How much RAM for EOS-1Ds Mark II images?

[Rupertpd]

Hello,

I'm due a PC upgrade and I'm also thinking about purchasing the EOS-1Ds Mark II. This camera outputs 17.2 MP images and I'm wondering if anyone has any suggestions for the amount of RAM I should get with the new PC.

As a general rule, how much RAM is required for working efficiently with 17.2MP images? My current PC struggles a bit with 11 MP images and I need to improve my work rate.

Thanks in advance!

[HKFEVER]

Not just the ram, you also need fast CPU, high speed hard disk.

My PC has 2GB ram, 120GB 7200RPM, 3.00HT Premium, it works OK with this setup.
My Mac has 2GB ram, 120GB 7200RPM, dual G5, and it works a bit better than OK.

[griff2]

You should get away with a gig (1GB) of RAM ok, unless you're planning on doing lots of post-production in Photoshop, with lots of adjustment layers. My PC has an athlon 2K with 1gig of DDR400 RAM. I use it for stills (Photoshop), video editing (Pinnacle) and DVD production (encore DVD) and have absolutely no problems. I'd get a big hard disk though - currently you can pick up 200GB hard disk for ~ £80.00 here in the UK (http://www.blankdiscshop.co.uk/acatalog/Hardware_Section__.html)

[chris.bailey]

Remember the tiffs will be even bigger and by the time you add in some adjustment layers...wow...2Gb RAM if you can afford it (photoshop will not use any more than that) and as fast as possible. 2 hard drives so you can get the Photoshop temp drive off the system drive. Processor speed is less influential other than some of the filters.

[CyberDyneSystems]

Yes,. your file sizes on the images in PS will be MUCH larger than 17MB...

My 8.2MP 1D MkII results in a nearly 50MB 16 bit tiff...

You'll be looking at file sizes between 48MB and 96MB depending on whether you convert to 8 or 16 bit tiffs.

My PC bogs down on occasion with the 48MB files and I have 1GB of fast ram.

For those image files,. I'd say 1GB is your bare minimum,. with 2GB being more reasonable.

A fast CPU will be helpfull too and lots of good hard drive space. ;)

[Longwatcher]

And here I am getting away with only 512Mb of RAM. So you can get away with that, however I keep meaning to upgrade to 2GB, which is what I would recommend as minimum if getting new computer today.

So far it only takes longer to bring it from RAW into PS and have the thumbnails run on DPP, but otherwise I don't see any difference in working time with a 1DsMkII image. If I enlarge it to 13x19 on the otherhand, it doesn't matter, the PC slows down and I wish at that point I had upgraded the RAM.

Just my experience with a 2.4Ghz P4 PC

[robertwgross]

On my previous computer, 256MB was all the RAM I could get, and I thought that was enough for then. Two years ago, I got my current computer, and it came with 512MB of RAM, and I thought that was enough. But then I was doing batch scanning of slides, and it was taking forever to run. On a whim, I increased the RAM to 1GB, and scanning speed increased a lot.

So, I would say to estimate how much you think you need, and then double that.

---Bob Gross---

[michael.luczkow]

bus speeds are very imporant, that's a lot of data flowing around your system bus. hard drivebandwidth is imporant, the sheer amount of RAM?... speed is more imporant than Amount. check your CPU and RAM utilization... I'll bet your RAM isn't full, it's just slow..
Also make sure you have a static sized paging file.

[Avalonthas]

You will need atleast 1 gig of ram to handle the load, however if ur getting regular OEM ram or the cheap stuff, you might wanna go for 2gigs. However if u got some cash, Invest in some Corsair XMS 1gig ram, which is extremely fast.

Also buy an AMD64 bit processor instead of an Intel brand. AMD is much faster for multimedia/games/highend computational task purposes, and get a good heatsink to keep it cool, and it will run even better. Once again, DO NOT GET AN INTEL!

