Best Workstation PC for Adobe Photoshop (Winter 2020)
Written on December 8, 2020 by Matt BachPhotoshop may not be the most intensive application for many workflows, but for those that spend a significant amount of time in it, a properly configured workstation can make a big impact on productivity. In this post, we will go over a few of our recommendations for the best PC for Adobe Photoshop for a range of budgets.
Best Workstation PC for Redshift 3D (Winter 2020)
Written on December 7, 2020 by William GeorgeWhat are the best configurations for dedicated Maxon Redshift rendering workstations as 2020 draws to a close?
Best Workstation PC for Pix4D (Winter 2020)
Written on December 4, 2020 by William GeorgeWhat are the best specifications for a Pix4D photogrammetry workstation at the end of 2020 and going into the start of a new year?
AMD Radeon RX 6800 (XT) Review Roundup
Written on December 3, 2020 by Matt BachThe Radeon RX 6800 cards are here, with AMD boasting significant performance gains over the previous generation. We have looked at how the 6800 16GB and 6800 XT 16GB perform in a range of professional applications to help you decide whether they are worth using in a new workstation, or as an upgrade in your current system.
Agisoft Metashape 1.6.5 - AMD Radeon RX 6800 (XT) Performance
Written on December 2, 2020 by William GeorgeAMD recently launched a new generation of their Radeon graphics cards, and we have finally gotten our hands on the first two models - the RX 6800 and 6800 XT - to test in our lab. How do they stack up against NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 30 Series cards, which are similarly priced, in Agisoft Metashape?
DaVinci Resolve Studio - AMD Radeon RX 6800 (XT) Performance
Written on December 2, 2020 by Matt BachDaVinci Resolve has long been known for how well it utilizes the power of your GPU, with NVIDIA being the top performer for several years. However, with the recently released Radeon RX 6800 and 6800 XT, will AMD be able to match or beat NVIDIA in DaVinci Resolve?
Adobe Premiere Pro - AMD Radeon RX 6800 (XT) Performance
Written on December 1, 2020 by Matt BachAdobe has been focusing fairly heavily on GPU performance in the latest versions of Premiere Pro, adding more GPU accelerated effects as well as GPU-based hardware encoding. While NVIDIA has help a strong performance lead in the past, AMD's new Radeon 6800 cards are touted to have significant performance gains. Is this enough for AMD to take the performance crown in Premiere Pro?
Adobe After Effects - AMD Radeon RX 6800 (XT) Performance
Written on December 1, 2020 by Matt BachThe number of GPU accelerated effects in After Effects has increased in recent years, but it continues to be an application that is primarily CPU bottlenecked. However, AMD cards have in the past been slightly slower than their NVIDIA counterparts. Will the new Radeon RX 6800 and 6800 XT GPUs allow AMD to match or beat NVIDIA in After Effects?
Autodesk 3ds Max & Maya: AMD Radeon 6800 & 6800XT
Written on December 1, 2020 by Kelly ShipmanAMD has delivered some very promising video cards with their new Radeon 6800 and 6800XT. Unfortunately, Autodesk's software is still tied to Nvidia's rendering technologies.
Unreal Engine: AMD Radeon 6800 & 6800XT
Written on December 1, 2020 by Kelly ShipmanAMD's new Radeon graphics cards promise great gaming performance. But how to they stack up in Virtual Production or ArchViz workloads? And is Unreal Engine ready for these new cards?
Adobe Photoshop - AMD Radeon RX 6800 (XT) Performance
Written on December 1, 2020 by Matt BachAMD recently launched their new Radeon RX 6800 and 6800 XT GPUs, but while Photoshop does have a number of effects that can utilize the GPU, there generally isn't much of a performance difference between various cards. Will this hold true with the 6800 (XT), or will AMD take a lead in Photoshop?
PCI-Express 4.0 vs 3.0 Video Card Performance
Written on November 30, 2020 by William GeorgePCI-Express has been the standard for connecting video cards and other expansion devices inside of computers for many years now, and several generations of the technology have now passed. With each of those generations, the amount of data that can be transferred over the PCIe connection has increased. How much impact does that have on modern video cards? Is there any benefit to running a PCIe 3.0 card in a 4.0 slot, or loss if using a 4.0 card in a 3.0 slot?
Apple M1 MacBook vs PC Desktop Workstation for Adobe Creative Cloud
Written on November 17, 2020 by Matt BachApple has recently launched MacBook Air and Pro models using the new Apple M1 chip based on the Arm instruction set. While we do not usually examine performance for laptops, we wanted to see how these new chips compare to a desktop PC.
