Workstation for Adobe Lightroom - raw processor grunt vs number of cores?

[Delta]

I'm looking to get a second handl workstation for the Missus to use to play with photos on Adobe Lightroom, I can get older HP Xeon machines for around £100.  The thing I'm unsure of is what to look for in a processor...

Reading this seems to indicate that Lightroom does not really take advantage of multiple cores very well, with severely diminishing returns after 2.  This has made it difficult for me to decide on processor options based on benchmark comparisons like this http://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare.php?cmp[]=1186&cmp[]=1229 (sorry - can't format properly because of the square brackets)

So for a given budget, and all other things being equal (memory, HDD / SSD, graphics card etc), should I aim for the "gruntiest per core" and highest clock speed Xeon I can find, or am I barking up the wrong bush?*

i.e., going by the benchmark comparison linked above, would the 5150 actually be better for Lightroom than the E5335?

Cheers!

* (c) H. Simpson.

[Kilrah]

Based on working quite a bit with LR - yes it's very poorly making use of multiple cores. It's been that way for ages so hopefully that will change one day, but I'd say one can dream.

Hard to really advise something though.

[German_EE]

To quote the late Seymour Cray:

"If you are plowing a field how would you like to pull your plow, an ox or ten thousand sparrows?

[Delta]

To quote the late Seymour Cray:

"If you are plowing a field how would you like to pull your plow, an ox or ten thousand sparrows?

I like that!    I'll look for an HP XW6400 with a Xeon Single OxCore...

[Delta]

So am I correct in that I should be looking at single thread benchmarks to get an idea of how a CPU would perform with LR?

I'm starting to think Xeon is not the right choice for a LR workstation, as Xeon are designed for highly multi-threaded server type applications, so could anyone recommend an CPU range I should be looking at instead?

As a reference, our* laptop has a Core i5-520M (2.4 GHz) which that site list as single thread benchmarking at 1060, and 2400 overall, so I'm looking for a workstation better than that...

*Ubuntu for me, Win7 for her :-)

[botcrusher]

Well, for the budget the pentium G3258
Has excellent performance. (Also, overclocking.)

If budget is of no concern, the i7-4790k is The fastest single thread performance you can get. (Also, overclocking.)

Keep in mind you'll be hard pressed to find that used, though i have seen some used G3358 on the market

[Augustus]

Lightroom 6 is sooooo slow, it's unbelievable... Even on a Intel i7-4790K (4 core / 8 threads) @4.4 GHz it's crawling along like a snail if you happen to apply a bunch of local adjustments to your image 

[botcrusher]

On the fastest consumer cpu available, Its still painfully slow? WTF?

[Augustus]

I don't know how they managed to do it, but yes, it is really slow even on very fast hardware with lots of RAM and SSDs. Most noticeable if you do a lot of local adjustments   

[AlxDroidDev]

Photo editing software from Adobe CC (actually, from CS5 and up) benefit more from CUDA than from CPU. I have 2 EVGA GTX480 OC (1536Mb each) videocards in my computer (in SLI), and both Photoshop and Lightroom are configured to use them as CUDA devices.

I edit a lot of 24 megapixel RAW images (Nikon NEF format), and I have absolutely no performance problems.

The relevant part of the rest of the rig is:
- Motherboard Asus Rampage III Extreme (X58)
- Core i7-920 overclocked to 3.6GHz
- 18Gb RAM DDR3 Corsair Dominator (also overclocked)
- all my drives are HDDs. None of them are SSDs

So, it is an old CPU, but CUDA makes a hell of a lot of difference when it comes to working with Photoshop & LR CC. Having lots of CUDA cores (I have 960 total) is more important than CPU.

It doesn't matter how many Xeons you put in a workstation: if it doesn't have additional GPU processing power, it will never be a match to an old Core i5/i7 with hundreds of CUDA cores.

