Help me make my Mac Pro (4,1) faster

[Noctilux.95]

I'm looking to increase performance at a good value. Recent addition of a camera with 40MP file going through Aperture 3 and CS5 has slowed it down a bit.

My specs are below.

2009 Mac Pro 4,1
2.66 Quad Core Xeon
16GB RAM
OWC 240 GB SSD (3G)
3 Conventional 7200 RPS HD's
Radeon 5770 Video Card

Thanks!

 

[cutterman]

I suspect you are CPU (and possibly memory) bound. However the best way to figure this out is to monitor the system during your workflow. Install menumeters or open activity monitor and check CPU utilization and memory pageouts.

PS- did you just get the Nikon D800?

 

[Noctilux.95]

I suspect you are CPU (and possibly memory) bound. However the best way to figure this out is to monitor the system during your workflow. Install menumeters or open activity monitor and check CPU utilization and memory pageouts.

PS- did you just get the Nikon D800?

No, I have 2-5D3's and a Hasselblad H4D 40 (40MP)

 

[Inconsequential]

Monitor pageouts for a start.

Then buy a W3680.

 

[thekev]

I suspect you are CPU (and possibly memory) bound. However the best way to figure this out is to monitor the system during your workflow. Install menumeters or open activity monitor and check CPU utilization and memory pageouts.

PS- did you just get the Nikon D800?

Memory pageouts aren't as evident at least in PS. PS can address pretty massive amounts of memory depending on how you work. I have no idea on bit depth or number of layers the OP is using. Certain types of layers lag it to hell too, especially the exposure adjustment layers, not that you should really need them most of the time. 40MP cameras are nothing new, but I find it a little surprising that it's getting laggy on that machine. CS4 and 5 used OpenGL drawing assuming it's enabled. That thing is always a little laggy with large files, no matter what you're using.

No, I have 2-5D3's and a Hasselblad H4D 40 (40MP)

I always liked Hasselblad, but I've never been big on their software. The old adaptation of the imacon scanner software sucked. Phocus is a bit better, and its presets are quite nice, but it was still a little laggy last time I used it.

What do you shoot? What palettes do you keep up? History state number? How much is open at once? There are a lot of factors. Usually ram is the most common factor in slowdown there, but your drive setup should be fast enough to pick up the slack. Can you mention any more detail on how you're working? You've got a decent amount of ram, but depending on what you're doing, it can fill up anyway. I'd check your PS settings to make sure PS doesn't starve Aperture. Overall this may take a little bit of testing to track down.

Monitor pageouts for a start.

Then buy a W3680.

That might give him a little extra speed, but I imagine most of the time he'd notice it more in Aperture or processing in Phocus or whatever he uses than PS.

 

[derbothaus]

That might give him a little extra speed, but I imagine most of the time he'd notice it more in Aperture or processing in Phocus or whatever he uses than PS.

A little extra speed? C'mon. Photoshop loves cores up to 4 but it REALLY loves clock speed. 2.66 vs. 3.33 or 2.93 vs. 3.6. 700MHz is pretty huge for Adobe stuff + the additional overhead.

 

[thekev]

A little extra speed? C'mon. Photoshop loves cores up to 4 but it REALLY loves clock speed. 2.66 vs. 3.33 or 2.93 vs. 3.6. 700MHz is pretty huge for Adobe stuff + the additional overhead.

Adobe does like cpu power, but I dealt with files of that size years ago. The P45 at 39 MP came out in 2006 or 2007. While Photoshop has become more cpu hungry since then, my point was that the hardware has been able to handle such file sizes for a long time. I'm not arguing whether it's better. I'm just wondering if it'll address the problems the OP is having here.

 

[derbothaus]

Adobe does like cpu power, but I dealt with files of that size years ago. The P45 at 39 MP came out in 2006 or 2007. While Photoshop has become more cpu hungry since then, my point was that the hardware has been able to handle such file sizes for a long time. I'm not arguing whether it's better. I'm just wondering if it'll address the problems the OP is having here.

I see. Maybe I should grasp some context.
Chip vs. chip it is a no-brainer. Whether you can do anything more with Adobe's ability to harness anything useful is something else entirely.

 

[MacVidCards]

CS6 is leaning more on GPU than before.

Something from Nvidia with a bunch of RAM is a good idea now.

 

[Noctilux.95]

CS6 is leaning more on GPU than before.

Something from Nvidia with a bunch of RAM is a good idea now.

Hey guys I'm not having any speed issues with my Mac Pro. Just wanted to know if there are any solutions to make it faster without replacing the processor.
Just looking for an extra bump.



PS: Lightroom has all profiles for Hassy Cameras and lenses, including many V lenses.
Now I just have to switch from Aperture 3 to LR4

 

[thekev]

I see. Maybe I should grasp some context.
Chip vs. chip it is a no-brainer. Whether you can do anything more with Adobe's ability to harness anything useful is something else entirely.

Adobe applications can be weird, and there are many things that can slow them down, so if it's another factor, your benefit from the cpu will be limited. In this case the concern is because the OP is dealing with larger files than before. I'm willing to bet Lightroom would gain the most there from a faster cpu. With photoshop it always ends up being a bunch of testing for me. Certain palettes take up more ram and overall resources. Thumbnails can bog things down if you're using a lot of layers. Setting the memory allocated to PS too high can starve the rest of the system. It's just not easy to offer generic advice without seeing when and how it slows down.

Hey guys I'm not having any speed issues with my Mac Pro. Just wanted to know if there are any solutions to make it faster without replacing the processor.
Just looking for an extra bump.



PS: Lightroom has all profiles for Hassy Cameras and lenses, including many V lenses.
Now I just have to switch from Aperture 3 to LR4

It might be an issue of ram or settings, but I haven't seen how much you're running at once or the real behavior of the machine. You only mentioned that it slows down since you went to larger files. I don't know anything about if you're running both at once or layers used and general workflow. You never mentioned what you're shooting (I was curious).

 

[Noctilux.95]

Adobe applications can be weird, and there are many things that can slow them down, so if it's another factor, your benefit from the cpu will be limited. In this case the concern is because the OP is dealing with larger files than before. I'm willing to bet Lightroom would gain the most there from a faster cpu. With photoshop it always ends up being a bunch of testing for me. Certain palettes take up more ram and overall resources. Thumbnails can bog things down if you're using a lot of layers. Setting the memory allocated to PS too high can starve the rest of the system. It's just not easy to offer generic advice without seeing when and how it slows down.



It might be an issue of ram or settings, but I haven't seen how much you're running at once or the real behavior of the machine. You only mentioned that it slows down since you went to larger files. I don't know anything about if you're running both at once or layers used and general workflow. You never mentioned what you're shooting (I was curious).

I shoot food, editorial, and weddings. Use a Hassy H4D 40, 50 3.5, 100 2.2, Aperture 3. Just haven't had the chance to learn Phocus.

 

[thekev]

I shoot food, editorial, and weddings. Use a Hassy H4D 40, 50 3.5, 100 2.2, Aperture 3. Just haven't had the chance to learn Phocus.

Oh dude it's really really simple. I mean it gives good starting results with very little adjustment as the profiles are excellent. I haven't compared it to Lightroom too much, but it's much better than flexcolor was. I hated flexcolor. I haven't dealt with it for processing in large volume, so I'm not sure of the efficiency, but the quality is nice.