computer spec for Pixinsight

[piprees]

Hi, I have pixinsight on my (originally windows 7, now upgraded to windows 10) Toshiba satellite C855 laptop and it seems to run quite slow especially if I'm using the drizzle data. Of course my laptop has everything else on it that you can imagine, which may be contributing to the slowness, so I've been thinking about getting a cheap refurbished desktop to be used solely for Pixinsight and nothing else. Has anyone else gone down this route and what sort of spec desktop would be suitable just for Pixinsight?

Hope you can help,

P. 

[RolandKol]

Laptop

*******************************************************************************

The Official PixInsight Benchmark version 1.0

Copyright (C) 2014-2021 Pleiades Astrophoto. All Rights Reserved.

*******************************************************************************

 

Benchmark version ...... 1.00.08

Input checksum ......... 2cd72b67e12fff2812ef5b5da054ab2a70a25e23

Serial number .......... 21IEJ83R4CQ1X099L2VOG6959H1KVD19

 

CPU Identification

CPU vendor ............. GenuineIntel

CPU model .............. 11th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-11800H @ 2.30GHz

 

System Information

Platform ............... Windows

Operating system ....... Microsoft Windows 10 Home

Core version ........... PixInsight Core 1.8.9-1 (x64)

Logical processors ..... 16

Total memory size ...... 15.773 GiB

 

Execution Times

Total time ............. 00:37.71

CPU time ............... 00:25.34

Swap time .............. 00:12.35

Swap transfer rate ..... 1341.900 MiB/s

 

Performance Indices

Total performance ...... 12473

CPU performance ........ 14936

Swap performance ....... 7432

 

*******************************************************************************

 

Edited October 22, 2022 by RolandKol

[scotty38]

Are you saying that's good, bad or indifferent though otherwise I'm not sure how it's helping?

[RolandKol]

30 minutes ago, scotty38 said:

Are you saying that's good, bad or indifferent though otherwise I'm not sure how it's helping?

Hmm, it is quite personal... I guess...
If you would post yours, - at least others with more knowledge would be able to advise/comment...

as in my case, - I am quite happy with the performance of my laptop, ignoring, I had 2 crashes during starnet2 run.

Most demanding, longest run for image size 4656 x 3520 are Starnet2: (stride 256 with 2x upsample), takes around 3.5min also deconvolution: 100 runs, probably about 1-2min.. not sure, have not actually checked.

I have not optimised Pix for performance as the rest of the procedures run "quite fast" or instantly.

 

P.S. looking at my results, looks like Swap performance is the main process dragging the rest down...
not sure how to improve or if any different hardware would help, - would be curious to see Linux or  win but AMD CPU based PC's to show theirs.

Edited October 22, 2022 by RolandKol

[RolandKol]

Out of curiosity, adjusted pix to have 8 swaps,

Slight improvement... at least during the benchmark run, - not tested the rest.

Performance Indices

Total performance ...... 15163

CPU performance ........ 14649

Swap performance ....... 17782

 

Additional Information

Swap disks ............. 8

Machine description .... Legion Laptop

Edited October 22, 2022 by RolandKol

[piprees]

1 hour ago, scotty38 said:

Are you saying that's good, bad or indifferent though otherwise I'm not sure how it's helping?

Hmmm, yes, sorry, but I'm a bit lost with most of that. What I guess I'm after is the sort of thing that I could say to a dealer. maybe about 3 or 4 parameters, such as i5 is a no no, or i7 is a defo.....

[piprees]

3 minutes ago, piprees said:

Hmmm, yes, sorry, but I'm a bit lost with most of that. What I guess I'm after is the sort of thing that I could say to a dealer. maybe about 3 or 4 parameters, such as i5 is a no no, or i7 is a defo.....

And to show how much of a technophobe I am, that's the first time that I've heard the expressions swap performance or swap discs, doh!!! 

[RolandKol]

20 minutes ago, piprees said:

Hmmm, yes, sorry, but I'm a bit lost with most of that. What I guess I'm after is the sort of thing that I could say to a dealer. maybe about 3 or 4 parameters, such as i5 is a no no, or i7 is a defo.....

From my investigations, - looks like Pix do not use GPU, so maybe this part can be left aside... However, I can be wrong... As I am probably just a bit more tech educated than you as I know the purpose of the Swap file  but probably not much more...
As I bough my laptop quite recently, also investigated the options, and AMD CPU (similar level one, for example Ryzen 7 5800h) actually runs faster on some applications, for example Excel, plus it has better power management! And I would go for AMD if not a great discount which was offered for this laptop with i7 CPU, which, on another hand is a bit more universal 

As Pix involves Lots of calculations per sec, maybe... maybe, AMD can be better option.

