PC spec for processing

[wormix]

Good evening everyone,

Apologies if this is in the wrong place - my current laptop that I use for Photoshop, Siril and DSS is getting on a bit so I was considering building a desktop to see if I can get better performance. 
 

My question is where should I be concentrating my funds on a system, as I don’t need to splash out on top spec for everything, so what do these types of software require. Do they focus primarily on RAM, CPU of GPU?  
 

My gut feel is GPU is least important which is good given they tend to hold their price on the used market, so is it a toss up between maxing the RAM or processing cores?

 

Any advice would be most welcome

cheers

[discardedastro]

https://www.logicalincrements.com/ is a great starting point.

Photoshop et al will use GPU for some stuff but so long as you have a basic one to offload the boring drawing from the CPU you don't need much.

RAM then disk then CPU then GPU is your hierarchy of needs for most of those tools and similar stuff like PixInsight.

32 or 64G of RAM is great - but it does ideally want to be reasonably fast, so dual channel rather than quad if possible.

Disk - go NVMe. If you can't splash on that for bulk storage, go for a SATA SSD for your OS and get a NVMe disk sized for your typical projects additionally.

CPU - as much as you can, budget permitting! I'd go AMD for bang-for-buck; AM4 stuff is a bit older and less upgradeable but that means it's a fair bit cheaper and still powerful.

GPU I'd stick to something cheap and cheerful. NVIDIA 10x0 series still stand up just fine, 20x0 better. Don't sweat about 30x0 or 40x0. AMD also fine.

Motherboard should be a decent model with a bit of room to grow in the way of storage etc.

[ONIKKINEN]

GPU doesnt need to be great, basically any modern-ish model should do the trick. I have an aging GTX1080 and its working along nicely, looking at newer models the RTX3050 looks like about the same in benchmark performance and doesn't cost that much so i would go for that. Should you do any gaming it would still be pretty good for that so its certainly not compromise type purhcase.

CPU and RAM is where you should try to spend most of the budget. Decent ram, but doesn't need to be some gaming spec with RGB lighting to do the trick. At least 16gb, preferably more. CPUs, too many to choose from at the moment but AMD seems to be making better general purpose CPUs at the moment.

Dont underestimate storage needs, you will rack up terabytes much faster than you thought, especially if you have many unfinished work-in-progress projects where you have calibrated data saved on top of the raw stuff. I would go for an M.2 SSD for drive C, another (terabyte or two, not that expensive these days) SSD as a processing folder and maybe a conventional HDD for bulk deep storage of stuff you dont need to access all the time - like data from previous seasons that you may one day use again. HDDs go for quite cheap too, you could get something silly like an 8Tb drive for a couple hunded.

Storage is also upgrade-able almost infinitely, so maybe not necessary to splurge on all the different disks at once. Invest in the core parts that stay in the PC like the CPU/RAM/Motherboard at first if budget demands it.

[wormix]

Thank you - that is really helpful. 
 

Regarding the CPU, should I be focusing on Cores over clock speed, or the other way round?  I was considering something like a Ryzen 5 3600 which can be had quite reasonably 

 

ta

[dan_adi]

9 hours ago, wormix said:

Thank you - that is really helpful. 
 

Regarding the CPU, should I be focusing on Cores over clock speed, or the other way round?  I was considering something like a Ryzen 5 3600 which can be had quite reasonably 

 

ta

I  had the same dilemma when I build my processing PC.

What I used:

processor: AMD Ryzen 16 cores

Ram: 128 GB DDR4

Disk: Samsung 980 nvme

Video card: an old GeForce GTX 960 I had around

OS: Linux 

Wbpp in Pixinsight takes 1 hour from start to finish with 1000 62 MBytes fits files

 

 

Edited December 21, 2022 by dan_adi

[malc-c]

If you google "Photoshop GPU or CPU" you'll see that depending on filters or processes used dictate the demand on either.  If you also google "Photoshop CPU cores or threads" you get more of a conflict with some sites suggesting it's more a single threaded application than multi, but further investigation suggested that some processes are multi-threaded and will use multiple cores.  So basically, get a processor with as many cores and threads that fit your budget.  Photoshop also uses a scratch disk, which can apparently be configured to use RAM or hard drives, so an Nvme drive and decent RAM should be included.  Googling "best GPU" it seems that an RX560 or 1050 ti, which are somewhat older cards can give decent performance, so a modern Nvidia 30xx or 40xx or equivalent AMD card should be able to handle what you do.

