So, my pc is dying. It's old and has been used a fair bit including 3 or 4 years of folding 24/7 Time for a new one

What I'm after is feedback from peeps who have had both a fairly high end pc and a Mac - preferably an iMac. As you know I'm into photography and require a great photo processing machine, sommat for internet browsing and the occasional movie (or i-player). Now I could put together a fairly decent pc with a 23/24" screen for about a grand but wondered if THIS would compete. I really fancy this version but need a reasonable appraisal of the differences between formats before I splash the extra £500 (I would get 16Gb RAM from CRUCIAL). Following a suggestion from Heather, I've already had a look at the Mac mini but despite the fact I would be adding a hard drive caddy for external storage, I can't help but feel the 500Gb hard drive would be a limiting factor along with the maximum availability of 8Gb RAM.

I am also troubled at the lack of a blu-ray r/w player, the 1Tb hard drive and graphics card with only 512Mb memory (albeit GDDR5)and feel that these let the iMac down. The difference in processor from 2.7GHz to a reasonable 3.3GHz I could use on a pc niggles at me but have heard that the iMac does more than hold its own with pc's of a similar spec when processing images (I could get the 3.1GHz version but that would not be worth the £250 extra on top of the £400 difference already in place).

So if any of you have used both formats can you please help guide me in the right direction? I'm very aware that Apple fans tend to be slightly biased when it comes to 'their stuff' but am having real difficulty finding objective comparisons elsewhere.

Thanks.

Al

I've always been an Apple user, so my experience may be coloured - however:




I don't think you need to be, necessarily.
We bought one at work, expecting that students who are working in HD are going to want to produce BluRay Discs of their work.
However, by and large, they don't.
It got used once last term when we held a screening at a local cinema, and needed all the work in HD for projection.
We could have probably just as easily stuck it on an external HD.
So, that's to say that in my personal experience, people just don't tend to burn BluRay discs. If you need to, then you can get an external burner.
YMMV, as ever though.

I've got both PC's & macs and can say that the iMac is a great machine to use.

The screen is great, it's reliable, silent & even the speakers aren't bad for such a slim machine.

GFX card memory only effects games & things like 3D CAD so as you've not mentioned either of these you'll be fine (my iMac is the older model and the gfx are still fine for casual gaming).

You can even install Windows on it if you want to (either virtualized or via bootcamp).

HDD space isn't an issue as externals & NAS boxes are cheap enough already.

8GB RAM a limiting factor? What are you planning to run, Al?

(I do all my photo editing on a machine with 3GB, and it's quite happy.)

Currently on THW Road, I'll put a full reply IP later/tomorrow.

If you have the software on one platform, then stick with it. The iMac should be more than capable of holding its own. The only thing that I don't like about them is the glossy screen - companies here can't use them because of health and safety law!

At the end of the day, the Computer is usually the cheapest Part of the equation.

Graphics Card - unless you are using Photoshop cs4 on Windows or later, which uses the gpu for effects calculations, an onboard graphic is more than enough, if you aren't a Games Player.


Edit: actually the current Intel integrated graphics are about 100 Times more efficient at Video encoding/decoding than a high ebd ATI or nVidia Card! Look IP QuickSync vor more Infos.

This is a valid point. The cost of any software migration also has to be taken in to consideration.
After that it's down to you. I've been solely using a laptop for the past three years (or more). It has a 500GB drive in it and I've had no problems with space issues. My photo library is sitting comfortably at a little under 200GB.
Consider your current space utilisation on the machine you have now and then think about possibly using external storage if you'll need it.
The machine will be more than capable for the photos though.

Mark

Thanks for the replies folks.

Prof - take your point on the Blu Ray.

saspro - question is whether you would choose an iMac or high end pc? I used a Mac at work occasionally and it seemed more logical to use. Dave seems to dislike the screen but you seem to like it - I need to see it in action for a reasonable period before making up my mind.


Welllll.... since you ask:

Photoshop

The thing about Photoshop (CS5 by the way) is that it uses whatever percentage of RAM you allow it. Then it's onto scratch disks. So the more RAM you have and the bigger the scratch disk, the quicker it will process images within the constraints of processor and motherboard limitations.


Using CS5 and looking to enable OpenGL for faster processing. Have it on my existing graphics card (512Mb) and the difference is staggering. Take your point on the software but have a dual windows/mac copy of cs5 so that is not an issue. Also have a windows lappy for the other stuff.


My photo library is sitting at a little over 400GB and that is aviation only I know I need to bin at least half but some of the pics are priceless (to me).


Have back up drive (500MB) and an external drive for triple redundancy (sits in the garage which is detached and away from the house). Will get a caddy and spare hard drives though.

Cheers

Al

My library for 2011 is already 41GB, which is 10 times what I have done since I started digital photography! But there again, my old cameras were compacts, with 4MP JPEGs, I switched to a compact with 8MP 2 years ago and the EOS with 25MB RAW files this year... It certainly makes a big difference!

Since Microsoft released the native RAW filters for Windows 7, I've deleted all the JPEGs I took this year and just have the RAWs on my Windows 7 machine and my iMac.

Having both machines here, on my desk, I have to say, I really don't see any big difference in usage between Windows and OS X. They are both very similar and both as easy to use. Both have their little quirks. I tend to use my Windows 7 Sony laptop more than my iMac, but that is mainly because OS X Snow Leopard and OS X Lion turned the thing into a snail! The iCloud update last week was the worst, it took around 10 minutes to boot up and login last Thursday! With Firefox and DVD Player open and nothing else (other than the default services running), it takes about 20 seconds of disk swapping to switch between the 2!

