Faster processor or add a video card?

For general photo editing only. I'm currently running:

ASUS Z87 motherboard
Intel I5 4670 Haswell processor
16GB Kingston RAM
ASUS PB328 monitor at 3840x2160 resolution
On-board Intel 4600 graphics

I'm using Lightroom 6 and Photoshop Elements 13 to edit RAW files.

When I'm editing, and start moving adjustment sliders around, there is a very small time lag before I see what the adjustment has done to the image. Not a big deal really, but it would be nice if it were a little bit quicker and smoother.

I'm not interested in gaming and not interested in video, at least right now.

So, if I want to improve the editing speed a bit, do I get faster processor? A video card? Not worry about either one?

Thanks

Heya,

LR6 takes advantage of multi-core processors, and you're already running a good CPU (4 cores and decent clock speed). You will only see a minor, if any, difference getting a faster processor, and there are diminishing returns after 4 cores currently even with LR6. You could get a little more acceleration, but it may or may not be insignificant. I'm actually surprised you have any lag at all moving sliders.

Really just looking at what you're running, you could try a GPU, but I really don't think it will do much for what you're describing. Some people get slower performance with GPU acceleration on even.

Very best,

The first thing I'd upgrade is an HDD to an SSD, unless you have that already. Otherwise, I'd add a video card.

SSD would be my first choice, but it won't help with lag - that's all CPU. I don't think anything will help much with your actual problem.

Memory... and


more memory

yeah.... more ram won't make his pc run any faster. usually 8-16gb is more than enough.

Samsung EVO 850 ssd and Nvidia GTX 960 or better

Thanks all for the replies

I'll just leave things alone for now and not worry about it.

tim wrote in post #18150217
SSD would be my first choice, but it won't help with lag - that's all CPU. I don't think anything will help much with your actual problem.

This, and optimizing your system. Make sure there's no obtrusive software running in the background. I've found that anything Apple related (iTunes) can be a huge parasite on your system in the background, same with various virus protection software and some other things. When I edit photos I usually shut down all other apps and background processes except for Chrome and Panda anti-virus.

DutchinCLE wrote in post #18150305
Memory... and


more memory

If by memory you mean RAM, he's already got plenty. I've never seen Lightroom use more than 8gb of RAM, in fact I've only seen it use more than 6gb of RAM when I was also running another editing program at the same time.

FuturamaJSP wrote in post #18150516
yeah.... more ram won't make his pc run any faster. usually 8-16gb is more than enough.

Samsung EVO 850 ssd and Nvidia GTX 960 or better

I agree with the first part, but disagree with the last part... a GTX 960 is unnecessary for his system. Even something cheap like a GTX 950 or GTX 750 Ti would be the most he would need (for the displayport 1.2 input), and even then I wouldn't bother, I see no tangible difference between running my system with the GPU acceleration on or off, and my card is a water cooled and overclocked GTX 980 Ti, and my CPU is an older i7 3820.

I think that the biggest bottle neck is not your system but Lightroom, its been slow on my laptop as well and I'm running an i7 2.6gh, gtx 970 with 16gb of ram and ssd. And I also have issues on a maxed macbook pro.

EverydayGetaway wrote in post #18151343
...

If by memory you mean RAM, he's already got plenty. I've never seen Lightroom use more than 8gb of RAM, in fact I've only seen it use more than 6gb of RAM when I was also running another editing program at the same time.
...

I've had LR6 routinely take up 12-16GB of RAM on my box when doing long edits...it leaks a lot of RAM and has a horrible garbage collector. After leaving LR up for 6-8 hours, it can drag a system down to the point where it requires a restart of LR.

It takes a combo of fast procs and fast video to really make it run decent. An SSD in RAID helps, but once the images gets loaded into RAM, it doesn't speed up processing any more. You can turn off the XMP writes to smooth out disc access a bit, but there's still a point where the SSDs don't help much. Lowering screen resolution (or running multiple "lower" resolution monitors) helps the rendering a bit.

Took me forever to get it to run "smooth". Well, at least to where I can "smoothly" edit without having to wait for it. LR is a horribly written app, very inefficient code, very poor multi-core/multi-proc coding, and no NUMA support.

