AMD for Lightroom 5 desktop?

Hallsy

Hallsy

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My laptop is getting too old now and struggles with LR3.

I'm planning to build a new desktop and upgrade to LR5.

I have the basics of the system sorted, but can't decide on best route for cpu/mobo.

I'd like to build this as cheaply as possible, not looking for a power hungry gaming setup, just something that will run LR5 at a usable rate, very occasionally Photoshop - but no gaming.

I have been considering either an AMD FX-6300 or maybe one of the A8 or A10 7000 series APU's. The fx-6300 is probably the better performer, but the A8/A10 would be more energy efficient - but obviously no good if they're not well suited to LR5.

Does anyone on here use an AMD build? Or am I better off paying the extra for Intel i5?

If so, is there anything out there that might be a better buy second hand? I need to get something built up ASAP, but can't afford to spend a packet.

I'll be using an SSD for os & programs, and a 1tb hdd for general storage. Was planning on using 8gb of RAM.

Any advice would be much appreciated:)
 
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An AMD APU is the best if your not adding a separate GPU, if you are definitly get an i3 upwards.
 
I think AMD lost it a while back. Take a look at the graphs on these pages: http://www.cpu-world.com/Compare/365/AMD_A8-Series_A8-6600K_vs_Intel_Core_i5_i5-4460.html and http://www.cpu-world.com/Compare/361/AMD_FX-Series_FX-6300_vs_Intel_Core_i5_i5-4460.html

The single threaded performance (which is what you do most of the time) is not great. AMD make up for pants individual performance with lots of cores (and still lose out IMHO).

As to graphics, I'd normally say just go onboard these days unless you have a couple of big monitors to drive. The processing performance needed by the stuff we do as photographers is easily handled by onboard (or any decent variety) The only caveat is that with 8G of memory, you will lose some system memory as it gets shared with the graphics.
 
Thanks for the advice.

On board graphics was a given as I had read the LR does not utilise a graphics card, but PS does.

I had initially looked at AMD after seeing these bench mark scores for LR4.2 (half way down the page), and the FX-8350 looked comparable to the i5's:

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/fx-8350-8320-6300-4300_7.html

I realise things may be different for LR5, and also that benchmarks rarely tell the full story.

I was hoping I could build something decent for around £300/350 (I already have monitor, 1tb hdd and modular PSU), but if an i5 system will be a lot better I guess that will put my budget to more like £500 - from what I've seen, most i5 mobo bundles are around £300 or more.

I did look at older or used 15's initially, but there didn't seem to be much of a cost saving.
 
I have a AMD build with a A10 7750k processor and 8GB ram and it's very fast.
AMD APU's are the way to go if your going to use on board graphics
 
so which one are you looking at the 6 core 6300 or 8 core 8350? because the 8350 is more comparable to an i7.

its generally said that the difference between i5 and i7 is about 10-15% in the real world so id expect only a small benefit between the AMD also. andy will tell you more on that, he did some testing and knows more about semi conductors than i do.
 
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neil_g said:
so which one are you looking at the 6 core 6300 or 8 core 8350? because the 8350 is more comparable to an i7.
Click to expand...

Initially the 8350, but when I looked at that benchmark, the 6300 didn't seem far behind, but was another £50 cheaper iirc. Fx-6300 is around £70.
 
Hallsy said:
I had initially looked at AMD after seeing these bench mark scores for LR4.2 (half way down the page), and the FX-8350 looked comparable to the i5's:

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/fx-8350-8320-6300-4300_7.html
Click to expand...
I expect there is little difference as file I/O is part of that and will tend to level the playing field. If you look at the benchmark, it says: "The test scenario includes post-processing and export into JPEG format of two hundred 12-megapixel images in RAW format."

The ones to look at are above. AAC encoding is true single core processing and the i5 is ~30% faster per core and as Neil said, the latest cores are faster again. It's only really where you use all cores flat out that the AMD CPUs win as they have more real cores on die. The only time I ever get my i7 flat out these days is the occasional video recode. Up to you if you feel the increased CPU AND mobo cost is worth that.
 
The Core i3 with two cores is only a shade slower than the A10 with four cores. The i3 has faster single-threaded performance is much more thermally efficient too. They seem to retail for similar monies. I have included the i5 in this comparison too.
http://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare.php?cmp[]=2133&cmp[]=2244&cmp[]=2230


Dropping down to the £80 mark means a dual core A10. The equivalent i3 out-performs.
http://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare.php?cmp[]=2252&cmp[]=12

If I was on a budget, I'd buy the i3 for now. At least then I'd have a good upgrade path if I decided I wanted/could afford more power in future.
 
Thanks for the help guys.

I hadn't realised the benchmarks I was looking at were an older gen i5 - as I say, it's been some years since I built my last PC and there are so many options out there now that you have to really search through it all once you get out of touch!!

Just as a quick benchmark comparison, and say I would be looking to spend around £100 on the processor - certainly in this comparison the i3 still looks to be out of favour to the FX-6350:

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare.php?cmp[]=1910&cmp[]=2317&cmp[]=2146

But it is power hungry, and so to make a more efficient machine, the i3 would be the better option in that comparison. But perhaps graphics would be better with the A10 due to the way the GPU can use the memory? But does this make any difference to speed of LR? As I undertsand it, it is CPU intensive rather than GPU intensive?

Moving up to say £150 budget, the FX-8350 still seems to score a lot better than an entry level i5:

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare.php?cmp[]=1910&cmp[]=2317&cmp[]=2146

And even then, on paper, the i5 doesn't look like it is worth paying £150 for vs £110 for the A10-7850K.

Realistically I don't want to spend much more than £100 on a processor, but if experience says an entry level i5 will generally run better than the AMD's I have linked to then I'll just have to stump up I guess!!
 
There is no gpu acceleration on lightroom. It benefits more from a reasonable CPU (normally recommend the i5 quad core (there are dual core versions)) and fast disk (SSD if you have the budget).

Personally I don't rate the i3 as being particularly powerful but I only have experience of older versions.

You could always look at second hand, the older versions of i5 (2500k) and i7 (2600k) still pack a good punch for a bit less cash. I've been running the i7-2600k with 16gb and ssd for years now and not found any requirement to go faster, that's working on 5dmk2 files in LR5.
 
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Unless you are going to do lots of video coding it is better to go for higher single core performance rather than more cores. You should concentrate on the single core performance to get an idea of general performance. For LR, whilst I can get all cores used here, they are never flat out - disk I/O starts to come in when you are doing anything that takes a time and lots of CPU resource.

Backj to benchmarks:

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare.php?cmp[]=1910&cmp[]=2230&cmp[]=2133

out of those 3, personally I would get the i5. It has more real cores, has a higher individual core benchmark, gets more done per clock cycle (higher performance, but lower clock) and will run cooler (so can have a less aggressive cooling solution). They are £140 @ ebuyer, but you will need an Intel motherboard which are generally a few £ more than AMD based boards. Don't get me wrong, AMD processors will work, just I think Intel have the edge.
 
Thanks for all of the advice on this. I had still been agonising over it, but have now settled on Intel.

What do we think to the suggested build list below?

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/RtVsgs

I haven't settled on a case yet, I want something small and subtle, so either a small cube or sleek htpc case - I will be using my existing PSU and 1TB HDD so these are not on the list.

I thought the upgrade to the i5-4590 was worth it for only a few quid more than the 4460.

Just need to decide on the case really. So far I'm considering the cooltek coolcube maxi or sharkoon ca-m - but still looking around for inspiration!!
 
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