PC upgrade worthwhile?

[tim]

I'm considering upgrading my PC. I have a 2 year old Acer Aspire 1700 desknote, kindof a cross between a laptop and a desktop. It has a desktop P4 2.66GHz processor, without hyperthreading, 768MB RAM, a crappy onboard video card, 17 inch LCD built in, and DVD reader/CD writer. PS CS file browser's pretty slow/unresponsive, and batch processing 60 files from RAW to Q10 jpg took like 15 minutes (at a guess).

Would a new PC go much faster on a new machine? I tried PS CS on my PC at work, a hyperthreaded P4 2.8, and PS CS file browser was a lot more responsive, I didn't try batch processing though. I'm considering an Athlon 64, 2GB RAM, 17 inch LCD, and a couple of good big hard drives. Do you guys think it'd go much faster?

[Scottes]

Well, I'd think that you'd spend a decent amount of money for some improvement, but not a lot. But then again, how much is it that responsiveness worth to you?

More RAM could help a bit, and I'd guess a faster hard drive would, too. A new monitor would be nicer than the LCD you have (be happy, get a CRT), but it won't be faster because of the monitor.

If you can afford the US$2,000 you'll most definitely get a better, faster, more responsive machine. You'll love it, I'm sure. I'm just not sure that you'd really be getting your money's worth... By the time you replaced everything in that machine you'll probably see a 50% improvement. But spending $300 on more RAM and a faster disk might get you a 30% improvement.... So is it worth $1700 to get a bit faster...?


Just a note... I have a 4-year old 1.8GHz system with 512M RAM. I added another 512 RAM and what a difference! Next was a new big drive and that was a bit better. A $20 USB 2.0 card was a hell of a nice feature. The $300 I spent was a very nice improvement, and my system is most assuredly a usable image editor. Not as fast as a brand-new $2500 system, but I'm not complaining at all.

[tim]

I just got a fast seagate disk for this machine, I can just move it over. Apart from photoshop it's ok, but I spend a lot of time in photoshop these days. Another issue is this machine is just annoying me, it has a couple of hot pixels, and can't take disks over 128GB because even the latest the BIOS doesn't support them.

I think a dual core processor might be worthwhile, especially if they can both run two threads. I'm not sure if the dual core Athlon 64 processors will be dual threaded, I suspect not. That whould be a pretty big upgrade, but they're not out for a few months. I can wait :)

[Skip Souza]

The "Is it worth it" question depends on your needs, desires and finances.

I am partial to the fastest AMD chip you can afford. The Athlon 64 would be just fine, of course there is no OS and little software to fully exploit it's potential nut it is coming. I am also partial to Asus motherboards and Ati video cards. As log as your building it I would go with the biggest SATA drives in RAID 0 configuration and as much dual channel RAM as I could afford.

I'm a 'merican, bigger is always better:cool: Getting the best you can afford means you will not become outdated sooner.

[tim]

Money isn't a big problem, I can write it off as a business expense. Also, a 2.4GHz P4 is still a reasonably modern machine, and this is a laptop-like machine, so I should get a reasonable price for it.

Do asus motherboards support both SATA and EIDE? I have a new EIDE drive that i'd like to use. And is SATA any faster? RAID 0 sounds like one option, but it doubles the chance of data loss, so regular backups would be even more important than usual. I'm partial to nVidia, for no good reason.

64 bit Windows XP isn't too far away, it's in beta now I think. It should be a bit quicker when it arrives, the review I found (http://www.anandtech.com/systems/showdoc.aspx?i=1961&p=1) said it's faster in some areas now, slower in others. 64 bit linux apparently runs 10%-20% faster than 32 bit.

[Skip Souza]

The A8N-SLI Deluxe handles both, I believe. Sata alone is faster than EIDE. In Raid 0 it is faster still. You could always put your new EIDE in a hard drive enclosure and use ir as a back-up. Much faster that writing to CD or DVD. Cheaper in the long run too.

[tim]

I already have an 80GB external drive, that's enough for my backups at the moment, I copy them to the drive in my work PC.

In practical terms, is SATA that much faster that i'll notice a significant increase in performance? I know RAID 0 will be faster again, I don't know if it's worth it for me.

[Citizensmith]

Dual Western Digital Raptor 76Gb SATA drives in RAID0. Mmm. Can't do that in a Mac.
Definitely worth getting a board with SATA on it, and a lot offer RAID 0 or 1. I've got the two lovely 10,000rpm raptors as my boot drive, and then a standard 200Gb drive for data. An Athlon XPm as you can overclock the crap out of them, 16x DL DVD burner, and 1Gb of Dual Channel RAM. Does kick out a lot of heat though. Oh and a Geforce 5950 for da gamez.

