Will I need a new computer if I get a D800

[Lisa O]

calson wrote:
...

External drives are good for backing up data but terrible for working with active files. With active batch processing where there are usually a couple thousand files I get a very noticeable performance improvement by having the source files on one drive and saving the processed files to a second hard drive. These are in addition to my OS drive with the applications and my scratch hard drive. So four drives for working with files and two mirrored hard drives that are where I backup my data during the day. ...

Totally untrue. If you have a firewire 800 in the OP's case or Thunderbolt drive on newer Macs throughput on external drives is excellent.

I used to have a Mac Pro with 4 HDs but replaced it last year with an iMac with SSD plus 2 TB internal HD and I use external drives FW and Thunderbolt drives, the machine is blazing fast!

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[LandoftheCleves]

What some of you do not realize is that a lot of I-Macs can not accept more ram or a usb3 port.

I have a 24 inch 2008 I-Mac with 4 Gb ram and you can not add more ram. My wife 24 inch I-Mac is a 2009 and it can be updated to 8 GB ram.

You need to check your serial number to find out when the computer was build and if, or how much Ram you can add.
People on the forum can be very misleading even if they don’t mean to be.
Dennis

Dennis, I too have a 2008 iMac. The 20 inch version. After a little research, I found that the max RAM is actually 6GB. (Though, Apple still claims 4)

I recently purchased my kit here:

http://otherworldcomputing.com/

Playing around with DPR's downloadable D800 raw files in CS6, it was plenty fast for me (with Safari & Word open as well). But then, I'm certainly not the target audience for those "That was so X seconds ago" ads, so maybe my standards of performance aren't as demanding as others.

 

[RedFox88]

The bottom-line is the more you shoot, the more you have to edit, the more you will appreciate fast, reliable hardware. And don't forget to invest in extra drives for backups.

You cannot edit a RAW file. You select settings to be used during conversion of the RAW data to an image file such as JPG, TIFF. What is shown in ACR or Lightroom is a representative image based upon the conversion settings at that time, but it is not an image that is being edited. To me it's a big thing to not call everything "editing". It lulls the general public into thinking photographers are doing everything under the sun to digital photos.

 

[Paul Takeuchi]

You cannot edit a RAW file. You select settings to be used during conversion of the RAW data to an image file such as JPG, TIFF. What is shown in ACR or Lightroom is a representative image based upon the conversion settings at that time, but it is not an image that is being edited. To me it's a big thing to not call everything "editing". It lulls the general public into thinking photographers are doing everything under the sun to digital photos.

I understand what you are saying, and I agree that literally you are correct. But by "editing," I was referring to image processing in general, be it choosing the best shots from a shoot, tweaking RAW file settings, retouching, montaging, cropping, etc. Frankly I'd consider modifying the RAW file settings to be editing, whether I just changed the white balance or if I'd made more significant changes like tonal adjustments, noise reduction, perspective control, etc. And I don't believe that "editing" is necessarily pejorative to experts or the general public. At any rate all of this is off topic; my general comment to the original poster wasn't too controversial:

"The bottom-line is the more you shoot, the more you have to edit, the more you will appreciate fast, reliable hardware..."

 

[stephenkaus]

Hi. Thanks for your post. I thought I just replied, but it did not show up, so I am trying again. Please forgive me if it shows up twice.

I just got my D800 and I use Lightroom 4.1 on a 5 year old Mac Pro. I don't care how long it takes to load because I can always walk away and come back. However I really would like to speed up the process of working with the photos once they are loaded. If I open a photo in Develop, it takes 10 seconds and the slider effects are delayed also. This could get old.

I am wondering if there is anything short of getting a new computer to speed things up. I have 12 GB of RAM, so I don't think that is an issue. I use only internal disks, but the program and the Pictures folder to which I download are on the same one. Would it speed things up if I put them on different disks? Are there settings I should change in Lightroom? Would a better video card or any other changeable component matter?

Thanks for your help. I really appreciate it.

 

[tarnish]

In my opinion, An i7 2600K should be minimum with 8GB RAM for good performance.

That's good, but it's not the minimum. In the CS5 benchmark at Tom's Hardware the i5-2500 was only about 1% slower. Hyperthreading would be great IF and only if the application actually uses it.

The Ivy Bridge wave of intel CPUs hasn't moved the mark significantly farther than Sandy Bridge. You can't do noticeably better than the i5-2500/i7-2600 virtual tie without spending about $600 for the CPU alone.

With PhotoShop the single biggest factor is staying completely away from dipping into the swap space. 8GB is a good recommendation for most people. Unfortunately, 4GB counts as paltry nowadays. If the intended use is doing panoramic stitches on D800 files then 12 or even 16 will definitely be useful. I've hit nearly 13GB myself on a 16GB system and the disk access light stays completely dark while post processing. Swap space is a muddy ditch running right alongside the post-processing superhighway.