How do we know whether an application uses "multiple CPUs"?Originally Posted by koraks
How do we know whether an application uses "multiple CPUs"?
Run task manager while the app is busy doing something. It will show the cores/cpus utilization. Photoshop also uses the video card processor (GPU) which does not show in the task manager.
Hyperthreading does make a nice difference. When it first came about for Intel, they were busy trying to sell multiple CPU computers which were relatively expensive and complicated. AMD came out with dual-core CPUs that were a huge bang for the buck. Intel then brought forth hyperthreading which was a small bang for the buck compared to dual core and many people called it hype as it was not as competitive. We don't need that comparison now, it's here to stay and Intel and AMD both make nice multi-core CPUs.
With regard to Hyperthreading...
As has been said, if you have a Quad Core CPU and Device Manager or Task Manager shows 8 CPU's, then hyperthreading is supported by the motherboard and is enabled. If you have a quad core CPU, and Device Manager shows only 4 CPU's, then either hyperthreading is not supported by the motherboard, or is disabled in the BIOS.
--P
Preston-Columbia CA
"If you want nice fresh oats, you have to pay a fair price. If you can be satisfied with oats that have already been through the horse; that comes a little cheaper."
It ends up being a more complicated question than this. Different tasks in photoshop behave differently. Some can only run on a singe thread, many can be threaded to two or four processors (with varying degrees of efficiency), and a small number scale to four or more processing.
There are few situations besides serious multitasking—like transcoding video in the background—where you'll see a significant performance improvements in photoshop with 6 or more threads. The program is highly dependent on single core speed. Which means, all else equal, you'll get better PS performance from 4 cores running at 3.5 ghz than from 8 cores running at 3.0.
Hyperthreading slows down Photoshop very slightly for most tasks, according to benchmarks that I've seen. It seems like a feature that either offers a small improvement or a small hit, depending on the nature of the task.
What annoys me most in PS that saving and opening files is single-threaded. This becomes an issue with any compressed format, like PSD and compressed TIF. Especially with a many-layered file, the processor becomes the bottleneck, not the disk. At least they've been able to move this task to the background, but it still slows me down more than anything else.
I just upgraded from a 2008 8-core mac pro to a 2010 6-core. The 6 core at 3.33 ghz does better than any of the other pre-Darth Vader macs in PS benchmarks. The single-thread performance is 40% to 80% higher than on my 2008 machine
Apple really doesn't make a state of the art PS machine right now. The new mac pro is a video editing / motion graphics monster. But it's all about those workstation-class video cards. A waste of money for PS*. For me, though, Mac OS is such an advantage over Windows that I will wait. It's hard to imagine a level of performance improvement that would lure me to a platform I can't stand. I also like the industrial design, reliability, and ease of maintenance of the old Mac pro towers.
*Some features (like sharpening filters) use the gpu in Photoshop CC. I have yet to meet anyone who uses CC. In CS6, the only features that use the gpu involve screen drawing (like brush animation) and not actual image rendering. For these CS6 features, any decent gpu is adequate.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks