[ninahagen]

Hi everyone,

Many thanks to all those who contributed to the optimized Photoshop system threads. I got a lot of fantastic answers, which of course spawned new questions. Here is is the first.

Background points…

- I want speed. Bad. It borders on lust. When we went from the old 1Ghz G4 to our present G5 2.5Ghz Quad w 8GB of RAM, I nearly fainted from joy when I saw the acceleration. Processes that used to take 5+ minutes were now 10-30 seconds. Yet we work with a significant volume of images and batching a single procedure of 30 seconds x 200 images still takes a very long time (an hour and 40 minutes)…add two or three operations to the batch sequence and you are at all afternoon.
- Image processing in Photoshop, Illustrator & InDesign is just about all we do.
- My graphic designer does the monster 1GB+ file, complex multi-layer histogram/filter/rasterization/fine layout/ heavy batching stuff, I do simple & macro stuff crop, tilt, rough layout, concept work.
- 8GB Ram is the most that any forum member, friend, mac seller, techie or adobe person says I will ever be able to use, given that 32-bit photoshop can only access a fraction of that RAM, so even with multitassking in 3-5 programs (often can have safari and exotic fonts open too), I will never hit the wall.
- Several have sensibly made a similar argument for vid-cards…since Photoshop doesn’t use Core-image, little or no demands are made on a vid card and the standardnVidia will work swimmingly.
- Aperture on the other hand, seems to be written better in that respect…more access to available RAM & uses core image. Trouble is, we have been Adobe users for many years, my designer for around 15, me for 4 to 5. We really don’t know how aperture stacks up to photoshop in terms of features and speed. (and the telephone staff at Adobe are beyond hopeless).
- I got some great advice about 1000rpm Raptor HDs for scratch and system discs from brokenjago, mduell and others (thanks!), so those are a given in this equation.
- So, the question has more than one layer…

I know aperture is native to mac, but is it able to take advantage of more RAM, more cores, and a better vid-card than photoshop? Is it full 64-bit? Have any of you worked with it, and are there any serious blindspots (I am reminded of how Pages tried and failed to replace Word, and how Safari and Mail tried and succeeded)?

In, short, presuming I was able to get through learning the new software, could Aperture running on Leopard make use of (be much speedier) of a maxed out Mac Pro?

Thanks for all your help…makes coming here a great experience…

[Mister Elf]

Aperture is not a Photoshop competitor - they are designed for completely different tasks. If you've been using Photoshop, stick with that - Aperture is for management and tweaking of massive RAW camera images, not for digital creations and heavy manipulation.

[mac128k-1984]

Originally Posted by ninahagen 

- Aperture on the other hand, seems to be written better in that respect…more access to available RAM & uses core image. Trouble is, we have been Adobe users for many years, my designer for around 15, me for 4 to 5. We really don’t know how aperture stacks up to photoshop in terms of features and speed. (and the telephone staff at Adobe are beyond hopeless).

I know aperture is native to mac, but is it able to take advantage of more RAM, more cores, and a better vid-card than photoshop? Is it full 64-bit? Have any of you worked with it, and are there any serious blindspots (I am reminded of how Pages tried and failed to replace Word, and how Safari and Mail tried and succeeded)?

In, short, presuming I was able to get through learning the new software, could Aperture running on Leopard make use of (be much speedier) of a maxed out Mac Pro?

Thanks for all your help…makes coming here a great experience…

I use Aperture, and I have about 10k images in my library. You are correct in the Aperture does rely more heavily on the GPU thanks to Core Image then does Photoshop, so you need to be sure you have a robust GPU, such as the X1900xt.

Now you also seem to be comparing photoshop with aperture and they are for the most part two different tools for two different needs. I use Aperture for DAM (Digital Asset Management) with some light to medium image editing capabilities. It has some editing controls but its main strength is cataloging, images. If you want to do some serious editing Aperture allows you to edit the image in an external editor, that is, it shells you to photoshop.

The machine you spec'd out for photoshop is powerful enough to handle aperture and then some.

As for aperture being 64bit vs. 32bit, I have no idea and to be honest I really don't care. Its fast enough for me, it does everything I need a DAM application to do and I'm pretty pleased with how everything is laid out in the program. Apple does offer a trial and I suggest you look at that, photoshop bridge and Adobe's newest member Lightroom. Now I tried lightroom and I think Aperture's strengths far outstrip LightRooms' but that's my opinion, try out the apps and see for yourself.

Another note about LR and that's its lower hardware requirements which mean it may be a little more perky then aperture but I've been satisfied with the performance of aperture on my macpro.

[slpdLoad]

Also consider that CS3 is going to be coming out, which will be a Universal Binary, and will run circles around CS2 on an Intel Mac Pro.

[mduell]

If you want speed and a workflow app like Aperture, try Adobe's Lightroom.

[ninahagen]

Thanks again...

