Should I get a new CPU for PixInsight?

[msacco]

Hi guys, first of all I hope it's the correct place to ask, if not please redirect me to the correct place

I started using PixInsight recently, and I'm kinda struggling with the huge amount of time I'm spending when processing an image(mostly the complete "end to end" stacking process).

It usually takes me around 1-3 hours at least before I'm even getting to the actual image processing, now of course, I don't expect it to take 2 minutes, but I believe it simply takes me too long to bear it.

Here are my PC specs:
i5 3470 OC to 3.6 GHZ
12 GB RAM
Average-fast SSD
GTX 770 4 GB(which I don't think is actually really relevant here..)

So this is a 3rd Gen CPU which I have for 7 years already, and each process is taking really really long, on the one hand, buying a CPU *ONLY* for PixInsight, that kinda sucks, but since I'm spending so much time on that(it also limits me from doing anything else on my machine during that time), I might actually invest in that.

So after this long introduction, what CPU would you recommend me? I'm currently thinking of either Ryzen 7 or wondering if it's actually worth investing more in Ryzen 9.

When processing, the amount of threads would incredibly help here, but the price differences are fairly big, and I'll also need to get a new motherboard and RAM slots.

I could get a second hand R7 2700x with cooling for around 200$, which is fairly cheap, and could incredibly boost my processing time using 16 threads without killing my wallet.

On the other hand, 3900x or 3950x costs quite more, around 650/750$, but would probably make the whole processing fly with 24 threads. But the price here is very big, and I'd also need a more expensive motherboard as well.

So after digging so much, what would you guys recommend me? Would you even get a new CPU if you were in my situation?

Thanks!

[xtreemchaos]

if you could stretch id go for a 2700x ,mobo and 16gb of ddr 4, more power than you could need at the moment, the zen 3000 ser are too pricey at the mo, but if you can wait thay come down after Christmas me thinks. charl.

[Icesheet]

I don’t use PixInsight but I’m surprised it’s taking you that long. Despite it being an older processor it’s not exactly a slouch and you have a more than decent amount of memory. The graphics card doesn’t sound bad either. I used to process with a lot worse specs than that and it didn’t take that long (DSS and PS) 

 

How many subs are you stacking and is there anything else running in the background?

 

Anyway if you are going to upgrade check how the software handles the number of cores/ threads. For example Photoshop does not necessarily benefit from hyper-threading. For most processes it’s the clock speed of the CPU that is most important and not necessarily the amount of physical cores or the ability to hyper thread. Not sure if that is how PixInsight handles things but best make sure whatever upgrade you are making is the best for what you will be using it for. 

Edited August 18, 2019 by Icesheet

[Mr Spock]

It's not that simple. You can't just replace the CPU, you'd have to change the motherboard and memory too.

[msacco]

3 minutes ago, xtreemchaos said:

if you could stretch id go for a 2700x ,mobo and 16gb of ddr 4, more power than you could need at the moment, the zen 3000 ser are too pricey at the mo, but if you can wait thay come down after Christmas me thinks. charl.

Well the 2700x is actually the cheaper choice here for only 200$, I also thought of getting 32 GB RAM.

The good thing about that is that even if I get the 2700x, I could later on upgrade to R3 or maybe even R4 I believe, so that could be very useful.
I can wait generally, there's nothing too urgent for me, but meanwhile it does kinda hurt, as when processing, it means I can't use my PC for other things as well, and that's a lot of wasted time.

1 minute ago, Icesheet said:

I don’t use PixInsight but I’m surprised it’s taking you that long. Despite it being an older processor it’s not exactly a slouch and you have a more than decent amount of memory. The graphics card doesn’t sound bad either. I used to process with a lot worse specs than that and it didn’t take that long (DSS and PS) 

 

How many subs are you stacking and is there anything else running in the background?

 

Anyway if you are going to upgrade check how the software handles the number of cores/ threads. For example Photoshop does not necessarily benefit from hyper-threading. For most processes it’s the clock speed of the CPU that is most important and not necessarily the amount of physical cores or the ability to hyper thread. Not sure if thatnis how PixInsight handles things but best make sure whatever upgrade you are making is the best for what you will be using it for. 

