For Lightroom and Photoshop

[snaphappy]

Hey guys! This is my first post. I own Snap Happy Photography and I shoot 30-40 weddings a year. Currently processing everything on an iMac with an SSD, 32GB of ram, and an i7.

I shoot with a D800, so each picture in raw is 50-70MB, and each wedding gallery has 800-3000 raw images, just depending on the length of the wedding. Every picture is adjusted in Lightroom and then immediately opened in Photoshop for final adjustments, then saved.

Based on what I've learned so far, I really need the fastest processor, cores aren't really a factor. Lightroom never uses more than one core and the adjustments I make in photoshop are fairly simple, so I'm pretty the same can be said for photoshop.

1) So here are my questions, is there a hackintosh processor that's just for speed, without all the cores?

2) Can I buy a modded Mac Pro case from eBay and use that? Gotta keep the studio pretty I've seen them on eBay for $75 or so.

3) I plan to buy the PCIe SSD from OWC. But I've been reading that a raid with 3-4 fast SSD's would be faster. I don't know a lot about raids. Cost isn't really an issue, I just want whatever is fastest. What would you do?

4) I don't own a darn thing that runs thunderbolt, but if the industry goes that direction, I can just add thunderbolt later in one of the PCIe slots, right?

5) Speaking of, I plan to use the Thunderbolt Display, so maybe I do need thunderbolt? Or will a mini display port cable via the GPU be fine?

I should also mention that this machine will never have a game installed on it. Safari, Mail, photo editing, that's it

Also, feel free to discourage me if this isn't something you'd advise to someone who makes a living using a Mac, ha!

 

[trs96]

Hey guys! This is my first post. I own Snap Happy Photography and I shoot 30-40 weddings a year. Currently processing everything on an iMac with an SSD, 32GB of ram, and an i7.

What is the main problem with your iMac, looks like a good configuration for photo editing ? Is it just that old age has caught up with it ?

I shoot with a D800, so each picture in raw is 50-70MB, and each wedding gallery has 800-3000 raw images, just depending on the length of the wedding. Every picture is adjusted in Lightroom and then immediately opened in Photoshop for final adjustments, then saved.

Based on what I've learned so far, I really need the fastest processor, cores aren't really a factor. Lightroom never uses more than one core and the adjustments I make in photoshop are fairly simple, so I'm pretty the same can be said for photoshop.
1) So here are my questions, is there a hackintosh processor that's just for speed, without all the cores?

The fastest is the I7-4770K (which you can also over clock) or the I7-4771 @ 3.5 GHz.

2) Can I buy a modded Mac Pro case from eBay and use that? Gotta keep the studio pretty I've seen them on eBay for $75 or so.

Yes, see the Case Mods section under the Workshop section of the forum. There are also some
very nice looking PC cases that you can build with that aren't the common big black box design.

3) I plan to buy the PCIe SSD from OWC. But I've been reading that a raid with 3-4 fast SSD's would be faster. I don't know a lot about raids. Cost isn't really an issue, I just want whatever is fastest. What would you do?

I'd go with the PCI-E SSD.

4) I don't own a darn thing that runs thunderbolt, but if the industry goes that direction, I can just add thunderbolt later in one of the PCIe slots, right?

It may be possible if you buy a board that is Intel certified for that option.

5) Speaking of, I plan to use the Thunderbolt Display, so maybe I do need thunderbolt? Or will a mini display port cable via the GPU be fine?

You can use the onboard display port or a video card with a display port output.

Check out the CustoMac Pro (socket 1150) in the buyer's guide and look on the Gigabyte site for all
the details about the I/O on each of the Z87 motherboards. One of the I7-4770's is the way to go.

I should also mention that this machine will never have a game installed on it. Safari, Mail, photo editing, that's it

Also, feel free to discourage me if this isn't something you'd advise to someone who makes a living using a Mac

The newer late 2013 iMacs with the PCI-E SSDs are testing out almost as good as the 8 core New
Mac Pro when using many of the Adobe programs. Check out this quote from Dan Frakes of Macworld:

"Though I certainly wouldn’t refuse a new Mac Pro if Macworld’s IT staff placed one on my desk, if I was given $3000 to spend on a desktop Mac, I’d be hard-pressed to pick the entry-level Mac Pro instead of a 27-inch iMac with 3.5GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 processor, 32GB of RAM, a 3TB Fusion Drive, and an Nvidia GeForce GTX 780M GPU. Given my daily computing needs, the iMac would be competitive in performance, would include a great 27-inch display, and would occupy even less space on my desk than a Mac Pro with a separate display."