[tim]

If you get enough RAM then hard disk speed isn't as much of an issue. My PC was chugging away for an hour today on various things, the hard drive was just ticking over, it wasn't going near it's maximum speed. Maybe with a faster CPU and RAM it'd be a bit more strained, but I think a boot drive and a data drive should still be ok.

I'm thinking 2GB of RAM, or is that overkill? And has anyone read reviews of the dual core athlon chips? I wonder if they're worth waiting for.

[Skip Souza]

Western Digital Caviar SATA transfer rate of 150MB/s. 120GB, $94.99 at Directron.com
Western Digital Caviar EIDE Ultra DMA transfer rate of 100 MB/s. 120GB, $76.99 also at Directron.com.

You be the judge if it works for you. I am considering upgrading my wifes computer with SATA HDD. I haven't decided about RAID yet. I also plan on a faster CPU. She is at an AMD 2800+ XP. I'll replace it with the 3200+ Barton core and use her old stuff in the computer I plan to build for our grandson. Can't keep him off our computers when he visits, four times a week and he is not ye three:lol:

[Skip Souza]

Both the wife & I have 1GB dual channel RAM which really move. You know my motto in these matters bigger & faster is better.

[tim]

I'm a techie, but I haven't paid much attention to PC internals for a few years, so i'm not up to speed on the current state of play of RAM or bus speed. I figure i'll find someone who knows more about it when i'm ready to order :) I won't be ordering for a couple of months probably, until my tax refund comes back!

[Skip Souza]

I've fallen behind also. I had my computer built shortly after I retired and just before the release of the 64 bit chips from AMD. There have been great strides in bus speeds and the like but I havent been looking for a whole new system. I have built & overhauled a few recently for family & friends but they have all been mid to low end. My retirement present to me was the fastest 32 bit computer available at the time, then the 64s came out and blew me into the dust. Mine is still adequate for photo work.
If you stop to tie your shoe laces the tech world screams past:)

[Skitzy]

768 MB ram and your adobe's running slow? I think it's down to something else rather than the computers specs.

[tim]

My work computer's only 6 months to one year newer, and it goes a lot better, so I have to put it down to this just being a substandard machine. It could be the crappy onboard graphics, the shared graphics memory, or the strange custom design to make it fit into this small case, but i'd not buy acer again, that's for sure.

The new machine will be selected component by component, and assembled (for free when you buy a whole system) by guys at a good local computer store.

[Skitzy]

Perhaps its just I have half those stats and my computer works superbly running most programs, fast and such. So I'm not sure could be a number of things. It's jsut my friend recently doubled his RAM to try and run ADOBE and it didn't help, so it could be a number of other things.

[tim]

It's mainly the Photoshop CS browser that's not very responsive. Also, batch conversion and other batch operations are a little slow, and i'm impatient, and most of all it's a good excuse to get rid of this piece of crap and get something new :)

[XXWoodmanXX]

There's some pretty amazing deals out there (ie: Dell?) And they usually offer FREE mem upgrades which will (of course) come in handy when it comes to such intensive operations like photoshop CS and batch converting, etc ;)

[Skip Souza]

The new machine will be selected component by component, and assembled (for free when you buy a whole system) by guys at a good local computer store.

That is certainly the best way to go in my humble opinion. You get the computer you want, the way you want it, and it will be more easily repaired/upgraded. You also don't end up with a bunch of junk, useless software that is bundled by the major manufacturers.

[tim]

When I have the $$$ in my hand (or at least very close to it) i'll look at Dell and custom building. The thing about Dell is they're intel only, and i'd like to go with AMD for a change.

[Citizensmith]

When I have the $$$ in my hand (or at least very close to it) i'll look at Dell and custom building. The thing about Dell is they're intel only, and i'd like to go with AMD for a change.

AMD are definitely better value for money, and their 64bit processors easily beat the intel offerings.

Dell really need to start selling AMD, but intel offer them a huge discount because they don't. Funny that, in Japan and Europe intels behaviour is up in court as anti-competetive. :) I guess they gave the right politicians enough money over here, or Dell on their own aren't considered that important.

[EuropeanSwallow]

Just a hint on the RAID 0 issue. The reliability of the two hard drives together is half their individual one. Remember that a failure on one of the discs invalidates the content on the other one also.

