Advice on where to spend money on an Editing workstation.

Looking to get a workstation that will last!
But where do I spend the money, its configurable.
I decided on an HP Z440 tower with 700 watt power supply.
Hopefully loads of power for futures. And a good make and build quality. Plus decent support.

1. Processor - choice of 2 intel i7 or Xeon. The dealer says Xeon are much faster are they?
My gut feel is go overboard on the Processor , I can always swap out the Graphics card later or add discs, or increase memory.
So. -
Intel® Xeon® E5-1620 v3 (3.5 GHz, 10 MB cache, 4 cores, Intel® vPro™) - the Favourite or
Intel® Xeon® E5-1603 v3 (2.8 GHz, 10 MB cache, 4 cores, Intel® vPro™)

2. RAM the current Laptop has 8GB.
16 GB 2133 MHz DDR4 ECC Registered RAM (2 x 8 GB) or
8 GB 2133 MHz DDR4 ECC Registered RAM (1 x 8 GB). - Favourite, as I can add the other later

3. SSD Discs
1x 128 GB SSD - Favourite
Can I get away with this for OS , Photoshop Elements, Elements and Portraiture, and DPP.
Idea is to off load all saved edited images to external WD USB 2TB drives as I have these. Later get another disc.
But is 128 GB enough to edit a shoot say 32 GB of pics?
Or I could get the 7200 1TB normal drive .
And later get the SSDs. My preference is to end up with 2 x 128GB SSDs , and maybe long term a regular 1TB disc for temp storage.

4. Graphics cards.
NVIDIA Quadro K2200 4GB Graphics Card £408
Or
NVIDIA Quadro K620 2GB Graphics Card £146 - Favourite
Both will display 3840 x 2169 so OK for a 4K screen.
I will not be gaming, so for static pics is 2 GB enough? My concern is I currently have 4 GB and 1 GB dedicated for Video. I would hate to see this system slower than the current one.

The real question is where to prioritise.
RAM, SSD DISCS or the Graphics Card?

To avoid throwing stuff away, my thoughts are - purely based on investment :-
Invest in Processor first - that will last the lifetime of the server, then the better Graphics card as a replacement means throwing away the first one, then invest in a SSD disc ( I could even start with the normal 7200 1TB drive but would prefer to try and initially survive with the smaller SSD if possible ( ans add another one asap), and then invest in RAM last - as its a simple add on.

But performance wise??
Would I Get more benefit from another 8GB of general RAM or the extra 2 GB onboard the GPU?
Will 128 GB actually be enough to run it.?
Would it be better to have 16 GB of RAM or 2 SSD discs?

Basically I have no idea which will deliver more punch initially and by what sort of factor.
I need someone who understands computers and Editing to guide me.

Any help much appreciated.

Going the Xeon/ECC/Quadro route is fairly overkill for the purposes of photography. All these components are mostly equivalent to i7 CPUs, regular RAM and the GeForce GPUs, but with some added features you'll likely never even be able to use.

Xeons are not any faster then i7s, and in fact many are slower because they run at lower clock rates and the 26xx series can't be overclocked at all, but they do add some virtualization features and ECC RAM support.
Why slower?... This will be a running theme here, but all of this hardware is meant to run 24/7 under load.

ECC RAM corrects for memory errors that occur naturally in volatile memory over time, but in an ordinary PC the chance of this happening is one random flipped bit every month or so. This could be as minor as having the color of one pixel change to a slightly different shade in Photoshop while having an image open, or maybe it may cause a program to crash for no reason, or nothing will happen.
Only once you get to running your PC 24/7 with 128GB of RAM while performing taxing processing tasks, does the rate of these errors skyrocket, and in a server environment with thousands of server blades, ECC is basically essential to prevent the thing from corrupting data every couple of hours.

Quadro cards are the same deal, more expensive, ECC RAM, lower clock rates and extra "pro" features that you won't know what to do with. Unless you specifically have an application that benefits from the driver optimizations, such as Maya, a regular GPU will be every bit as good for any kind of OpenCL or CUDA acceleration task.

As for what hardware you do need... If this isn't a pressing issue, I would wait a couple more months for Intel to launch Skylake and get a nice i7-equivalent CPU. Or if you need it right now, then get a 4690k or 4790k depending on whether you feel that you need hyper threading.

