What CPU do you use?

Tserrof · December 29, 2005

I've seen some threads with ppl debating what CPU is the best for photo & video tasks on their PCs. I'd like to take a poll on who uses what and to hear feedback on what performance ppl get from their respective machines. Sorry, if you use a CPU I don't list but I don't want to go overboard, so I'll only list the current major CPUs on the market. Feel free to flame me if I missed one lol.

Personally? I :lust my P4 HT and P4EE. Neither choke even when doing multiple intensive editing tasks at once.

David_S85 · December 29, 2005

Pentium 4 Dual Core 830 (3GHz).

Tserrof · December 29, 2005

oh shoot, I forgot the Pentium D & M didn't I?

Andy · December 29, 2005

Well, 1 year ago I switched to all Mac after 23 years of using peecees. And I'm glad I did.

Here's a good Photoshop Benchmark Test

1 year ago, on a 2.4ghz P4 winbox, nearly 2mins
1 year ago, on a dual 2.5Ghz Apple Powermac G5, 48 seconds
1 month ago, on a quad 2.5Ghz Apple Powermac G5, 22 seconds.

I'm really pleased with the speed of this box.

sberley · January 9, 2006

Andy wrote:

1 year ago, on a 2.4ghz P4 winbox, nearly 2mins
1 year ago, on a dual 2.5Ghz Apple Powermac G5, 48 seconds
1 month ago, on a quad 2.5Ghz Apple Powermac G5, 22 seconds.

22 seconds is very impressive!

I just recently built a Shuttle xpc with an AMD 64 x2 3800 and 2 gb ram. It did the test in 44 seconds. While it's not 22, it's not shabby either.

Steve

NHBubba · January 9, 2006

I feel so outdated..
..My desktop's proc isn't even listed. My lowly AMD Athlon 1400+ (non-64-bit) is probably looking pathetically outdated by most of ya'lls. And what's most pathetic is that I'm a software engineer by trade!

Were I to build a new PC today (and I just might be doing this pretty soon), I'd probably aim for an AMD Athlon 64 X2. I like the looks of this architecture quite a bit..

Poindexter · January 9, 2006

I use both a Pentium D (at work) and a Athlon X2 (home). Work only buys Dell systems, so I didn't have much to choose from there. I love AMD! Gaming, PSing, and all kinds of other things the AMD is awesome - especially with 2 7800 GT's in SLi.

mercphoto · January 9, 2006

I'm biased. I use a 1.67GHz G4 PowerPC. I was on the design team of the original G4 years back. I'd like to step up to dual G5's however. I will stick with Apple when they move to Intel (even though my heart is with Power PC and I currently work for AMD) -- I'm a fan of OS-X and I hate Windows.

livinginoz · January 9, 2006

g5 dual 2 ghz, 2.5 gb ram, just happened to appear on my desk last week after my old dual g4 took two weeks to finally melt down.....

60 sec

i will have to try it at home on my imac g5.

NHBubba · January 9, 2006

mercphoto wrote:

I will stick with Apple when they move to Intel (even though my heart is with Power PC and I currently work for AMD) -- I'm a fan of OS-X and I hate Windows.

Slightly OT.. do you think that Apple will release OS-X to non-Apple users? Do you think the days of home-spun, AMD based systems running OS-X are near? ... Gotta say, I think they'd have a customer in me! OS-X + an AMD Athlon X2.. that's just gotta rock.

Poindexter · January 9, 2006

NHBubba wrote:

Gotta say, I think they'd have a customer in me!

Me too! I'd love to have an Apple OS on my much cheaper to build PC, then have Microsoft on a partition for playing games.

wxwax · January 9, 2006

Andy wrote:

1 month ago, on a quad 2.5Ghz Apple Powermac G5, 22 seconds.

I'm really pleased with the speed of this box.

So anyway, is that quad leaking coolant yet?

NHBubba · February 22, 2006

Andy wrote:

Here's a good Photoshop Benchmark Test

Some results I've culled up by way of informal testing in the last few weeks:

Intel PIII 800 MHz laptop w/ 386 MB RAM - Photoshop CS - 7:04
AMD Athlon 1400+ (1.2 GHz) desktop w/ 1 GB RAM - Photoshop CS - 5:56
Dual processor Intel Xeon 2.8 GHz w/ 2 GB RAM - Photoshop 7 - 1:28
Intel Pentium 4 3 GHz w/ 2 GB RAM - Photoshop CS2 - 1:52
Intel Pentium M 2 GHz w/ 2 GB RAM - Photoshop CS2 - 3:00
Dual 2 GHz G5 PowerMac w/ 512 MB RAM - Photoshop CS - 1:23
20" iMac Intel 'Duo' dual-core 2 GHz w/ 512 MB RAM - Photoshop CS - 1:24
Dual 2.5 Ghz PowerMac w/ 4GB RAM - Photoshop CS2 40 seconds

CatOne · February 23, 2006

NHBubba wrote:

Slightly OT.. do you think that Apple will release OS-X to non-Apple users? Do you think the days of home-spun, AMD based systems running OS-X are near? ... Gotta say, I think they'd have a customer in me! OS-X + an AMD Athlon X2.. that's just gotta rock.

They've said no. Apple effectively subsidizes the cost of OS X with their hardware, so it would cost them money.

rallymaniac · February 24, 2006

did it on my 4.5 year old machine: 4:34
AMD Athlon 1300 MHz
512 DDR Ram
PS 7.0
I think it's pretty decent for an ancient machine

ScottG · March 3, 2006

Hi, first post here. I'm getting my Smugmug account set up tomorrow.

