Need help debugging hardware bottlenecks in photography workstation PC

[jonnyz2]

[FONT=&quot]What tools can I use, and what’s the process, to see where my PC might be bottlenecking while I’m using it for photo processing?
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[FONT=&quot]The applications I typically use are Photoshop CS6, Lightroom 4, Unified Color Expose 2, and DxO Optics 8.
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[FONT=&quot]What I’ve observed (using Task Manager) is that the Unified Color Expose 2 fully utilizes all 4 cores while it works. It literally goes x-100% on all 4 cores and then, when it drops back down, it’s only seconds before the application signals the operation is finished. Unified Color Expose 2 seems to be very efficient in fully utilizing the CPU and their staff have told me that it was designed as a fully multi-threaded app.
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[FONT=&quot]I wish the other photo applications would fully utilize all of the CPU cores! In some cases I can wait many minutes for an operation to complete and I can see with Task Manager that the cores are generally not all being fully utilized in Photoshop, Lightroom, or DxO. So, maybe those applications are not adequately mutli-threaded, maybe they are waiting on a disk operation, etc. What I’m looking to understand is whether I have some sort of Hardware bottleneck that could be improved upon.
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[FONT=&quot]How do I go about seeing what’s really happening?[/FONT]
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[FONT=&quot]My Current PC: [/FONT]

• · [FONT=&quot]Core 2 Quad Q9400 overclocked and stable at 3.3ghz[/FONT]
• · [FONT=&quot]8 Gigs of DDR2 Ram, running at 420, with 5,5, 5, 18 timing (I’ve seen the ram nearly fully utilized while processing some larger files)[/FONT]
• · [FONT=&quot]Video Card: Radeon HD 4550 1199mhz, 1 gig ram, 64bit bus[/FONT]
• · [FONT=&quot]Motherboard: Asus P5B Deluxe[/FONT]
• · [FONT=&quot]Thumbdrive used for Readyboost[/FONT]
• · [FONT=&quot]1 Terabyte of photos stored on homebuilt NAS PC. I wonder whether read/write to that PC (aside from file open/save operations) via wired network does slow overall photo processing work; however, I don’t know how to check whether that’s really happening. Some files have reached 1.7gb and the read and write for a file that size can take a while![/FONT]

 

[HutchinsonJC]

1gb/s = 125 MB/s, which is more or less what you'd get out of a typical hard disk drive. Of course YMMV.

that said... I hope you're not using a 100mb/s connection on that network, or anything wireless. If you are, your bottle neck is the connection to the NAS.

 

[tynopik]

the e6420 isn't quad core

that said, what could be the bottleneck?

everything

your cpu is slow
your storage is remote
your ram is barely adequate

it could be so many things, but in your case it's simple

there's only one 'worthwhile' upgrade you can perform, put a fast hd/ssd in your local machine and work from that

if that doesn't help enough, ditch it and get a nice 3570 system

 

[jonnyz2]

Note on the CPU: I mixed up specs between the original and an an upgrade. I have a Core 2 Quad 9400 in the PC currently. It runs stable at 3.3ghz overclocked.

The NAS is Gigabit Ethernet connected, but it is inherently slow. For file security reasons, it has mirrored drives; so, it's entire speed is limited by the drive speed of a single drive. Avg. write is not that fast!

I'm very open to going to a raid 5 local with SSD cache as a fundamental change. I would like to be able to figure out though if the applications are actually writing temp files to the NAS while processing. If not, I'm sort of ok with the long read/writes when first opening a file and when doing saves.

What I can't stand is how long certain applications take to for certain processes. It can take 3-5 minutes for certain functions to complete independent of whether I save after the function has finished.

Is there a way to see whether the system is writing to the NAS mid process?

In terms of RAM, I know 16gb makes sense. Is 32gb useful? Can you run with 32gb and Windows 7 home premium?

 

[Denithor]

http://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/kb/photoshop-cs6-gpu-faq.html

1) Get a fast SSD (Samsung 830/840 pro, Intel 520/330/335, Plextor M5 pro) for your OS and programs. Possibly a second one for a scratch disk.
2) Get a video card that will accelerate your CS6 properly.
3) As stated, the e6420 is not a quad core cpu (it's actually a 2.13GHz dual). If the changes above don't do it for you, upgrade the whole thing to an i5 3570k or an i7 3770k system with 16GB (better yet 32GB) DDR3 and things will run much smoother.
4) After taking the above steps, get an external drive setup that connects by USB 3.0.

 

[Denithor]

Note on the CPU: I mixed up specs between the original and an an upgrade. I have a Core 2 Quad 9400 in the PC currently. It runs stable at 3.3ghz overclocked.

Good to know. Faster CPU might still help - especially an i7 3770k with HyperThreading.

In terms of RAM, I know 16gb makes sense. Is 32gb useful? Can you run with 32gb and Windows 7 home premium?

W7HP is capped at 16GB. But you can upgrade to W8Pro for $40.

 

[tynopik]

I'm very open to going to a raid 5 local with SSD cache as a fundamental change.

I don't think you need that, too much hassle, just have an automated backup running that copies from your local drive to your NAS

 

[jonnyz2]

Good to know. Faster CPU might still help - especially an i7 3770k with HyperThreading.