16GB is the sweet spot for RAM these days. As long as your working data fits in memory, RAM has almost no impact on performance these days, regardless of speed, quantity or price, it just isn't a bottle neck anymore. If you get 32GB of RAM you can setup a RAM disk and use 16GB as Photoshop scratch space, in order to force PS to stay in memory.

For GPU acceleration, I would probably choose a Maxwell-based Nvidia card simply because they are very energy-efficient and will run cool and quiet.

With the money saved by not taking the Xeon/ECC/Quadro route, you can get a bigger and better SSD drive. The Intel 750, 400GB SSD PCI-E drive will make mince meat out of anything you can throw at it, you might want to look into it.

So to recap, as long as you have plenty of RAM, a nice SSD and any recent 2GB+ GPU, the only real variable when it comes to performance will be the CPU. Clock speed matters more than core/thread count for the most part, especially where Photoshop is concerned, so get the fastest CPU. Again, I'd personally wait for Skylake, which I suspect will be at least 10% faster per clock than Haswell.

Thanks so much Kolor-Pikkor for such a brilliant and informed set of advice. Really appreciated as my knowledge of computers is dire.

Regards
Peter.

What do you want to do with the new computer?

Big difference between what's needed for basic image processing, what is needed for lots of batch work, and then another step up to what is needed for video production, with again different levels depending on the type of video being worked with.

One thing that jumped out at me was a single 1TB hard drive.

I'd up it to 3TB which will cost about $20 more (maybe not from HP)
Or skip it and install some later that you buy for reasonable prices.

I also feel that your 128GB SSD is a little on the small side, but again HP may be charging a small fortune for the step up to 250GB.

I agree that i7 is so fast it's crazy, and not worry about Dual Xeon etc.

CyberDyneSystems wrote in post #17601283
One thing that jumped out at me was a single 1TB hard drive.

I'd up it to 3TB which will cost about $20 more (maybe not from HP)
Or skip it and install some later that you buy for reasonable prices.

I also feel that your 128GB SSD is a little on the small side, but again HP may be charging a small fortune for the step up to 250GB.

I agree that i7 is so fast it's crazy, and not worry about Dual Xeon etc.

I would agree, but Hp are very expensive for 3TB, so was holding back to put that into another SSD.
Yes I am also worried by going the single 128 SSD initially. But their 250 gb is more than double the 128?.

Re the i7 v single 4 core Xeon, it was really because the pre sales guy said it was much faster and my current i7 2.7 gHz struggles ( but it could be the normal 7200 500gb disc or because I only have 8 Gb ram?
And the chassis with the bigger power supply moved up to xeon processors.

Appreciate your help as there was no budget for this - initially I really wanted a 4K screen, but the GPU on my laptop was not upgradeable, and its a bit slow. So thinking of the 5DS R ...... .??
I'll bet my current system will really struggle. With 100mb photoshop files

The biggest bottleneck in computers since the Pentium II has always been hard drive.
With RAM prices once being stratospheric, the next bottleneck was RAM, specifically, the lack of it.

8GB RAM is not small, but by today's standards and with the images we work on, more is going to be better.

16 or 32GB of RAM and a RAM drive for your scratch disk, and some fast SSD action will really make things cook.

I am sure a new Zeon will be a speed boost too. I missed it if you said you are going with single socket.

Moppie wrote in post #17601269
What do you want to do with the new computer?

Big difference between what's needed for basic image processing, what is needed for lots of batch work, and then another step up to what is needed for video production, with again different levels depending on the type of video being worked with.

Initially edit 5D3 and 5DS R raw files, mainly 20 to 30 images a shoot, but more and more want copies of the whole shoot in JPEG ( on my second card ) which I would like to run through Portraiture on batch mode - and that means I need to Load Photoshop as well as its a pluggin. I also like using DPP curves, somthats running too.

Obviously spending so much (for me) and seeing video become more common. Although I hadly do any - as the machine will last 5 years ( he hopes ) well the last one is now 4 years old. I would like it capable of that if The need increases.
My brief attempts at video editing made me feel one really needed a seriuos amount of computing power.

