell dimension

2) whether is is AMD or Intel (or Mac.. ok, I'm a good guy tonight)
Intel

3) processor speed (Pentium 4, Pentium 2, AMD XP+ 2.2Ghz, etc.)
Pentium III 1 GHz

4) RAM type and amount (RDRAM, DDRAM, SDRAM, etc.)
384 MB SDRAM 133 MHz

5) Hard drive size and speed (7200 RPM, 5400 RPM, etc.)
40 GB guess 5400 RPM

6) image editor (Photoshop, Elements, PSP, PhotoPaint, etc.)
Paint Shop Pro 7.04

Time to load: 8.5/9 secs.

technophile · Feb 25, 2002

Member said:
1) the make and model of your PC

Homebuilt

Member said:
2) whether is is AMD or Intel (or Mac.. ok, I'm a good guy tonight)

AMD

Member said:
3) processor speed (Pentium 4, Pentium 2, AMD XP+ 2.2Ghz, etc.)

750MHZ overclocked to 1G

Member said:
4) RAM type and amount (RDRAM, DDRAM, SDRAM, etc.)

512MB DDR 2400

Member said:
5) Hard drive size and speed (7200 RPM, 5400 RPM, etc.)

IBM 40G 7200rpm

Member said:
6) image editor (Photoshop, Elements, PSP, PhotoPaint, etc.)

PS6

Member said:
HOW LONG does it take before your editor is up and ready for you to
use it?

8 seconds; 4 seconds to reload a second time.

I feel better about it after reading the results posted here ; )

A.D · Feb 25, 2002

Ulysses said:
OK, this little thread is going to be all about the speed of your
editor and the speed of your PC. What I want to know is simple:

1) the make and model of your PC

sony vaio pcg-fx503 (in Europe)

Member said:
2) whether is is AMD or Intel (or Mac.. ok, I'm a good guy tonight)
3) processor speed (Pentium 4, Pentium 2, AMD XP+ 2.2Ghz, etc.)

PIII 1 GHz

Member said:
4) RAM type and amount (RDRAM, DDRAM, SDRAM, etc.)

256MB SDRAm (at this point of time)

Member said:
5) Hard drive size and speed (7200 RPM, 5400 RPM, etc.)

20 GB

Member said:
6) image editor (Photoshop, Elements, PSP, PhotoPaint, etc.)

PS 5.5

Member said:
Now, please re-boot up your computer. Once that is done, take a
stopwatch.

Start the timer immediately when you've clicked to start your image
editor.

HOW LONG does it take before your editor is up and ready for you to
use it?

9 sec

Member said:
Thanks for the interesting data you'll be able to provide.

--

Ulysses

** Image Editing shoot-out!! How fast are you? **

Ulysses

Guest

Ulysses

Guest

Ulysses

Guest

Ron Parr

Guest

Senior Member

Ulysses

Guest

Ulysses

Guest

Ulysses

Guest

Senior Member

Ulysses

Guest

Senior Member

Active member

Ulysses

Guest

Active member

Well-known member

Ulysses

Guest

Senior Member

Leading Member

Senior Member

Forum Enthusiast

Keyboard shortcuts

Image Editing shoot-out!! How fast are you?