Lightroom and AMD Ryzen 3900X

A field report after upgrading my Lightroom PC to the brand new CPU Ryzen 3900X, a beast of a CPU featuring 12 cores and 24 thread. Let’s compare the configurations:

  • Old configuration: Ryzen 1700X (8 cores, 16 threads), 32 GB RAM, 1 M2. NVM SSD, 1 SATA SSD
  • New configuration: Ryzen 3900X (12 cores, 24 threads), 64 GB RAM, 2 M2. NVM SSds

The performance gain is very noticable! On the old PC I often faced brief delays when scrolling through a heap of pictures. The delay was always very short (< 1 sec) but it was very annoying and destroyed the fast workflow. My wife even started using Photomechanic for doing a preselection as PM is very fast.
On the new PC all delays are gone and the import is blazingly fast. I tested 100 RAW files (Nikon Z7, about 56 MB per file) and the import was done in 2 minutes 26 seconds – including rendering 1:1 previews.

Why fast M.2 PCIe SSDs? Of course the difference to regular SATA SSDs isnt noticable during daily routine, but the surcharge for M.2 PCIe is getting cheaper every day and there are big performance gains during backup or copying large files.
Why 64 GB RAM? Currently RAM is extremly cheap and RAM that isn’t used by Lightroom will be used by Windows for caching.
What graphics adapter? In my experience this doesn’t matter much. Performance gains are minimal and from time to time this LR feature isnt very stable.

Test: LR import with Ryzen 3900X

All AMD Ryzen reviews

The new AMD Ryzen CPUs (1800X, 1700X, 1700) are out and here are the first reviews for gamers and enthusiasts:

English:
Anandtech: http://www.anandtech.com/show/11170/the-amd-zen-and-ryzen-7-review-a-deep-dive-on-1800x-1700x-and-1700
Tomshardware: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amd-ryzen-7-1800x-cpu,4951.html
PC Gamer: http://www.pcgamer.com/the-amd-ryzen-7-review/
Overclockers Club: http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/amd_ryzen_7_1800x_1700x_1700/

German:
Computerbase: https://www.computerbase.de/2017-03/amd-ryzen-1800x-1700x-1700-test/
Heise: https://www.heise.de/ct/artikel/Achtkern-Prozessor-Ryzen-7-1800X-im-Test-3638058.html
PC Games Hardware: http://www.pcgameshardware.de/Ryzen-7-1800X-CPU-265804/Tests/Test-Review-1222033/
Hardwareluxx: https://www.hardwareluxx.de/index.php/artikel/hardware/prozessoren/42068-acht-kerne-und-16-threads-fuer-550-euro-amd-ryzen-7-1800x-im-test.html


WD Velociraptor: the first SATA drive to beat many SAS drives

Western Digital has announced a new generation of their high end SATA drives called Raptor: Velociraptor.

According to a Velociraptor test at Toms Hardware they are not only the  fastest SATA drives available and the best hard drive choice for high-end PCs, they even beat many SAS drives (known for their performance and used in servers)!