Mac vs. PC

[MrSandman]

Ok, i'm in need of a new computer and my 3 year old Dual-core PC running XP just isn't cutting it anymore. Ever since i got the 5D2, editing the RAW photos and especially the video really bog down my PC. So i'm starting to lean towards Mac. Anyone else in the same boat?

Since Macs can also run Windows i figure its a no brainer.

So with that said, will i need a Mac Pro? Or will the Mac mini suffice? I don't want the iMac as i already have a nice 26" LCD.

Any advice? the only Apple product that i've ever purchased have been iPhones and iPods so this is new for me.

Also, any recommendations on where to buy from?

 

[BlueCorn]

The mini is lacking in the GPU department. I'd get the 27" iMac and plug your display into it. Having both screens would be awesome.

Apple controls their pricing very tightly. If it's a current model, there won't be more than $5 difference between retailers.

 

[VoidRaven]

I run a 17" iMac with a 23" Mac Cinema display as a second monitor for editing on and it is really awesome! I never worked with dual monitors before but now I don't know if I can ever go back to not having 2.

 

[csueeman]

Myself, I would go out and get a 64 bit quad core processor, load it down with 8+ gigs of RAM and get myself a really nice video card and do that. But I am a PC man. Can't argue against macs. Just feel I can do price wise building my own stuff.

 

[MrSandman]

The mini is lacking in the GPU department. I'd get the 27" iMac and plug your display into it. Having both screens would be awesome.

Apple controls their pricing very tightly. If it's a current model, there won't be more than $5 difference between retailers.

The only downside to getting an iMac is that i already run a dual monitor system (22" and 26" widescreens). I suppose i could just get the 27" iMac and give the 22" screen to the kids. i just found out that i get 100 bucks off an iMac through my work discount so it helps a little.

I run a 17" iMac with a 23" Mac Cinema display as a second monitor for editing on and it is really awesome! I never worked with dual monitors before but now I don't know if I can ever go back to not having 2.

Yep. I've been running dual monitors for several years now and its very convenient.

Myself, I would go out and get a 64 bit quad core processor, load it down with 8+ gigs of RAM and get myself a really nice video card and do that. But I am a PC man. Can't argue against macs. Just feel I can do price wise building my own stuff.

I thought about doing that too. Still haven't ruled it out, but i just don't have the time to research it. If you have recommendations on the components, then please let me know.

 

[MrSandman]

Question for you photographers with iMacs. How do you backup your photos? Currently on my PC i have my system drive separated from my data drive. All of my photos and videos are saved to 2 internal SATA drives and then mirrored onto a couple USB external drives. I actually have 3 external USB drives as i have a huge mp3 collection as well. Since the iMac only has 4 USB ports and a single Firewire 800 port, how do you guys do it?

 

[BlueCorn]

Timemachine will automatically backup to external drives. You can use a hub if you need more ports.

I also backup to BackupBlaze online to get a copy of my data offsite.

 

[MrSandman]

Doug,

Are you using Time Machine to backup to Time Capsule? Or are you backing up to an external USB drive?

 

[BlueCorn]

To an external drive.

 

[svynx]

Myself, I would go out and get a 64 bit quad core processor, load it down with 8+ gigs of RAM and get myself a really nice video card and do that. But I am a PC man. Can't argue against macs. Just feel I can do price wise building my own stuff.

+1. I'm building my own computer right now. I've priced things out to about $500. The only issue with this direction is that there won't be a warrenty. Some people don't like that. The parts have their own warrenty, and it's not hard to swap things out if needed.

 

[Beaun]

I just recently put together a quad core 3.0 gHz AMD Phenom II 940 CPU with 4 gig ram. I could give you my parts list if you are interested. Newegg.com is a good place to get starting looking for what you are interested in. It would be about $900 without a keyboard, mouse or monitor, and it smokes on performance.

 

[csueeman]

That is the problem building your own computer. It sometimes takes me a month or so before I am happy pricing all my parts. But I enjoy doing that, while others may not!

As for backing up data, I use Mozy for my online backup. It takes a while to do the initial backup because it has to upload everything to the server, but after that it works great. When your computer is connected to the internet and it detects that you are idle at the time, it starts and backs up all new data it finds in the folders you want. Quick, painless, and you never notice it. And I believe any online back up service will behave the same way.

 

["Umm fish?"]

My Mac has four internal drives. A drive for the system (easily re-installed) and a drive for my user. The user drive is connected to the third internal as a RAID, then the system and user drives get backed up to the fourth (large) internal drive. I also have a couple of external drives, but I don't trust them very much. Drive QC is not what it used to be.

 

[Hookup]

I have both MAC and PC at home.... as far as I can see there is little to no differences when it comes to these types of tasks. Photoshop/Lightroom work the same on both, memory management is good on either, adding gobs of ram is not very costly anymore and thats where it counts, IMO.

