Inspiring

Question

Choosing a computer processor ..?

Forum|Forum|7 years ago
February 10, 2019
6 replies
1004 views

Hi,, I work with Logic Pro X, Photoshop, Premiere, and After Effects. My current computer (2009 iMac) is slow[edited by moderator] and I'm looking to make a serious upgrade (thinking iMac Pro) .. But it's still unclear to me what would be an ideal processor to choose, particularly in terms of "cores." Some folks have said "the more cores the better".. while others (including an Apple representative) have said "no more than 2 cores are necessary" (which is particularly odd because my current decade-old iMac already has 4 cores).. Anyways, any guidance would be much appreciated, thnx!

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T

Test Screen Name

Legend

If you get a change to test it, use the Application Monitor to see what the computer is ACTUALLY running out of.

Is the disk 100% active? The CPU (or CPUs)? All cores vs one core? The GPU? The RAM?

Without this info you'll just be throwing money into a pit without knowing whether there was any point.

Peru Bob

Community Expert

moved from Photoshop to Hardware Forum

D Fosse

Community Expert

...or to sum it all up: what you want is a balanced system with no obvious bottleneck in any part. No help in a fast CPU if the data are waiting in line for IO because the scratch disk is slow.

If you have a fast system drive, like the new PCI-e M.2 SSDs, then RAM isn't as important as it used to be. This removes what used to be the narrowest bottleneck (the scratch disk) - so then you look for the next bottleneck, and the next. In the end they should all balance out.

BTW, Trevor, I'm sure you're right about multithreading. But whenever I pull up Task Manager, I see the load evenly distributed over the 4 cores and 8 virtual cores. I don't think I have ever seen Photoshop use just one or two cores (but maybe I missed it). When does that happen, specifically?

dmiraieAuthor

Inspiring

Thanks,,

regarding Premiere, I had a chance to test a baseline iMac Pro, and found that my Premiere project rendered 5.4x faster than my current computer (30 mins vs. 2.7 hours)..

What I'm wondering is what could I do to possibly further improve that '30 min' time without significantly adversely affecting Photoshop or Logic Pro X.. (aka more cores = slower clock speed)

Here is what Apple offers in terms of CPU:

Conrad_C

Community Expert

dmiraie wrote
What I'm wondering is what could I do to possibly further improve that '30 min' time without significantly adversely affecting Photoshop or Logic Pro X.. (aka more cores = slower clock speed)

I see your concern in that the CPU base clock speeds range from 2.3GHz to 3.2Ghz, with more cores having lower base clock speeds. But they all Turbo Boost up to a similar 4.2 to 4.5GHz range. This suggests that adding cores will not compromise single-core performance too much on an iMac Pro, assuming the cooling system is effective.

The answer would be different for a laptop. Because the ultrathin profile limits their cooling, they run hotter and can't maintain Turbo Boost clock speed for as long as a well-cooled desktop. So on a MacBook Pro the base clock speed tends to matter more than the Turbo Boost speed, while on a desktop the Turbo Boost clock speed should apply more. But someone who has actually used an iMac Pro should confirm that the cooling system lets it hit Turbo Boost speeds for a longer time.

I'm also not sure if any Adobe software can use effectively more than 10 cores of the base iMac Pro, maybe that's all you need.

T

Test Screen Name

Legend

How much RAM do you have? Processor may be important, but if you don’t have enough RAM, things will go much more slowly than if your CPU is a bit slow. Type and number of disks is also important.

Trevor.Dennis

Community Expert

With Photoshop, processor speed is most important. Few Photoshop functions use all available threads.

Premiere Pro, After Effects and other video apps do use all available threads, and can cause your system to get pretty hot.

So, as to what is currently the best CPU, well I guess it depends on what the bulk of your work is. Go for a many cored CPU by all means, but try and pick one with a good turbo speed for one or two of its cores.

To get a real world idea about how hardware performs with content creation apps, have a read through the Puget Systems articles

https://www.pugetsystems.com/all_articles.php

This article might interest you as it include Mac Pro results.

If you do a lot with Premiere Pro and AE, then the best place to ask is in the Premiere Pro Hardware Forum Those guys really know their stuff.

Conrad_C

Community Expert

There is no blanket answer. It depends on the software you're using and the media you're editing (photo, video, audio). For example, more cores help Lightroom, with some operations, up to 6 cores. Some Photoshop operations use more cores, but on others, the bottleneck is in another part of the system.

Generally, your next computer’s CPU should have 4 or more cores because Premiere and After Effects will need them most of all. Logic Pro X and Photoshop will also take advantage of them, but to a lesser extent. Two cores is considered too few for most professional graphics and video software today, no matter what that Apple representative said.

But with everything you mentioned, cores are not the end of the story. They have to be balanced, with the RAM amount, storage speed, and graphics hardware, for the specific applications you are using. For example, if you were using DaVinci Resolve to edit video, the system requirements would be even higher.

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