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So my trusty older Imac is hitting a roadblock with the new release of pixinsight and will not allow use of BlurX ver 4. In addition, on the pixinsight benchmark it is giving me a score in the range of 5000 well below the stellar scores I am seeing with the windows versions. So my question relates to my search for a newer computer. As I will be retiring and traveling on the road, I am looking for a good laptop that I can also use to plug into a dual monitor system on my home return. The new Macbook pro M3 max looks appealing but is costly and I do not like the lack of upgrade capability with respect to ram and storage. I have been using the mac platform for many years and am still somewhat inclined in that direction but am wondering about those of you using a newer windows laptop computer with the latest AMD Ryzen or Intel processors and what kind of scores you are achieving on the Pixinsight benchmark. Not interested in going down the linux rabbit hole. Also, interested in those of you with the newer M2 or M3 silicone macs. I know that some of the standalone windows systems are cabable of getting over 50,000 on the total cpu, and swap. I think a realistic laptop would achieve around 25-35,00 on these numbers. So, I am looking for those of you that have recently acquired a new laptop either Mac or Windows and what kind of benchmark scores you are getting with the basic configuration: Make, processor, ram etc. I would love to hear from you and would enjoy chatting about your experiences. I may later get a stand alone dedicated Windows machine for home processing that will give me the ability to use additional software such as NINA. Presently, I am tied into the ZWO and ASIAir configuration. Thanks and Happy New Year Regards, Victor Beer www.vicbeer.com [email][email protected][/email] 520-878-6860 |
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****************************************************************************** The Official PixInsight Benchmark version 1.0Copyright (C) 2014-2021 Pleiades Astrophoto. All Rights Reserved.******************************************************************************* Benchmark version ...... 1.00.08 CPU Identification CPU vendor ............. GenuineIntel CPU model .............. Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-9850H CPU @ 2.60GHz System Information Platform ............... Windows Operating system .......Microsoft Windows 11 Pro Core version ...........PixInsight Core 1.8.9-2 (x64) Logical processors ..... 12 Total memory size ...... 63.759 GiB Execution Times Total time ............. 00:54.89 CPU time ............... 00:37.57 Swap time .............. 00:17.27 Swap transfer rate ..... 959.545 MiB/s Performance Indices Total performance ...... 8570 CPU performance ........ 10074 Swap performance ....... 5314 ******************************************************************************* |
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******************************************************************************* The Official PixInsight Benchmark version 1.0Copyright (C) 2014-2021 Pleiades Astrophoto. All Rights Reserved. ******************************************************************************* Benchmark version ...... 1.00.08I CPU Identification CPU vendor ............. GenuineIntel CPU model .............. VirtualApple @ 2.50GHz System InformationPlatform ............... MacOSX Operating system ....... macOS 13.6 22G120 Core version ........... PixInsight Core 1.8.9-1 (x64)Logical processors ..... 8 Total memory size ...... 8.000 GiB Execution Times Total time ............. 00:41.86 CPU time ............... 00:32.24 Swap time .............. 00:09.50 Swap transfer rate ..... 1744.982 MiB/s Performance Indices Total performance ...... 11238 CPU performance ........ 11741 Swap performance ....... 9665 ******************************************************************************* This is a M2 MacBook |
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Everyone’s entitled to an opinion right? Unless you have cash to burn on a pc specifically for pixinsight, I would go for a new mac. I prefer osx to windows as well. Pixinsight is a dog for performance, and apparently the ability to use the gpu to speed up certain add-ons is going away. I would rather have a mac that takes 5 minutes over a pc that takes 4 minutes. |
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| I very much prefer Windows over OSX about 10 times over but as can be seen I have both. Still my core PI machine is the Dell system not the newer M2. |
1.51
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Not getting in the (surely to come) Windows vs Mac debate but here's the benchmarc on Mac Mini M2 with 8 GB of RAM. ******************************************************************************* The Official PixInsight Benchmark version 1.0 Copyright (C) 2014-2021 Pleiades Astrophoto. All Rights Reserved. ******************************************************************************* Benchmark version ...... 1.00.08 Input checksum ......... 2cd72b67e12fff2812ef5b5da054ab2a70a25e23 Serial number .......... FT8H5G7Y0IG448I8CPIOB412O2V69NPE CPU Identification CPU vendor ............. GenuineIntel CPU model .............. VirtualApple @ 2.50GHz System Information Platform ............... MacOSX Operating system ....... macOS 14.2.1 23C71 Core version ........... PixInsight Core 1.8.9-2 (x64) Logical processors ..... 8 Total memory size ...... 8.000 GiB Execution Times Total time ............. 00:40.94 CPU time ............... 00:35.96 Swap time .............. 00:04.94 Swap transfer rate ..... 3352.959 MiB/s Performance Indices Total performance ...... 11489 CPU performance ........ 10526 Swap performance ....... 18570 Additional Information Machine description .... Mac Mini M2 ******************************************************************************* Benchmark with S/N FT8H5G7Y0IG448I8CPIOB412O2V69NPE has been recorded on 2023/12/31 20:48:47 UTC  |
