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New Desktop Computer build

mstauss
Hey everyone,

I'm doing some research for new computer builds for our studio (Mainly photo and a little video). Just wanted to pull everyone and see two things:
1. What is the base suggested build you would run (minimum specs to run C1 7 without any performance bugs).
2. If you could build your dream desktop for shooting what would it be? (Please don't say Mac...I'm trying that already but they won't approve! lol)

Would really like to get a starting point/baseline of information for all the research I am going to be doing and thought where else should I go?! So if you have any info you would like to share, I would greatly appreciate it! Thanks for all your help.
Matt
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Comments

5 comments

Date Votes
  • Permanently deleted user
    Hi

    I would go for the best combination of CPU, GPU money can buy, especially CPU, and lots of RAM, minimum of 16GB. I built my system a few weeks ago, 1st I did go to i5-3570K and it was quite terrible, even OC'ed up to 4.4Ghz. Luckily, I could changed the CPU as an upgrade and got i7-3770K. It's a lot better, and the HT is very noticeable, but only after I OC'ed the CPU up to 4.4Ghz, it's working good, but even at that point, it's not 100% real time when doing adjustments (exporting on the other hand in blazingly fast). CO7 it's very CPU hungry and you need a serious HW investment. More than i7-3770K I couldn't afford/available to invest, but if this isn't an issue, I could go to Sandy Bridge-E, 3930K. It is optimized to use all the cores and threads the CPU has, up to 32 as far as I know, and will utilize all of them at 100% to make the job done as soon as possible.

    When it comes to GPU, 7000 Series from AMD, the top ones will make a good difference in performance. Unfortunately, I can't give an opinion in regards to nVidia, I don't know them so well in order to say something.

    The performance of the system when it comes to the working workflow also depends on what type of RAW files you're post-processing. One thing is to work on 8MP files, and other thing when working with, let's say 25MP ones, and also if you make a lot of adjustments or a few of them. When the workflow on an image tends to be more complex, it will not be that fast. Every pixel of the image has to be recalculated through the pipeline I presume, and this is very computing intensive.

    As a final note, I wouldn't go for the minimum specs. It will give you headaches and frustration. Before this system I had an old E2220 CPU and 4GB of RAM and wouldn't want to work in CO7. After around 20-30minutes, CO7 being the only application opened, it would gave me errors when it comes to RAM that it's not enough, Windows automatically tries to free up a little RAM and ended up blocking Capture One, the final solution being to "end task" the CO7 through Task Manager and going all over again. This is real pain using a minimum spec system, or let's say, with today CPU's, going for an i3 one.
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  • Paul Steunebrink
    I would like to add a SSD instead of HDD to the previous comments.
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  • NNN634863802867218057
    BE careful of program performance with C1 on windows.
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  • SFA
    Needing to upgrade hardware for both C1 and another application that is having to change its core database handling engine and processing in order to make future advances I recently bought, as a first step, a new Notebook. It seems to be performing very well. I imagine it would be possible to make it faster but I'm not sure that it would be very noticable how much faster in practical terms. It also seems to be very stable so far.

    The basic spec is:

    i7 3820QM
    8GB RAM (2x4GB 1600Mhz DDR3)
    512GB SSD, SATA3
    Win 7Pro SP1
    Graphics handles by onboard Intel HD Graphics 4000 or Nvidia Quadro K1000M

    The spec as is might not have been exactly what I would have selected but was quite close. It is a Dell Precision bought pre-configured through the Dell Outlet. The price was very competitive for the specification. The processor and Quadro card would be at a higher spec. if bought today.

    This seems to give very satisfactory performance with my Canon RAW files from various cameras. The files are typically somewhere between 12Mb and 24Mb. I have run a few example larger RAW files from more recent cameras through the system and did not notice any worrying difference in performance - however that is not a very scientific assessment!

    Although I plan to expand the RAM as part of the testing requirement for my other software application C1, running as the primary application on the system with not much else going on, does not seem to push the limits of the current 8GB. In fact it usually tops out at around 5Gb as far as my monitoring has been concerned.

    I have experimented (for the other application) with turning off Hyperthreading in the BIOS. That appeared to slow C1 a little but not very much. The Graphics card is not a high performer but can be seen to be working in those situation in which it is currently intended to work. It is rarely reported as more then 20 to 30 percent busy although it is possible to see the occasional sharp peak to around 50% utilisation (mainly on the RAM).

    I do wonder how much the underlying selection of basic hardware (quality of motherboard and other components) influences the overall success of the package. For Dell the Precision range is a premium product and I suppose there is potential for the performance to be enhanced by the choice of components in way that go beyond what one might expect based on CPU/Memory/GPU alone. I'm not saying that as a promotion for Dell but more as an observation about possible functional benefits that are not so easy to select from the spec. options.

    Bear in mind this s not a heavily populated machine in a softwar sense - no RAID, few background programs keeping it "safe". Currently I have only used it with the standard screen, not an external monitor so I am not pushing the graphics handling. The SSD is about half full and I need to think about moving older projects on to an external drive.

    I have tried tethering (not something I use often these days) and it seemed to work fine tested mainly with my Canon 1D3 with a quick check using a 600D for the lower end of the Canon model range.

    I expect to get a desktop configuration at some point - in fact I had started to spec that before I discovered the notebook availability. With what I have found with this spec I would be looking at an equivalent or higher i7 CPU, 16Gb RAM (especially if expecting to run other applications at the same time) and probably something at the upper middle range of GPU performance as a minimum and likely to upgrade that when I move to newer cameras producing larger (and likely more detailed) files. (Actually I may not bother with that - I'm finding a lot of advantages re-visiting older files with V7 .... 😄 )

    As always, your expectation and experiences may vary but this spec and configuration works well for me and I would imagine it should be possible obtain at least similar performance results using other brands for desktop machine or perhaps notebooks by considering the offering from companies specialising in gaming machine specs for notebooks where you have greater choice of components to juggle with.

    One final observation.

    I'm not sure how much the specification could be reduced, in any major component area, without adversely affecting the performance. I suspect that a less i7 might be OK but not something too much older. I am assuming that my base spec machine is probably using what would have been top spec system stuff form about 12 months. A 2 or 3 year old version of the machine would not offer the same performance. On the other hand a system specified today should offer a little more or, maybe, could be slightly loer specced (in term relative to the current range of options) and still perform well. That might not be true of the SSD where a fast READ and WRITE performance seems to be very important and central to good operational speed. Fortunately the costs of SSDs seems to be dropping nicely for our purposes at the moment. It's just a pity that the MSata spec seems to limit speeds . MSata disks may need to be used carefully within a total configuration.

    Sorry for the length of the reply but I hope that the content provides some useful information for people to consider (and perhaps reject!) at this point in time. I guess it will all change within about 6 months.


    Grant Perkins
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  • Glenn101
    I ran a i7 over clocked to 3.6GB for 4 years with no problems and good performance until the motherboard had a problem. I decided to build a new rig and with Tom's Hardware award winning setup. This time I went with an AMD 8350 processor, Asus Sabertooth 990FX R2 motherboard, Noctua 6 Heatpipe and 16GB of Corsaid Vengeance RAM. I went with the Asus board because it has good performance and has a 5 year warranty.

    I used my existing Coolermaster case, AMD 7770 Video card, Curcial 256 SSD, three internal hard drives, DVD and BD optical drives. Without any over clocking the system runs a 4300+ GB @35C with no problems. Win7 (64 bit) system boots in less than 35 seconds and is very very quite.
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