Well, DSS is much much faster than the whole process in PixInsight. It really depends, but usually around 50-200 subs, and nothing else is really running in the background.

When processing with PixInsight, you could see how each thread is being used by 1 image that's been debayered/aligned/other, so I believe in this specific scenario, the amount of threads is pretty much in top priority.

[msacco]

1 minute ago, Mr Spock said:

It's not that simple. You can't just replace the CPU, you'd have to change the motherboard and memory too.

"When processing, the amount of threads would incredibly help here, but the price differences are fairly big, and I'll also need to get a new motherboard and RAM slots."

Edited August 18, 2019 by msacco

[Mr Spock]

Additional processing power is useful, but I've found most graphics programs are held up by memory size and speed. 

[msacco]

8 minutes ago, Mr Spock said:

Additional processing power is useful, but I've found most graphics programs are held up by memory size and speed. 

That is true of course, and I do plan on getting around 32 GB RAM, but specifically with pixinsight, it seems like the amount of threads is very useful, as stacking process for each individual image is happening on a thread, so I think that should generally be the biggest factor.

[wimvb]

Have you optimized the settings in General Preferences (under Edit menu)? Here you can set the number of processers that PI uses, and the swap directories.

[Pompey Monkey]

8 minutes ago, msacco said:

That is true of course, and I do plan on getting around 32 GB RAM, but specifically with pixinsight, it seems like the amount of threads is very useful, as stacking process for each individual image is happening on a thread, so I think that should generally be the biggest factor.

PI really makes use of threads and RAM for a lot of processes. About a year ago, I bought a second-hand dual-Xeon server. It's got two Xeon X5690 hex core multithreading CPUs and 96 GB DDR3 ECC RAM.

I made a 32 GB RAM drive and configured PI to use it as multiple swaps. It flies!!!

Cost was under £300.

[msacco]

23 minutes ago, Pompey Monkey said:

PI really makes use of threads and RAM for a lot of processes. About a year ago, I bought a second-hand dual-Xeon server. It's got two Xeon X5690 hex core multithreading CPUs and 96 GB DDR3 ECC RAM.

I made a 32 GB RAM drive and configured PI to use it as multiple swaps. It flies!!!

Cost was under £300.

Never really looked much into servers, what motherboard do you need? Did you already had it? Or bought that as well as part of the 300?

What do I search for exactly? And can I have my GPU connected with that?

Edited August 18, 2019 by msacco

[xtreemchaos]

im running a 2700x at the mo heres my cb15 score in case you was wondering how thay do.

ill be having 16 core one in the new year hopefully, this isn't my processing rig "ive a 7700k for that" its my VR portal. 

[msacco]

7 minutes ago, xtreemchaos said:

im running a 2700x at the mo heres my cb15 score in case you was wondering how thay do.

ill be having 16 core one in the new year hopefully, this isn't my processing rig "ive a 7700k for that" its my VR portal. 

You use a 7700k over the 2700x for processing? Shouldn't the 2700x be much better processing wise?

[xtreemchaos]

horses for courses mate, yes the 2700x is faster but im into solar imaging and there arnt any need for 16 threads yet, the 7700k is running at 5ghz with 32gb @3600 ram and isn't no slouch 1240 in CB with water cooling where as VR benefits from loads of threads.

[msacco]

4 minutes ago, xtreemchaos said:

horses for courses mate, yes the 2700x is faster but im into solar imaging and there arnt any need for 16 threads yet, the 7700k is running at 5ghz with 32gb @3600 ram and isn't no slouch 1240 in CB with water cooling where as VR benefits from loads of threads.

I see, for my needs the 2700x will be better though, right?

[xtreemchaos]

I don't know how many threads PI utilizes but for future proofing the 2700x would be the better, when I get the 16 core I will prob use the 2700x for processing but the 7700k dos a good job at the mo.

[msacco]

6 minutes ago, xtreemchaos said:

I don't know how many threads PI utilizes but for future proofing the 2700x would be the better, when I get the 16 core I will prob use the 2700x for processing but the 7700k dos a good job at the mo.

I believe PI could utilize as many threads as you have.

Do you think I should get the second hand 2700x or maybe invest in the 3900x?