The thing I would love to know is if simple editing tasks, like coverting a batch of 200 tif 48-bit color images 1GB+ into jpgs of 500MB, could be accomplished much, much faster in aperture by taking advantage of that program's ability to draw on the resources of a maxed out MacPro?

I have two principal options...

1. to stay with the Mac Pro I speced out for Photoshop...
Two x Dual Xeon 3Ghz, 8GB RAM, 2 Raptor 1000rpm HD, 2 Seagate 1TB HD, nVidia 7300GT

2. to max out everything (V8, Obscene RAM, Raptor/Seagate, Quadro, using Aperture for DAM and (much faster?) simple editing/batching, shelling out to Photoshop for the complex stuff.

There are about $7000 or so between these two options, and a few mid-points as well...and though money is not a problem, I only want to spend to a level where it will make an actual and significant speed difference. that is why I am hoping someone can tell me where the drop off is...where new money adds negligible speed increase.

I am learning lots, and so appreciate your comments... will be running photoshop baseline speed test on the G5 (this week) and the new system after I get it and will post all so people can see the actual clocktimes between a great G5 Quad and the new system.
Hopefully a small payback

:-)

John

[idyll]

i'd love to see the comparisons between the quad g5 and one of the new mac pros.. i just sold my quad g5 two weeks ago and am a little hesitant about calling the mac pros faster

[cgc]

There was a thread in MacNN where people ran a simple operation in PS and posted their times. The Quad G5's and Intel G5's were similar but Intel beat the G5 in every case by a small percentage. BTW, I tested with 1GB and with 3GB and found no difference.

In regard to Lightroom and Aperture, I have both installed (trials) and find Aperture's interface is MUCH better but Lightroom is way faster. This is on my 2.66GHz MacPro with 3GB FB-DIMMS.

[Eug]

The people in the photo forums say that the GeForce 7300 GT is not very good for Aperture. If you have any desire to use Aperture, get the Radeon X1900XT 512 MB. Plus the Dual dual-link DVI support doesn't hurt (as does having twice the memory).

P.S. Aperture thrives on CPU speed and memory as well. Remember that although image adjustments in Aperture heavily leverage the GPU, IIRC RAW conversion in Aperture is entirely CPU-based. For example Aperture is better on a MacBook dual-core 2.0 with GMA 950 than it is on an iMac G5 2.0 with Radeon 9600 (although it's slow on both of them). Aperture on my dual-core 2.33 GHz iMac Core 2 Duo with GeForce 7600 GT 256 MB is not bad, but not stellar either in terms of speed.

Originally Posted by ninahagen

I have two principal options...

1. to stay with the Mac Pro I speced out for Photoshop...
Two x Dual Xeon 3Ghz, 8GB RAM, 2 Raptor 1000rpm HD, 2 Seagate 1TB HD, nVidia 7300GT

2. to max out everything (V8, Obscene RAM, Raptor/Seagate, Quadro, using Aperture for DAM and (much faster?) simple editing/batching, shelling out to Photoshop for the complex stuff.

There are about $7000 or so between these two options, and a few mid-points as well...and though money is not a problem, I only want to spend to a level where it will make an actual and significant speed difference. that is why I am hoping someone can tell me where the drop off is...where new money adds negligible speed increase.

Getting a Quadro for photo editing is a total waste of money.

I would suggest:

Two x Dual Xeon 3 GHz
4-8 GB RAM depending on your needs
1 x Raptor 10000 rpm HD + stock drive
2 Seagate 1TB HD (if you really need that much space)
ATI Radeon X1900 XT 512 MB

[idyll]

damn, the new intel macs are only 5 seconds at most faster than my old g5 quad.. kind of makes me regret selling it. it had a better video card too


i guess i gain more space and it's more future proof.. perhaps leopard will speed things up more too

[mduell]

I mostly agree with Eug, but I'd go with the 2.66 and 8-12GB RAM... if you're still primarily CPU bound at that point I'd look toward a quad upgrade; 333Mhz isn't going to make a big difference.

[Eug]

idyll, is this for Photoshop?

I must admit I don't quite understand why you would sell your quad G5 Mac if all you were interested in were Photoshop.

Originally Posted by mduell 

I mostly agree with Eug, but I'd go with the 2.66 and 8-12GB RAM... if you're still primarily CPU bound at that point I'd look toward a quad upgrade; 333Mhz isn't going to make a big difference.

What do you mean by quad upgrade? Do you mean jumping to the 8-core? I'm not sure how well Aperture is optimized for 8-cores. Apple certainly doesn't push 8 cores for Aperture. And the reports seem to suggest that 12 GB RAM would simply be overkill, but YMMV.

OTOH, I can tell you there is a huge increase in RAW conversion speed going from a 2.0 GHz Core Duo to a 2.33 GHz Core 2 Duo. That's not a direct comparison of the 2.66 Mac Pro vs. the 3.0, but hey...

