The Core i7's are hyperthreading enabled.. Not really virtual cores although in performance monitor it would show 8 cores. It just means the CPU can work on more than 1 thread at a time... something the older p4's did, but the Core2 cpu's did not. However the newer architecure of the core2 negated the need for hyperthreading.
A core i7 will not hurt cs4 in any way. A lot of performance gains also depend on the filter. Some are not written to be multithreaded so they will only use 1 core to do their work. In that case performance was based on clock speed on the cpu.
Intel is releasing the Core i5's next week. This should help with pricing alot. I have seen Core i5 motherboards around the $100 mark where the Core i7 boards are at least $180.
Photoshop has (and has had) multiprocessing support. It doesn't care how many processors or cores you have. 1, 2, 4, 8, 3000... Doesn't care.
It's also true, however, that only some portions of Photoshop support multiprocessing. Why? The same reason it's true of every application: Not every task can be completed using multiprocessing, and not every task is faster using multiprocessing. To take advantage of multiple processors, you have to be able to split a problem up into chunks, process each chunk, and then reassemble them. Sometimes that math's not in your favor, sometimes it's simply impossible to do the math that way.
As always, though, nothing in computing is as simple as "Well great, let's throw more X at it!" even when multiprocessing is viable.
So your additional question is a good one. It's bus speeds (in combination with cores) that really wake up Photoshop—or any multiprocessor application. On the x86 platform, it's been bus speeds that traditionally hamstring things. Start throwing a lot of data around and it's like trying to get a lot of molasses through a very skinny funnel. Intel's now got QuickPath "busless" technology to eliminate that bottleneck (and AMD had HyperTransport before that, and Apple/IBM had HyperTransport before that). It's the primary reason the new Mac Pro is almost 2x faster than the previous one, despite the fact clock speeds are essentially unchanged and on-processor cache has been nearly halved.
some parts of Photoshop 7 has supported multiple processors including 4. the question is how much. most plugins don't so Photoshop has to singlethread running plugins that don't say that they support multiple processors.
operating systems and applications in general, just because they support more than one processor, doesn't mean you will notice anything if it isn't processor bound. supporting more than one means as many as your machine has. you have to go out of your way to write code that only knows how to deal with exactly two. Dual quadcore Xeons here.
Herb...
roman.johnston wrote:
I see some people swear that quad core is supported by CS4.
I see some people swear that SOME portions of CS4 support Quad Core.
I have seen some swear that CS4 leverages only dual core.
I have seen tests in areas that support both sides of the story.
You'll see that the benchmark gets faster almost linearly (with few exceptions) from:
- single core
- higher frequencies
- dual core
- higher frequencies
- quad core
- higher frequencies
It is certainly not a 100% efficient jump from 1 core to 2, nor 2 cores to 4, but when quad cores are used at a lower frequency, they can still beat a high speed dual core - so more cores are better, faster clock is better, newer generation is better.
Another factor is the OS, Vista and Windows 7 are better optimised for multi-processor/core systems than XP is. So that can have an impact on performance.
The short answer yes Photoshop is Multi-processor/core aware and when able to do so will use them.
The i7 series is the fastest on the market but you'll often pay a premium for it, if you can't stretch that far then the AMD Phenom X4 series often give a better mileage for your money when looking at a complete platform.
Thanks everyone for the feedback. Looking forward to getting my new parts and upgrading (Should be here today). Have a copy of Windows 7 RC1, made sure I got the A3 Motherboard for the faster bus speed, and 8GB of matching memory (PC1333) so between that and the Phenom II x4 chip...should be in OK shape....at least for a few years. Just needed to know if I made a solid choice based on how the program was written.
As some have written....yes the i7 is the fastest on the market. But I have seen some i7 chips go for up to $400+ just for the CPU. My entire upgrade including mobo and 8 gigs of memory was the same price. So pretty easy on the wallet for a pretty solid system.
Being the guy who builds the images used at work here, I get to play with the new systems and test with the CS4 benchmark posted above.
I have a new Dell T3500.
Xenon x5550 Quadcore
4GB of RAM
15,000RPM hard drive
Nvidia Quadra FX4800 Video card with 1.5Gb
Windows 7 and tested with Windows XP.
This should be a smoking machine.
222 seconds for the Windows 7 build.
288 seconds for the Windows XP build.
Then I tested those numbers from my current desktop
Dell 960
Intel E8400 3.0Ghz chip (thats a dualcore)
4Gb ram
ATI Radeon HD 3470 Video card with 256Mb
Windows XP = 288 same number as the beast above.
Says a LOT.
One machine is about $5800 and the other is about $900
I know both were not tweaked for optimum results (IE the OS tweaked, or seperate windows or photoshop cache....etc) but the basics with same OS config are pretty amazing.
Save money...build smart, and know the fun tweaks that really make a diffrence. parts should be here today...later will test and post the results in this thread as well.
You'll see that the benchmark gets faster almost linearly (with few exceptions) from:
- single core
- higher frequencies
- dual core
- higher frequencies
- quad core
- higher frequencies
It is certainly not a 100% efficient jump from 1 core to 2, nor 2 cores to 4, but when quad cores are used at a lower frequency, they can still beat a high speed dual core - so more cores are better, faster clock is better, newer generation is better.
Interesting. I just upgraded to a core i5 based system - it seems to fare pretty good in the benchmark.
Anyone here know which MP is in the latest Macs? I used to know Macs inside and out when they were PowerPC but this whole Intel thing where the microprocessors are designated as Xeon class yet designated as Woodcrest, Conroe etc. has me mighty confused.