RAM 16GB should be more than enough (8GB will also be OK, my older laptop with i5 and 8Gb was also quite comfy with Pix),  SSD min 512GB, the rest as your wallet allows, new CPU's. AMD vs Intel, - it is the argument as Windows vs Mac or Linux... Intel will be more universal and will have more new tech in it for sure and will be more expensive. If you are not gamer or video developer cheaper AMD is probably very reasonable way to go.

Edited October 22, 2022 by RolandKol

[scotty38]

1 hour ago, RolandKol said:

Hmm, it is quite personal... I guess...
If you would post yours, - at least others with more knowledge would be able to advise/comment...

as in my case, - I am quite happy with the performance of my laptop, ignoring, I had 2 crashes during starnet2 run.

 

Yes that was the point I was making, I was trying to ask if you were happy or not with your machine's performance as that would be a pointer to replicate, or not, your build. Now you've said you're happy that's a good pointer, thanks!

[RolandKol]

4 minutes ago, scotty38 said:

Yes that was the point I was making, I was trying to ask if you were happy or not with your machine's performance as that would be a pointer to replicate, or not, your build. Now you've said you're happy that's a good pointer, thanks!

Not a problem... Just keep in mind, - in my case it is still a laptop... 

As I am not any kind of video dev or gamer... I do not see the reason to by a bulky tower + screen + space... 
if laptop is still the option for you, Lenovo Legion 5 can be as a benchmark to start from... I guess all Legions will have one or another GPU, -  sadly, I cannot advise if you need one, mine has GF4060

[scotty38]

I just use an i5 with 16GB and 1TB SSD. I dual boot Linux and Windows as Linux runs that bit faster but either way neither are that speedy so I wouldn't recommend this spec as anything brilliant but I know that and for me I can get by. I just have to leave things like WBPP to get on with it and accept it takes time especially if there's a decent number of frames to process. Not so long ago I processed around 500 frames and it took over 12 hours.....

Edited October 22, 2022 by scotty38

[RolandKol]

25 minutes ago, scotty38 said:

I just use an i5 with 16GB and 1TB SSD. I dual boot Linux and Windows as Linux runs that bit faster but either way neither are that speedy so I wouldn't recommend this spec as anything brilliant but I know that and for me I can get by. I just have to leave things like WBPP to get on with it and accept it takes time especially if there's a decent number of frames to process. Not so long ago I processed around 500 frames and it took over 12 hours.....

If stacking is an the main issue, honestly my 11th gen i7 vs 8gen i5 does not show much of improvement. Improvement IS, for sure, but there is no "wow" effect.
I sometimes use i5 9th or 10th gen (do not remember) intel based Desktop PC for stacking (in my office), - not sure if it works faster than my current laptop on i7, I kinda feel even opposite... However again, I have not ran any specific tests, it is just internal feeling...

You can google or check pixs forums for benchmarks and compare to yours, - maybe it will lead you towards something optimal. To improve stacking, you probably need to target for the fastest read/write setup with powerful CPU with more working threads... In this case, probably Desktop pc with i7 or i9 like CPU's and very fast SSD and motherboard  supporting all of that, will give out quite a Noticeable improvement, but it will cost quite a amount of beers or candies you could buy and if you are ready to cash out just for this purpose, why not.

 

Edited October 22, 2022 by RolandKol

[RolandKol]

Just to finalise

 

 

[scotty38]

7 minutes ago, RolandKol said:

If stacking is an the main issue, honestly my 11th gen i7 vs 8gen i5 does not show much of improvement. Improvement IS, for sure, but there is no "wow" effect.
I sometimes use i5 9th or 10th gen (do not remember) intel based Desktop PC for stacking (in my office), - not sure if it works faster than my current laptop on i7, I kinda feel even opposite... However again, I have not ran any specific tests, it is just internal feeling...

You can google or check pixs forums for benchmarks and compare to yours, - maybe it will lead you towards something optimal. To improve stacking, you probably need to target for the fastest read/write setup with powerful CPU with more working threads... In this case, probably Desktop pc with i7 or i9 like CPU's and very fast SSD and motherboard  supporting all of that, will give out quite a Noticeable improvement, but it will cost quite a amount of beers or candies you could buy and if you are ready to cash out just for this purpose, why not.

 

To be honest, I'm pretty much aware of what I need and what I'd buy if I upgraded and it would be Ryzen 9 based most likely.....

I'm on the PI forum already so I see a lot of the chatter on performance too.

Edited October 22, 2022 by scotty38

[RolandKol]

1 hour ago, scotty38 said:

To be honest, I'm pretty much aware of what I need and what I'd buy if I upgraded and it would be Ryzen 9 based most likely.....