With dual X5690 3.46GHz procs, 96GB RAM, and dual Quadro K5000s, it'll use about 6 cores consistently, occasionally will move more cores (I've never seen it utilize all 24 cores), but still is a steaming pile of crap. Now Capture One runs nice...as does Photoshop. If you're round-tripping between LR and PS, it helps. But, when purely in LR, it's a joke!

docholliday_sc001 wrote in post #18151349
I've had LR6 routinely take up 12-16GB of RAM on my box when doing long edits...it leaks a lot of RAM and has a horrible garbage collector. After leaving LR up for 6-8 hours, it can drag a system down to the point where it requires a restart of LR.

It takes a combo of fast procs and fast video to really make it run decent. An SSD in RAID helps, but once the images gets loaded into RAM, it doesn't speed up processing any more. You can turn off the XMP writes to smooth out disc access a bit, but there's still a point where the SSDs don't help much. Lowering screen resolution (or running multiple "lower" resolution monitors) helps the rendering a bit.

Took me forever to get it to run "smooth". Well, at least to where I can "smoothly" edit without having to wait for it. LR is a horribly written app, very inefficient code, very poor multi-core/multi-proc coding, and no NUMA support.

With dual X5690 3.46GHz procs, 96GB RAM, and dual Quadro K5000s, it'll use about 6 cores consistently, occasionally will move more cores (I've never seen it utilize all 24 cores), but still is a steaming pile of crap. Now Capture One runs nice...as does Photoshop. If you're round-tripping between LR and PS, it helps. But, when purely in LR, it's a joke!

Interesting, I must not ever see it eat that much RAM because I don't edit for more than an hour at a time almost always, but even doing complex tasks like panorama merges and cloning doesn't ever eat up as much RAM as I always thought.

I think there's an attempt by Adobe to do some sort of scaling based on the max available RAM in the system. There's also the negative cache, but the leak occurs whether it's enabled or diasabled (via lua.config).

Sometimes, I get into long edit sessions where you start, then take a break and come back later. The longer you leave LR up, the more RAM it "holds".

If it wasn't for the cataloging functions (really the only good thing about LR), I'd use C1 - it's much better as an editor.

Swap to an I7 processor. It is significantly better at all tasks. (if you look at Video processing the I7 had the on chip architecture for this)

A new video card would not be helpful for photographyl. That faster GPU/Higher Ram Video card would be helpful for Video Editing or games.

Yes, max out RAM. This is a common issue as folks allow their systems to upgrade/update the operating system. All the newer OS's are hungry for more and more RAM. This would be the cheapest upgrade.

Mike

highest memory usage i've hit is almost ,, 14g...

this while having some internet windows open (youttube , potn + 2 or 3 other sites.. are just always on)

Light room open, not being used ..

premiere pro running and being used.. editing 4k vid, multiple layered clips with all sorts of effects

i've recently upgraded from very decent laptop to a custom built desktop .. and i've been keeping an eye on what uses what, just to be more aware..

so , yeah 14 is what i've topped out at ..gpu definetly being used much ,, fans kicking in

however with just lightroom , premiere pro closed

even pushing lightroom , seems it doesnt really use gpu that much ... and ram , about 5gigs tops.. and that was with me trying to do things which i thought would make it use more..


i will experiment a little with this "the longer LR is on the more ram it holds" .. never noticed , curious what i'll see there..

i'm getting the feeling , that for LR , what made the most difference from my laptop to the desktop was the hdd in laptop vs ssd in desktop?
though i dont really know that ,, as everything was such an upgrade over the laptop ,, but just basing on what i've been watching of how resources are beinng used

Aronis wrote in post #18151781
Swap to an I7 processor. It is significantly better at all tasks. (if you look at Video processing the I7 had the on chip architecture for this)

A new video card would not be helpful for photographyl. That faster GPU/Higher Ram Video card would be helpful for Video Editing or games.

Yes, max out RAM. This is a common issue as folks allow their systems to upgrade/update the operating system. All the newer OS's are hungry for more and more RAM. This would be the cheapest upgrade.

Mike

I may just do that.

Something I forgot to mention, is that I upgraded monitors from 2560x1440 to 3840x2160 resolution. Roughly from 3.7M pixels to 8.3M pixels. I still did notice a small lag on the older monitor though.

I'm real good about only having what I'm using open and keeping everything else closed. Comes from the old days of using Windows and PCs which almost didn't have the horsepower to get out of their own way, so to speak.