My most pressing need is to get a decent colour calibrated monitor bigger than the current 17" laptop display. So if investing I would want 4k. And then a GPU that can output 3840 x 2160 as a minimum.

Fundamentally I dont really like editing, so if a maxhine can reduce the time taken then Imwill stretch for it.

OK.

A 128GB SSD is not big enough. I have one in my laptop, with just Windows, Office, Photoshop and Lightroom installed on it I'm constantly running out of space. There is currently 7GB free after the last tethered shoot I did.

My desktop has 2 240GB SSD's.
The first has Windows, Office, most of the Adobe suite installed on it, along with a few other programs and has 55GB free.

The other is my scratch disc, and holds the LR catalog, preview files and is used as the LR cache, Photoshop Cache and Premier Pro scratch disc. It currently has 135GB free, but premier can easily use 30+GB of scratch files.
I have had this disc run out of space when doing some massive composites in photoshop while Premier Pro was open editing a large video project.

None of these SSD's are used to store images, all images are kept on 4TB hard drives, and worked on from there (currently 110,000+ images)

So go with a 256GB SSD unless you want to spend time working on a very light instal and constantly clearing it out.


A consumer level i7 is MORE than capable of processing even high res medium format images. A single Xeon will perform about the same.
Both clock speed and number of cores is important for photo editing, a consumer level i7 will comfortably out perform the Xeon 1603 for example.
My i7 2600k has no problems processing images from my 5D3, or 50mp hasselblad (which are even bigger at 16bit than the 14bit files from the new 5DS).


I currently have 16GB of ram. Its enough for 90% of the photography work I do. It's not enough for the video editing I do, and it is currently a bottle neck. I also have issues when building large composites in photoshop.
16GB of Ram is good, 32GB is better.


Kolor-Picker pretty much summed up Quadro cards.
You simply don't need them for photography work. I used to run a workstation that simply used the Intel GPU built into a lot of their processors. It ran two 24in monitors without a problem.
My current system runs an Nividia GTX670, which is more than enough for the demands of Premier Pro.
Note, if you do get a standalone GPU, make sure its Nvidia. Adobe does not currently play nice with AMD.

Over all what you need to find, or build, is a balanced system.
Something with enough fast storage to feed a fast processor that is supported by enough RAM.
A slower processor can get away with slower storage, and less RAM.
But it's no good having a superfast CPU, if there isn't enough RAM and the storage can't keep up.

The HP Workstations are a great way to buy an off the shelf system that is very powerful, well built, reliable and with great support. But for a single user, I don't think they offer very good value for money.

CyberDyneSystems wrote in post #17601319
The biggest bottleneck in computers since the Pentium II has always been hard drive.
With RAM prices once being stratospheric, the next bottleneck was RAM, specifically, the lack of it.

8GB RAM is not small, but by today's standards and with the images we work on, more is going to be better.

16 or 32GB of RAM and a RAM drive for your scratch disk, and some fast SSD action will really make things cook.

I am sure a new Zeon will be a speed boost too. I missed it if you said you are going with single socket.

Thanks for the info.
What does a single socket mean? I will only have one monitor - if that is relevant. ( love 2 but no money for that )
The 3.5 mhz version comes with 16 GB Ram - so may try and go with that..
Would I be better having 2 x 128 GB SSDs rather than one 250 GB, speedwise. So one holds the OS and application programs and the other for a sratchdisc and stuff I am currently working on.?

Moppie wrote in post #17601378
OK.

A 128GB SSD is not big enough. I have one in my laptop, with just Windows, Office, Photoshop and Lightroom installed on it I'm constantly running out of space. There is currently 7GB free after the last tethered shoot I did.

i intended to leave office on the Laptop - yikes 7 GB spare is no good for me

My desktop has 2 240GB SSD's.
The first has Windows, Office, most of the Adobe suite installed on it, along with a few other programs and has 55GB free.
OMG looks like I need 250 minimum

The other is my scratch disc, and holds the LR catalog, preview files and is used as the LR cache, Photoshop Cache and Premier Pro scratch disc. It currently has 135GB free, but premier can easily use 30+GB of scratch files.
I have had this disc run out of space when doing some massive composites in photoshop while Premier Pro was open editing a large video project.
Looks like Video editing is a no no for the time being

None of these SSD's are used to store images, all images are kept on 4TB hard drives, and worked on from there (currently 110,000+ images)
that would be my long term plan - sounds like I will defo be spending a lot more on discs when the 5DS R comes

So go with a 256GB SSD unless you want to spend time working on a very light instal and constantly clearing it out.
sounds pretty essential

A consumer level i7 is MORE than capable of processing even high res medium format images. A single Xeon will perform about the same.
Both clock speed and number of cores is important for photo editing, a consumer level i7 will comfortably out perform the Xeon 1603 for example.
very useful to know - real world verses HP salesman eh!