Having said that, for basic work, I've used an old version of Photoshop (CS2 !!) with soem astronomy tools on a first gen Ryzen 5 1500X (4 core 8 threads), 16GB Corsair Vengeance  DDR 4 RAM, and a Radion RX550 2GB GPU all running on an ASUS Prime X570-A mother board with a fast Samsung EVO 960 250gb Nvme System disk, and a Toshiba 7200 rpm 3TB hard drive for file storage.  - I can also edit 4K video using DaVinci on this machine which is more demanding on a system than stretching and tweaking a still image, so even a modern modest system should be fine

[wormix]

Evening - I ended up getting an old office workstation with a Xeon hexacore processor cheaply. 
 

Just done a comparison of new vs old, stacking 75 frames. 
 

“New” system took 4min 21s, my old laptop took 37min 31s so I’m calling that a win!

[Skipper Billy]

I had the same dilemma a while ago and built the following machine - it screams through Pixi and PS etc etc.

Without spending a fortune it presents a good bang for buck ratio. I updated it from W10 to W11 a day or two ago with zero issues.

 

[malc-c]

20 hours ago, Skipper Billy said:

I had the same dilemma a while ago and built the following machine - it screams through Pixi and PS etc etc.

 

With 16 cores and 32 threads running around 5Ghz, with 64 GB Ram and a couple of Samsung Pro Nvme drives I wouldn't have expected anything else....  Nice machine 👍

[StevieDvd]

It seems the advent of the new AI assisted tools, like the Russ Croman XTerminator add-ins for PixInsight & Photoshop the GPU is starting to become more important. Having just followed a tutorial to process my comet images I grabbed the trial version of the StarXTerminator to use in Batch mode and stacked 50 images. Having only tried it only a single image before I had not noticed the time it takes. But in batch mode it ended up taking hours and putting my  i7-10700 CPU 32gb Win11 to max cpu. The video guide I was following paused for that process and said it could take a while!

After some further reading up on StarXTerminator use the consensus was that it was optimal to use a high spec GPU - preferably one which can use a feature called CUDA. So explaining why my onboard graphics was not helping and left the CPU to take all the strain.

So now I'm on the lookout for a Graphics card that will help, but not one that costs more than my PC, as I don't expect to be exterminating stars in the stacking stage. Perhaps a little less than one of these Quadro 5000

 

[ONIKKINEN]

3 minutes ago, StevieDvd said:

It seems the advent of the new AI assisted tools, like the Russ Croman XTerminator add-ins for PixInsight & Photoshop the GPU is starting to become more important. Having just followed a tutorial to process my comet images I grabbed the trial version of the StarXTerminator to use in Batch mode and stacked 50 images. Having only tried it only a single image before I had not noticed the time it takes. But in batch mode it ended up taking hours and putting my  i7-10700 CPU 32gb Win11 to max cpu. The video guide I was following paused for that process and said it could take a while!

After some further reading up on StarXTerminator use the consensus was that it was optimal to use a high spec GPU - preferably one which can use a feature called CUDA. So explaining why my onboard graphics was not helping and left the CPU to take all the strain.

So now I'm on the lookout for a Graphics card that will help, but not one that costs more than my PC, as I don't expect to be exterminating stars in the stacking stage. Perhaps a little less than one of these Quadro 5000

 

Quadro series cards are terrible value for money, you would be better off with just about any normal GPU instead. CUDA cores exist in all Nvidia GPUs, its just their own technical term for something the GPU architecture uses, dont worry about it too much.

