MP 7,1 2019 Mac Pro 7,1 Lightroom and Photoshop configuration and Test [UPDATE: Radeon VII, 2013 MAC PRO TEST]

[zhpenn]

I use Lightroom a lot, almost every day for editing and export 200-3000 RAW images. I will also use Photoshop.

I have just got MacPro 7,1 base model with 1TB SSD, then upgrade 28 Cores 3275M CPU and 128GB RAM(will have 192GB later).

Old Mac
MacPro Late 2013
2.7GHZ 12 Cores E5
64GB RAM
AMD FirePro D500 3GB
1TB SSD
DELL 2560x1600 30" Monitor (4K+ screen will slowdown LR a lot)

New Mac
Mac Pro 2019 Config
2.5HHZ 28 Cores 3250M
128RAM
580X 8GB
1TB SSD
DELL 2560x1600 30" Monitor (4K+ screen will slowdown LR a lot)


I have done some small tests.

Test 1
Exporting RAW images

307 RAW files to medium jpg
Mac Pro 2019 28-Cores
223s
Mac Pro 2013 12-Cores
418s

1109 RAW file to lager jpg
Mac Pro 2019 28-Cores
985s
Mac Pro 2013 12-Cores
1756s

almost 2x faster

Test 2
8000+ JPGs resizing and Export In LR

2013 Mac Pro 12 cores
29mins

2019 Mac Pro 28 cores
12mins

almost 3x faster


Test 3
Switching Between Images in Lightroom Develop Module

Here is the quick cellphone video shows that I test side by side compare Switching Between Images in Lightroom Develop Module

Dropbox - File Deleted - Simplify your life

bit.ly

Sorry about the video quality and "Cartoon Filter Style" for clients' privacy

LEFT SCREEN 2019 Mac Pro, RIGHT SCREEN 2013 Mac Pro

I was using the same catalog, same monitor, smart preview ON (Unplug Drive with Original RAW file)
Two keyboard press arrow key at the same time and see the reaction of 2 Macs

As can be seen on the VIDEO, the Old Mac Pro 2013 is a bit laggier than the Mac Pro 2019, with more photo go though will become laggier
While the Mac Pro 2019 always quicker, but not as quick as I expect.

About GPU
I have installed the ASUS Radeon VII 16GB
but I did not feel any speed differences on Lightroom performance
Using DELL 2560x1440 30inch Monitor

Possible improvement for the later hardware upgrade?

about PCIe SSD
If I add a RAID-0 PCIe adaptor + NVME SSD to get an 8000MB/s + Speed
And use it for LR catalog and Camera RAW cache
(I'm not a LARGE catalog person, I always use the new catalog for every project just for speed)

Using RamDisk for Lightroom Camera Raw Cache?

Because I have 192GB of RAM, I can see in iStat menu, it does not make full use of it, always have more than half free ram space

Should I use RAM Disk for LR Camera RAW cache, because the ram is faster than SSD.

But one concern, because RAM disk will empty after power off, which means will empty the LR Camera RAW cache very often.

I worry about it may take more time to create new raw caches if I empty the LR Camera RAW cache every edit too often?

How does the camera Raw cache work? Is it create raw cache when I edit photos or it creates cache when I import it into the catalog?


UPDATE:

4 VS 6 channels RAM in Real-world Lightroom TEST! It is 39.2% FASTER?! [UPDATE RAMDISK TEST]

I know when I upgrade from 4 channels to 6 channels will have about 10% Geekbench scores increase! BUT will it make a difference in real life? In short YES, and HUGE! Geekbench 5 scores: CPU: 28-Cores 3275M RAM: 4x32g + 4x8g = 17638 4x32g ONLY = 19360 (increase by 9.76%) 6x32g ONLY = 20979...

forums.macrumors.com

 

[M3Jedi77]

Also curious about best PCIe setup.

 

[Macshroomer]

Just get a 1TB right off and then experiment with boot volumes later, it’s not very expensive and saves you the headache of relying on something experimental out of the gate.

I say this because in the past I found that often times some new OS update can partially hose the PCIE based boot volume until you either revert back to the previous OS or wait until the next one.

So what is your time and patience worth? $400?

As to ram, it pays off on big exports like you are taking about and heavy lifting like high res stitching, opening a lot of files at once in PS for final tweaks after export, etc. I have 64GB in my laptop and 128GB in my iMac Pro so would go at least 128 in the Mac Pro.

But that is just me...

 

[zhpenn]

Just get a 1TB right off and then experiment with boot volumes later, it’s not very expensive and saves you the headache of relying on something experimental out of the gate.