If you want performance and reliability, you will have to add some redundancy, but it will cost you, since you'll have to fork some cash to a dedicated controller, which ain't cheap.

[tim]

Just a hint on the RAID 0 issue. The reliability of the two hard drives together is half their individual one. Remember that a failure on one of the discs invalidates the content on the other one also.

If you want performance and reliability, you will have to add some redundancy, but it will cost you, since you'll have to fork some cash to a dedicated controller, which ain't cheap.

RAID 0 sounds like one option, but it doubles the chance of data loss, so regular backups would be even more important than usual.

I know, thanks :) I could go for a full striped redundant disk array, but I think i'll just get a single modern disk drive and continue my parananoia over backups. RIght now i'm more CPU limited than disk limited, so I think disk won't be the constraining factor, especially if I get 2GB of RAM - it can cache stuff there instead of using the disk. Windows doesn't seem to be very good at caching though, i've found.

[EuropeanSwallow]

I know, thanks :) I could go for a full striped redundant disk array, but I think i'll just get a single modern disk drive and continue my parananoia over backups. RIght now i'm more CPU limited than disk limited, so I think disk won't be the constraining factor, especially if I get 2GB of RAM - it can cache stuff there instead of using the disk. Windows doesn't seem to be very good at caching though, i've found.

Ooops! Missed that one! :)

If I were on your shoes, and if money wasn't completely a non-issue, I'd go with the current $200 AMD, and at least 1GB memory. 2GB might be a bit overkill, but if you spend lots of your Photoshop CS time applying filters it's money well spent. As for the SATA vs. PATA question, SATA was a bit of a dissapointment for me. Ok, the easier cabling and hotplugging is nice, but the performance is not so much different from PATA, and it is a pity you can't consistently daisy chain drives like with SCSI. I think it was a bit of a wasted chance. Anyway, since price and usability are not much different, chose as you please! ;)

As for the multi-core AMDs and for Windows XP 64 final, I wouldn't hold my breath. Even if it comes out (with a usable set of bugs ;)), it will take a while for the applications to be available in 64 bit versions too so, in the end, your Photoshop performance would be worse than if you would have sticked with 32 bit (proportionatly).

Anyway, if you have a crave on 64 bits and performance, have you thought about a PowerMac (or even a cheaper iMac)? Shure you would have to buy a new Photoshop license, but I think the result would be much much sweeter!

(Btw, I own a few year old AMD XP1600+, with 512MB memory and 7200 rpm 20GB disk + 250GB external, running Linux Debian testing, and a iBook G4 800 with 768MB memory, and they both completely fullfil my needs. But yes, I don't do raw... yet! When I upgrade, it will probably be a Mac.)

[tim]

Nah, i'm not a Mac person, i've used PC for years and I like them. OS-X looks good, but i'd have to get whole new sets of software. Good point with 64 bits, i'll not worry too much about that for now, but i'll try and get a system that support 64 bits if it's not too much more expensive.

I'm not sure which CPU I should get, Opteron or Athlon 64. Sempron I think are the budget choice, so i'd probably avoid that for what I want to do.

People seem to think hard drives actually reach the interface speeds, but they don't get near it. SATA at 150mbps and EIDE at 100mbps will deliver about the same performance for constant read/write operations. It's only when things are going to/from the disk cache the fast buffer helps, even then the OS buffers a lot of file operations so it's often not an issue.

[FlyingPete]

On disk performance, testing we have done (at work) here on desktop class machine (single CPU, standard PCI 32bit/33Mhz) has shown very little value in RAID0 of drives for performance.

The main reason for this is the typical architecture of a desktop PC, and that is a shared 32bit/33Mhz bus that is capable of a maximum of 133MB/s. Some higher end machine do have two buses, but they are in a minority. That means that even if you got a drive that could sustain SATA’s current limit of 150MB/s, it would never be able to get there due to the PCI bottleneck. Remember that other devices also share this bus, such as audio and USB.

The second reason for not seeing much performance is that most of the RAID controllers are cheaply designed, and lack their own CPU’s. They also lack a lot of the ‘smarts’ seen in higher end controllers that are responsible for a lot of the performance of the arrays.

Then as already pointed out, higher chance of failure. One drive with a 500000 hour MTBF, two of them equates to a 250000 hour MTBF. Drive failures in the corporate world account for around 55% of all hardware failures, and the MTBF failures are a engineering specification, not a rating as such, the drives are designed for that level of reliability in optimum conditions (constant temperature and humidity, smooth power, no vibrations, correct orientation, no dust etc) real life is a lot less than that.