But that is a 2006 model, with 2GB RAM. Newer models, with more memory are fine, but the much lauded longevity of Macs seems to be turning more and more into a myth, with Intel Macs. And it isn't just the iMac, the mini (also 2GB) is just as sluggish, the 13" MacBook Pro is better, but has 4GB RAM, but still no athlete.

I don't know what Apple have done, but the iMac hasn't run properly since I ditched Leopard.

That said, most other people don't seem to have such issues.

With your requirements, I'd probably go Windows as you certainly get much more bang for your buck and the software you are using will work the same on both platforms. You also have much more flexibility, when it comes to selecting a video card to do the effects calculations for you.

The big advantage, at the moment, for the Apple line is the Thunderbolt connector. The Little Big Disk from La Cie, with the SSDs runs at up to 190MB/s sustained, although you don't get much storage for your money! Thunderbolt does offer incredible performance, which eSATA, even at 6GB/s can't currently match - but you'll need very deep pockets, the 240GB model costs around 650€!

I've found that now I don't game on my computer my iMac does everything I need a computer to do. CS5 runs great on it and the lack of noise from the computer is amazing.

What was the spec of the PC you were looking at? (we may have different ideas about what a high-end PC is)

Thanks for the comprehensive reply Dave. I've not heard of any speed issues with Lion and the 2011 iMacs but this is exactly the info I'm looking for


I'm looking at a combination of bits but here's what I've decided on so far:

CPU

MOTHERBOARD

RAM (16GB) but probably not from here if I can get it cheaper

PSU

GRAPHICS CARD

MONITOR

CPU Cooler

CASE

Total cost about £1,100 inc keyboard and mouse

Al

No offence, the processor is mid-range, the graphics processor is also a solid mid-range one. Nothing wrong with either, just saying.

A Z68 chipset would allow for hybrid caching - it slaves a "small" (20 - 64GB SSD) to a larger SATA disk drive and uses the SSD as a cache in a custom "RAID" configuration. Often used files (especially core Windows and apps, configuration files etc.) get cached on the SSD for quick access. The configuration can either use write-through or parallel writes (the latter is safer, but slower).

The configuration looks pretty good and would certainly run rings around an iMac, in terms of PS processing, if you really use a lot of filters and effects.

At the end of the day, it really is what you feel comfortable with.

Can you get yourself to an Apple Store or a dealer and get a prolonged demo of CS Suite, or possibly Apeture, to get an idea of whether you would be comfortable with an iMac?

As saspro says, the new iMacs are great for most things in this area, apart from gaming or power-power-users. It would certainly cope nicely with CS5, but it would probably fall behind your suggested rig, if you are doing heavy duty effects on images a lot of the time. On the other hand, it will probably use less power than your suggested rig.

Edit: I do light editing using Lightroom and my 8GB Core i7 laptop (previous generation, not Sandy Bridge) is plenty fast enough for what I am doing - 1.6Ghz Core i7, 8GB DDR RAM, 500GB 2.5" hard drive, GeForce GT330M graphics. To be honest, my next machine will probably be a Sandy Bridge (or more likely Ivy Bridge or the over-next generation), with onboard graphics. For 99.9% of what I do, the GeForce is overkill, it uses too much electricity and it causes the fans to spin up quickly, when doing anything graphics orientatet.

I have no issues with photoshop cs4 on a g5, so anything would be good enough really.

No offence taken Dave (as he cries in his milk....) but without spending double I'm not going to see much improvement from what I've already specced

Nearest Apple store is in Aberdeen, about 65 miles away but I think I'll take your advice and pop through for a looksee. I can combine the fine drive and have lunch with friends to make a real day of it.

The machine I specced is probably more than I will need so I could shave a few quid off the RAM, Graphics Card and possibly the monitor as well, although I realise it's one of the most important components in a system. Having said that I could probably get by with a less powerful motherboard and CPU as well shaving even more off the cost. I'm not into gaming but might get back into flight simming at some point in the future which is why I was speccing so high (IMHO )

Thanks for your advice and comparison with the iMac - it's beginning to sound more like way too much money for the product although the 27" screen was a major plus.

Al

If flight sims are a possibility, I understand X Plane is a good one available for the Mac.

In my opinion, the iMacs are currently too expensive, for what they are. They are well designed and put together and the 27" display is good (although it uses the same panel as the 27" Thunderbolt screen (and the previous 27'" Cinema display), which use a good IPS panel, although the review of the Thunderbolt display says that they still haven't solved the problem with (comparatively) poor red reproduction and green is also not so accurate - probably a problem for graphics professionals, for the "normal" user, they probably wouldn't notice anything.

As to the display, the Dell display is very good, and well priced, and Dell do do a 27" display with the same resolution as the 27" iMac and it is supposed to be a very good panel.

The iMac is expensive, but it brings you everything in one unit, so fewer cables. But you pay for that compactness. Before the switch to Intel, Macs were over priced and non-competitive. With the switch, they suddenly looked attractive, then the prices in the PC market plummeted and Apple put their prices up...

BUT, if you feel more comfortable using a Mac and can work more effectively, the price difference will become irrelevant fairly quickly, as you will work faster and more effectively.

For me, using both on a day-to-day basis, I don't find either more effective than the other, they are both solid, but the age of my iMac makes it less and less attractive, the same as a similar aged Windows PC would get slower and slower as the OS and apps progress...