But anyway, I'm on a self-built Athlon 64 X2 system here. 4200+ Dual-core.
I only have 1 gig of RAM so far as most of my cash is going back into my photography business (that I've been away from for 10 years....but that's another story).

Anyway, doing the Photoshop test that Andy mentioned I got 32 seconds on my machine. Not bad I guess.

John Mueller · March 3, 2006

I tried one of those Mac things today.heheheh no right click:D
I guess you cant teach an old dog new tricks.

ScottG · March 3, 2006

Actually, you can right click on the Mac. I think the new mighty mouse they have has a left and right button, though you can't see it as it's underneath a membrain. But you can also put in your favorite mouse and use it as it's all USB and right clicking works fine.

GraphyFotoz · March 3, 2006

Not quite sure what ya mean by Pentium 4 Extreme Edition?

I have a Pentium 4 with HT(Hyper Threading) 2.8GHZ...1.5Gig of Ram.

Bodwick · March 3, 2006

Sony VAIO VGN-A197 Series - Intel Pentium Centrino M 1.8Mhz - 1 gig RAM - PS7

First test over 5 mins - Shut down the rubbish and down to 34 seconds...

Lesson of today - Shut down the rubbish.

Mike Lane · April 17, 2007

Hrm...

MacBook Pro, 2.33 GB Intel Core 2 Duo, 3 GB RAM, Photoshop CS3 Extended: 61.4 seconds.

Doesn't seem all that whippy...

Okay I retried and got 38.2 seconds.

claudermilk · April 18, 2007

ScottG wrote:

Hi, first post here. I'm getting my Smugmug account set up tomorrow.

But anyway, I'm on a self-built Athlon 64 X2 system here. 4200+ Dual-core.
I only have 1 gig of RAM so far as most of my cash is going back into my photography business (that I've been away from for 10 years....but that's another story).

Anyway, doing the Photoshop test that Andy mentioned I got 32 seconds on my machine. Not bad I guess.

Ouch! Get more RAM, it's not that expensive. I am also running a home-brew based on the X2 4200+, and it's faster than that (I should have a post in the test thread IIRC). As I recall it was on par with the rest of the current speedy PCs and Macs at the time.

medallion · April 22, 2007

NHBubba wrote:

Slightly OT.. do you think that Apple will release OS-X to non-Apple users? Do you think the days of home-spun, AMD based systems running OS-X are near? ... Gotta say, I think they'd have a customer in me! OS-X + an AMD Athlon X2.. that's just gotta rock.

I use Intel Dual core

jay · April 24, 2007

intel core duo 1.83ghz mac mini

dogwood · April 24, 2007

Just popped an AMD 2.4 GHz dual core into my box this past weekend. Haven't overclocked it (yet) but it still hums along nicely. And the dual core-- I can now do other computer stuff while batch processing hundreds of files!

mrbill62 · April 29, 2007

iMac 20" 2.16 GHz Core2Duo/2 GB RAM/500 GB HD/256 MB Video card.

Art Scott · April 30, 2007

dogwood wrote:

Just popped an AMD 2.4 GHz dual core into my box this past weekend. Haven't overclocked it (yet) but it still hums along nicely. And the dual core-- I can now do other computer stuff while batch processing hundreds of files!

Is dual core better than actuall having a dual processor board??
.....as I am being forced to upgrade very shortly and have been eyeing some new boxes but the MB and CPU have me a little bafled.....a couple of yrs ago it would have been very easy, dual amd processor ....with the rise of gaming it seems most of what I look at is mostly described as for gamers....

Damn can't vote....so mine is a 1ghz p3 512 ram.......purrs like a kitten.....well a kitten ran over by a tricycle:D

cmason · April 30, 2007

Art Scott wrote:

Is dual core better than actuall having a dual processor board??
.....as I am being forced to upgrade very shortly and have been eyeing some new boxes but the MB and CPU have me a little bafled.....a couple of yrs ago it would have been very easy, dual amd processor ....with the rise of gaming it seems most of what I look at is mostly described as for gamers....

Damn can't vote....so mine is a 1ghz p3 512 ram.......purrs like a kitten.....well a kitten ran over by a tricycle:D

Art: Dual processors required software to handle all the timings, handoff, and management of overhead of the two processors. In fact, very few managed to be customized to handle them...mostly CAD and a few others programs, I think Photoshop included.

Dual core is effectively transparent to software, as the cores are very deep in the hardware layer, and they do not need the same management as dual processors. That being said, it is possible to optimize your software to take advantage of the dual cores, but again few have so far, but it isnt really necessary.

My AMD 3000+ (Athlon) does just fine with photo editing, but load up too many intensive tasks, and it starts to slow. For example, you do not want to virus scan (or have Lightroom build previews) while trying to do much else. On the other hand, we have a dual core T5200 laptop, and when virus scanning, you never know it is doing it.

Can't vote either: AMD 3000+ Athlon...NOT 64bit

evoryware · April 30, 2007

AMD 2500+, 2GB RAM, 6800GT video. 2500+ has proved to be a workhorse and if I really needed to, I could over clock it for a lil extra juice.
XP and Vista Premium. I'll get another year out of it at least. WHen I build my next one, this will be my backup server. Probably just re-apply the thermal paste on the cpu soon so it doesn't fry.
I'm sure by the time I upgrade I'll be wondering why I waited so long.

What CPU do you use?

What CPU do you use? 92 votes

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