So how much computer power is "enough"

[Busted Knuckles]

I suspect that more is always better, but where is the point of inflection of chasing a few more hertz with too many dollars.

I suspect I can buy a desk set up for $1,500 (hardware) that has a high end CPU 8g ram, 1 or 2 TB on the drive. The next question is PC vs Mac and could the uber macbook pro really be a portable (expensive) option - does it really have the processing power?

Thanks

Mike

[HDNitehawk]

Is this another PC vs Mac thread?

I can process pictures faster on my wife's low end Mac Book Pro that we paid $1100 three years ago than I can on my Dell PC at work that we paid $2000 for three years ago.

Of course the windows machine is probably full of malware that hasn't been cleaned off in six months. If you take in to account the work PC has had to be wiped three times in the last three years because of viruses, and then figure in how much the down time is worth to me the PC's just are not as cheap. However I prefer the PC for excel, windows and outlook, plus most of the online games I play require windows. My solution to this is to pay a few extra dollars for the Mac, buy windows and run it with Boot Camp on the Mac.

The "uber" Mac Book Pro will do anything you want, and if it doesn't and you need that much processing power you should be looking at a Mac Pro.

[Kayaker72]

I built a PC system last summer. I checked out the power consumption at Raid's suggestion. It typically runs 75-125 watts and peaked at ~200 watts. The system takes 9 seconds to convert a RAW to a JPG in DPP. Lightroon is faster, dxo slower.

The system is similar to what you describe, athlon quad core, 8 gb ram, 2 x 1.5 Tb hard drives, bronze rated power supply, and an SSD. Spent ~$1,200 including a new monitor.

[Dr Croubie]

DPP runs mutli-threaded (at least it does running on linux via Wine), so in that respect the more cores the better. I get away with 4gb of ram easily (although straight after boot i'm only using 300mb of ram, 8gb would be nice for winbloats).
So in that respect, my Phenom x6 2.8GHz and 4GB ram does the job nicely. (go for 8gb minimum if getting win)

But when I stitch, or HDR, maybe it's the programs I use (Hugin, Luminance), they run single-threaded and chew huge amounts of ram. Like up to 16gb of virtual ram (swap) space on my SSD and then some. stitching and tonemapping takes heaps of time (5 minutes for a standard 18MP tonemap) because it's only using a single core. I'm going to chuck in an extra 8gb or 16gb ram some day to help with these shots, if you do them regularly or want to try, go for a minimum 16gb off the bat.
Generally, whatever programs you're using, best check if it can run double/multi-threaded, if it can, get as many cores as you can. Multi-core AMD Phenoms are dirt cheap, as are their motherboards. Multi-core Intels I haven't kept up with the market lately, but normally they're less performance/$ (especially counting a good motherboard) than AMD, they just have a lot better performance in absolute terms.

[jrw]

Would suggest shopping around for PCs. Picked up a brand new Gateway with I7 quadcore, 8 GB of RAM, 750GB hard drive, wireless card, excellent sound card, and a 1 generation old 1 GB graphics card for just over $600 not too long ago. They were being cleared out as they didn't sell well once the latest graphics card was released and for having less than 1TB of hard drive. Formatted hard drive to clear out all of the software that came on it to eliminate all of the useless stuff that bogs them down before installing OS. Runs very fast. Have thought about putting in SSD but find the machine is plenty fast enough for me.

[nvitalephotography]

I built a computer last fall. I5 cpu..8gb ram...spent $700 on it and have never felt like i would benefit from anything better.

[andnowimbroke]

If you do go mac, I'd wait to see what comes out of their latest group meeting coming up shortly.

[Rocco]

If you do go mac, I'd wait to see what comes out of their latest group meeting coming up shortly.

+ 1 intel's new ivy bridge processors are out now.

[Rocco]

Also, you didn't mention a monitor. If you go with a desktop, a good IPS panel display can go a long way when it comes to your post processing. I've been eyeballing Asus's 24" ProArt monitor for a long time now.

[Busted Knuckles]

Thanks for all the input

I built a PC system last summer. I checked out the power consumption at Raid's suggestion. It typically runs 75-125 watts and peaked at ~200 watts. The system takes 9 seconds to convert a RAW to a JPG in DPP. Lightroon is faster, dxo slower.

The system is similar to what you describe, athlon quad core, 8 gb ram, 2 x 1.5 Tb hard drives, bronze rated power supply, and an SSD. Spent ~$1,200 including a new monitor.

I just timed my laptop and got the same 9 second time line.... hmmm Tells you the advantage of having a custom designed chip - 9 seconds compared to .3 seconds within the Camera on my lowly T3i. At some point the camera has to read the sensor value and convert to JPG.

Interesting idea would be to get the chip from Canon and bake into a specialized board or something - might as well get the Digic 5+ hmmm... (have no idea if I am just hallucinating)