Advise for PC configuration . Matlab - Image Processing/Computer vision

Hello

I need advise for good PC configuration for Matlab. I need it for reason to run Image Processing/Computer vision algorithms. 3D not included. Mainly 2D, working with matrixes, vectors and big files of videos.

Points of interest: 1. Processor: Num of cores and process speed 2. Memory: Amount and speed 3. Hard Disk: speed 4. GPU 5. Operation system

Thanks

[Jason Ross]

What is your budget for the system?

Do you prefer Windows, Linux or Mac?

[Jason Ross]

Also, define "big" with approximate file sizes.

Answer 1

[Daniel Shub]

A budget would be helpful (including if you need MATLAB licenses or not). You could start here: http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/21176-best-budget-desktop-harware-for-high-performance-of-matlab

If your problems are embarrassingly parallel, you can often get better performance, for the same money, with multiple cheap computers instead of a single high spec machine.

[Michael]

Budget aprox 2000$ (not include Matlab)

I work in Windows

About the size of video files: i need to analyze 10-20Gb files with aprox 20 hours of video.

Thanks

[Daniel Shub]

With that budget I would go with the machine suggested in the link (probably upping the RAM to 32 GB).

[Thomas]

I agree with Daniel, Go for atleast 32 Gb of Ram (you can always have MORE RAM :) )

Here is a link for a 32 GB RAM kit on Amazon - $305

http://www.amazon.com/Komputerbay-PC3-10600-1333MHz-240-Pin-9-9-9-25/dp/B00698WMYO/ref=sr_1_30?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1321975915&sr=1-30

[Jason Ross]

I concur. I'd also recommend an SSD if you can make it fit in the budget. It will make anything that is reliant on disk access much faster.

And 64-bit Windows, since you use Windows.

[Michael]

Thanks for the answers

But what about processor/motherboard? In addition i know that Matlab use only CPU and GPU only in GPU computing. For now i'm not going to use GPU computing but still i'm working with video. Do you thing GPU buid-in CPU is well solution for me or i need to improve it?

Thanks

[Daniel Shub]

I think that what you want to do is get the RAM and GPU right to start with. I would still put a nice GPU in the system, you may want it later. Getting a motherboard that will handle over 32 GB of RAM will eat up some more money. The SSD might be nice and with $2000 you probably can afford a small one. Then spend whatever you have left on a processor. I would go with a single processor. I also would suggest fewer, but faster, cores.

[Michael]

thank you very much

Answer 2

[Image Analyst]

I have a garden variety HP workstation laptop. Model 8740w, widescreen, 2 internal 500 GB hard drives, 8 GB RAM, 64 bit Windows, and both 64 and 32 bit MATLAB. I deal mostly with 2D color images. It works fine. It never takes more than a second or two to analyze one image. A typical test will have 128 images and it will analyze and toss the data out to Excel in about 90 seconds or so. It seems fine for my purposes. If you need something faster, maybe you can check out the Alienware computers. Like the i7-2600k running at 4.1 GHz with 16 GB of RAM http://www.alienware.com/Landings/desktops.aspx They have the new Intel CPUs in them - look for ones that have the "K" or "X" suffix ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Sandy_Bridge_%28microarchitecture%29 ) You can get a 5.27 GHz Intel i7-980X at http://www.liquidnitrogenoverclocking.com/ You might also be able to get a 5.50 GHz i7-990X "Trinity Firehawk" at the same place. It's about $7500 but is the fastest PC I've heard of. But like I said, computers these days are so fast that just a garden variety PC is fast enough for my typical 2D image processing (Note that I said typical - I'm sure there are people who will run simulations that take days).

[Daniel Shub]

Garden variety PCs are also perfect for my work. I really benefit from solving embarrassingly parallel problems with cluster computing. I would so trade one $7500 machine for 15 $500 machines. I have colleagues who are really benefiting from the advances in GPU based computing. I know no one who is benefiting from single CPU based improvements. I can see benefits from making sure you have enough RAM to work with your videos.