Good processor vs SSD ?

agreed YP5 haha its a small world

I put a SSD in my machine a few months ago and was blown away with the difference, using lightroom / CS5 is so much faster now !

I just upgraded to Win7-64 from XP, 4GB to 8GB RAM, with the OS on an OWC 60GB SSD and the Bridge Cache on an OWC 115GB SSD. Processor is an Intel Quad Core Q6600 on an Asus P5Q SE/R. The processor's about 4 years old, it's not a speed demon by any stretch of the imagination, but I figured SSD first would be a good plan and they'll move to my next PC when I get around to building it.

Everything's quite snappy, booting and loading program is very fast. Inside bridge things are a bit quicker, but it's not night and day. I'm going to try putting images onto the SSD as well, to see what that does. I haven't really done any significant photo processing yet though.

Once you get into actually doing something like post processing and especially rendering, the processor becomes far more important than physical data access. Rendering video is ALL CPU, for example.

Boot time.... once a day, who cares.

Considering the amount of time is spent waiting for an image to load, compared to the amount of time processing it, an SSD is probably the last thing you need to upgrade, assuming you don't already have the fastest quad made and plenty of memory. Still, toys are toys..... go for it.

bohdank wrote in post #12141121
Once you get into actually doing something like post processing and especially rendering, the processor becomes far more important than physical data access. Rendering video is ALL CPU, for example.

Boot time.... once a day, who cares.

Considering the amount of time is spent waiting for an image to load, compared to the amount of time processing it, an SSD is probably the last thing you need to upgrade, assuming you don't already have the fastest quad made and plenty of memory. Still, toys are toys..... go for it.

Yes I realized it is indeed CPU, not SSD, graphics card, nor RAM. I overclocked to 3.9ghz from 3.2, and noticed an improvement -- yet only by a few seconds.

once again...i find those that actually dont have one or use one understand the overall benefits.... once you go SSD you never go back. Its the same "I don't believe/think" statements that kill me.

People also forget....your cpu and motherboard don't move with you to your next system overhaul/upgrade. The SSD will.

bohdank wrote in post #12141121
Once you get into actually doing something like post processing and especially rendering, the processor becomes far more important than physical data access. Rendering video is ALL CPU, for example.

I tried an SSD to try to speed interactive processing time, rather than batch processing time. I got a good deal on the SSDs which is why I got them now. I know computers pretty much inside out and the SSDs did pretty much exactly what I wanted and expected. A new motherboard, CPU, RAM etc will be on the cards later this year maybe, but for now with my 12MP camera the Q6600's still fine.

SSD all the way.

YP5 Toronto wrote in post #12146235
once again...i find those that actually dont have one or use one understand the overall benefits.... once you go SSD you never go back. Its the same "I don't believe/think" statements that kill me.

I just built a new box and it boots off of an SSD, where I keep apps and the OS, but keeps data on a RAID 5 array.

The SSD is quick, but how is it improving CS5 performance other than cached stuff? I don't put photos on the SSD so it's not really in the workflow for photo processing except for the aforementioned caches.

And if I did copy the images over to the SSD to work on 'em I'd be wasting the time to copy them on and off, so most, if not all, processing improvements would be lost.

Or am I not getting something here?

Erik S. Klein wrote in post #12171964
I just built a new box and it boots off of an SSD, where I keep apps and the OS, but keeps data on a RAID 5 array.

The SSD is quick, but how is it improving CS5 performance other than cached stuff? I don't put photos on the SSD so it's not really in the workflow for photo processing except for the aforementioned caches.

And if I did copy the images over to the SSD to work on 'em I'd be wasting the time to copy them on and off, so most, if not all, processing improvements would be lost.

Or am I not getting something here?

Well your computer boot times will be faster, loading CS5 will be faster. It does a better job at caching files, and since you have a Raid 5 array, the SSD and the raid 5 most likely are probably running at very similar speeds (at least they are at my machine at work, my Intel x-25 160GB benches at about 220MB/s and my 3 drive 1.5TB Caviar Black Raid 5 benches at about the same), so going back and forth between the two will be substantially faster.

