4790k Hack vs. Dual Quad 2.66 Xeon Mac Pro?

Hello, all.

I've been using my Mac Pro 1,1 happily for nearly a decade now. It's been the most reliable and awesome machine I've ever owned. Over the years, I have upgraded to 24 GB's RAM, all-SSD setup, CPU's to 2.66 octo-core, and GPU to GTX-570. I have done all the hacks to keep the machine current and running Yosemite.

I've recently started using Adobe Lightroom CC heavily, and also want to delve more deeply into Photoshop. For the first time, I get the feeling that the beast is not quite up to the task. Its not terrible, just not the same snappy response that I've become accustomed to over the years. Work in the develop module in Lightroom, in particular, can get a bit painful (even with Lightroom's new GPU acceleration feature enabled--which I usually leave turned off).

The 2013 Mac Pro, as I would configure it, is way out of the price range of an amateur, enthusiast photographer. But I do want to keep using OS X. Seems I can build a Z97/4790k system for a very reasonable price. My monitors are already awesome, so no upgrade cost there. Would I notice a significant performance difference between my current 8-core system, and an overclocked 4790k system? I hesitate to drop from 8 to 4 cores, but the clock speed differential is pretty extreme--not to mention the much more modern processor.

Any feedback appreciated. Thanks.

Coming from a a Mac Pro 1,1 you'd see a major speed boost in single core tasks when you
upgrade to a 4790K. If you take a look at the Geekbench 3 scores you'l see why that is.
Graphics in a new Haswell system will perform much better. 32 GB of overclocked DDR3
ram will also greatly help to speed up your workflow.

Since this is a hobby and not a business and time is not a critical factor in your work, I would
go with the Z97 - 4790K system. Spending a thousand dollars more on an X99 system that
would require DDR4 ram and a 5-600 dollar CPU may get you a few more years of use out
of the system but I don't think you need to go that route, especially if you are on a limited
budget for this build.

I'm a professional photographer and I use Lightroom daily.

Here's what I can tell you:

1. Lightroom barely takes advantage of multiple cores, and for many workflows, it actually benefits from higher clock speed more than it does from multiple cores.

This analysis is one of many that documents this: Choosing the right CPU for Adobe Lightroom CC/6. An excerpt:

Recommended CPUs for Lightroom CC/6

• Intel Core i7 4790K 4.0GHz Quad Core 8MB 88W
• Intel Core i7-5930K 3.5GHz Six Core 15MB 140W or
• Intel Xeon E5-1650 V3 3.5GHz Six Core 15MB 140W
• Intel Xeon E5-1680 V3 3.2GHz Eight Core 20MB 140W

Which CPU is best for you is going to depend on a number of factors including what you do in Lightroom, what other programs you use, which chipset you want to use and how much system RAM you need. The Intel Core i7 4790K is by far the most affordable of the four CPUs and while it may be slower for exporting photos and generating 1:1 previews than the other CPUs for almost anything else in Lightroom it will actually be the fastest. However, the chipset it uses can only have at most 32GB of system RAM. This is more than enough for Lightroom, but if you use other programs that need more RAM it may not be the best choice for you.

If you need more RAM, one of the other CPUs may be a better option. The Xeon E5-1680 V3 is a good choice if you hate waiting for exports to finish while the Xeon E5-1650 V3 or Core i7-5930K (which have identical performance) are both very balanced options.

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2. My own setup: i7 4790k at 4.29GHz, 32GB 1600 MHz DDR3,, GeForce GTX770 w 2GB GDDR5. Lightroom runs on my boot drive, which is a pair of Crucial M500 240GB mSATAs in RAID0. My catalog is on 4x 240GB Seagate 600 SSDs, configured as RAID0 striped software array (1TB usable capacity; the catalog and all associated RAW files tend to hover around 750GB in size.)

Lightroom 6 runs very, very fast.

This machine was built up over time — I've added memory, storage capacity (including some insane SAS arrays attached to dedicated RAID HBAs for backup/cloning), and GPU performance (used to be a GeForce GTX760 w 1GB). I can say with zero hesitation that the single upgrade that made the most difference in Lightroom's speed was running the catalog and RAW files off of crazy-fast storage. All other upgrades were incremental at best.

In other words:
The "bargain" CPU (and board!) choice is plenty fast, especially if you keep it adequately cooled. Spend your money on SSD capacity and speed. To go for an X99 system with Xeon chips would cost you way more for the board and the chips, and you'd end up with a machine that'd actually be slower in most cases. Putting that money into 2-4 high-capacity, high-speed SSDs will give you far more bang for the buck, at least as far as Lightroom is concerned.

The "bargain" CPU (and board!) choice is plenty fast, especially if you keep it adequately cooled. Spend your money on SSD capacity and speed. To go for an X99 system with Xeon chips would cost you way more for the board and the chips, and you'd end up with a machine that'd actually be slower in most cases. Putting that money into 2-4 high-capacity, high-speed SSDs will give you far more bang for the buck, at least as far as Lightroom is concerned.

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+1 fast SSD storage and adequate ram are the two main components that don't get enough attention
when designing a photo editing build. Most folks are too concerned with how many cores their CPU
has instead of the ram and storage they buy. The 6 and 8 Core CPUs are really best for 4K video
editing and rendering but aren't really that necessary for photo editing apps.