[EuropeanSwallow]

I'm not sure which CPU I should get, Opteron or Athlon 64. Sempron I think are the budget choice, so i'd probably avoid that for what I want to do.

People seem to think hard drives actually reach the interface speeds, but they don't get near it. SATA at 150mbps and EIDE at 100mbps will deliver about the same performance for constant read/write operations. It's only when things are going to/from the disk cache the fast buffer helps, even then the OS buffers a lot of file operations so it's often not an issue.

If you don't plan on going multi-processor, go for the AMD64, not the Opteron. It'll be way cheaper. Also, the Opteron would require registered memory, which might become hefty given your 2GB whishes! Sempron is definitely a budget choice and, given your current configuration, I would probably skip it.

As for the disks I agree with you and FlyingPete. Without a dedicated controller, it just doesn't cut it! One perhaps useful idea would be for the motherboard inbedded RAID controller to allow RAID 1. Then you could buy a second identical disc and sync them once in a while. Nice way to have a perfect working image of your system, should that nasty virus or worm try to misbehave!

[tim]

I prefer offline backups to online, i'll just keep using my external 80GB drive. If I fill that up i'll start deleting stuff.

There's an AMD Athlon 64 and a 64 FX. Just look at the price and the FX is really expensive, so an Athlon 64 it is. I'd be tempted to go with one of the lower down versions, a 3000+ is NZ$270 and a 3800+ is NZ$680, and I bet there's not a huge difference between them. It'd just be to tide me over until the dual core athlon 64s come out - assuming they'll fit in the same motherboard.

[EuropeanSwallow]

The AMD64-FX is somewhat of a halfway between the AMD64 and the Opteron (somebody correct me if I am wrong!), in that it shares some of the high hend features of the second, like the design of the memory controller, allowing higher memory bandwidth. Personally I think its not worth the cost, since AMD64 is perfectly OK for non "power-gamer" usage.

As for the differences between the 3000+ and 3800+, I'm with you. It certainly isn't NZ$400 more processor! Currently here in Portugal the "sweetspot" for AMD64 is the 3200+ (socket 939), costing around EUR200. The 3800+ costs EUR700!

As for dual socket AMD keeping the type of socket, I have strong doubts, given the number of times AMD has changed socket. Even current generation of AMD64 are switching sockets. Also, it would be expectable that changes are more than just having two cores. A beefed-up memory controller and increased memory bandwidth, perhaps descendant from Opteron and AMD64-FX is, in my opinion, expectable, to help feed the two cores, so there will be some chipset changes.

[Skip Souza]

What EuropeanSwallow said on his last four posts on this thread. Remember, Tim, you can go crazy overthinking this. Just do it. I like your night work especially well on your site.

[FlyingPete]

Just FYI, I am working on a project with has four Opterons 2-way (actually quads, but half populated), they are the #$%*! fastest thing I have ever seen (BTW I have seen fast, i.e 32-way Intel Xeon with 64GB RAM, but try finding something that can use all of that!) :D

Now one of those would go down a treat as a Photoshop workstation!

[tim]

Thanks for all this information, it's all really useful :)

Looking at benchmarks (http://www6.tomshardware.com/cpu/20041019/athlon64_4000-12.html#application) it seems that the FX processors are aroudn 20% faster for 100% extra money. I'll take the value and wait a few seconds. I'm pretty sure any will blow away my P4 2.66, which is probably several generations old now. I don't even know what type of RAM I have, and it's a cheap chipset/board.

EuropeanSwallow, thanks for the info regarding sockets. I'm thinking dual core in a single chip, not dual socket for now. To be honest a new motherboard isn't too expensive if you want a new CPU unless you have to throw out the RAM, and hopefully AMD provide an upgrade path with the current pin layout.

Pete, i've seen PS CS benchmarks for machines like what you've said, they really do scream through that kind of work. It'd be nice to find or create here a photoshop test we could all run on a variety of machines, but it's probably too much effort.

Thanks again everyone, more info or ideas is still welcome :)

[Avalonthas]

Unless u got some good gear inside ur rig, it is generally just better to buy a brand new computer.

[tim]

Avalonthas, i'm talking about buying a new computer, there hasn't been a single word about upgrading my PC other than the thread title.

[tim]

Thanks for all your help so far everyone. I've started a new thread (http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?p=451056#post451056) to help me choose components, if you know anything about them please feel free to contribute :)