Also, it's not just the initial boot time of CS5 that is improved, every time you go to grab a tool, or really anything the SSD will be more responsive. SSD's are really complete system upgrades, it just speeds everything up so sometimes it hard to notice the small differences in specific situations.

don't Listen to sigh/Nick

but yes I agree with him

*sigh* wrote in post #12173098
Well your computer boot times will be faster, loading CS5 will be faster. It does a better job at caching files, and since you have a Raid 5 array, the SSD and the raid 5 most likely are probably running at very similar speeds (at least they are at my machine at work, my Intel x-25 160GB benches at about 220MB/s and my 3 drive 1.5TB Caviar Black Raid 5 benches at about the same), so going back and forth between the two will be substantially faster.

Okay. Agreed...

*sigh* wrote in post #12173098
Also, it's not just the initial boot time of CS5 that is improved, every time you go to grab a tool, or really anything the SSD will be more responsive. SSD's are really complete system upgrades, it just speeds everything up so sometimes it hard to notice the small differences in specific situations.

Well, that's where you've lost me. Yes, loading stuff from the disk will be faster from the SSD so a new tool, not yet cached, will come up a bit quicker. No, adding an SSD doesn't speed "everything" up. It speeds up anything that has to do disk access (including when the OS maxes RAM and caches out to disk) but, with sufficient RAM, that doesn't happen much.

Rendering, applying filters and basically anything that PS or other applications do in RAM won't be impacted at all by an SSD. Network speeds won't be impacted and so on.

Think of it this way - if you're running a game your frame rates won't go up at all, but if you change levels, move between screens or something that requires a disk hit that will get a bit faster.

Back to the OP, considering the system specs as they stand, an SSD looks like it would be a better upgrade, but the same question from someone with a slower proc, video card or < 4GB of RAM would yield different results.

Erik S. Klein wrote in post #12173368
Rendering, applying filters and basically anything that PS or other applications do in RAM won't be impacted at all by an SSD. Network speeds won't be impacted and so on.

Think of it this way - if you're running a game your frame rates won't go up at all, but if you change levels, move between screens or something that requires a disk hit that will get a bit faster.

Back to the OP, considering the system specs as they stand, an SSD looks like it would be a better upgrade, but the same question from someone with a slower proc, video card or < 4GB of RAM would yield different results.

Yes, the during the actual processing filters and such are done in the RAM. However... loading up the information needed from the disk to the RAM is impacted by the SSD.

Disk speeds impact almost everything that is going on in your computer, SSD's have an impact on just about anything you do on your computer.


But I agree, the SSD is by far the better option, for an older computer perhaps not, but it's really on a case by case basis.

SSD

Swift wrote in post #12116081
I have an AMD Phenom II - 4 core 3.2ghz, mixed with a 1tb 7200 rpm HD.

Now my question is, if I buy an SSD, would I see major improvements in processing? Opening photos or running actions in PCS5, for example.

Am I missing out on the power of my processor with a 7200rpm HD?

Depends on:
- how old is the HD, what model? 7200rpm means nothing.
- how much RAM do you have?
- do you use Vista, Win7 or some other prefetching OS?

Changing an older HD to a SSD in a machine with small or medium amounts of RAM while not changing anything else will always get you good results for a desktop environment. That doesn't mean it's the best use of money.

uOpt wrote in post #12226726
Depends on:
- how old is the HD, what model? 7200rpm means nothing.
- how much RAM do you have?
- do you use Vista, Win7 or some other prefetching OS?

Changing an older HD to a SSD in a machine with small or medium amounts of RAM while not changing anything else will always get you good results for a desktop environment. That doesn't mean it's the best use of money.

Ram: 8gb ddr3
W7 x64 - of course.
WDC WD1001FALS - 1tb - device manager says its ATA .. ?