Please help me with my computer purchase

TheStig · May 30, 2013

You could pick up a nice display and still have money left over, also the mac os doesn't improve the software running on it. It's still programmed by the same people.

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texkam · May 30, 2013

Rubbish, what are macs for if they are not for graphic design and photography?

Please re-read my post. --- "will give you more bang for the buck compared to your MacBook for the need you stated"---

Macs ARE for graphic design and photography. So are PCs. Once upon a time their was a meaningful difference in platform funtionality. PCs simply could not handle this type of work. This is no longer true. It is true Macs are well made and the OS is very elegant, but you pay a premium for that. I am a graphic designer and have worked with both Windows and Apple machines. I taught at a design school that is PC based. Just as my browser doesn't care whether I'm writing this on a Mac or PC, Photoshop doesn't care what OS it's being run on, but rather the specs it needs to do it's job. All these "boxes" are just tools, some more fancy than others. A powerful Mac will get you there, no problem. A top of the line PC whether built or bought will give you the best value for the buck with a custom built one being the superior choice.

OLaA · May 30, 2013

OP if you're comfortable with Mac and can afford it, go for it. Current iMacs will handle the files just fine with modern processors. Both light room and photoshop are CPU intensive programs, and RAM is not the bottle neck. If you decide to go with a PC build you don't need to shoot for the top. If all you want to do is process images, current gen ivy bridge i5's will be just fine paired with integrated graphics. You don't need to throw in a bunch of ram, and definitely not a graphics card (GPU). GPU has nothing to do with your adobe software, other than video processing that uses specialized hardware acceleration but even then only is compatible with certain Nvidia cards.

My recommendation since it doesn't seem like your into computers is to stick with what you know. Get something reliable out of the box and enjoy your camera and new computer.

kja6 · May 30, 2013

Thanks to all that have responded so far.

So... the current generation (i.e.: the newest model of the iMac that's got that super thin monitor screen) 21.5" will be able to run all the stuff and handle everything ok is what I gathered from all the mixed responses? I'm still a bit confused. But I think OLaA says it would be okay?

I'm definitely NOT a computer person, so putting together a PC would be very problematic.

kja6 · May 30, 2013

Oh, and what is this SSD stuff everyone's talking about? Is it something I can add to my iMac, externally, that'll make things run smoother/faster? I'm not gonna take apart the thing and perform and operation on it

OLaA · May 30, 2013

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.

dxqcanada · May 30, 2013

Suggestion ...

Use a 64bit operating system.
Increase the RAM to at least 4GB
Upgrade the graphics card (especially if you are using an integrated video chip).

kja6 · May 31, 2013

dxqcanada said:
Suggestion ...

Use a 64bit operating system.
Increase the RAM to at least 4GB
Upgrade the graphics card (especially if you are using an integrated video chip).

On my current 2008 MacBook setup, you reckon?

I was going to upgrade the RAM to 4GB. Heard it was easy to unscrew the bottom of the laptop and plug in/replace the old RAM.

kja6 · May 31, 2013

OLaA said:
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.

Thank you muchly for the advice you've given. I will purchase the new 21.5" iMac

kja6 · May 31, 2013

OLaA said:
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.

Ballistics · May 31, 2013

TheStig said:
A PC with identical parts will cost far less and perform the same.

They really don't though. A dell/hp equivalent to a Mac is pretty much the same price.

I'm a PC guy but I also have used Mac a lot.

The first thing I would suggest is build your own PC, as it will save you a few hundred dollars, but if you don't want to do that, then I would suggest an iMac

JDFlood · May 31, 2013

Just for the record. There is a better approach to "build your own PC". Go to Fry's Electronics, find a PC geek and a basket, tell him what you are going to use it for, throw all the parts in the basket, and they will assemble it for a very small fee, $ 25 last week, but normally, $50 - $75... You'll save a fortune and not have to figure out if the green wire crosses over to the lowere left connector or one of the 4 other possibilities. JD

I have built two incredible PCs like this. Also, Lightroom does NOT support graphics card assistance, so you need not spend a fortune on the graphics card, it will not help. Get really fast multicore processor and lots of RAM (hence, must do 64bit).

Ballistics · May 31, 2013

If there is a frys nearby, you can do that, but then you are subject to a much higher price. Building a pc is plug and play now. For me, the closest store is microcenter which is 40min away. If I were to do the same build through them, it. Would have been 150 more in parts alone.

Gavjenks · May 31, 2013

Rubbish, what are macs for if they are not for graphic design and photography?

Primarily looking trendy in front of your friends.

@OP:
More RAM will allow you to do larger edits without freezing up or crashing your editing program. But once you have enough RAM to do something complex (like spherical distortion or something) to a full size file without problems, you don't reallly need that much more. There would be an upper ceiling of usefulness at probably around 6-8GB for your photo editing purposes. Unless you do crazy things like stitching together 30-40 images in massive photomosaics or something.

CPU will make the edits go faster (but wouldn't stop you from freezing or crashing if you had insufficient RAM). Faster CPU = faster edits. Having multiple cores will only make some types of edits faster, and how useful it is for photo editing will depend on your version of software. PS CS6 is much better at taking advantage of multicores than CS5, for instance.

GPU (graphics card) will also be used by recent versions of photoshop to accelerate some types of edits.

There's no real way to just look at the numbers and say "that's enough." It depends on what you are having trouble with. Is your system just not able to finish an edit at all without hanging? More RAM. Is it just too slow for your tastes, but it does finish? More CPU + GPU. How much RAM is enough is when your system can finish everything it needs to do. How much CPU/GPU is enough is when it is fast enough to make you happy for how much you are willing to spend.

And SSD drives should not add any noticeable performance to photo editing. Once an image is loaded in photoshop or lightroom, etc., it is held in RAM and the RAM version is used for editing. it doesn't write to your disk and back constantly, so SSD vs. HDD doesn't matter except for the 1 or 2 seconds when you load or save the image.

SSD is more useful for other types of things that write to disk or read much more frequently. Like large database manipulation, or minecraft.