Would upgrading to a Quad Core CPU be worth it?

[Tsmith]

I've got an E6700 Core 2 Duo chip now and find CS4 runs tad bit sluggish and I'm going to make the move up to Vista X64 soon. At the same time I've found a good deal on the Q6700 Quad Core processor that my board supports, not wanting to upgrade the motherboard for at least another year, so the Q6700 is the fastest Quad I can get. Would it worth the move from my Dual Core?

Opinions and thanks

Specs:
MSI P6N Platinum motherboard
4 GB Corsair XMS C4 6400 RAM
Intel E6700 Core 2 Duo at 3.33 GHz\1333 MHz FSB (overclocked)
Evga 8800 640GB GTS
WinXP x32 SP3

[cfcRebel]

I'd say, wait and see how the existing setup runs on Vista x64. I suspect CS4 performance will improve greatly and might even make the Q6700 upgrade more of a luxury than necessity, IMHO of course.
The amount of money you spend on Q6700 today, might get you a nice Intel i7 cpu next year when you are ready to upgrade the mobo.

[Tsmith]

I think your advice is probably the wisest choice for sure. Get Vista x64 setup and see how that goes from there.

[tim]

I probably wouldn't do that, bang for buck won't be great. Do you have OpenGL acceleration turned on inside CS4?

[Tsmith]

Yeah its enabled, along with several other Adobe recommended tweaks. I have a Nvidia 8800 GTS 640 GB video card and have read where some users claim Nvidia is the culprit behind the sluggishness in CS4.

The application runs alright its just when using certain tools that they seem slow as compared with CS3. It acts like its a graphics rendering issue.

[Dean Humphrey]

I ask one of my IT guys at my day job a similar question, because I'm thinking of updrading from a single processor. I ask him if I would really need the QUAD core or if Dual would be enough. He gave me and interesting answer and if you already knew this then my bad. He said CS3 (which I'm running) is capable of what he called multitrhreading and can utalize the Quad cores. That was very interesting to me. I hope this helps, instead of being old news.

[tim]

I ask one of my IT guys at my day job a similar question, because I'm thinking of updrading from a single processor. I ask him if I would really need the QUAD core or if Dual would be enough. He gave me and interesting answer and if you already knew this then my bad. He said CS3 (which I'm running) is capable of what he called multitrhreading and can utalize the Quad cores. That was very interesting to me. I hope this helps, instead of being old news.

Very old news. Any software that doesn't take advantage of multithreading can't use multiple processors. The question is how efficient the software is at using multiple cores. PS is pretty good.

[Dean Humphrey]

Very old news. Any software that doesn't take advantage of multithreading can't use multiple processors. The question is how efficient the software is at using multiple cores. PS is pretty good.

I was afraid of that. Thanks

[Guapo]

For purely working in CS, I think Vista64 and loading up your machine with 8GB of RAM will do more good than going quad core.

If you do a lot of multitasking and have a lot of apps running at the same time, then a quad will do more good.

[tim]

RAM vs CPU depends on what you do. I do a lot of RAW editing and batch processing inside Bridge, a quad core CPU makes a much bigger difference than RAM, so long as you have at least 2GB RAM. 4GB is a little faster, 8GB maybe be a little faster again. Maybe not.

[Bobster]

8GB is only for those who do a lot of heavy processing, ie PSD files equal 1GB or More

[Guapo]

8GB is only for those who do a lot of heavy processing, ie PSD files equal 1GB or More

I disagree.

[Bobster]

so do tell, how does photoshop gain better performance where a good 5GB of RAM will be sat idle for the most part?

lets take our average 10MP image = 3648 x 2736 or 28MB @ 8bit, so Photoshop takes 140MB of RAM to work at 100% efficiency with that image, every layer takes a little more RAM.. if your Photoshop files aren't massive, you don't need that 8GB RAM..

[Guapo]

Is Photoshop an entity unto itself? True, if you're using simple, one layer PSD's, then no, you'd never need the overhead. But I've found my system as a whole using more than 3-4gb of RAM while having LR2 and CS3 running, and nothing more than a couple of layers on a PSD in CS3 open. Perhaps add in an email Inbox, and maybe a Firefox session running, and it adds up quickly.

At today's memory prices, I can't see a reason not to run as much RAM as you can stuff into your machine.

[Bobster]

when i was dealing with 10-15 layers on an A4 (18MB) image, i used to run Photoshop, InDesign, Freehand (a vector illustration app), Outlook and Firefox on 2GB without any slowness.. it wasn't until i started working on 30x20in 16bit images that my memory overheads went through the roof..

for your average user there isn't any real reason to go Quad over Dual, but seeing as the OP already has 4GB and is asking if an upgrade from Dual to Quad would improve the performance of the machine, the answer is yes it would.. but if the 8800 has been shown to cause problems with CS4, id upgrade the video card instead..

[Guapo]

It's a lovely thing to be able to disagree, don't you agree?

:)

[tim]

How would a new video card help Bob?