Here is Apple's recommendation:

Recommended Mac Pro Photographer’s Workstation
Two 3.0GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon processors
4GB 667MHz DDR2 ECC FB-DIMM memory
ATI Radeon X1900 XT graphics card
One 250GB and two 500GB SATA 3Gb/s hard drives
16x SuperDrive

[ninahagen]

Originally Posted by Eug 

The people in the photo forums say that the GeForce 7300 GT is not very good for Aperture. If you have any desire to use Aperture, get the Radeon X1900XT 512 MB.

>>>Yes, I agree...its a little more expensive, but I may end up using Aperture a lot for archiving, and it is worth having the capacity.

Plus the Dual dual-link DVI support doesn't hurt (as does having twice the memory).

>>>Forgive me, but what is dual link dvi? I am a bit of a neophyte outside my usual areas.

Remember that although image adjustments in Aperture heavily leverage the GPU, IIRC RAW conversion in Aperture is entirely CPU-based.

>>>> That is gold...

Getting a Quadro for photo editing is a total waste of money.

>>>> As in, no faster at all?

I would suggest:

Two x Dual Xeon 3 GHz
4-8 GB RAM depending on your needs
1 x Raptor 10000 rpm HD + stock drive

>>> With "stock drive," you mean the 7200rpm that apple sells?

2 Seagate 1TB HD (if you really need that much space)

You like the Seagates better than the Hitachis? 1000rpm raptor over hi-speed Seagate?

ATI Radeon X1900 XT 512 MB

Thanks Eug, you are a small god!

[Eug]

I don't know much about the 1 TB drives, so I can't answer your question there. However, I do note that in the past some people had problems with certain Seagate drives with Mac Pros, so you should look into that.

Dual-link DVI allows you to use the 30" Cinema Display. The 7300 GT has one Dual-link and one single-link, so the best you'd be able to use with it is one 30" and one 23" (unless you got another video card). The Radeon X1900 XT allows you to use two 30" Displays side by side.

As far as the Quadro is concerned, I dunno cuz I haven't seen any reports about it. As far as other stuff is concerned, it isn't really much faster, but has specific benefit for some high end 3D applications. In gaming and other OpenGL applications, the Quadro line is often actually slower than the sister gaming card that costs 5 times less. So, while I dunno, I'd guess that the Quadro is barely faster than the X1900 XT, if at all.

P.S. Here is the Seagate Mac Pro issue explained.

EDIT:

The Quadro FX 4500 is based on the GeForce 7800 GTX.

Here are some Windows benches of the Radeon X1900XT vs. the GeForce 7800 GTX.

Overall in Windows games and apps, the GeForce is somewhat faster. I'm not sure how that translates to Mac OS X though.

[mfbernstein]

Originally Posted by idyll 

damn, the new intel macs are only 5 seconds at most faster than my old g5 quad.. kind of makes me regret selling it. it had a better video card too


i guess i gain more space and it's more future proof.. perhaps leopard will speed things up more too

Umm... 12.5 seconds on a Mac Pro 4x2.66 vs. 16 secs. on a G5 4x2.5GHZ is hardly a tragedy (25% gain). Particularly when the G5 has 3x the RAM! This is of course with CS3 beta.

As to the original question, for what you're doing, Photoshop is basically the only game in town. Have you extensively profiled what the bottlenecks in your workflow are?

[mduell]

Originally Posted by Eug 

What do you mean by quad upgrade? Do you mean jumping to the 8-core? I'm not sure how well Aperture is optimized for 8-cores. Apple certainly doesn't push 8 cores for Aperture. And the reports seem to suggest that 12 GB RAM would simply be overkill, but YMMV.

OTOH, I can tell you there is a huge increase in RAW conversion speed going from a 2.0 GHz Core Duo to a 2.33 GHz Core 2 Duo. That's not a direct comparison of the 2.66 Mac Pro vs. the 3.0, but hey...

I mean upgrading to one of the quad core options (probably 2-2.66Ghz to keep the price reasonable yet the performance difference significant) in a year after his warranty expires.
I recommend the extra RAM because he's talking about working on a lot of images, and I don't know how well threaded the image processing codes are, so he may need to be manipulating 4-8 images at a time.

You've got a few things working in the 2Ghz CD to 2.33 C2D upgrade that aren't present in a 2.66Ghz Xeon to 3.0Ghz Xeon upgrade: 17% clockrate bump vs 12%, and a newer architecture with more execution units and single-cycle SIMD execution.

[cgc]

The 2GHz MacPro is really a bad price/performance ratio, the 2.66GHz option is the best.

[Eug]

Link

Ie. You can feel confident in your choice of a 4-core machine for your usage.

[bld44]

Originally Posted by Eug 

Link

Ie. You can feel confident in your choice of a 4-core machine for your usage.

Oh my, glad I didn't just drop an extra $1800 into my new system for that much of a speed increase!