I can get a PC with Intel Coffee Lake i3-8109U (4M Cache, up to 3.6 GHz), 2 Cores 4 Threads for a very good price with 16GB Ram. I know the recommendation is for at least i5, but this is faster than a lot of i5 processors. I am using a camera with 11MP 4144 X 2822 resolution 19 FPS. Would this processor be good for stacking or should I get more power?
Thanks,
Ray
CPU Question
Re: CPU Question
Hi, Ray,
It's very difficult to answer this, because there's far more to a good astrophotography computer than just the CPU: the I/O sub-system is hugely important, which is why many a “high spec” laptop sucks for astrophotography...
A solid USB subsystem is also very important, though it's generally better these days than when USB 3 was “new”. What is the graphics card? - newer SharpCap uses the GPU for fast screen updates...
How much RAM? What speed is the RAM? Storage - how much, how fast..
The CPU may be adequate - Robin is probably the best person to offer an opinion, but there’s no simple, complete, answer...
It's very difficult to answer this, because there's far more to a good astrophotography computer than just the CPU: the I/O sub-system is hugely important, which is why many a “high spec” laptop sucks for astrophotography...
A solid USB subsystem is also very important, though it's generally better these days than when USB 3 was “new”. What is the graphics card? - newer SharpCap uses the GPU for fast screen updates...
How much RAM? What speed is the RAM? Storage - how much, how fast..
The CPU may be adequate - Robin is probably the best person to offer an opinion, but there’s no simple, complete, answer...
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Re: CPU Question
Hi,
An interesting question (and a long time since I have had an i3 system, so I don't have any direct experience).
Cellkins makes good points that as well as good CPU power you need a computer that can move lots of data around quickly. This is particularly important for solar/lunar/planetary imaging (I guess where the 19fps you mention comes in).
If you are stacking in SharpCap then you are probably going to be taking exposures of 5s or longer, so the FPS doesn't come into play for stacking so much, but the more of the advanced stuff you start using in stacking (dark subtraction, flats, satellite trail removal, noise reduction, etc) the more CPU power will be needed.
Back to the specific system you mentioned, 16GB should be fine and the i3-8109U has built in Intel graphics, which are OK (not spectacular). CPU benchmark gives a score of ~4000 (2100 single threaded) (https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cp ... Hz&id=3333) . Overall that seems a little low (especially in the main score of 4000). If you have an existing PC that you are already using, you could look up the CPU benchmark of that CPU and see how it compares.
cheers,
Robin
An interesting question (and a long time since I have had an i3 system, so I don't have any direct experience).
Cellkins makes good points that as well as good CPU power you need a computer that can move lots of data around quickly. This is particularly important for solar/lunar/planetary imaging (I guess where the 19fps you mention comes in).
If you are stacking in SharpCap then you are probably going to be taking exposures of 5s or longer, so the FPS doesn't come into play for stacking so much, but the more of the advanced stuff you start using in stacking (dark subtraction, flats, satellite trail removal, noise reduction, etc) the more CPU power will be needed.
Back to the specific system you mentioned, 16GB should be fine and the i3-8109U has built in Intel graphics, which are OK (not spectacular). CPU benchmark gives a score of ~4000 (2100 single threaded) (https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cp ... Hz&id=3333) . Overall that seems a little low (especially in the main score of 4000). If you have an existing PC that you are already using, you could look up the CPU benchmark of that CPU and see how it compares.
cheers,
Robin
Re: CPU Question
Thanks for the responses. I ended up going with an AMD Ryzen7 4700U as it is 3X faster. SharpCap and other software will be on this mini-PC at the scope, but will be accessed remotely by a more powerful PC with high end GPU for the display. They will most likely be connected via ethernet.