[BottomBracket]

Hmmm that Nvidia 8800 GTS 640 GB should be able to handle Photoshop nicely. TSmith, what do you mean by sluggish? Does it happen when you open lots of RAW files at once, or during rendering of a single image?

[tim]

Hmmm that Nvidia 8800 GTS 640 GB should be able to handle Photoshop nicely. TSmith, what do you mean by sluggish? Does it happen when you open lots of RAW files at once, or during rendering of a single image?

Maybe with CS4 a video card will help, but i'd like to see benchmarks before I buy an expensive card, and it's still only accelerating a few parts of the view. I have an 8500GT 256MB fanless card (I think), it works fine. Gets pretty warm but I think it's meant to.

[Tsmith]

Hmmm that Nvidia 8800 GTS 640 GB should be able to handle Photoshop nicely. TSmith, what do you mean by sluggish? Does it happen when you open lots of RAW files at once, or during rendering of a single image?

For example when using any of the Sharpening options, the Adjustment Window Preview acts as if it bogs down when moving and viewing the detail that's being applied. This didn't happen in CS3.

[jdizzle]

If you're budget minded and don't need the latest and greatest, you can get intel QUADs cheap now. I for one like to future proof for a long while and it should last me for a while. It's been 4 years since my last build and I'm also feeling the chug from my PC. I'm in the final stages of my build being complete ( 90%). I would def. go for it Toney. Quad is where it's at!

[Tsmith]

Julian thanks for the input. I'm going to get Vista x64 going hopefully this week, waiting on the OEM software to arrive and decide from that point if the Quad would benefit my setup. The E6700 Dual Core I have now does super good so I'll see how that goes with 4 gigs of RAM.

I've got my eye on the Q6700 Quad Core OEM that's still available for a tad less that $200.

[jdizzle]

Good choice Toney.

[Tsmith]

Well so far I'm pretty impressed with Vista X64. Its ability to see all my RAM now, along with Photoshop CS4 makes it load up way faster than it did running under WinXP X32. The sluggishness I was seeing before is nonsexist running x64.

Now whether or not upgrading to a Quad Core CPU seems to be more a matter of choice. I'll keep my eye on the Q6700 deal for now but really don't know if its needed. Getting a full 8 gigs of RAM might be the better idea.

Also I've been able to run several of my Microsoft x32 bit apps. without any problems.

[Guapo]

Well so far I'm pretty impressed with Vista X64. Its ability to see all my RAM now, along with Photoshop CS4 makes it load up way faster than it did running under WinXP X32. The sluggishness I was seeing before is nonsexist running x64.

Now whether or not upgrading to a Quad Core CPU seems to be more a matter of choice. I'll keep my eye on the Q6700 deal for now but really don't know if its needed. Getting a full 8 gigs of RAM might be the better idea.

Also I've been able to run several of my Microsoft x32 bit apps. without any problems.

Great to hear you're happy with your new setup! More RAM certainly wont hurt, either your computer or your wallet at current prices. :)

[AzzKicker]

I have experience with both. I have a Core2Duo laptop and a QuadCore Xeon 3.0ghz Machine at work.

The QuadCore EASILY blows away the Core2Duo. I take pictures at HS sports and I have to BATCH process via Noise Ninja sometimes 800 pictures. The Core2Duo I usually have to leave overnight. With the QuadCore at work I can go from copying files over to Uploading in around 2 hours. Thats a BIG difference.

[Aszental]

Im running an older c2duo6600 at 2.4 ghz.

How much faster are the newer E c2duo chips than that one?

[datadump]

i went from dualcore E8400 (overclocked to 3GHz) to recently a quadcore Q6600.

the dualcore destroys the q6600 in every photoshop benchmark test. then i decided to overclock the q6600 to 3.2ghz. even then, the dualcore timings were faster albeit less of a spread.

but i think if you start multitasking between lightroom, cs3/cs4, etc... i assume the quadcore would "show its muscle".

note that if you run cs4 64bit, see if your plugins are 64bit versions --> for me, only one plugin works in 64bit cs4.... everything else i have to run in 32bit .. bah!

in retrospect, i shouldve kept the dualcore and just upgraded ram. the E8400 dual core is a beast when overclocked.

[Tsmith]

i went from dualcore E8400 (overclocked to 3GHz) to recently a quadcore Q6600.

the dualcore destroys the q6600 in every photoshop benchmark test. then i decided to overclock the q6600 to 3.2ghz. even then, the dualcore timings were faster albeit less of a spread.

but i think if you start multitasking between lightroom, cs3/cs4, etc... i assume the quadcore would "show its muscle".

note that if you run cs4 64bit, see if your plugins are 64bit versions --> for me, only one plugin works in 64bit cs4.... everything else i have to run in 32bit .. bah!

in retrospect, i shouldve kept the dualcore and just upgraded ram. the E8400 dual core is a beast when overclocked.

Yeah I've got my E6700 running at 3.33 GHz with ease and so far its noticeably faster than the same setup in CS3. Being able to use all my RAM is a plus.