Please help me with my computer purchase

[OLaA]

Much appreciated! Good luck with your new purchase.

Newer generation iMac will be fine. SSD isn't necessarily but definitely is a great way to add a bump in performance. It is not something you can add external, well it is but not to gain max benefits. You want it wired to the MOBO for highest transfer rates. Also you want it as your internal hard drive because you want your OS running on it as well. While it is nice to have, not totally necessary and you will be fine without it. I use a 3 year old iMac at the office and toggle between photoshop and lightroom. While it isn't the fastest performance in the world, it is bearable. So with the newer i intel processors you will be just fine.

Oh, and sick photos on your website, by the way.

 

[JRSpN]

I have a New Mac Book with the retina Display and it has no problems with the Raw files from my D600 not quite 36MP but still large at 24MP.
Its a MAc Book Pro 16GB Ram I7 2.6 GHZ Processor OSX Version 10.8.3

But i built my desk top myself as some people said it is not hard to do.

So if you are going to be making a desktop i would go with a home built PC or a custome built PC. My desktop is very overkill and it was only 2K compared to my Mac Book at 2700.

But build a PC for Home
My recomendation is a 255GB SSD drive for the OS then 2 2TB or larger Hard Drives for storage.
Get a GTX 660 or 680 Video card
Intel I7 quad core or hex core
Asus Mother Board
32 or 64 GB of ram
a 750 Watt Power Supply
A Liquid Cooler for CPU
and some additional Fans to keep it cool
a Decent air flow case
then a DVD or BRD drive and your good to go.

PC's are easier to upgrade in my opinion and it will out perform the mac.

Biggest reason i went with a macbook pro for my laptop is the display is amazing. But for a desk top there are several good displays.

And if you want real resolution go get a GTX680 Video card and a 4KTV

 

[kja6]

Thanks again, everyone. It was all helpful advice. I'm afraid I'll have to go with the iMac (the "afraid" because I'm going against lot of opinion here with the PC build), as I don't know how to assemble a computer, nor do I know anyone that knows how to.

 

[Dubaiian]

Fwiw. I use a Mac Book Air for my photo processing and it seems to work fine. It's 8gb ram and 256gb SSD HD connected to a thunderbolt drive and a 27" screen when. Am actually doing photo stuff.

Don't do complex stitching and Panos etc but for me it works really well and has never hung using LR4.

Maybe I am a bit basic, but having had numerous pcs in the house slow down through incompatibility of software and drivers etc, I just love the simplicity of IOS.

JMHO but YMMV

 

[Dubaiian]

Meant to add. I am WAY too old to look cool in a coffee shop with a Mac ;-)