Of course you can build an I7 CustoMac pro for about $1000 dollars less than the maxed out iMac.

This is the only TB 2 certified motherboard available right now from Newegg that you can build a
CustoMac Pro with: http://www.anandtech.com/show/7587/thunderbolt-2-certified-on-gigabyte-z87xup7-th

There are no user builds with it yet, Stork, I believe, is working on one as soon as he gets the UD7-Th.
He will post a detailed user build on that likely sometime in January. Generally people new to this
will follow a user build with the same hardware to have a successful build. That would be my advice,
order the 4770K and one of these UD7-TH boards and start working on the PC build. That will take
some time if you've never built your own before. There's a lot of terminology to learn here and guides
for installation to study, kind of like going back to school again. So don't be in a hurry to get it done,
take your time and do the research so you'll be prepared when the time comes to install OS X.

Here's an example of a $1600 build you could do with the supplier being Newegg. You'd also have to
add in the cost of the PCI-E SSD you would buy from OWC.


You'd also need to add in a 30-40 dollar cpu cooler if you go the overclocking route with
the 4770K cpu. Check the buyer's guide for some choices.

Best of luck on your build

 

[snaphappy]

Wow you covered just about everything, thank you so much!

Can you help me understand something about Geekbench scores?

I just bought and ran Geekbench 3 on my iMac, my single core score was 3176. The top single core scores are Hackintoshes but they're not significantly higher than mine - or are they? I'm seeing scores near 5000 as the top. So not even double what I have. Is that a good way of thinking about it? the 4770K you mentioned is the best, but it's not even twice as fast as mine? Or am I failing to to understand how the test works?

Thanks again!

Here's my score: http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/compare/293217?baseline=293217

 

[trs96]

It's easy to get too caught up with numbers and synthetic testing like Geekbench. What really matters
is what is slowing down your daily workflow on your iMac. Since it is almost 3 years old the newer
Haswell parts will be about the best you could do as far as speeding things up. If you were to also
over clock to 4.0 GHz or above that would make your work with photos a lot faster too. Second to
that the PCI-e SSD should make a huge difference in how fast you can open up programs and
picture files.

So if you really want to invest in a new build it's a good idea or if you can get by one more year with the iMac it looks like Broadwell in latter 2014 will be an even bigger performance boost than Haswell was.

 

[snaphappy]

It's easy to get too caught up with numbers and synthetic testing like Geekbench. What really matters
is what is slowing down your daily workflow on your iMac. Since it is almost 3 years old the newer
Haswell parts will be about the best you could do as far as speeding things up. If you were to also
over clock to 4.0 GHz or above that would make your work with photos a lot faster too. Second to
that the PCI-e SSD should make a huge difference in how fast you can open up programs and
picture files.

So if you really want to invest in a new build it's a good idea or if you can get by one more year with the iMac it looks like Broadwell in latter 2014 will be an even bigger performance boost than Haswell was.

Ok, so I'm slowly learning. I cannot tell you how much I appreciate your help! I've done quite a bit of research lately about Lightroom and Photoshop - and they do use multiple cores! Lightroom uses up to six cores currently. I even installed a CPU monitor on my iMac and watched Lightroom utilize all four cores and even all eight, via hyper threading.

Right now I just need to make sure that I'm going to see a significant performance boost to justify the time involved. Investing the money isn't a concern, but I'm assuming this whole process is going to take some serious time. If I have a much faster workflow in the end it will be worth it.

I'm going to keep digging!

 

[Slayerizer]

Wow you covered just about everything, thank you so much!

Can you help me understand something about Geekbench scores?

I just bought and ran Geekbench 3 on my iMac, my single core score was 3176. The top single core scores are Hackintoshes but they're not significantly higher than mine - or are they? I'm seeing scores near 5000 as the top. So not even double what I have. Is that a good way of thinking about it? the 4770K you mentioned is the best, but it's not even twice as fast as mine? Or am I failing to to understand how the test works?

Thanks again!

Here's my score: http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/compare/293217?baseline=293217

hi, I'm still not getting the 'why' you want to get a hackintosh for. I have an old iMac 2008 with 6GB of ram and it's fast for any web and office related stuff. I do own Lightroom 5 with a D7100 and have big raw files. Hackintosh needs special care everytime there is an operating system update. You need to do a full backup, install updates, re-install patches, repair filesystem and prey that everything works again. My GB3 score is 14900 on my hackintosh with an i7-3770k. I think this would be a waste of money and time for your needs. There is no need to overclock, my machine barely uses 40% cpu when I apply effects.

Make sure your iMac have plenty of ram and invest on fast storage, you should be good.