W7HP is capped at 16GB. But you can upgrade to W8Pro for $40.

Any idea on how much faster I might expect things to be if I move to the 3770? I'm wondering how accurate in real life the various CPU comparison tables are. It looks like this could be a real improvement (5x or more).

On the OS, would you really go to Windows 8 before the first Service Pack? Also, the UI changes really don't seem that positive to me. It seems like a hassle for no real benefit (except going 32gb).

 

[tynopik]

Any idea on how much faster I might expect things to be if I move to the 3770? I'm wondering how accurate in real life the various CPU comparison tables are. It looks like this could be a real improvement (5x or more).

there is no such thing as 'real life', just your apps and your workload

On the OS, would you really go to Windows 8 before the first Service Pack? Also, the UI changes really don't seem that positive to me. It seems like a hassle for no real benefit (except going 32gb).

you could get win7pro if you want

 

[Yuriman]

http://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/kb/photoshop-cs6-gpu-faq.html

1) Get a fast SSD (Samsung 830/840 pro, Intel 520/330/335, Plextor M5 pro) for your OS and programs. Possibly a second one for a scratch disk.
2) Get a video card that will accelerate your CS6 properly.
3) As stated, the e6420 is not a quad core cpu (it's actually a 2.13GHz dual). If the changes above don't do it for you, upgrade the whole thing to an i5 3570k or an i7 3770k system with 16GB (better yet 32GB) DDR3 and things will run much smoother.
4) After taking the above steps, get an external drive setup that connects by USB 3.0.

^ This will make orders of magnitude difference in a lot of cases. I put an HD6670 in my wife's Core2Quad system and it's a pleasure to use now.

My vote is video card > SSD > CPU.

 

[sm625]

Never do any serious photo/video work over a network. The NAS is where you copy your finished product, after you're done and going to get some coffee. Once you're working from local storage only, you can then think about whether a doubling of performance is worth upgrading to an ivy bridge quad.

 

[MrSquished]

HD 4550 is not enough to accelarate 2D graphics?

i would go with an onboard HD for your files, then SSD for your OS, and then save up for a chip and RAM upgrade.

 

[Yuriman]

HD 4550 is not enough to accelarate 2D graphics?

i would go with an onboard HD for your files, then SSD for your OS, and then save up for a chip and RAM upgrade.

Photoshop uses OpenCL acceleration.

 

[lehtv]

Photoshop CS6 uses Mercury Graphics Engine which depends on OpenCL and OpenGL. Mostly OpenGL

 

[JimKiler]

I don't think you need that, too much hassle, just have an automated backup running that copies from your local drive to your NAS

Agreed I use this setup, local TB drive in desktop that is synced with synctoy to my 1TB NAS. If OP is doing anything over the network for files it will slow down the process, even a copy of photos that are 5-15MB in size will max out at 12MB's for me so i do everything locale and sync the changes.

 

[Concillian]

I ran a RAID 5 over the network and there was just a lot of latency involved that wasn't there over the local drive. I'd agree that copying what you can locally will help.

I think your first stage is in identifying your current bottleneck.
I think there's 3 solid possibilities:
1) CPU / GPU
2) RAM
3) storage setup

It's hard to say exactly which of these is the biggest bottleneck. But it's not too difficult to find out.

CPU is easy, cut your CPU speed in ~half and see how much this hurts you. Things that take about twice as long are bottlenecked primarily by the CPU.

Storage system, copy some of your files locally and work with them there. See if there is an improvement.

RAM is going to have a reasonable correlation with file size, but it will also depend on what you're doing with the programs you're using, how many layers, etc... this is the roughest to figure out, BUT if things are ever working along at a reasonable clip, and then suddenly get really slow, then you know you hit the limit of your RAM capacity. When you run out of RAM, it hits you like a brick wall. It's hard not to realize it.

You may see some aspects are bottlenecked by one feature and other aspects are not, but are hit by a different aspect. I think you are likely experiencing at least two if not all three. Experiment to determine the best course of action.

 

[jonnyz2]

On the idea os using SyncToy to backup from local storage to the NAS, how reliable is it?

Will it end up creating multiple file copies as a file is edited or, once I'm done editing a file, will I only have a single file on the NAS?

Finally, when you open something from Lightroom into Photoshop and then save it, Photoshop changes the state in Lightroom and the Lightroom catalog to include the new PSD created. If I'm editing on local storage and syncing to the NAS, assuming Lightroom points to files on the NAS to start with, will I loose this functionality (integration between Photoshop and Lightroom)?

 

[JimKiler]

On the idea os using SyncToy to backup from local storage to the NAS, how reliable is it?

Will it end up creating multiple file copies as a file is edited or, once I'm done editing a file, will I only have a single file on the NAS?

Finally, when you open something from Lightroom into Photoshop and then save it, Photoshop changes the state in Lightroom and the Lightroom catalog to include the new PSD created. If I'm editing on local storage and syncing to the NAS, assuming Lightroom points to files on the NAS to start with, will I loose this functionality (integration between Photoshop and Lightroom)?

No, it does not create multiple copies, if the file contents have been changed, i think it checks modified date, it will overwrite the existing file.

For lightroom, i am guessing it will think the local copy is different and not transfer the settings, but i could be wrong.