Right now the AMD64 3500+ (which i have) is very cheap compared to when i bought it. You will get an even better deal if you build the computer urself or buy it from a custom place that will build it for u for 20 bucks. It is a Pentium 4 3.4ghz equivalent processor, but stock it feels like a 3.6ghz equivalent, and overclocked u can get it anywhere from a 3.8ghz to a 4ghz equivalent.

Note: I say equivalent because AMD processors use a much lower clock speed then INTEL, which makes them run cooler in most instances, yet they have more power. So invest in an AMD as they are cheap. AMD is grabbing mad market share and although they started off as a "budget" processor maker, they have now moved into the middle class, and since they are gaining massive sales over Intel, in a few years they will price there processors in the High End market price just like Intel is doing, and if intel continues on its pace with slow and hot processors, they will eventually move down to middle class. So buy em well the inflation is low.

[tim]

RAM's cheap, get 2GB. Make sure you get some solution to back up your giant hard disk too - a portable/external one, or a tape drive, or something. DVD writer would do at a pinch.

[mphoto]

Not everyone agrees that the AMD processors are better than Intel for _Photoshop_ processing. See http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/athlon64-fx55_14.html
Their results indicate that for PS you will need to purchase an Athlon 64 FX-55 to get the equivalent performance of a P4 560. The Athlon 64 FX-55 is currently selling for $1185 at Newegg whereas the P4 560 is selling for $435.

Gamepc obtained similar results for Photoshop:
http://www.gamepc.com/labs/print_content.asp?id=xms3200xl&cookie%5Ftest=1&MSCSProfile=95385A1F52DEA1A229D5B3754205446493DB7B 9C2A100C31CEFDC4FEE975CE4EB80A0856EC25B689CAD054FE 3A2F41667B5579DA76865BDC16E7424832931EACDC1A947C38 7B3C6B24948FA73E2A9C60ACC271D2421BA540A17932DB5DCF 3454A250DDAE960298E8BC70F423396106CD993B75933E9A50 95344CE778F7B947CA630C3BED4938313A

However, Anandtech got different results:
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2249&p=7

For what it's worth.

[Avalonthas]

AMD64's are by far better than Intel at the moment. I dont want to get into a debate but trust me. The performance vs. $$$ is much better on the AMD's.

Also the FX series is not really ment for processing. Its a platform designed for gaming purposes, so i dont know why they even compared em. Also once u start to fill up ur HDD, and have a bunch of running processes on ur computer, the Hyperthreading provided on most Intel's will do more damage then good.

Also for non gaming purposes, the 3XXX+ and 4XXX+ series outperform the FX series.

When u edit and process images, alot of calculations are going on in the background to alter ur images as u guide the computer to do, and the AMD's are much better at math then the intels.

Also the prices u quoted are odd, but i guess its an American only thing, but in Canada, all AMD's are cheaper than the Intel equivalents, usually by 50-200 bucks. The currency conversion for the P4 560 is similar, but the AMD's was way off. Thats odd, but oh well.

[michael.luczkow]

If you really want to crunch some serious numbers in photoshop... SMP Xeons. SMP is always a GREAT solution for stills and video editing.

Edit... or opterons... not showing any brand marriage, just saying a lot of people want to get the fastest clock speed CPU's they can and forget about the advantages of SMP, SCSI RAID and I2O Technology... only problem=$

[CyberDyneSystems]

Yeah,. I dream of a new Dual Opteron rig pretty much daily...

[Rupertpd]

I wanted just to thank everyone for their recommendations - I hadn't thought much about the CPU and hard disk, etc. (which I will now) and I shall go for 2GB of RAM when it comes to it.

[michael.luczkow]

i'm loving this new iWill small form factor dual opteron box but.... $650 for the case and board? ****. at least the CPUs have come down a lot.

[gmitchel]

1 GB is the very minimum you should consider with 1Ds MKII images. Your PC will likely run slow with 1 GB. 2 GB is much better.

1Ds MkII images are approximately 95 MB before you begin editing them. Use multiple layers, and you can easily find yourself with an image that is 500-750 MB. I routinely end up with 750MB images. ;)

Cheers,

Mitch