Super Computer Needed

ChillTravelers · December 5, 2011

Hi All,

There are a lot of posts about what computer to buy. None really fit my work.

I shoot with a Nikon D3 and a custom 48 megapixel special purpose camera. My average file size per image is 1-2 GB. Layered images can range to 100GB. Output is usually through Weldon Labs and sizes can range to 4'X8'. I do a fair amount of HDR and layered images that can have upwards of 100 layers.

I think I need a CRAY, but they will not run PhotoShop. All kidding aside, I would love to hear any thoughts on what to build/buy that is Windows based. As much as I would like to go MAC, I have some custom 64bit Windows based software.

What I have been looking at is the Dell Precision T5500 Workstation with Dual Six Core Intel® Xeon® Processor X5660, 2.8GHz,12M L3, 6.4GT/s, turbo. I think it tops out at 12GB of RAM

This is a fairly pricey system that maybe the best from me. I thought I would get some input from the forum before proceeding. I am looking for the best, fastest and fastest workflow system out there.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Bob

bgarland · December 5, 2011

IMO forget Dell. I had too many Dell systems in the past that didn't last. My last PC I got from someone else s recommendation on this forum. I had mine custom built by:

http://www.cyberpowerpc.com/category/intel_pc/

Gamers need some serious power that nicely map over to processing photography. Go for the max processor config you can afford and liquid cool them. Then ensure at least your primary drive with the OS and you photo processing software is SDD (Solid Sate Drive) not a spinning disk. Since your running Win 64 apps be sure to get Win 7 Pro because it supports higher RAM sizes beyond just 16GB. I have 24GB RAM on mine and that combined with the SSD primary drive running all my photo software, everything runs smooth and quick as lightning.

ziggy53 · December 5, 2011

While you don't mention the workflow particulars, I do recommend optimizing your workflow to maximize available RAM and HD resources. Do read this article on how important it is to use Adjustment Layers instead of traditional layers:

http://www.photoshopessentials.com/photo-editing/photoshop-file-size/

Here is a very good article on building a high-end PC and optimizing the PC to run Photoshop:

http://www.imagescience.com.au/kb/questions/141/Build+a+powerful+PC+for+Photoshop+and+other+imaging+applications#ExtremeMachine

Pay special attention to the video cards that you use and my personal recommendation is the high-end nVidea-CUDA engineering/workstation class cards. These alone can give a Photoshop machine a tremendous boost in speed.

http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/404/kb404898.html
http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/831/cpsid_83117.html
http://www.nvidia.com/object/product-quadro-6000-us.html

If you want a pre-configured machine, these are among the best I have seen:

http://www.xicomputer.com/products/mtowersp4.asp

I created (using their system configurator) a "very" high-end tower PC for a little over $11,000USD "without" monitors. See what they can do for you. You might send them an e-mail with your general requirements to see if they have created a similar machine already.

support@xicomputer.com

Dan7312 · December 5, 2011

Check with http://pugetsystems.com. The build heavy duty gaming and image processing system.

ChillTravelers wrote: »

Hi All,

There are a lot of posts about what computer to buy. None really fit my work.

I shoot with a Nikon D3 and a custom 48 megapixel special purpose camera. My average file size per image is 1-2 GB. Layered images can range to 100GB. Output is usually through Weldon Labs and sizes can range to 4'X8'. I do a fair amount of HDR and layered images that can have upwards of 100 layers.

I think I need a CRAY, but they will not run PhotoShop. All kidding aside, I would love to hear any thoughts on what to build/buy that is Windows based. As much as I would like to go MAC, I have some custom 64bit Windows based software.

What I have been looking at is the Dell Precision T5500 Workstation with Dual Six Core Intel® Xeon® Processor X5660, 2.8GHz,12M L3, 6.4GT/s, turbo. I think it tops out at 12GB of RAM

This is a fairly pricey system that maybe the best from me. I thought I would get some input from the forum before proceeding. I am looking for the best, fastest and fastest workflow system out there.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Bob

threecubed · December 6, 2011

My husband is the IT manager at an manufacturing company, and he was just looking at high-end computers for one of their engineers to do 3-D CAD simulations, so I asked him for his thoughts. He spec'd out a few different models/options from $6-10K, including the Dell Precision T5500 Workstation. He was primarily looking at faster processors than 2.8 GHz and 16+ GB of RAM to cut down on the time that it takes the software to do complex simulations and renderings. He said the T5500 definitely supports more than 12GB of RAM, btw. And he said to make sure you invest in a high-quality video card with plenty of on-board RAM. He prefers Dell to other brands primarily for the support. He's been buying Dell computers for a long time and has had only very rare issues, all of which were easily fixed by Dell support. Hope that helps!

