Graphics cards and performance
Hello all, My laptop died, and I am in the process of speccing a replacement. I travel for about half the year, and use my laptop for image processing with Capture One when I am away from home.
The replacement laptop will have a 4k screen like the one that died. I am being offered a choice of RTX 4070/8GB and RTX 4080/12 GB. The price difference is substantial. I don't understand how much Capture One uses the graphics processor - can a knowledgeable person advise what (if any) performance difference I would see using Capture One with these cards? Many thanks.
Edit: since no-one has answered this yet, I'll add a supplementary question: Intel i7 or i9 for Capture One? Same question.
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This maybe doesn't help you directly to specc your system, but it might help you to understand why (probably) no one has a definite (and serious) answer:
There are many different performance measures, e.g. image preview generation, image export, response time of slider changes, using or not using specific tools, navigating between images in the viewer, scrolling through images in the browser, searching/filtering etc.
If one computer shines in one of the measures it doesn't mean it shines in all others.The graphics processor is used, more or less. It not only depends on what you do (see above) but also for some steps in the "processing pipeline" the gfx card can be used or not depeding on the sensor / camera maker. I remember Canon raw files in earlier C1 versions were processed differently, maybe still today.
Also, in a given process, it is often the weakest link which determines the overall performance, the fastest component y e.g. to process data will be relatively idle if it depends on a slower component x e.g. to deliver the data to be processed. There are posts here reporting low gfx card usage and demanding a fix from C1 though it can well be that the systems architecture cannot deliver the data via the bus system to the gfx card fast enough to actually utilize the gfx card's theoretical performance.
Or, one tool (maybe used for one image but not for another) cannot use the gfx card and will slow down the overall image process pipeline.My advice is to buy the fastest of everything if money is no issue. If it is, go for a "well balanced" computer (whatever that means).
Btw, I personally would also try to get a good CPU with many cores as sometimes it is necessary to disable the gfx card hardware acceleration.
And often, the second or third "best" has the best price/performance ratio.
Also often, more standard computers or parts are better supported than some exotic ones.
Very high-level, but maybe these considerations can help too.
Perhaps some others have more concrete advise, and if you provide more insights into the complete computer specc this could help such people too.
Also, carefully check out the C1 system requirements document, in order not to miss an important requirement (like the SSE42 instruction set of a CPU).
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Thank you @BeO for that thought-provoking response. At the moment I'm looking at a Dell XPS 17. I like Dell for the fact that they don't seem to come preloaded with as much bloatware as do laptops from some other manufacturers, and I liked the build quality on my previous XPS. Anyway, the spec currently looks like this:
i9-13900H 14 cores
RTX 4070/8 GB or 4080/12 GB GDDR6
32GB DDR5 4800 MT/S
4TB M.2 SSD
17" 3840x2400 60HzChoosing the 4080 will add several hundred dollars to the cost and I don't want to spend it if there will be no or negligible benefit.
The camera files I will be processing will mostly be Fuji RAF if that makes a difference.
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Video is a good question, I think Martin is right, many of us including me tend to overspecc.
Yes, provoking thoughts, I cannot do more than that. The questions below are more for you than for me.
I don't know if Fuji RAF files are processed faster or slower than same resolution Sony, Canon or Nikon etc files, nor do I know X-trans vs. Bayer. High-res sensors are surely processed slower when generating previews and doing exports, or when zoomed in beyond your preview size.
But, you have experiences already with your old XPS and your camera files, C1 version 23 and with 4k screen. (But not yet with the new AI feauters of C1)
Also with Windows 11? It is said to consume some more RAM than Win10.What is it what you do most in C1, or when you do it, annoys you the most if it is slower than faster? Do you work with many other applications and switch between C1 and e.g. PS a lot? If you know such answers and look at the resource utilization of your current PC (or you remember from the time the old XPS was still running), can you draw conclusions regarding single component bottlenecks?
In my country the DELL XPS price difference between RTX 4070/8 GB or 4080/12 GB is substantial too, the difference between 32GB vs. 64GB RAM not as much.
Would it annoy you more if you'd have the 4080 but most of the time it looks rather bored than hot, or if you'd see the (any) GPU is running hot and you think maybe it would have been better to go with the better one? But maybe the 4060 is bored too because other resources of the computer cannot keep up.
Would it annoy you to have more RAM then you need most of the time?
Do you need 4TB storage? Adding external storage is easier than upgrading RAM (if that's possible at all and here I don't think it is).
The i9-13900H has 6 performance cores and 8 efficiency cores, I don't know if the latter are utilized by C1 as well and how much they speed up the tasks, but I think this is a reasonable CPU. SSE4.2 is supported.
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Thank you both.
I do a small amount of video using VSDC but it's not critical to me how long it takes.
I should have mentioned that one of my Fuji cameras is a GFX 50 so the files are quite large.
I'm tending towards going for the 4080, if only because I like to keep my computers for a long time, and who knows what demands future software will make.
Maybe Dell will make up my mind for me with some good Black Friday offers...
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Supplementary comment: yes, I want a 4TB SSD. My old laptop only had a 500GB SSD (it was a lot back then). So I was obliged to keep my Capture One sessions on external drives. That definitely slowed things down, especially generating thumbnails for newly-imported images. So the plan with the new computer is to have enough spare space on the SSD to accommodate all the sessions from a six-month field trip, with external drives only being used for backups.
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Makes sense, also less huzzle with external components especially when you are on a long trip.
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I have decided to use external SSDs myself, as I want the ability to switch from slow laptop to fast PC, but I DID consider replacing internal m.2 for the same reason: data speed and no "dongles". Only after I actually measured performance of my laptop I have noticed that the best approach for me currently would be to sprint to PC to be able to do work efficiently...
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