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Archive 2013 · Would I benefit from more ram?

  
 
LarryBoy57
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p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · Would I benefit from more ram?


Hi All,

I currently have a PC with an i5 3.10GHz processor and 8GB of ram running Windows 7 64 bit.

My primary program for post processing is Light Room 4.4.

Since I started shooting with a D600, the 24mp files seem to process slow compared to my D700 12mp files.

Would I benefit much by upgrading my ram to 16GB?

Thanks,

Larry



Jul 30, 2013 at 09:09 PM
Peter Le
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p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · Would I benefit from more ram?


Yes absolutely .......I went from 8 to 32 and the difference is amazing. Ram is cheap now get as much as you can......it makes the biggest difference of any component.


Jul 30, 2013 at 10:21 PM
kezeka
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p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · Would I benefit from more ram?


Peter Le wrote:
Yes absolutely .......I went from 8 to 32 and the difference is amazing. Ram is cheap now get as much as you can......it makes the biggest difference of any component.


If you can afford it, integrating an SSD into your workflow will make the largest difference. I went from 4gb of ram to 16 gb and it definitely helped. I know that using lightroom and photoshop I regularly hit 10 or 12. With ultra-large panoramic photos I have managed to use all of the RAM and 30 GB of hard drive space.

That said, no matter what you do lightroom is not going to be able to process the image adjustments faster unless you are able to do the calculations faster - having more ram will allow you to store the images in a buffer space that allows the processor to access them faster but ultimately it comes down to the processor. Welcome to the world of higher resolution photo editing.



Jul 30, 2013 at 10:27 PM
15Bit
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p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · Would I benefit from more ram?


For Lightroom alone you won't benefit much as LR is extremely active in moving stuff out of RAM. The most i have seen LR use is 3Gb, and i was deliberately provoking it. Normally it never even touches 2Gb on my machine. Try it yourself and see.

If you are going to have other software open around LR, then you will probably benefit from more RAM. With LR, Photoshop and Capture One open i have seen 12Gb+ used. I don't have all three open together very often, but for when i do it is good to have the extra headroom.

There is no need to go crazy and spend money and time installing an SSD. It will help with system boot and program launching, but it won't help LR at all - i tested it (https://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/1220523).

Kezeka is correct about LR - Unless you are running 4Gb RAM and a 10 year old hard disk, your bottleneck is CPU horsepower. If you want it to go faster, throw as many cores as you can at it, and be sure to overclock.



Jul 31, 2013 at 12:54 AM
Mirek Elsner
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p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · Would I benefit from more ram?


When I run PS CC and LR5 together and work on a 24MP image, the computer takes 5GB altogether. This is on a Mac, but I had very similar numbers on Windows 7 in the past, albeit with two generations older versions of the Adobe software. So I think going over 8GB, unless you edit simultaneously in LR and PS and do some crazy editing in the PS, won't help.

Check what your Task Manager says. Is the memory consumption climbing too high? Or is it CPU? Is the disk spinning all the time? These things should give you some clue. My guess is that you would benefit from upgrading your CPU from i5 to i7. SSD will help with the speed at which the image is loaded into memory and with exporting speed, if your catalog is of reasonable size (SSDs currently go only to approx. 1TB and the large sizes are expensive).



Jul 31, 2013 at 10:15 PM
LarryBoy57
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p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · Would I benefit from more ram?


Thanks for the replies so far. If I will benefit from more cores/faster CPU, it doesn't look like there's currently allot further I can go in that direction than the i5 quad-core 3.10 GHz processor I have. All intel processors have only 4 cores and seem to max out at 3.50GHz for speed. Would building a new system around an AMD 8 core processor yield more impressive increases in performance?

Thanks,

Larry



Aug 02, 2013 at 09:39 PM
EB-1
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p.1 #7 · p.1 #7 · Would I benefit from more ram?


LarryBoy57 wrote:
Thanks for the replies so far. If I will benefit from more cores/faster CPU, it doesn't look like there's currently allot further I can go in that direction than the i5 quad-core 3.10 GHz processor I have. All intel processors have only 4 cores and seem to max out at 3.50GHz for speed. Would building a new system around an AMD 8 core processor yield more impressive increases in performance?

Thanks,

Larry


No, not AMD now.

EBH



Aug 02, 2013 at 11:49 PM
Ernie Aubert
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p.1 #8 · p.1 #8 · Would I benefit from more ram?


LarryBoy57 wrote:
... All intel processors have only 4 cores and seem to max out at 3.50GHz for speed...
Larry


To quote the Star Trek computer: "Inaccurate account." I have 8 processors in my Intel Core i7.



Aug 03, 2013 at 01:18 AM
rico
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p.1 #9 · p.1 #9 · Would I benefit from more ram?


LarryBoy57 wrote:
Thanks for the replies so far. If I will benefit from more cores/faster CPU, it doesn't look like there's currently allot further I can go in that direction than the i5 quad-core 3.10 GHz processor I have. All intel processors have only 4 cores and seem to max out at 3.50GHz for speed.

You can go much further with Intel, but you need a bigger budget and the stomach for thermal engineering. Perhaps the king of the single-processor heap is the i7 3970X Extreme Edition CPU: 3.5GHz base, 4GHz turbo, 6 cores, 12 hyperthreads, 15MB L3. Downsize is the price (list $1000) and the power dissipation (rated 150W), plus you have to find one for sale. Slower 6-cores are available, including a "K" version for fans of overclocking.

With an even larger budget, you can entertain Intel options with Xeon: 2, 4, or 8 CPUs, each with 8 cores (16 HT) or even 10. Your OS must support the h/w config, of course, and the applications must either be written to employ multiple threads or be capable of multi-launch to crunch images in parallel.

My main box: dual Xeon 2.0GHz with 8 cores each, 64GB ram, Linux, and plenty of tools that can run concurrently. I quite like it.

Ref:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_Core_i7_microprocessors
http://ark.intel.com/products/70845



Aug 03, 2013 at 02:36 AM
aubsxc
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p.1 #10 · p.1 #10 · Would I benefit from more ram?


LarryBoy57 wrote:
Thanks for the replies so far. If I will benefit from more cores/faster CPU, it doesn't look like there's currently allot further I can go in that direction than the i5 quad-core 3.10 GHz processor I have. All intel processors have only 4 cores and seem to max out at 3.50GHz for speed. Would building a new system around an AMD 8 core processor yield more impressive increases in performance?

Thanks,

Larry


If you have an unlocked quad processor (the model name ends with a K), and you have a motherboard using the P67, Z68, Z77, or Z87 chipset, you can adjust the CPU clock multipliers in the BIOS or with software provided by the motherboard maker to run your CPU much faster than stock. This is called overclocking. Most modern Intel processors other than the brand new Haswell series can be overclocked safely to run much faster than stock speed (4.6 to 4.8 GHz). The Haswell units can be overclocked too, but not by as much because they run very hot and throttle at high temperatures.

Alternatively, you can look at the more expensive 6-core Intel i7 3930K CPU, which is also unlocked and can typically also be overclocked to at least 4.2 GHz or so. This processor uses a different socket from the more mainstream i5 and i7 quad Intels and supports 40 PCIe lanes, more memory, and quad channel memory, but is significantly more expensive than its mainstream brethren. Running PS/LR on an overclocked 3930K will not get you much beyond the overclocked quads.

AMD octo-core CPUs are not competitive with current Intel processors for running PS/LR.



Aug 03, 2013 at 04:30 PM





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