This set me thinking, and I appreciate your thoughts. It’s so easy to get locked in into one mindset - such as “I need better performance from darktable = GPU upgrade”
Recap of my computer specs.
All my computers run Windows 10.
Up until about the last fortnight, most of my recent darktable edits were done on a laptop with - 8GB RAM - DDR3, Intel i5-4200u CPU, and a spinning hard drive @ 5400 rpm, with a 1366 x 768 -TN Panel display. This has a AMD Radeon mobile HD 8850 discrete GPU.
I had thought about upgrading the GPU on this other desktop with 24GB RAM - DDR3, Xeon E3-1245v3 CPU, and a bunch of spinning drives most @ 7200 rpm - no SSD, and a TN Panel monitor, which already had an NVIDIA K600
discrete GPU
I thought through your comments again. I was reminded that so many components contribute to the overall performance of darktable and GPU performance which I had been fixated upon, was just one of these components.
I just happen to have retired the aforementioned laptop (pretty much, after 8 years of using it almost every day), and moved on, a few days ago, to a laptop with 16GB RAM - DDR4, Intel i5-7300u, but this new laptop has an M.2 SATA SSD, but no discrete GPU, and the display is an IPS Panel 1920 x 1080. I had not thought much about using darktable on this laptop, cos of my dissatisfaction with image editing performance on the older laptop.
Because of your comments, I just installed darktable on the “new” laptop, just to see if the more recent CPU/chipset/Faster disk-SSD/More RAM, etc, etc would have any impact.
Long story short. While I have not done any stop watch measured benchmarks, the “new” laptop is performing much better than my older computers, even though it does not have a discrete GPU. And I am, for now, perfectly happy with its speed. Regrettable or maybe fortunately, I will have to abandon this search for a upgrade to the discrete GPU on my desktop, cos I no longer need one, as the current laptop is apparently good enough for my edits. Things like the preview are pretty quick, and I rarely have to wait for anything.
For darktable, could a disk storage speed upgrade be just as significant, or even more significant than a GPU upgrade, and maybe far less expensive?
My immediate thoughts are that some of this increased performance is coming from the enhanced I/O of an SSD, instead of a spinning magnetic disk, especially as darktable also uses disk caching to store intermediate results of various points in its pipeline, so while upgrading or adding a GPU, could be one approach to improving darktable performance, maybe an SSD upgrade could just be what is needed, instead.
I wish I had the time and gear, to compare the performance enhancements from a GPU upgrade, with the performance enhancements from a storage speed upgrade.
Especially as GPU’s are really expensive at this time, for apps that work like darktable does, using disk caches for intermediate processing, in the pipeline, while a better GPU, will always augment the performance, unless one does a comparison, it may turn out that an inexpensive upgrade from a slower storage to something faster, may have enough of an impact on performance, but at a lower incremental cost, moreso - at this time, really fast SSD’s such as NVMe PCIe type are not as expensive as the higher end GPU’s, and unlike high end GPU’s which need an ample power supply, with SSD’s there is no need to upgrade power supplies.
I did not expect such an improvement, which I mainly attribute to the replacement of a spinning disk with an SSD.
Thanks again, for making me think thoroughly about this. The performance enhancement I needed is achieved, and I have no discrete GPU involved in this excellent result. A bit of a shock for me. ! Am really surprised and pleasantly so.
ADDENDUM on Editing improvements using an IPS display, instead of a TN
If I may add, with the new laptop, which has a much better display, better brightness, deeper blacks, and especially better contrast and resolution, I find that I no longer need to push the edits in darktable, cos it appears that the extreme edits I was having to do on my older computers with their inferior TN panel displays, caused me to over edit. With the new computer, a few minor tweaks and I’m satisfied with the image. In particular, the old displays with low contrast, had forced me to work more than was needed to pull out contrast - to compensate for their poor quality of display.
Its a huge further lesson learned - the impact that a good display can have on one’s workflow and results.
And to think that either on a laptop, or on a desktop, a decent, bright enough, and color accurate enough display, is at this time, relatively an affordable item, compared to many years ago. GPU’s are going up in price, while probably what we all need the most - a good quality screen, which would also lead to fewer edits or better edits, costs a lot less than an upgrade to one of these currently overpriced GPU’s.
This secondary benefit of a more modern more recent tech, was one that I had also not anticipated. We do not know what we do not know, and cannot experience what we have not experienced, until we do. The impact of a better display on photo editing was quite a surprise to me. I did not expect this much of an improvement, to the workflow.
Export Performance
Edit - I also tested the speed of exports, and for a 7th gen Intel mobile laptop, am really happy with the results.