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

[Delta]

Sorry to be spamming my own post, but I'm changing my searches as advice comes in! 

spotted a Dell machine with an i3-4130 at 3.4GHz, single thread benchmark at 1967, and overall at 4772.  To me this looks good.  Or is there any inherent reason to go for an i5/i7 over an i3...?

PS.  thanks very much for all the help.

[DimitriP]

Is that the wrong line of thinking? 

No it's not, it's just that no one ever talks about it. It's always my eight cores are better than your four 

BTW I wasn't offerring to sell you anything

[Stonent]

Is that the wrong line of thinking? 

No it's not, it's just that no one ever talks about it. It's always my eight cores are better than your four 

BTW I wasn't offerring to sell you anything

You should have seen the spreadsheets I created when I was laptop shopping.  I was determined to get a 4 core system I7 preferably for as close to $500USD as possible. Some said it couldn't be done but in the end I got one.

All these processor ranges just confuse people who don't have the stamina for massive research.

I can see though why there are these core ranges.  Some applications in the server market are sold with a per-core license so you want the most grunt per core so even that 8000 cpumark score if you could get it on a dual processor system, you might save money on licensing.

[DimitriP]

inherent reason to go for an i5/i7 over an i3...?

I don't believe so. There are "fast" i3s and i5s, there are slow i7s, and some pretty expensive Xeons with abysmal single thread performance.

[Stonent]

inherent reason to go for an i5/i7 over an i3...?

I don't believe so. There are "fast" i3s and i5s, there are slow i7s, and some pretty expensive Xeons with abysmal single thread performance.

You do get more cache as you go through the range, whether or not it matters has a lot of variables to it.

[Delta]

Well I've but a bid in on the i3-4130 jobber, auction ends in 4 days...  Now to 1)hope that my insulting bid on the Pentium is rejected, and 2) STOP being glued to eBay and PassMark!

Although maybe just a little bit of searching for a small SSD.... 

[DimitriP]

Well I've but a bid in on the i3-4130 jobber, auction ends in 4 days...

Bidding early only drives the price up

Bid once, as late as possible, with your highest price you are willing to pay and be done.
There is also a small chance the seller may have "friends" that bid early...just to drive the price up.

[Kilrah]

How big are the photos you she is working with? Make sure you have at least 8GB of RAM too.

[Delta]

Well I've bought eBay auction: #351711023556 - it's only an i3, but it's got nearly double the single thread performance of the i5-520M in my laptop, and after agonising over PassMark it seems to give the best combination of single thread and overall performance I could find available within our budget.
Unless I'm being either an idiot or naive (which is far from unlikely!), I think that's a good machine for LR, and a good price (especially as that CPU still seems to be selling new for only 20 quid less than the whole PC) - please tell me I'm right!

PS. Kilrah - she's got a Canon 400D, which I believe is 10MP.  She is looking to get something better and newer soon though.  As the new PC has got 8GB of RAM, I think the next upgrade would be to add a small SSD...

[Kilrah]

Pretty nice, that should give totally acceptable performance with 10MP. Yes an SSD is ALWAYS a good move.

[Stonent]

Well I've bought eBay auction: #351711023556 - it's only an i3, but it's got nearly double the single thread performance of the i5-520M in my laptop, and after agonising over PassMark it seems to give the best combination of single thread and overall performance I could find available within our budget.
Unless I'm being either an idiot or naive (which is far from unlikely!), I think that's a good machine for LR, and a good price (especially as that CPU still seems to be selling new for only 20 quid less than the whole PC) - please tell me I'm right!

PS. Kilrah - she's got a Canon 400D, which I believe is 10MP.  She is looking to get something better and newer soon though.  As the new PC has got 8GB of RAM, I think the next upgrade would be to add a small SSD...

I saw that processor for $10USD but the 3020 is a decent computer.  We've got them at work with the 4590T processor in them.

[botcrusher]

Before you continue, please do note that i went full Derp.
No, the cpu is an excellent one but AlxDroidDev is 100% spot on.
 

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.

The best performance would be achieved with a good CUDA GPU.
If you want future proof on a (relative) budget, go for a GTX 960, but that is pretty pricey.
A GTX 750Ti is about as plentiful as dirt, and should get the job done for a rather low amount of power.

[Delta]

Before you continue, please do note that i went full Derp.
No, the cpu is an excellent one but AlxDroidDev is 100% spot on.
 

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.

The best performance would be achieved with a good CUDA GPU.
If you want future proof on a (relative) budget, go for a GTX 960, but that is pretty pricey.
A GTX 750Ti is about as plentiful as dirt, and should get the job done for a rather low amount of power.

I'm really getting conflicting info on this -  a LOT of sources say that LR6 hardly benefits at all from a good GPU, and it is only used in the Develop module (where performance seems fine at the moment), contrasting with PhotoShop, which offloads a lot of processing to the GPU  GTX 750Ti cards seem to be going for around £25-30 on eBay, which is more than another 8GB of RAM, and for a few quid more I could get a small SSD... decisions decisions!

[Delta]

I saw that processor for $10USD

Can you point me in the right direction please?  I'm impressed with this CPU and could well be have another budget PC project soon... 

[Kilrah]

I'm really getting conflicting info on this

I guess it depends on the actual "bag of parts"... maybe with a low end CPU the GPU makes a world of difference, but with a high end CPU it can actually outperform the GPU on its own.

And it seems the performance is not consistent depending on function. For example on my setup with GPU disabled the crop/rotate tool is borderline unusable, while it's smooth as silk with GPU enabled... but now take painting with the local adjustment brush and it's the exact opposite.

[ChunkyPastaSauce]

Lightroom makes poor use of cores above 4, see https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Adobe-Lightroom-CC-6-Multi-Core-Performance-649/

For GPU, large number of users are reporting GPU is slower for them. For those that it is faster, it sounds like it's not a big deal:
"The only thing that uses the GPU right now is performing image editing actions in the Develop module. The problem is that when you do something like change the contrast of an image with a mask, all that happens with a better GPU is that it is a bit smoother. It isn't like applying a large effect in Photoshop where you can actually time how long it takes the action to complete."

[botcrusher]

Ah alright. I didn't realise LR really is terribly optimized for everything. I suppose it makes sense since It isn't exactly as extensively worked on as Photoshop.