GPU Rendering - NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 Series Multi-GPU Scaling
Written on November 16, 2020 by William GeorgeWith the initial launches in NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 30 Series complete, and availability getting better, it is time to look at how well these cards scale in multi-GPU configurations for rendering within Redshift, OctaneRender, and V-Ray.
AMD X570 vs B550 vs A520 Chipset Comparison
Written on November 13, 2020 by William GeorgeAMD has three current chipsets for their mainstream Ryzen processors, each targeting a different segment of the market with appropriate features and pricing. What is the difference between each of these chipsets, though? Knowing that can help make sure you get the right motherboard for your next workstation PC.
Messy Memory Speed Standards
Written on November 9, 2020 by William GeorgeHere at Puget Systems, we have tried to be careful about sticking to CPU manufacturer memory specifications - to ensure the best reliability, and to avoid overclocking memory controllers (which could, technically, violate CPU warranties). But increasingly complicated memory speed support schemes on many newer processors, combined with a lack of supply of certain speed modules, has forced us to adopt a new approach to what we offer in our workstations.
AMD Ryzen 5000 Series CPU Review Roundup
Written on November 5, 2020 by Matt BachAMD's new Ryzen 5000 Series processors are here, with significant improvements including an advertised 19% improvement in IPC (instructions per clock). This should result in large performance gains across the board, but exactly how well do these CPUs perform in the real world?
Pix4D 4.5.6: AMD Ryzen 5000 Series Performance
Written on November 5, 2020 by William GeorgeAMD's Ryzen 5000 Series processors have launched, with their updated Zen 3 microarchitecture bringing substantial performance improvements over the previous generation. How does this update impact processing times in Pix4D, and how do the new CPUs it stack up against other AMD and Intel models?
Agisoft Metashape 1.6.5: AMD Ryzen 5000 Series Performance
Written on November 5, 2020 by William GeorgeAMD has brought their new Zen 3 microarchitecture to mainstream processors with the Ryzen 5000 Series. These chips range from 6 to 16 cores, and are supposed to bring substantial performance improvements over the previous generation. How much impact will this have on processing times in Agisoft Metashape, and how do these CPUs compare to other AMD and Intel models?
RealityCapture 1.1: AMD Ryzen 5000 Series Performance
Written on November 5, 2020 by William GeorgeWith the launch of the Ryzen 5000 Series, AMD has brought their updated Zen 3 microarchitecture to mainstream desktop computers. They claim these CPUs have substantial performance per clock improvements over the previous generation. Does that impact photogrammetry processing in RealityCapture? And if so, how do these new chips stack up against other AMD and Intel models?
Cinema 4D: AMD Ryzen 5000 Series Rendering Performance
Written on November 5, 2020 by William GeorgeAMD's has launched the Ryzen 5000 Series, bringing with it the updated Zen 3 microarchitecture and substantial performance improvements over the previous generation. How much of an impact do those changes have on rendering in Cinema 4D? And what can we expect with regard to modeling and animation performance in the viewport?
V-Ray Next: AMD Ryzen 5000 Series Rendering Performance
Written on November 5, 2020 by William GeorgeAMD is giving us the first taste of their new Zen 3 microarchitecture in the form of four Ryzen 5000 Series CPUs. This generation is supposed to have dramatically faster per-core performance than previous AMD processors, so what sort of impact does that have on CPU-based rendering engines like Chaos Group's V-Ray? And how do these new models fare against other AMD and Intel processor families?
Unreal Engine: AMD Ryzen 5000 Series CPU Performance
Written on November 5, 2020 by Kelly ShipmanUnreal Engine has grown by leaps and bound over the years, with more and more industries developing new workflows in it. AMD has released their new Ryzen 5000 Series, so we'll see if they can improve those workflows and how they stack up to competing CPUs from Intel.
Adobe Premiere Pro: AMD Ryzen 5000 Series CPU Performance
Written on November 5, 2020 by Matt BachUntil recently, Intel enjoyed the benefit of being the only CPUs that could be used for hardware accelerated encoding/decoding of H.264 and HEVC media with their Quick Sync feature. However, with Premiere Pro 14.5 including GPU-based hardware encoding/decoding, the playing field has been leveled, allowing AMD to truly show what they are capable of. Will the new AMD Ryzen 5000 Series out-perform the Intel options, or will Intel maintain a lead even without the benefit of hardware encoding/decoding?
Adobe Photoshop: AMD Ryzen 5000 Series CPU performance
Written on November 5, 2020 by Matt BachAMD's Ryzen 5000 Series processors are here, touting major increases in performance. Until now, Intel has held a slight lead in applications like Photoshop that cannot take advantage of a high number of CPU cores, but AMD's improvements in per-core performance in particular is very likely to allow AMD to take a solid lead over Intel.