My i7 2600k has no problems processing images from my 5D3, or 50mp hasselblad (which are even bigger at 16bit than the 14bit files from the new 5DS).


I currently have 16GB of ram. Its enough for 90% of the photography work I do. It's not enough for the video editing I do, and it is currently a bottle neck. I also have issues when building large composites in photoshop.
16GB of Ram is good, 32GB is better.
my i7 2.7 GHz struggles but it may he the disc or RAM

Kolor-Picker pretty much summed up Quadro cards.
You simply don't need them for photography work. I used to run a workstation that simply used the Intel GPU built into a lot of their processors. It ran two 24in monitors without a problem.
i only went with those as they are the sported prefference with the HP Z440

My current system runs an Nividia GTX670, which is more than enough for the demands of Premier Pro.
Note, if you do get a standalone GPU, make sure its Nvidia. Adobe does not currently play nice with AMD.

thanks good to know

Over all what you need to find, or build, is a balanced system.
Something with enough fast storage to feed a fast processor that is supported by enough RAM.
A slower processor can get away with slower storage, and less RAM.
But it's no good having a superfast CPU, if there isn't enough RAM and the storage can't keep up.
Totally see your point but it may have to be unbalanced initially due to money constraints

The HP Workstations are a great way to buy an off the shelf system that is very powerful, well built, reliable and with great support. But for a single user, I don't think they offer very good value for money.

i take your point bit being computer illiterate I also need some decent support. I always had HP before and those guys knew their stuff - 2 years of Sony support now based in Cairo terrifies me , they obviously know nada and just read off a screen

thanks so much for your extremely detailed advice

When you say
"A consumer level i7 is MORE than capable of processing even high res medium format images. A single Xeon will perform about the same. a consumer level i7 will comfortably out perform the Xeon 1603 for example."

Would a consumer i7 outperform the Intel® Xeon® E5-1620 v3 (3.5 GHz, 10 MB cache, 4 cores, Intel® vPro™) ?
Its about £230 more than the E5 - 1603 2.8 GHz.

Something like an i7 4790 would perform exactly the same as the E5-1620 Xeon for what you want to do, and comfortably out perform the slower E5-1603.
Same number of cores, similar clock speeds, same basic architecture, means same basic performance.

Your old i7 sounds like it was a mobile processor, these are slower as they compromise performance for power efficiency and low operating temperatures.


I understand wanting to buy from a good solid brand like HP. Especially when your not current with computer hardware.
I consider my ability to edit photos to be as important as my ability to take them, so I've spent the time to learn as much about computers as I have about cameras.
It's no different to processing your film and learning about the chemicals that is needs.

Moppie wrote in post #17601593
Something like an i7 4790 would perform exactly the same as the E5-1620 Xeon for what you want to do, and comfortably out perform the slower E5-1603.
Same number of cores, similar clock speeds, same basic architecture, means same basic performance.

Your old i7 sounds like it was a mobile processor, these are slower as they compromise performance for power efficiency and low operating temperatures.


I understand wanting to buy from a good solid brand like HP. Especially when your not current with computer hardware.
I consider my ability to edit photos to be as important as my ability to take them, so I've spent the time to learn as much about computers as I have about cameras.
It's no different to processing your film and learning about the chemicals that is needs.

Thanks so much.
I really agree - initially I thought it was all about the image, but I am coming to the conclusion the Editing side is sadly just as important. They are inextricably linked - well IMO.

And yes its a 4 year old Sony Laptop. Good for its day but I want the upgradeability of a Tower.

Submariner wrote in post #17600936
Looking to get a workstation that will last!
But where do I spend the money, its configurable.

Invest in a chair.