MAC or PC

[ibayley]

Hi,
I have a PC but the PS documents open real slow and alot of PS functions execute slow especially when I have a lot of layers in them. I used to work on a MAC G5 years ago and was wondering if buying a new IMac would solve my problems. Then again I started reading reviews on Cnet and Amazon and others about the Imac and am totally confused as to its performance. Thats why I've turned to you guys, what sort of specs should I be looking for. And is buying a MAC a good investment? etc.

Thanks for all your help/suggestions.

[Hyb]

I just looked at the imacs from apples website. The only difference i see is that they give you bigger monitors. Performance wise, it doesn't even match up to this PC i'm using let alone my main one. At the end of the day it all comes down to how much you have to spend. If you let me know your budget, i'll go and compare PC and iMac specs within that price range and let you know. It would also be nice if you let me know what kind of specs your current PC is and how frequently you maintain it, cos sometimes the best solution is to do some minor tweaks instead of splashing out on a new system.

[rAyVoLvEz]

i'm on pc and ps works fine for me as long as i do the right configs and have enough ram to feed it.. also set up an external scratch disk for it..

[darkradio]

PC all the way. Mine is custom built, but even if I didn't know what to put in a PC I think it would suck to have a mac in a PC world. Macs have better commercials though.

[Hardy]

Before you splash out lots of cash on a new machine consider what's in your current one.

The more memory that it has the better - and it's cheap. 1gb strips of 667mhz DDR2 are going for around £30, depending on your motherboard configuration you'll get at least 2gb in.

As Ray said a seperate scratch disk can help lots too. Adding an extra hard drive can be very cheap (250gb = £45, 320gb = £60) or a very fast drive is a little more (150gb 10krpm = £150).

The other thing is to check if your pc is using a seperate graphics card. If it's using the on board chip part of your system RAM will be being sacrificed for the graphics. Adding a seperate graphics card will not only free up more system memory but it will (generally) be faster than the built in version. Graphics cards vary in price massivley depending on spec from around £50 to £500+. Even a cheap card is generally going to be better than your onboard chip.

[Altered Sky]

Originally posted by Hyb
Performance wise, it doesn't even match up to this PC i'm using let alone my main one.

Maybe you have a quad core with 6 gigs of memory then because I use both platforms on a consistent basis and the mac beats the pc hands down. At home I have a 3.4ghz p4 HT, 2 gigs of system memory, and an 8800GTX with 768mb of memory. The imac will still render filters faster. It also loads PS faster, and always will.

The comparison between mac specs and pc specs have always been skewed. There is no direct means of comparison because macs have always performed more EFFICIENTLY. They have never been heavy on processor speed or gigs of memory.

If you are a designer, use a mac. The environment is far more in tuned with the design life style. And did I mention it's really shiny?

[mixedupmacandpc]

It is hard to compare the two in real life, but our imac beats our PCs here in the studio by far. The machines are simular in ram and specs. Next week i get a macbookpro 17" that i will dump my PC desktop for. I will let ya all know the performance boost from that. But PS is tough one, it's always been a slow loader and poor performer inmo. I am on Cs2 now but going to CS3 on the MBP...and if history shows anything, it's that the newer versions never get any faster...but hardware makes it so.

Our imac has been the best hardware investment we have made in ages. but it's use is primarily Protools for audio production. Protools on a PC is a pure dog compared to the Mac version. Just look at studios, no matter what they produce, and you will see more macs then pcs. Our problem is the nearest apple store is an air ticket away. arg.... and the other downside is that we can build 3 PCs here for the price of one imac, but all from chinese knockoff components that are nothing but trouble in a production environment. You can't even get a decent case on the Nepali market. But the macs...ooohhh poetry in motion.

[kiwicolin]

I have 4 macs and 1 PC
Photoshop loads faster than Microsoft word on all my machines.
I have noticed that the macs handle large files better than the pcs. Basically they are all running the same hardware these days, its the OS which is different and OSX on top of Unix is way more stable than Windows, especially vista.

[Edited on 8/3/2007 by kiwicolin]

[TheDoc]

I could go on a Mac-pro rant here, but everyone has pretty much hit the nail on the head. If you want a reliable, fast, and efficient machine, get a Mac. I've been running on them for a long time now and I will never go back to Windo?z

[rAyVoLvEz]

i'm a designer but i'm still and always happy with my PC. it handles what i need to do fast enough.

to me, its not the system/platform that makes the works, but the person at it.

splashing out on a new system doesnt seem logical if what i have does the work.