Take a look here for GPU benchmarks, higher number is better: https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html

Maybe an RTX 3070? Even the RTX 3060Ti would be quite nice and not that expensive. I would advice you to not spend as much as you were planning to as the highest end GPUs are not good value for money. I have an older GTX 1080 which youll have to scroll down to find in the list, but it does all the russell croman actions just fine. Star removal less than a minute every time.

[StevieDvd]

Just now, ONIKKINEN said:

Quadro series cards are terrible value for money, you would be better off with just about any normal GPU instead. CUDA cores exist in all Nvidia GPUs, its just their own technical term for something the GPU architecture uses, dont worry about it too much.

Take a look here for GPU benchmarks, higher number is better: https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html

Maybe an RTX 3070? Even the RTX 3060Ti would be quite nice and not that expensive. I would advice you to not spend as much as you were planning to as the highest end GPUs are not good value for money. I have an older GTX 1080 which youll have to scroll down to find in the list, but it does all the russell croman actions just fine. Star removal less than a minute every time.

Thanks,

My typical English understatement of 'a little less' was me trying to be ironic.  My budget for a card is on the opposite end of the price range - more like a GTX 1050 😉. I'm not a gamer and no longer use a flight simulator so graphics have not been an issue for me.

[ONIKKINEN]

2 minutes ago, StevieDvd said:

Thanks,

My typical English understatement of 'a little less' was me trying to be ironic.  My budget for a card is on the opposite end of the price range - more like a GTX 1050 😉. I'm not a gamer and no longer use a flight simulator so graphics have not been an issue for me.

Oh, my read between the lines detectors are under maintenance on mondays 🤣

The xx60 or xx60Ti series cards are typically the best bang for buck, but its hard to say at any given time because the GPU market never really recovered from the past few years so prices and availabilities change fast.

[Alien 13]

27 minutes ago, ONIKKINEN said:

Quadro series cards are terrible value for money, you would be better off with just about any normal GPU instead. CUDA cores exist in all Nvidia GPUs, its just their own technical term for something the GPU architecture uses, dont worry about it too much.

Take a look here for GPU benchmarks, higher number is better: https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html

Maybe an RTX 3070? Even the RTX 3060Ti would be quite nice and not that expensive. I would advice you to not spend as much as you were planning to as the highest end GPUs are not good value for money. I have an older GTX 1080 which youll have to scroll down to find in the list, but it does all the russell croman actions just fine. Star removal less than a minute every time.

Just ran passmark for a laugh on my Mini PC with integrated graphics and got 5364..

Alan

[DaveS]

Well, I've just ordered a new workstation to take over from my current Charles Babbage steam powered jobby.

Ryzen 7950, 64 GB RAM, 1TB and 2TB m2 SSDs and a Nvidia 6GB RTX 2000 graphics card. Possibly overkill at the moment but I want to be set up for any increase in hardware requirements without going mad with Threadripper or seriously expensive GPUs.

the case has room for more conventional SSDs or HDDs (Remember those?)

[pipnina]

I can't attest to photoshop's needs, but as a Pixinsight user I find RAM quantity, drive speed and multi-core CPU performance to be very important.

Some stacks I've done (where about 800 24MP subs were used) have literally consumed all 96GB of ram in my system and then started to eat into my 50GB swap on my SSD too. But Pixinsight's process is insanely poor performance compared to alternative stackers. It also takes up a lot of disk bandwidth and IOPS (in-out operations per second) so my SATA3 SSD only just keeps up.

I use a Ryzen 5800X but given as the 5950x is faster in every way and also about the price I paid for my 5800x at launch these days... That might be the CPU to get as the new gen 7000s are a bit pricy for a slightly underwhelming gain I hear.

 

[StevieDvd]

11 minutes ago, Alien 13 said:

Just ran passmark for a laugh on my Mini PC with integrated graphics and got 5364..

Alan

Is that just the GPU?

My GPU score is 554 Intel UHD Graphics 630 - in low 😢

[Alien 13]

26 minutes ago, StevieDvd said:

Is that just the GPU?

My GPU score is 554 Intel UHD Graphics 630 - in low 😢

Just the onboard RDNA 2 graphics GPU score integrated within the Rysen 6900HX processor.