[Augustus]

Interesting... I'm no gamer and use Intel's integrated processor graphics, maybe I should borrow on of these fancy nVidia cards and give it a try...

[Kilrah]

It doesn't matter how many Xeons you put in a workstation: if it doesn't have additional GPU processing power, it will never be a match to an old Core i5/i7 with hundreds of CUDA cores.

I don't agree at all. Firstly Lightroom etc can only use a single graphics card, having 2 in SLI is of no use to it, and its benefit is only relative from my experience... On my setup with 2 GTX980s disabling graphics acceleration actually significantly improves performance in LR especially on the infamous local adjustment brush. Maybe if you've got an average CPU the graphics card can do good, but no graphics card does as well as a good CPU (in that app and at this time).

I work with 42MP RAWs and frankly the performance for the image processing side of it is quite OK considering the amount of data, that's not what I'm complaining about - what's unacceptably slow is the UI response. There is just no reason it should take a second or 2 everytime to change view, switch folder etc or even go from an image to the next and have all UI elements load one after the other like a webpage in the 90s. The UI is really a dog especially on Windows.

Also batch exports should parallel render one image per available core (easy since the processes are completely independent) instead of trying to badly use multiple cores to render each image one after the other.

System details:
ASUS RAMPAGE V
Core i7-5960X OC @ 4.1GHz
32GB quad-channel DDR4
System/work drive 2x intel 256GB SSDs in RAID0
2xGTX980
W10

More interestingly on my laptop (Macbook Pro) with a 2.8GHz quad-core i7 the time needed to render a full-size preview is about twice as long, but the overall experience is better since the UI is much smoother on the mac version.
Oh and the mac also has an nVidia discrete card (GT750M) and LR also does better with it disabled.

[Delta]

Hmmmmmmm, interesting!  In my gooooooogling on this subject I've read that LR does not use the GPU for anything other than driving the display; that it'll just the same on standard motherboard graphics than on a high end gaming GPU...?  (as opposed to Photoshop, which does utilise the GPU for image processing).

Is this incorrect, or has it changed recently?

[Kilrah]

In Lightroom CC/Lightroom 6, you can use a compatible graphics processor (also called a graphics card, video card, or GPU) to speed up the task of adjusting images in the Develop module.

[...]

Additional information

    The Develop module is the only module that currently uses GPU acceleration. Commands and processes outside the Develop module aren't affected. For example, the commands for merging multiple images to create HDR files or panoramas don't use GPU.
    Only the "Main" Lightroom window is accelerated. The "Secondary" window isn't accelerated by GPU.
    Using more than one graphics processor / graphics card doesn't enhance performance.

https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom/kb/lightroom-gpu-faq.html

[Delta]

Well I've got an offer in on the Bay for a Lenovo workstation with a Pentium G645 and 4GB of RAM in it, aiming to get it for less than £70 delivered.  It's got a 500GB HDD, but I'm looking at getting a 128GB Samsung EVO 850 SSD for £45.

Am I going in the right direction for a budget LR machine?

[Stonent]

Well I've got an offer in on the Bay for a Lenovo workstation with a Pentium G645 and 4GB of RAM in it, aiming to get it for less than £70 delivered.  It's got a 500GB HDD, but I'm looking at getting a 128GB Samsung EVO 850 SSD for £45.

Am I going in the right direction for a budget LR machine?

I would say not really. That's not a good of a deal. Or rather the processor speed is not that good.  For a general computer user I recommend at least 4000 on the passmark rating of the processor.

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Pentium+G645+%40+2.90GHz

The passmark rating is 2592, you can get 2nd generation I5 and I7 computers that are faster.

[Delta]

Well I've got an offer in on the Bay for a Lenovo workstation with a Pentium G645 and 4GB of RAM in it, aiming to get it for less than £70 delivered.  It's got a 500GB HDD, but I'm looking at getting a 128GB Samsung EVO 850 SSD for £45.

Am I going in the right direction for a budget LR machine?