I say this because in the past I found that often times some new OS update can partially hose the PCIE based boot volume until you either revert back to the previous OS or wait until the next one.

So what is your time and patience worth? $400?

As to ram, it pays off on big exports like you are taking about and heavy lifting like high res stitching, opening a lot of files at once in PS for final tweaks after export, etc. I have 64GB in my laptop and 128GB in my iMac Pro so would go at least 128 in the Mac Pro.

But that is just me...

Thanks a lot for your suggestions, I ordered base model with 1TB internal SSD,
then ordered a 28 Cores CPU and 4x 32gb RAM for self-update

 

[M3Jedi77]

Thanks a lot for your suggestions, I ordered base model with 1TB internal SSD,
then ordered a 28 Cores CPU and 4x 32gb RAM for self-update

You ordered a separate un-tested CPU you will be dropping in?

 

[thisisnotmyname]

You ordered a separate un-tested CPU you will be dropping in?

Hopefully they purchased from an organization with a generous return policy but if they purchased a W3275M (or even non-M variant) it's very likely to work.

 

[zhpenn]

You ordered a separate un-tested CPU you will be dropping in?

yea I talk to the CPU seller for if not fit can refund, I have calculated it saves more than 8500AUD for the same config

 

[M3Jedi77]

yea I talk to the CPU seller for if not fit can refund, I have calculated it saves more than 8500AUD for the same config

Keep us posted! Which CPU exactly did you get, and when does it (and your Mac Pro) arrive?

 

[zhpenn]

Keep us posted! Which CPU exactly did you get, and when does it (and your Mac Pro) arrive?

the 28cores w3275m, shows dec 23- jan6 ,

 

[zhpenn]

yesterday shipped will get it 24th

 

[now i see it]

Well you might be the first to swap a CPU into a 7,1 but man... Photoshop & Lightroom definitely won't be able to use all those cores in that 28 core monster

 

[zhpenn]

Well you might be the first to swap a CPU into a 7,1 but man... Photoshop & Lightroom definitely won't be able to use all those cores in that 28 core monster

the LR export will use it all I guess,
the 12 cores trashcan saves me a lot of time for the past few years because of the cores

 

[Grumply]

the 28cores w3275m, shows dec 23- jan6 ,

Was that the one from Centrecom?

 

[VJNeumann]

Unless I'm mistaken, 28 cores will not only be overkill for those apps, but the middling single-core and base GHz performance per core may actually result in a performance hit relative to a lower core option.

Although I wouldn't discount the value of a GPU for Lightroom exports.

 

[zhpenn]

GPU is not that important for the export base on the test people done before

and btw, one of my friends already replace his Mac Pro with 3275M and works well

 

[Pro7913]

Why do you need Mac Pro 2019 for LR and PS?

 

[MGrayson3]

PS and LR don't use many cores and a strong GPU much now, but if someone wants to gamble on future improvements, or wants to use Capture One, why not? Of course, I made that gamble a million years ago with the 8 core 2.26GHz Mac Pro 4,1 and it was a bad choice. A fast 4 core iMac5K was much faster. A fast 8 core iMac5K would probably be the best machine for PS and LR today.

 

[blackadde]

The real question is: are the bottlenecks in your workflow parallel-izable computational problems or not? Most of the low hanging optimization fruit is gone, and not all problems respond well (or at all) to more threads.

For some real world benchmarks examining how core count affects LR performance you can see the charts here: https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/a...-Roundup-Intel-vs-AMD-1298/#BenchmarkAnalysis

 

[zhpenn]

PS and LR don't use many cores and a strong GPU much now, but if someone wants to gamble on future improvements, or wants to use Capture One, why not? Of course, I made that gamble a million years ago with the 8 core 2.26GHz Mac Pro 4,1 and it was a bad choice. A fast 4 core iMac5K was much faster. A fast 8 core iMac5K would probably be the best machine for PS and LR today.

It does use all 12 cores of my Mac Pro 2013 when exporting, the reason I use 28 cores it will save me 2/3 of time when I export photos, I export thousands of RAW every few days.
and every minute counts for me. if it just saves 20 mins per day, the extra 20 mins that I can use it to sleep or break, that is worth for me for the next 4-5 years time

 

[blackadde]

It does use all 12 cores of my Mac Pro 2013 when exporting, the reason I use 28 cores it will save me 2/3 of time when I export photos, I export thousands of RAW every few days.
and every minute counts for me. if it just saves 20 mins per day, the extra 20 mins that I can use it to sleep or break, that is worth for me for the next 4-5 years time

Export speed doesn’t seem to scale linearly with core count, though. If you follow the link I posted above you can see that as core count increases for the AMD TR2 series, NEF>JPG export speed asymptotically approaches about 76 seconds. In fact, 16/24/32 core CPUs are functionally identical in terms of export speed.

