What's the weak link in my PC?

[Diamond D]

My Dell XPS, which has worked flawlessly for the past 5 years, is unfortunately VERY slow when it comes to LR2, Bridge & PS CS4

Using ACR5, the local adjustment brush is almost unusable because of the delay between brushing and when the effect actually shows up. Smart filters in PS make everything come to a grinding slowdown, and 100% previews in Bridge take forever.

I tried the "Retouch Artists Speed Test" where users with new systems here are reporting under 30 seconds.... I cancelled mine after 5 mins when it was still working.

During the image test, and when Bridge is making Thumbnails or 100% previews, the CPU is running 100%.

My graphics card supports OpenGL with the latest drivers, but when I turned that option on in PS, it actually slowed down operations like cloning quite a bit.

During my everyday editing, I don't usually go under 100% efficiency according to photoshop, and I rarely see the scratch size go up over the 1.15GB allocated to Photoshop (though it did in the Retouch Artists test).

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My current setup is as follows:

OS: Win XP 32bit SP3

RAM: 3072 Megabytes Installed Memory (DDR2)

Slot 'CHANNEL A DIMM 0' has 512 MB
Slot 'CHANNEL B DIMM 0' has 512 MB
Slot 'CHANNEL A DIMM 1' has 1024 MB
Slot 'CHANNEL B DIMM 1' has 1024 MB

PROCESSOR: 3.40 gigahertz Intel Pentium 4

16 kilobyte primary memory cache
1024 kilobyte secondary memory cache

BOARD: Dell Inc. 0U7084

Bus Clock: 800 megahertz
BIOS: Dell Inc. A07 07/15/2005

GRAPHICS CARD: NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GTO

HARD DRIVES (all SATA):

160G HD with all my applications and OS on it
160G HD with a partition on it for PS Scratch, and the rest for rarely-used data
1TB HD holds all my photos
External 500GB USB2.0 HD holds my backup set, updated weekly. ----------

Basically I'm wondering if my processor is upgradable, and if so, would that make a big difference?

I know I should probably upgrade my OS to 64 bit and get more memory. But I think my motherboard is limited to 4GB (correct me if I'm wrong), so that would lead me toward a new MB and a new Processor as well. At that point, I probably need a new case and power supply since this is a Dell pre-made system.

If I do decide to get all that stuff new, what can I keep from my current system? All my HD's should be fine, except I may get a brand new one to put my OS and applications on, to start fresh.

I look forward to hearing any and all suggestions, thanks!

[kini62]

Pretty much "everything". :D

I just moved away from a nearly identical setup. P4 3.6 w/2gigs of ram and an ATI X850PE GPU. It was too slow to run any of the newer software including PSE 6 or 7 let alone LR or CS4.

There is no processor upgrade that I know of for that MB. And if there are it won't be much of one. And because it's a Dell there is no easy way to change out the MB and use you existing tower.

Your best bet is to strip out the HDs and get a new computer. That's what I did. I ended up with a 24" iMac after 7 agonizing hours with Vista 64 and another Dell. What nightmare!

Anyway my iMac and OS X is worth way more than a much more powerfull Dell i7 machine to me because OS X is basically flawless IMO. At least compared to Vista.

I stripped out my 250 and 400GB drives, mount them in an Antec USB 2.0 drive "holder". You can just stick any SATA drive in it and it works just like any other USB external drive. It doesn't need any fans since 80% of the drive is exposed.

So my $.02 is to get a new computer and after years and years of Windows I highly recommend a Mac.

Gene

[angevin1]

Intel Pentium 4


time for UP grade~

Check techbargains.com

Our duo core vista 32 bit works fine with those programs, as does the quad core 64 bit vista I use~

[jeffreaux2]

You should check a couple things with your current configuration.

The fact that you have two 512 Rams and 2 One GB rams caught my eye.

You should be able to install that RAM in a Dual Channel mode. I would slip the two 1 gig sticks in those slots. Dell should be able to tell you which slots are for the dual channel configuration. Its also possible that the original RAM was rated at a higher speed than what has been added, and the new RAM cannot perform at those speeds. You should check that all RAM is rated for the same speeds and timings. Then set that up accordingly in the BIOs. This may not help one bit, but it's something I that caught my eye. If you have added RAM Id remove it and see if it runs smoother. Then maybe just try the two 1 gig sticks.

I just built a new machine to edit on.

Mine is based on the Core i7 Intel processor. It is 4 cores multithreaded. It appears as 8 cores in Task Manager. I have given it 12 gigs of RAM on a Vista 64 bit OS. It's rather perky and ran the CS3 test in 10-11 seconds depending on color depth....at stock clock speeds. With a mild overclock it knocked about 30% off those times.

[angevin1]

Mine is based on the Core i7 Intel processor. It is 4 cores multithreaded. It appears as 8 cores in Task Manager. I have given it 12 gigs of RAM on a Vista 64 bit OS. It's rather perky and ran the CS3 test in 10-11 seconds depending on color depth....at stock clock speeds. With a mild overclock it knocked about 30% off those times.

Good catch on the RAM potentially being the prob!

That thing sounds sizzlin fast!! But what the H is a CS3 test? or rather where?

cheers,

[cmason]

LR2 is optimized for dual core, so that P4 is a huge bottleneck. It is likely that it is even holding up the GPU. A Core2Duo is not only dual core, but it is much faster and more efficient than the Pentium architecture, and the difference in performance is very noticeable.

You can get a replacement MB and chip for fairly cheap these days from Newegg, though I imagine you will also need to replace the memory as well. the i7 chips are blazing too, but being DDR3, they are best with 3 matched memory chips, so the costs rise there.

Agree with other post that it is possible that your system is not running in DDR mode, and moving the memory chips to the proper slots may help. Also, I think having matched chips is useful as well, but don't recall why.

[jeffreaux2]

Good catch on the RAM potentially being the prob!

That thing sounds sizzlin fast!! But what the H is a CS3 test? or rather where?

cheers,

It's the Fred Miranda test found in this thread....
http://dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=34794

If a 1 gig stick and a 512MB stick are paired in the "dual-channel" slots it may be causing hiccups for sure.

[angevin1]

It's the Fred Miranda test found in this thread....
http://dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=34794

If a 1 gig stick and a 512MB stick are paired in the "dual-channel" slots it may be causing hiccups for sure.

Thanks...The FM link no longer works...least it didn't for me.

[Diamond D]

Thanks guys, I have started looking into building a new system, maybe this Christmas I'll be able to start putting it together. I've found some good threads on here with recent custom builds that should be big helps.


Interesting thought about the RAM. The computer shipped with the 512MB pair, and when I bought the 1GB pair I read the manual and installed them in the recommended slots (Pairs go in 1&3, 2&4) so I don't think I messed anything up there, but I will take a look at their speeds when I get home and see what I can find.

[kini62]

It's NOT the RAM. You'll just be wasting time messing with it. That processor is just not up to running the latest "bloated" software. I know, I had one.

Build or buy a new one, heck you can get a decent specced core2duo dell with a 20-24" monitor for $400 or less that would absolutely smoke your current PC.

Gene

[Diamond D]

Thanks...The FM link no longer works...least it didn't for me.

the test I was using was the Retouch Artists Photoshop Speed Test

just google Retouch Artists Test and it'll come up, download the zip file, install the action, open the image, run action, and time it