I would say not really. That's not a good deal.

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Pentium+G645+%40+2.90GHz

The passmark rating is 2592, you can get 2nd generation I5 and I7 computers that are faster.

Even at single thread performance?  And for similar money?

[Stonent]

I just don' t think the processor you chose is really suitable. That's below what I recommend people buy in general.

The 1000 sparrows vs one Ox isn't really a fair comparison in this case.  More like 1 Ox or 2 Horses.

Here are some processors I'm familiar with off the top of my head.
Single thread performance:
Intel Pentium G645 @ 2.90GHz   1,476 (2 cores)
Intel Core i7-4710HQ @ 2.50GHz   1,849 (4 cores) (My home laptop
Intel Core i5-2520M @ 2.50GHz   1,498 (2 cores) (You can get a 4 year old Dell laptop with this on ebay for $150 US used)
Intel Core i5-4310M @ 2.70GHz   1,817 (2 cores) (My current work laptop)
Intel Core i5-4430 @ 3.00GHz   1,825 (4 cores) (Haswell i5)

[Delta]

Spotted another Lenovo with an i5-2400 in it, I reckon I'll be £100 for this one.  Although it benchmarks much quicker at 4874, it's single thread performance isn't that much better at 1598 (excuse the unformatted square bracket-containing URL) http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i5-2400S+%40+2.50GHz&id=794

I am basically pouring over eBay and PassMark, obsessing over single thread performance vs price...!

[Stonent]

Intel Pentium G3258 @ 3.20GHz has the best single thread performance of all the Pentium G series at 2175. CPU mark is about 4000.
Basically I'd try to get to 4 cores if you can, even if the single thread is slightly lower.

The 2400s looks fairly decent single thread is 1598, 4874 overall score.

I was researching a laptop for my mother in law several months ago and basically found that any used 4 year old laptop on ebay for $200 is going to be faster than any new laptop that sells for $200.

[Delta]

Intel Pentium G3258 @ 3.20GHz has the best single thread performance of all the Pentium G series at 2175. CPU mark is about 4000.

Yeah, botcrusher mentioned that one, I can't see any computers with one on the bay for under a ton though...  That's one of the reasons I was searching for Pentium Gs rather than Xeons or i5/i7s...

Do you think something like this would be a better choice then? (I was watching that item, but didn't put a bid in...  )

[DimitriP]

When you are selling, quote multithread perfromance
When you are buying, decide on single thread performance.

BTW I still have a XW6400  XW6200 dual xeon 3.2GHz kicking around....it's not longer a speed deamon, although I never had the feeling it was
But if you can one for $100....and it's usable ...

[Stonent]

When you are selling, quote multithread perfromance
When you are buying, decide on single thread performance.

BTW I still have a XW6400  XW6200 dual xeon 3.2GHz kicking around....it's not longer a speed deamon, although I never had the feeling it was
But if you can one for $100....and it's usable ...

For that route I'd recommend buying a Socket 775 Core 2 based motherboard and converting it to run a  Xeon E54 series processor.

I have a Dell Optiplex 330 that was given to me for free that for $20 I more than doubled the performance with the Xeon mod.

[DimitriP]

I am basically pouring over eBay and PassMark, obsessing over single thread performance vs price...!

Single Thread  performance makes most CPUs look bad...so no one is looking at it ...except me and you ..

[Delta]

When you are selling, quote multithread perfromance
When you are buying, decide on single thread performance.

BTW I still have a XW6400  XW6200 dual xeon 3.2GHz kicking around....it's not longer a speed deamon, although I never had the feeling it was
But if you can one for $100....and it's usable ...

I assume you mean "why"  - as I said above, it's for running Adobe Lightroom, and LR doesn't make much use of multiple cores, which to me means that performance will be best decided on single thread benchmarks.  Is that the wrong line of thinking? 

thanks for the offer, but it would cost a fortune to ship to the UK