 

[jopo43]

MAC!!!

Whats a PC ? Those things that never work right oh yeah........

 

[t0p_sh0tta]

I'm actually in the same boat. I was all set to buy an i5 powered iMac when I found several complaints about the new iMac's performance and screen issues. Obviously this has made me a bit gunshy.

I've recently began pricing i5 PC builds and I can get a middle of the road (IMO) rig for around $1000. At that price point, I'll have dual or even triple monitor compatibility and enough muscle to manhandle anything that I can throw at it. It makes it pretty dificult to justify the Apple tax.

Regarding the Mac Pro, I would definitely hold off, as the new models will be released shortly with Intel's new chip coming.

 

[TWallace]

Ever since i got the 5D2, editing the RAW photos and especially the video really bog down my PC. So i'm starting to lean towards Mac.

I don't follow your logic. Your current 3 year old PC is underpowered... therefore you need a Mac? I'd think the logical solution is you need a new computer

I thought about doing that too. Still haven't ruled it out, but i just don't have the time to research it. If you have recommendations on the components, then please let me know.

Here you go:
Lian-Li Case $89
AMD 3.4GHz Quad Core CPU $185
Enermax 500W Power Supply $70 (before $10 mail-in rebate)
640GB HD $70
8GB DDR3 1600 RAM $270
USB Wireless Adapter $20
Asus Motherboard $115
Windows 7 Pro $140
Sony DVD Burner $27
ATI 4670 video card $65

Total price of this build: $1051. Mac Pro with similar specs: $2800. Each build should have pretty similar performance. The only differences are that the PC uses faster RAM, the Mac uses Intel Xeon processors instead of AMD Phenom. I found it difficult to find info on which processor is better.

Neither build has a great video card, though the PC's is better. If you want to upgrade the video card, PCs are leaps and bounds better in terms of options and cost efficiency. Video card won't make much difference in photo editing. I've read that future versions of Photoshop may incorporate the video card to accelerate performance, but for now it doesn't. We recently upgraded the video cards in 8 of our Mac Pros at my office (for Call of Duty!). It cost us $350 per card for ATI 4870s. The same card for PCs sell for around $160.

You could likely save $97 by reusing your existing power supply and DVD drive from your current machine, dropping the PC price to $954. A further $89 could be saved by reusing your existing case. However, I love the Lian-Li cases. Very easy to work with, lots of room, solid build quality.

 

[InfernoST]

I would go with the Apple Imac. I have my 21" for 2 years now and have never had to re-install anything nor has it crashed. I use 2 external 500 gig firewire drives for addition storage and an HP media server with 6 tb in three bays for backups and for the more important data the 4th bay is setup as a seperate server and not part of the storage pool so it can be removed and stored in a safe place with more valuable files. My pc machines always require tweaking and crash frequently, once my pc machines crap out they will get replaced with apple products because they just work.

 

[t0p_sh0tta]

In all my years of dealing with PCs and really buggering stuff up along the way, I've NEVER had one crash. Hardware, such as monitors, harddrives and video cards are another store, but hardly PC specific.

 

[Taqpol]

I don't follow your logic. Your current 3 year old PC is underpowered... therefore you need a Mac? I'd think the logical solution is you need a new computer


Here you go:
Lian-Li Case $89
AMD 3.4GHz Quad Core CPU $185
Enermax 500W Power Supply $70 (before $10 mail-in rebate)
640GB HD $70
8GB DDR3 1600 RAM $270
USB Wireless Adapter $20
Asus Motherboard $115
Windows 7 Pro $140
Sony DVD Burner $27
ATI 4670 video card $65

Total price of this build: $1051. Mac Pro with similar specs: $2800. Each build should have pretty similar performance. The only differences are that the PC uses faster RAM, the Mac uses Intel Xeon processors instead of AMD Phenom. I found it difficult to find info on which processor is better.

Neither build has a great video card, though the PC's is better. If you want to upgrade the video card, PCs are leaps and bounds better in terms of options and cost efficiency. Video card won't make much difference in photo editing. I've read that future versions of Photoshop may incorporate the video card to accelerate performance, but for now it doesn't. We recently upgraded the video cards in 8 of our Mac Pros at my office (for Call of Duty!). It cost us $350 per card for ATI 4870s. The same card for PCs sell for around $160.

You could likely save $97 by reusing your existing power supply and DVD drive from your current machine, dropping the PC price to $954. A further $89 could be saved by reusing your existing case. However, I love the Lian-Li cases. Very easy to work with, lots of room, solid build quality.

This seems like the best advice by far. I don't see why people think its justifiable to spend $1800 more just for the apple logo.