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'Real World' Photoshop Benchmark - Speed Test

Dual 2.7
6GB RAM
PS2 Stock history and cache
100% RAM usage
2GB RAMDISK Scratchdisk
10K Raptor 2ndary scratch/startup

1:02 seconds

With one history state:

51 seconds!
49 seconds!

I can only imagine a quad machine with a ramdisk setup.
 
MacPro 2.66|2GB ram|250GB WD|320GB Seagate 7200.10|7300gt

Photoshop CS1, 70% memory, 4 cache levels

20 history states: 2:14
1 history state: 1:21

no other apps open, fresh restart both times.
 
can this be?

hello all...new member, first post

1m. 39sec.

G4 Dual 1.4Mhz, 2GB Ram, 2 x 400 gb wd hd's in raid 0

I also tested on a PC

2m. 2sec

AMD fx-53 (2.2Mhz) 2 GB Ram, 2 x 120 gb wd hd's in Raid 0
 
now that there's a fix for the sata problem, has anyone tried this test using PS under XP? or better yet, has anyone found any benchmarks for the mac pro when running windows?
 
TheFuzz said:
now that there's a fix for the sata problem, has anyone tried this test using PS under XP? or better yet, has anyone found any benchmarks for the mac pro when running windows?
Click to expand...

i would think all bench tests that i run for my PC will work for the mac pro using windows...

super pi
prime95
all 3d mark tests
aqua mark
 
I just ran the test om my overclocked opteron gaming rig...

the rig:
Opteron 175 (dual core 2.2Mhz w/1MB L2 cache ea. core)
2 GB Ram
2 sata wd 120's in Raid 0
BFg 7900GTX 512
XP Pro sp2

the score:

54 secs.
 
PowerBook G4 12" 1.5 GHz 1.25 GB RAM 80 GB 5400RPM Toshiba HD (mostly full)

PS 9.02, default settings (except history states)

Running Finder, Dashboard and PS only

5m16s (1 history state)
7m32s (20 history states)

In real, "felt speed", Photoshop is actually quite snappy on here. What is not is Lightroom, which seems surprisingly resource-intensive. I think I'm going to have to go back to regular Adobe Camera RAW for my RAW conversions...
 
I did some very thorough tests on the Mac Pro (2 x 2.66 GHz) where I tried 4 variations of memory size. I tested about 6-8 times for each variation.

I should mention that I did not quit any 'Login Items' since I was rebooting 20-30 times. These apps were left on through all tests (Login Items are mainly: Quicksilver, some Stuffit thing and LittleSnitch).



Also I kept the same setting through all tests:
- Scratch: startup disk
- History States: 20
- Memory Usage: 70%

One surprise was that first runs of tests were always a lot slower (first test after starting Photoshop). Second test (without restarting Photoshop) were faster so I list them seperate. All times are average times of many runs.


1GB RAM (2x512MB) - The standard config
- First tests: 3:28
- Next tests: 3:12

3GB RAM (2x1GB & 2x512MB)
- First tests: 2:11
- Next tests: 2:01

4GB RAM (4x1GB)
- First tests: 1:59
- Next tests: 1:52

5GB RAM (4x1GB & 2x512MB)
- First tests: 2:15
- Next tests: 2:05

So what I have heard about photoshop not liking more than 4GB might be true. Or... another explanation I have also heard about 4 sticks of RAM giving most performance is maybe righþ



I also ran some "tweaked" tests in the following settings:
- Scratch: second drive (Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 250GB)
- History States: 1
- Memory Usage: 100%

4GB RAM - Only did this test on 4GB since it came out a winner. This gave the following times:
- First tests: 1:25
- Next tests: 1:16

So I must say that I am very impressed with the performance of Mac Pro with 4GB RAM. Even while running in Rosetta it gives great speed!
 
orangephoto said:
8:13

on a powerbook G4 1.67GHz, 1GB ram, CS2 all default settings

i feel so slow...
Click to expand...

I wonder why the other Powerbook users are getting such slow times? On my Rev D 1.5GHz Powerbook G4 with 1.5GB RAM (70% allocated to PS) and stock 64MB vid card, I am getting 3:03 after setting history states to 1 and disabling auto snapshot. No where near a match for my Mac Pro (despite Rosetta handicap), but much better than other PB users here seem to be reporting :confused: .

thecrackpipe said:
Photoshop CS1

Times;
History States 20: 1:00
History States 1: 0:34

Setup:
Quad Core G5 2.5GHz
4GB RAM
1TB Level 0+1 Xserve RAID (boot and cache drive)
Quadro FX 4500
OS X 10.4.7

Especially with the history levels turned up this is much more a test of IO than of CPU speed.
Click to expand...

