If we don't count Final Cut Studio (the standard for video editing) which is Mac only, Adobe's products run on both Mac and PC so one could say that it doesn't matter what OS is running them.
However, it is not that Macs do anything better, it is just that the package you get from say iMac is better suited for graphics than most configured PCs from the big retailers. Most people don't realize that iMacs come with a H-IPS matrix display which cost about 4-5 times more than a the standard TN+Film display for the same size. These displays provide a great viewing angle, higher color accuracy. If you factor in the display price, the difference in $ between mac and pc disappears. Then again, I think the Mac OS is one of the best modern OS available today with its BSD core subsystem and you don't want your winamp to crash your photoshop while you're editing right?
Here is how big the difference is between the H-IPS and TN+Film screens:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BG7XNwbUYEM
Cheers,
Georgi
Thank you. You're the first person who responded with actual info regarding why you think Macs are better with graphics. Most others just regurgitate things they've heard (even if they heard them from Mac commercials). I have PCs at home and a Mac Pro at work. I'm a web developer, but I use Photoshop, Flash, Flex Builder and occasionally Illustrator. I don't like the Mac OS, just a personal preference thing as I'm accustomed to Windows. Also, you can't run Visual Studio in OSX, which means I'd have to use Windows anyway. I know that Flash, Flex, Photoshop and Illustrator work identically in OSX and Windows. No performance difference.
My biggest complaint about Macs is the way they rake you over the coals on hardware that's identical to PC hardware. For example, our machines have a pretty lame GeForce 7300 GT video card in them. We've looked into upgrading them only to find that Macs are severely limited in video card choices. You can't just throw in any Nvidia or ATI video card, they have to be Mac models. Note that the Mac models are no different than the PC version, they just have different BIOS. I know a lot of people love to claim that Macs use superior hardware, but it's a complete myth. It's the same hardware, in a shiny case.
Anyway, we can only find 2 video cards we could upgrade to that are made for Macs. One is the GeForce GT 120, which is a rebadged GeForce 9500 GT. I don't know why Nvidia changed the model number for this Mac specific card, but I do know it's the same as the 9500 GT for PCs. For Macs, this card
sells for $150. The same card for PCs
sells for $65. Again, this is the same hardware made by Nvidia. It's not made of higher quality, and it's not made by Apple. It's not a great card, but it's better than the 7300 GT we're stuck with now. The other option is the ATI 4870, for which
Apple wants a whopping $350. You can get the same card for a PC for a mere
$155 and get double the RAM on the card to boot. To top it off, that PC version has a lifetime warranty. Here's a case where Apple wants more than double the money for a card with half the RAM of the PC version.
It's not just the exorbitant price that Apple wants for hardware, but it's the severe limitation on upgrade options that irritates me. For PCs, you have hundreds of choices for video card upgrades. For Macs, it's apparently 2 options. That's crazy.
The RAM, hard drives and processor upgrades thankfully are more forgiving as you can use the same hardware PCs use. In fact, Apple does exactly that when building them. I have no idea if you can upgrade the motherboard in a Mac, but I doubt it's nearly as cheap or easy as with a PC. The iMacs have nice screens, but since the machine is built into the monitor I'd imagine upgrading hardware would be very difficult or impossible. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
I'd have a lot less to complain about with Macs if they'd simply open up their OS and let you install it on any machine (like Windows/Linux). Obviously they don't want to do that because then who's going to pay $350 for their $155 video cards?