ziggy53 · December 6, 2011

threecubed wrote: »

My husband is the IT manager at an manufacturing company, and he was just looking at high-end computers for one of their engineers to do 3-D CAD simulations, so I asked him for his thoughts. He spec'd out a few different models/options from $6-10K, including the Dell Precision T5500 Workstation. He was primarily looking at faster processors than 2.8 GHz and 16+ GB of RAM to cut down on the time that it takes the software to do complex simulations and renderings. He said the T5500 definitely supports more than 12GB of RAM, btw. And he said to make sure you invest in a high-quality video card with plenty of on-board RAM. He prefers Dell to other brands primarily for the support. He's been buying Dell computers for a long time and has had only very rare issues, all of which were easily fixed by Dell support. Hope that helps!

Please feel free to relay to your husband the links that I provided above. In 3-D CAD simulations the video card can add a tremendous boost to supporting software.

The systems I linked to:

http://www.xicomputer.com/products/mtowersp4.asp

... can support 32 GBytes of 4-channel RAM, as well as allowing the use of the venerable nVidea Quadro cards, like the Quadro 6000, with 448 GPU CUDA cores, and ...

1030.4 Gigaflops (Single Precision)
515.2 Gigaflops (Double Precision)

... Just mention to your husband "teraflop" and see if he doesn't perk up. <img src="https://us.v-cdn.net/6029383/emoji/mwink.gif" border="0" alt="" >

They have a rather nice visual representation in this video:

<iframe width="640" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/9T0XxeOIPXc?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

threecubed · December 6, 2011

ziggy53 wrote: »

Please feel free to relay to your husband the links that I provided above. In 3-D CAD simulations the video card can add a tremendous boost to supporting software.

He was actually looking at some ridiculously high-end video cards the other day and mentioned the price to me - that's why I knew he was spec'ing out a new engineering computer. I nearly fainted when I thought he was hinting at a Christmas present for himself! ;-) They bought a specialized CAD computer (non-Dell) for their lead engineer last year, and now they are upgrading another engineer's computer so he can do the same type of simulations on his own machine. But they decided to go back to Dell for this new machine, which is where they buy all the rest of their desktops and servers. I did show him the entire thread yesterday in case he was interested in any of it though.

Overfocused · December 6, 2011

For $10k you could go crazy with a dual socket 6 core xeon server board and make a 48GB or 64GB system easily, but there is that line between practical price to performance ratio. The low powered 6 core xeons are $1000 less, each, than the high powered xeons, have %50 less power draw yet only %33 less performance. It's all a balance of what you need. Being practical and overkill is possible at the same time

Unless you weren't joking about 100GB documents, how big are the documents you'll be working on? What exactly will you be doing? There is a point where you don't necessarily need the tip top and you can go second best, save a ton of money, and still fly through documents and data. As for workflow, as long as the machine can handle the files, workflow speed all depends on the choices of the user and how he/she decides to approach post processing, from uploading the files, to the types of software you use. %95 of workflow is not based on the speed of the machine itself.

jhofker · December 7, 2011

Falcon Northwest also makes solid machines. Their Mach V can handle up to 64GB of RAM and base price on that would be around $5300. Might be worth a look?

JimKarczewski · December 9, 2011

Have a look at i7-3960X based systems. They are 6 core, they are the precursor to the next XEON processors coming in the near future, but can be seriously overclocked. They support 4 channels of memory vs most i7's that support 3 and motherboards typically support 64GB of memory (although, I'm looking to build one for myself and I can't find any 4x8 memory to do 64GB so might "Settle" for 32GB)

There was one computer on NewEgg based on the X and it was about $2500 I believe (might had been 3500) but seems like a killer processor. I just need to save my pennies now..

ian408 · December 9, 2011

I'm not sure what your custom Windows apps are but VMWare, Parallels and one or two other virtual machine packages will allow you to run PS (if that's what you're looking to do) on the Mac and preserve your custom apps. FWIW, Windows XP and Vista run as well or better in Parallels/VMWare. So don't let the lack of Windows limit your choice of hardware.

Super Computer Needed

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