Alan

Edited February 6, 2023 by Alien 13

[ONIKKINEN]

56 minutes ago, pipnina said:

I can't attest to photoshop's needs, but as a Pixinsight user I find RAM quantity, drive speed and multi-core CPU performance to be very important.

Some stacks I've done (where about 800 24MP subs were used) have literally consumed all 96GB of ram in my system and then started to eat into my 50GB swap on my SSD too. But Pixinsight's process is insanely poor performance compared to alternative stackers. It also takes up a lot of disk bandwidth and IOPS (in-out operations per second) so my SATA3 SSD only just keeps up.

I use a Ryzen 5800X but given as the 5950x is faster in every way and also about the price I paid for my 5800x at launch these days... That might be the CPU to get as the new gen 7000s are a bit pricy for a slightly underwhelming gain I hear.

 

If you have large stacks of subs you really want to try stacking with siril.

I tried with 4000x 6MP subs where writing the temporary files, registration, normalization and rejection stacking completes in under an hour with 16GB of RAM and an I7 6700k. APP took 7 hours and PI never completed the process although it tried for several hours... Siril is the go to stacker for crazy amounts of subs.

Edited February 6, 2023 by ONIKKINEN

[Leo S]

I've also been in PC building mode recently, and have two builds on the go right now.

I started one with ryzen-5-5600x, and then thought "this needs to be a bit faster". Seeing the Ryzen 9 5900X Processor (12C/24T) on offer might have had something to do with it! Here's what the 2nd build looks like:

ASUS ProArt X570-Creator WiFi Motherboard
AMD Ryzen 9 5900X Processor (12C/24T, 70MB Cache, up to 4.8 GHz Max Boost)
Crucial RAM 32GB DDR4 3200MHz CL22 (or 2933MHz or 2666MHz) Desktop Memory CT32G4DFD832A (2x 32GB)
PowerColor Fighter Radeon RX 6700 XT 12GB Graphics Card
Samsung 970 EVO Plus M.2 NVMe SSD (MZ-V7S2T0BW), 2 TB, PCIe 3.0
Kingston A400 SSD Internal Solid State Drive 2.5" SATA Rev 3.0, 120GB - SA400S37/120G
Icybox IB-158SK-B Trayless Mobile Rack for 3.5 inch SATA HDD
LiteOn IHAS124-14 24x SATA Internal DVDRW
Corsair RM750x 80 PLUS Gold Fully Modular ATX 750 Watt Power Supply
Fractal Design Pop XL Silent Black Solid Full Tower Case - Black

 

One thing I would highlight for anyone building a processing PC - Make sure (study the manual) the motherboard you buy has enough resources (lanes) so that none of the devices you intend to add to the build will steal resources from one another. The cheaper boards often share resources between PCIe slots and M.2 slots for example, so you can find that some of your devices do not run at full speed.

[scotty38]

Seems to be a spate of building machines, this is mine I built a couple of weeks ago:

Asus X670E-A Motherboard

AMD Ryzen 9 7950x

2 x 32GB Corsair Vengeance DDR5 RAM

Samsung 980 Pro 1TB

Seasonic Prime TX-850 Power Supply

Lian Li O11D Evo Case

7 x Lian Li Infinity Fans

Arctic Liquid Freezer 360mm AIO Cooler

AMD Radeon 6750XT GPU - not for PI use 🙂

 

I am over the moon with the performance of PI and get around 41000 on the Benchmark test. happy, happy days 🙂

Edited February 7, 2023 by scotty38

[StevieDvd]

Update

My PC was built by a local computer shop for me back in December 2021 and I could not find the invoice, so called them to ask what PSU it had fitted (would have had to take it apart to get to the psu).  Glad to say it was 750W and I mentioned I was finally going to add a GTX card. As it happened they had a used GTX 1650 4gb in store so I popped out the the PC under my arm and had it fitted/tested.

Compared with the onboard graphics this has given the PC a much needed boost and the RC XTerminators now running much quicker - in one case 22 seconds instead of 2mins 40sec.