[xtreemchaos]

me id hang out for the 3900x or 3950x for the higher clocks lower tdp but saying that im a game player and benchmarking geek so I try to go for the best I could afford. 

[msacco]

44 minutes ago, xtreemchaos said:

me id hang out for the 3900x or 3950x for the higher clocks lower tdp but saying that im a game player and benchmarking geek so I try to go for the best I could afford. 

Well I "could" afford much more than that, but I'm not sure if it's worth it, as I can always use this money for better astro gear, so getting something decent is still an option, but I am thinking about the r9.

[xtreemchaos]

in that case you could look at 9900k 8core 16threads  hits 5ghz no problems but runs hot nothing a good AIO watercooler wont sort out about 10% faster than a 2700x but £200 more, I tested one just before Christmas last year and I was well impressed got it clocking at 5.2 ghz and a cb score of around 2200 I think or there about  , ive had the 2700x to 4.4 ghz with a cb of 2080 but couldn't find the screen shot to post earlier.

[msacco]

33 minutes ago, xtreemchaos said:

in that case you could look at 9900k 8core 16threads  hits 5ghz no problems but runs hot nothing a good AIO watercooler wont sort out about 10% faster than a 2700x but £200 more, I tested one just before Christmas last year and I was well impressed got it clocking at 5.2 ghz and a cb score of around 2200 I think or there about  , ive had the 2700x to 4.4 ghz with a cb of 2080 but couldn't find the screen shot to post earlier.

The 9900k is around the same price as the r9 3900x, and I can't really find it second hand at the moment, so if I'll spend more, that will be on the 3900x, otherwise I'd probably get the 2700x.

[fireballxl5]

well my 4.5 year old 6-core i7 5930K with 16GB DDR4 is looking pretty old now lol - it's runs PI well enough though🙂

[msacco]

2 minutes ago, fireballxl5 said:

well my 4.5 year old 6-core i7 5930K with 16GB DDR4 is looking pretty old now lol - it's runs PI well enough though🙂

It's 4.5 years old, but think about it, 6 cores 12 threads compared to 4 cores, 4 threads, now that's a huge difference, isn't it?
Probably higher core speed as well, so yeah that makes a difference. But saying that, it actually makes me think that the 2700x would be more than enough for me and I could spare that cash from 3900x on a cooling camera and a guiding camera(yeah, don't have these yet lol).

[Whistlin Bob]

Hi- I'm running PI on a 2nd hand laptop that's no great shakes in terms of spec. A couple of times I've used the PI stacking and calibration processes and it has taken ages, not just to stack the pictures but to run through all of the processes and set all the parameters etc etc. Despite this investment of time the output was never vastly better than what I can get from DSS.

I umm'ed and arrr'ed about hardware but eventually decided to carry on using DSS and save PI for the post processing (for which I find it fantastic) because life's too short. 

Your mileage may vary, as they say (and I'd be interested to know if others can get something markedly better from doing their initial processing in PI), but if I had a few astro pounds to spare they wouldn't be going on processors and motherboards!

[msacco]

7 hours ago, Whistlin Bob said:

Hi- I'm running PI on a 2nd hand laptop that's no great shakes in terms of spec. A couple of times I've used the PI stacking and calibration processes and it has taken ages, not just to stack the pictures but to run through all of the processes and set all the parameters etc etc. Despite this investment of time the output was never vastly better than what I can get from DSS.

I umm'ed and arrr'ed about hardware but eventually decided to carry on using DSS and save PI for the post processing (for which I find it fantastic) because life's too short. 

Your mileage may vary, as they say (and I'd be interested to know if others can get something markedly better from doing their initial processing in PI), but if I had a few astro pounds to spare they wouldn't be going on processors and motherboards!

Even though I do agree that I could use DSS, and I could maybe spare that money on astro gear, I do think that PI is processing better than DSS, and I actually think that might be a good investment.

After all, time is something important as well, and eventually having to spend so much time solely on stacking, is a big waste of time I could use on other things.
Obviously the whole processing takes time, but when stacking, I really can't do anything on my machine, it's not a time I can learn and do much meanwhile, so I do think it might be useful.

I'm currently in a point where I'll be spending quite a lot on astro gear, so maybe spending small partion of that in a better CPU could be good as well.