The new 16.8 version of Capture One now provides Enhanced Noise Reduction similar to what DxO and Lightroom have had for a while. It is a simple checkbox in the Noise tab. Selecting this causes noise reduction to run in the background, which eventually writes a cache file inside the catalogue and then updates the preview. In an earlier thread, @ruthenium posted some comparisons of the effectiveness of this compared with DxO and Lr, but in this thread I am interested in the processing speed of Capture One alone what hardware is necessary and what might speed it up.
As a first test, I processed several images from my 24 Mpx Canon R3, at high ISOs like 12,800 and 25,600. (Capture One recommends using the traditional noise reduction below 3200.) There is a single slider control; if Ive understood the release notes correctly moving it above 50% may damage detail and moving it below resynthesises luminance noise, so I left it at 50%, and for the purposes of comparing times here I suggest you do the same.
My results:
1. M5 MacBook Air (the slower of the two processor models): around 20s per image, small CPU use, saturated the GPU.
2. 27″ iMac Retina, Intel i5, Radeon 580: around 5 minutes per image, saturated 3 CPUs, didnt use the GPU.
Note that the MacBook measurement is with a cold machine and, being fanless, it is likely to thermally throttle if you start processing large batches of images.
I would be curious to see how much faster a Mac mini (adds fans) or Studio is. Windows users also feel free to piggyback on this thread and post your measurements, although I have no personal interest.
