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Author Topic: slow processing, workstation issue?  (Read 3304 times)

aurore

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slow processing, workstation issue?
« on: June 12, 2018, 11:28:49 AM »
Hi,

I'm having issues processing all the models I do with the workstation that I have at the moment, becausePhotoscan is to slow for us. We tried other software that process faster, but would prefer to continue with Photoscan since we own already 25 licences.

The configuration of my work station is:
- Intel Xeon E5-2620
- 256 gb of RAM
- Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 (8Gb)

Thinking of buying a new workstation to speed up the process:
- could having multiple graphic cards (2 or 4) speed up the processing? are the Titan faster than the 1080?
- should I increase the amount of RAM?
- or should I create a cluster of machine with smaller configurations?


If anyone has experience with that of suggestion to speed up the processing it would be very much appreciated?
 

Thank you in advance for your help! :)

outsider

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Re: slow processing, workstation issue?
« Reply #1 on: June 12, 2018, 03:36:17 PM »
Of course newer hardware will speed up processing, but you haven't told us what kinds of workloads you're throwing at your system. How many images? What resolution?

Having said that, if it's just a speed issue, you likely already have enough RAM to process all the images, so more ram won't help.
More GPUs will help, but with diminishing returns. They don't scale linearly. For example 4GPUs won't be 4 times as fast.
See this article for more insight and some benchmarks:
https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Agisoft-PhotoScan-GPU-Acceleration-710/

As for the CPU, you can certainly improve it for more speed. Just by replacing your CPU you can easily double the speed for a few hundred dollars. Look for a E52680 or E5-2690 which should be a drop in replacement. 
Just be careful which Xeon E5 CPU you choose. The V3 and V4 CPUs are not compatible with the earlier version V1 and V2  motherboards, so choose wisely.

If you decide that you need more horsepower then what a drop in CPU replacement can bring,  you are looking at a whole new system (new motherboard, new ram, new CPU)

stihl

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Re: slow processing, workstation issue?
« Reply #2 on: June 12, 2018, 08:03:58 PM »
As outsider mentioned, adding a second GPU will not yield the desired results. Mainly because the GPU is only used during 1 step of the Build Dense Cloud stage, the calculation of the Depth Maps.

The CPU you have is a 2 GHz chip with turbo up to 2.5 GHz. This is by far the biggest bottleneck of your system. You have plenty of ram and a GTX1080 is relatively fast compared to most of the other GPUs available within a reasonable price range.

As outsider also mentioned; be very cautious of which E5 Xeon you'll be buying. If you download the software called 'CPU-Z' you can see the make and model of your motherboard in the Mainboard tab of CPU-Z.
If you tell us the information about the motherboard we can help you choose the correct CPU.

3DandVR

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Re: slow processing, workstation issue?
« Reply #3 on: June 13, 2018, 01:40:08 PM »
You have chosen almost the slowest possible processor for this. The GPU speed depends on the CPU speed.

Edit: RAM Speed on the E5-2620 is also slower (only up to 1333Mhz) than on the faster CPUs (up to 1600Mhz)
https://ark.intel.com/compare/64596,64582,64594


The fastest processor in the Xeon E5 v1 series is the E5-2687w (8 Core 3,1GHz / 3,8Ghz Turbo, 150Watts TDP)
https://ark.intel.com/products/64582/Intel-Xeon-Processor-E5-2687W-20M-Cache-3_10-GHz-8_00-GTs-Intel-QPI

2nd is the E5-2690 (8 Core 2,9GHz / 3,8Ghz Turbo, 135Watts TDP)
https://ark.intel.com/products/64596/Intel-Xeon-Processor-E5-2690-20M-Cache-2_90-GHz-8_00-GTs-Intel-QPI

3rd is the E5-2680 (8 Core 2,7GHz / 3,5Ghz Turbo, 130Watts TDP)
https://ark.intel.com/products/64583/Intel-Xeon-Processor-E5-2680-20M-Cache-2_70-GHz-8_00-GTs-Intel-QPI

4th is the E5-2667 (6 Core 2,9GHz / 3,5Ghz Turbo, 130Watts TDP)
https://ark.intel.com/products/64589/Intel-Xeon-Processor-E5-2667-15M-Cache-2_90-GHz-8_00-GTs-Intel-QPI

But you have to check the maximum power delivery from your Motherboard.

Full v1 Series
https://ark.intel.com/products/series/59138/Intel-Xeon-Processor-E5-Family#@server

You can check if your motherboard is able to use the Xeon E5 v2 series, than you can use more cores and more speed.
Full v2 Series
https://ark.intel.com/products/series/78582/Intel-Xeon-Processor-E5-v2-Family#@server
« Last Edit: June 13, 2018, 01:54:12 PM by 3DandVR »