I'm on the PI forum already so I see a lot of the chatter on performance too.

With Ryzen 9 CPU you will be close to the top end anyways...

Just completely forgot, if you do not afraid using Linux, - try to adjust Pix and set Swap to RAM (linux allows this trick, windows don't), just be careful, as Swap files can become very large, so this option can be counter-productive. I would probably avoid doing that with 16Gb RAM, but no one forbids testing.

Swap file on RAM should make read/write process faster by "pleasant" amount.

Pix kinda likes a bit of larger amount of Swaps, so set 4 or 8 or even 12 in total, - also test how it performs on the current set up.

and if it will show you any benefits, decide about initial RAM size per slot (For example 16+16 or just 32 and upgrade later with the second 32 or go for dual 64 from the start)

I dont play with linux anymore and cannot test for you unfortunately, but previously i had my Chrome running directly from RAM and it caused a lot of joy

Edited October 22, 2022 by RolandKol

[Ouroboros]

I had no idea you could benchmark your hardware with pixinsight.  So thanks for this thread.    I have a MacBook dating from 2014, but still works well.   It'll take all night to WBPP 90 light files plus 64x flats and flat darks.  I know I'm going to have to update soon anyway.  I'm as much concerned about getting something with a better screen, but I do like the portability of my MacBook. Here for comparison is my benchmark data.  The total time was nearly 4 times longer than RolandKol's at the top of this thread. 

Benchmark version ...... 1.00.08

Input checksum ......... 2cd72b67e12fff2812ef5b5da054ab2a70a25e23

Serial number .......... 8NDNDS05950O7BB0P6DTGED6EXBY35KL

 

CPU Identification

CPU vendor ............. GenuineIntel

CPU model .............. Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4578U CPU @ 3.00GHz

 

System Information

Platform ............... MacOSX

Operating system ....... macOS 11.7 20G817

Core version ........... PixInsight Core 1.8.9-1 (x64)

Logical processors ..... 4

Total memory size ...... 16.000 GiB

 

Execution Times

Total time ............. 02:21.04

CPU time ............... 01:54.08

Swap time .............. 00:26.86

Swap transfer rate ..... 617.006 MiB/s

 

Performance Indices

Total performance ...... 3335

CPU performance ........ 3318

Swap performance ....... 3417

[RolandKol]

17 minutes ago, Ouroboros said:

The total time was nearly 4 times longer than RolandKol's at the top of this thread. 

Set Pix to use 8 swaps and all Threads your CPU supports (most likely something around 8), and run again.

(just dont forget to apply new settings by pressing the circle/dot in the bottom-left... I keep forgetting this step on Pix...)

Edited October 22, 2022 by RolandKol

[Ouroboros]

Thanks @RolandKol. I’ll have a go at that later. 

[RolandKol]

just checked my office PC....

does not look nice incomparison to my Laptop :)))

*******************************************************************************

The Official PixInsight Benchmark version 1.0

Copyright (C) 2014-2021 Pleiades Astrophoto. All Rights Reserved.

*******************************************************************************

 

Benchmark version ...... 1.00.08

Input checksum ......... 2cd72b67e12fff2812ef5b5da054ab2a70a25e23

Serial number .......... IU3WFBBTFOYFHAB7O05101N12W66E664

 

CPU Identification

CPU vendor ............. GenuineIntel

CPU model .............. Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-8500 CPU @ 3.00GHz

 

System Information

Platform ............... Windows

Operating system ....... Microsoft Windows 10 Pro

Core version ........... PixInsight Core 1.8.9-1 (x64)

Logical processors ..... 6

Total memory size ...... 23.797 GiB

 

Execution Times

Total time ............. 01:58.37

CPU time ............... 00:44.28

Swap time .............. 01:14.07

Swap transfer rate ..... 223.776 MiB/s

 

Performance Indices

Total performance ...... 3974

CPU performance ........ 8548

Swap performance ....... 1239

 

*******************************************************************************

 

[Elp]

Most importantly, what is your budget and how long do you expect to use the computer for this purpose?

You will find that even processors of similar clock speed and core count from different generations will perform differently due to their architecture, most programs are CPU and RAM dependent. I have a few years old laptop with a 4 core i7 processor which runs at 3.5 base to 4.5 GHz turbo. You'd think compared to my newer (2 generations later) 8 core i7 2.5 base to 5 GHz turbo the old one would be around half as fast. Under stress (3d rendering) it's more like less than a quarter compared to the newer one, the old one also has one of the best ssds (Samsung Evo and 24 GB of ram) and still can't compete.

A comparable desktop processor will run much faster.