1.51
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Macbook M3 Max - 128gb ram - 8tb internal ssd -no swap disk used - total score 32103. |
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6.89
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The benchmark gives a lot of weight on CPU speed swap transfer rate but for me at least what takes the longest time is preprocessing and integration. In the abstract, that workflow involves reading/writing hundreds of files and storing as much as possible in RAM (ideally: the entire registered data set + local normalization files + any other tidbits such as drizzle data + the integration + rejection maps + temporary files). For the most part, things are read/written once or twice. They are not swapped from/to disk 50 times. Which means having ample RAM and ample fast disk is generally more important than a fast CPU. Whichever platform allows you to have at least 16G RAM and at least 1TB NVMe with fewer $$$, wins. edit: that said, I don't think it is so easy for a laptop to reach 20K in the benchmark. Laptop CPUs simply aren't that fast, due to power/thermal considerations. |
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Thanks dkamen. I will keep that in mind on my purchase. Your M3 must have been a pretty penny. But I am sure it performs great. Vic |
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6.89
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Also: This is from my Dell Inspiron 7430 2in1, with 16G RAM and 512GB NVMe. It is a Linux but I am not expecting Windows performance to be significantly different. Cheers, Dimitris |
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| Thx Dimitris |
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14" MacBook Pro M2 Max, 64GB RAM. Total score 22,251. No swap disks used. Fantastic machine and super happy with it. Only downside is it makes my 4-year old 16-core MacPro with 160GB RAM slow with total score of 18,734 and 50% faster swap performance  Btw, why does PixInsight report Apple Silicon CPU's as 'GenuineIntel'? ******************************************************************************* The Official PixInsight Benchmark version 1.0Copyright (C) 2014-2021 Pleiades Astrophoto. All Rights Reserved. ******************************************************************************* Benchmark version ...... 1.00.08 Input checksum ......... 2cd72b67e12fff2812ef5b5da054ab2a70a25e23 Serial number .......... YRB43ROBKG5E7ENF2X3W93L1482X7GKH CPU Identification CPU vendor ............. GenuineIntel CPU model .............. VirtualApple @ 2.50GHz System Information Platform ............... MacOSX Operating system ....... macOS 14.2.1 23C71 Core version ........... PixInsight Core 1.8.9-2 (x64) Logical processors ..... 12 Total memory size ...... 64.000 GiB Execution Times Total time ............. 00:21.14 CPU time ............... 00:18.14 Swap time .............. 00:02.95 Swap transfer rate ..... 5618.044 MiB/s Performance Indices Total performance ...... 22251 CPU performance ........ 20870 Swap performance ....... 31116 ******************************************************************************* |
11.14
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Willem Jan Drijfhout: Due to the Rosetta 2 dynamic binary translator, which enables applications built for Intel processors to run on Apple Silicon Macs. |
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I like my Macs. My M1 laptop works great with 16 gigs of ram, 1 TB SSD storage. Its no Ferrari, but it gets the job done nicely.  My 0.02 Ian |
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I use a PC for most of my processing, but have a MacBook Pro as my laptop. Apple M2 Max with 12‑core CPU, 30‑core GPU, 16‑core Neural Engine 64GB unified memory 2TB SSD storage |
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Die Launische Diva:Willem Jan Drijfhout: Pretty impressive that kind of performance under emulation, btw. I suspect if a native version comes out, it will be crazy fast. |
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Sean Mc: Source? The RC tools have significant performance gains using CUDA. In fact, there's a post started by Russ himself from just a couple weeks ago on the PI forum with a new experimental repo to get everything installed and running. That surely doesn't sound like it's going away any time soon. Oh, if you're using MacOS, you get acceleration by default because it uses the coreML library. No need for all the rigamarole required of Windows and CUDA and tensor flow and all that fun stuff . Of course, PI still isn't running natively on Apple Silicon. Maybe 1.9?
