Lloyd's current generation Mac Pro 2.93Ghz 8 Core (dual quad core) with 32GB RAM did Test 1 in 603 seconds and did Test 2 in 351 seconds. The tests were to do the following:ġ) Import 128 RAW files from a 1Ds Mark III (add to catalog without moving and render 1:1 previews)Ģ) Export 128 full quality JPG files from 1Ds Mark III RAW files. I wanted to see how efficiently my computer used its CPU so I replicated Lloyd Chamber's tests from the article (keep in mind that we are comparing a current top of the line $6k Mac Pro with a moderately quick $1k home build PC). I've noticed previously that the activity monitor on my PC seemed to show pretty good usage of all CPU cores during import/export so it occurred to me that the PC version of Lightroom might be better optimized than the Mac version of Lightroom. () He raises an interesting point about how much of the computing power of his Mac Pro goes unused by Lightroom because it does not efficiently use all of the CPU cores for batch operations.
I was reading an excellent article recently by Lloyd Chambers about optimizing Lightroom setup for use on a Mac.