 

[Macshroomer]

The real question is: are the bottlenecks in your workflow parallel-izable computational problems or not? Most of the low hanging optimization fruit is gone, and not all problems respond well (or at all) to more threads.

For some real world benchmarks examining how core count affects LR performance you can see the charts here: https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/a...-Roundup-Intel-vs-AMD-1298/#BenchmarkAnalysis

There are some interesting benchmarks on this thread that include a few of mine and an 8 core Mac Pro 7,1. My 10 core iMac Pro continues to do very well with everything from exports, stitches, motion renders and heavy PS lifting so I am 101% good with taking a wait and see approach to the 7,1.

I think it is going to be a good 3-6 months until we know what photo apps do best with what configuration of the Mac Pro but one thing is for sure, there has never really been and seems to now not be a substitute for clock speed when using photo / still image apps.

 

[Pro7913]

It does use all 12 cores of my Mac Pro 2013 when exporting, the reason I use 28 cores it will save me 2/3 of time when I export photos, I export thousands of RAW every few days.
and every minute counts for me. if it just saves 20 mins per day, the extra 20 mins that I can use it to sleep or break, that is worth for me for the next 4-5 years time

Lightroom Classic CPU Roundup: AMD Ryzen 3rd Gen, AMD Threadripper 2, Intel 9th Gen, Intel X-series

Lightroom Classic has changed dramatically over the last few years, with improved multithreading support and the recent addition of GPU acceleration. But exactly how much of a difference is there between the latest processors from both Intel and AMD? Does the higher core count on the new Ryzen...

www.pugetsystems.com

Ryzen 9 3900X with 12 cores is much faster than 32 cores for exporting. Adobe is well known for poor optimization and it's already expected. So I highly doubt about 28 cores for what you are using.

 

[VJNeumann]

GPU is not that important for the export base on the test people done before

and btw, one of my friends already replace his Mac Pro with 3275M and works well

I think the link in the above post, which is benchmarking from October this year, answers the multithreading question pretty resoundingly: you can see higher-clocked 8-core CPUs downright murdering 32 core 2nd Gen Threadrippers. The release date of some of those CPUs is less than a year apart. On the Intel side, the 8-core outstrips every other core count on the active tasks benchmark.

It's seriously worth considering the possibility that 28 cores not only isn't adding value (which is pretty big concern for a $2k CPU), but it's actually slowing you down. An 8-core with a higher clock speed/single core performance will likely eat it alive.

 

[Macshroomer]

I think the link in the above post, which is benchmarking from October this year, answers the multithreading question pretty resoundingly: you can see higher-clocked 8-core CPUs downright murdering 32 core 2nd Gen Threadrippers. The release date of some of those CPUs is less than a year apart. On the Intel side, the 8-core outstrips every other core count on the active tasks benchmark.

It's seriously worth considering the possibility that 28 cores not only isn't adding value (which is pretty big concern for a $2k CPU), but it's actually slowing you down. An 8-core with a higher clock speed/single core performance will likely eat it alive.

I think so too even though LR CC does pretty much floor all cores on an export. However I do suspect the 12 core would be the sweet spot because it reaches the boost speed of 4.4 where as the 8 core is the only one that stops at 4.0, will be interested to see how real world looks.

For kicks I just used my 16" MacBook Pro to export 500 46MP raw flies to Jpeg-11. I put it on a Targus cool pad with the fan and manually put the computer fans on full blast for the duration. It got it done in a semi-reasonable 28 minutes flat. Then I just did the same on my 10 core iMac Pro and it did it in a speedy 15 minutes. The iMac Pro obviously is better from the standpoint of thermal management among other things but I suspect the big uptick in clock speed from 8x 2.4 to 10x 3.0 is the reason for the iMac Pro being almost twice as fast as a maxed out MacBook Pro 16” on raw exports. There also might be the fact that the MacBook Pro is on Catalina and the iMac Pro on Mohave.

So I also very much doubt 28 lower clocked cores is going to help at all with exporting RAW files.


Here is a screen shot of about 18 minutes of the export from the MacBook Pro, the iMac Pro looked basically the same but with slightly less / shorter dips overall:

 

[zhpenn]

oh nooo?thank you guys for all these useful info

Mac Benchmarks - Geekbench

But I notice mac geekbench for mac pro 7.1 at single cores performance.
The 28 is faster than fewer cores mac pro 7.1 which is interesting before was more cores will be lower single cores performance.