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Die Launische Diva:Willem Jan Drijfhout: I don't have the expertise to comment on the speed gains of a native Apple Silicon version. I can only say that given the pace Pleiades Astrophoto delivers new software versions, we won't see a native version for Apple Silicon anytime soon. And maybe that's a good argument on choosing your hardware first based on your daytime/daily needs and not on a software needs of a hobby like astrophotography. |
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For my daily tasks I am using the laptop where I ran the benchmark. For astrophotography (and photography in general) I am using a much slower NUC with a core i5 and 16GB RAM. But it has 1TB NVMe and 4TB SSD. |
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I have an Intel iMac Pro from 2018 with 32GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD. Here are my results: ******************************************************************************* The Official PixInsight Benchmark version 1.0 Copyright (C) 2014-2021 Pleiades Astrophoto. All Rights Reserved. ******************************************************************************* Benchmark version ...... 1.00.08 Input checksum ......... 2cd72b67e12fff2812ef5b5da054ab2a70a25e23 Serial number .......... 06K4VN6WS6C4WML2X1U4JYA96IP5NJA4 CPU Identification CPU vendor ............. GenuineIntel CPU model .............. Intel(R) Xeon(R) W-2140B CPU @ 3.20GHz System Information Platform ............... MacOSX Operating system ....... macOS 14.1.2 23B92 Core version ........... PixInsight Core 1.8.9-2 (x64) Logical processors ..... 16 Total memory size ...... 32.000 GiB Execution Times Total time ............. 00:36.86 CPU time ............... 00:29.57 Swap time .............. 00:07.19 Swap transfer rate ..... 2306.827 MiB/s Performance Indices Total performance ...... 12763 CPU performance ........ 12800 Swap performance ....... 12776 ******************************************************************************* Benchmark with S/N 06K4VN6WS6C4WML2X1U4JYA96IP5NJA4 has been recorded on 2024/01/02 22:32:42 UTC |
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I use a PC for most of my processing, but have a MacBook Pro as my laptop. Heckuva laptop !!! |
1.20
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This is really a question of your own ecosystem and personal preference. But it always triggers the "fan-boy" / "fan-girl" posts. I can see here benchmarks for a Windows I 7 9th generation from 2018 vs a Mac M2 from 2022, how can this be a fair comparison. Intel is now at the 14th generation. I own Windows, Mac and Linux systems and I use all of them for different purpuses, but that's because I work in IT. I swapped back from Mac to Windows for my workhorse because most software is for Windows and because of CUDA. Everytime I had a software that supports hardware acceleration, I couldn't use my Mac or Windows computer with AMD graphics and there were probems with OPENGL for AMD. I don't know how far the development for AI support e.g. for all the Blur/Noise/StarXTerminator and other tools is for MAC but the spped boost with NVIDIA CUDA GPUs is significant. |
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Thank you Michael. vic |
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Both have advantages and disadvantages - the Mac is usually more reliable and probably faster, Photoshop works on both platforms but Affinity Photo is for Windows only - in case you do not want to spend quite some money for Photoshop and Adobe. IMO the main drawback for IOS is its price - that is for people like me prohibitive - I just cannot afford it. You can find a very powerful Win11 laptop for half or even less the price than a new M3 Macbook with comparable RAM, SSD etc. - at least here in Austria. So - what would I suggest to you? If you want and can afford it, got for the IOS, if you rather want to save some money for other activities or items for astrophotography, then go for a Win11 laptop. Would be interested to hear what you have bought.. CS Georg |
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Michael Nemetz: Hardware acceleration (external to the CPU) on Apple Silicon chips is already embedded in the OS so you get that kind of boost, in fact probably faster on a laptop where the GPU isn't top notch. |