Wow, 34 seconds! What is IO?
 
Mac Pro results: Boot Camp XP versus Rosetta

Okay, I finally got around to running this on my Mac Pro, which is the 2.66GHz model with 2GB Apple RAM (4 x 512MB), 7300 GT model. The OS X/Rosetta test and XP/Boot Camp tests were both done with history states set to 1 and 70% of the RAM allocated to Photoshop. Windows was installed using the method posted in the forums (using nLite to embed the SATA drivers into the XP installation).

And the winner is... XP/Boot Camp! This was a bit of a surprise to me since the HD access times in Boot Camp still aren't quite up to what they should be. I guess it shouldn't have been since the OS X version was running in emulation. Photoshop took 1:24 in Rosetta and 1:00 in XP (29% faster).

Additional details of testing: Both tests were done immediately after a restart. The Windows installation is on the 250GB WD drive that came with the Mac Pro (8MB cache, 7,200 rpm). That drive is partitioned so that the OS resides on a 30GB FAT32 partition and the remainder is NTFS. Photoshop was set to use the NTFS partition as scratch disk. I'm not sure if that matters. OS X is on a separate 320GB WD drive (16MB cache, 7,200 rpm) which is unpartitioned.

I found the results quite interesting and was pleased with both Rosetta and XP performances. I continue to be pleased with the performance of my "old" G4 Powerbook, which as I mentioned above got 3:03 on this test.

Addendum: One more observation - Based on Activity Monitor, PS under Rosetta is not only taking advantage of all four cores during this test, it is using them all just about equally and at times near maximally.
 
Amin, did you reinstall WinXP yet with the proper SATA drivers slipstreamed, or are you running PIO mode still (ultraslow)?
 
This shows why people shouldn't hesitate in getting a mac right now because of Adobe not having UB apps. Those speeds are incredible. I ran this test on an AMD x2 4800+ and got :55 on Windows x64 with 2GB of RAM
 
RichP said:
Amin, did you reinstall WinXP yet with the proper SATA drivers slipstreamed, or are you running PIO mode still (ultraslow)?
Click to expand...
Rich, I slipstreamed the proper drivers, but I still think I'm getting slightly slower HD speeds in Boot Camp compared with OS X.

Habusho said:
This shows why people shouldn't hesitate in getting a mac right now because of Adobe not having UB apps. Those speeds are incredible. I ran this test on an AMD x2 4800+ and got :55 on Windows x64 with 2GB of RAM
Click to expand...
Habusho, I agree. I was reluctant, but really there is no problem. If every drop of speed is required, waiting makes sense, but for most of us this machine is up to the task!
 
Machine: Mac Pro 2x2.66Ghz | x1900 XT | 4x512GB RAM (256bit mode) | 2x2407WFP
Photoshop: History States=1 | Scratch Disk = startup

1st Run: 1:23
2nd Run: 1:17
 
amin said:
Wow, 34 seconds! What is IO?
Click to expand...

IO is short for Input Output referring to getting data in and out of the processor/s. When Photoshop runs out of ram it uses the hard disk to store the data. The Quads CPUs barely max out during any of the test. This is because the CPU is waiting for data from RAM or the cache on the hard disk. With 20 history states the situation is much worse due to the amount of data that Photoshop is working with. So for this test a fast HD is very important.
 
So why am I thinking of getting a Mac Pro?

1 min 8 sec with clean install of 10.4.7 (10 Gig used on a 300 Gig Drive)
1 min 8 sec after filling drive to 230 Gig.

Photoshop CS2

Dual 2.3
2.5 Meg Ram
Radeon 9600
Maxtor 300 Gig Diamond Max 10
 
mac pro

2.66/2GB ram/ X1900

2 mins, 58 secs

all default settings

i think the X1900 makes a big difference
 
MacPro 3.00|9GB ram|150GB Raptor startup|74GB Raptor scratch|x1900

Photoshop CS2, 6 cache levels

20 history states, 70% memory: 1:55
1 history state, 100% memory: 1:12

Bummer, still slower than my 1.8 dual G5.
 
yeah, slower now...

but if they are doing this well under rosetta, imagine when CS3 is out... jeez, it's gonna be glorious!

this has been a very interesting set of tests... thanks to all for running these.
 
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