Buying a Desktop
 

I have a family member that's looking into a new computer and has seriously been into photography (SLR) for a while now. They are thinking of switching over to Mac, but she doesn't really know too much about editing software etc. Is there one operating system that works out better then the other for this? I know shes likes the All in One Mac system, and the screen is great which is a plus, but do these middle of the run Mac's have enough processing power for some image editing? It seems for the money, a standar PC is cheaper (Suprise suprise). Any comments?

The iMacs have more than enough processing power for almost any image processing. There is really no advantage to either OS, but I much prefer OSX over Win7....it just works. Windows is so clunky. Colour management in OSX is more advanced too. There is one digital workflow software that is Mac only: Aperture. But Aperture is very similar to Lightroom3, which is available on both platforms. I just bought a 17" Acer laptop with Win7 to replace our other aging laptop and it feels so primitive compared to my new 17" Macbook Pro - not just in build quality, but how the OS feels. It was a bit of a learning curve to go from WinXP to OSX, but I quickly got the hang of it and have never looked back. Of course, there are some things in OSX that I wish were done like in Windows, but it's no big deal.

Yes, a starter PC can be had for much cheaper, but as soon as you get a comparable CPU, GPU and especially monitor, you'll probably be approaching the price of an iMac...and you'll have fucking cables all over the place. The one thing that amazes me about the iMacs is the screen. The 27" iMac's monitor has a colour gamut that approaches that of a $1500 27" NEC monitor, so I personally think the iMacs are a great deal *IF* you're into image/video editing. For a person who doesn't really need it, then one of those $600 PC all-in-ones is more than enough I think.

It really boils down to her personal preference and current budget - I would buy the iMac personally, as you get a great OS and a great looking package that can handle almost anything you throw at it. A PC system with a decent monitor will be adequate, but the weak link will be how good that monitor is. There are no sub-$1000 monitors on the market right now that I would even consider for professional level image editing, but I may be overly technical & picky.

Thanks for the input Senna. You say any of the iMacs would be good enough for image processing? So then it's basically the choice between the basic 21.5", with the lesser video card, or go straight for the basic 27" which is better all around. I've always likes Apple, and am trying to persuade her that way.

Any of the current iMacs are very fast machines. They'll handle just about anything most people will throw at it. My 17" Macbook Pro is a 3.06ghz and it handles 21MP SLR files easily in Lightroom3 or Photoshop CS5.

27" Will give you some really nice screen real estate. More room for tools. That's what I would get if I were to buy something new.

just throwing this out there since we're talking abt imacs, can their screens be color calibrated?

Yes, of course.

I'm not the photography expert here, but there are a few IPS monitors out there that I think would be perfectly fine if you're not a professional. Namely - the Dell Ultrasharp 24" can be had for $500 when it's on sale - is a great monitor.

PC's whether you get the out-of-the-box ones from Futureshop or a custom build from NCIX - will usually have a much better performance to price ratio. I find that if you get a desktop and throw in a Solid State Hard Drive - you'll find Photoshop will load up in a few seconds. Of course - operating systems are quite subjective. I've always used Windows, so I was used to it. I started with Windows XP - skipped Vista, and went straight to 7 - but since I used Vista with work and everything, I found 7 to be quite easy to use.

There is an issue with viruses - but as long as you get an anti-virus (Microsoft Security Essentials is free), stop downloading unknown files - such as freeporn.exe - you're ok.

There is something to be said about iMac's - they are very beautiful machines - but I think you definitely pay a very big price premium to get one, and any additional upgrades you do on them are very VERY expensive. 27" screens are amazing, but I personally prefer to have 2 24" screens over 1 27". Even if you go for a cheap 2nd monitor, it's great for multi-tasking, and using your better monitor as your editing monitor... etc.

I just find it very hard to swallow the cost of an i3 powered iMac at $1700... i don't care if it's got a 27" screen with it or not. Something at that price shouldn't be so underpowered... Add in the only option of an SSD at $600 for a 256GB - that's just robbery. With a PC - you can get a high performance SSD that's 60GB in size for around $120, and get a 2TB drive for around $80 for your storage.

Get an SSD. Photoshop flies with an SSD. Photoshop starts in under 4 seconds with a cheap kingston SSD.

Oh, right....iMacs are not easily upgradeable, as are most all-in-ones. The only components that are upgradeable are the RAM & HD - and DO NOT buy the parts from Apple! I recently upgraded my Macbook Pro's RAM to 8GB, and Apple wanted over $500 - NCIX had the exact same chips on sale for $155! I got them at cost for $130....hehe.

If you're editing an image, I think it's too distracting to have it spread across 2 screens - one big one is much better. Of course, I would use a second screen for the palettes.

Oh, and if you're a heavy Photoshop user, it would be smart to use an external HD as your scratch disk connected with at least Firewire 800.

Can iMacs have more than 1 HD inside?

A lot of PCs have an e-SATA port now - which are blazingly fast - just as fast as a regular HD inside your computer.

I use my old 24" Dell Ultrasharp hooked up to my macbook pro for editing. tool palettes on my laptop screen. =)

You can't really compare processors because each OS uses it differently.

The 27 inch iMac is great for photo editing just because of the display. The glass makes it look SOOOOO crisp and I think it helps with the editing because you see "true" colours. Although the 21 inch iMac would probably suffice.

8GB of ram! Senna4ever is balling :D. The more ram the better when dealing with graphics works I'd say. My current PC is 3years old, I can barely run CS3 + Lightroom simultaneously with 2GB of ram. Tempted to upgrade since it can be slow like hell when I'm running a graphics program.

No, unfortunately not.

Yep, I have my scratch disk connected via e-SATA. It's not as fast, but close as in my case I have a 7200rpm drive in my Macbook Pro, but only a 5200rpm drive in my external.

Lol, $130 is not balling!

You should notice a huge difference just by upgrading your RAM to 4GB. I had no performance issues running CS5, Lightroom3, Firefox, iTunes & Vuze all at once on 4GB. I once accidentally played WoW with all those open and didn't notice until I closed WoW.

Considering my system is getting old, I probably will defer upgrading in a year or two with a completely new system instead. My system is only able to utilize 3GB max, I believe for Windows XP. Therefore, I feel there won't be a huge difference adding more ram from 2GB -> 3GB.

For the meantime I'll have to live with what I have.

Imac's aren't too bad for upgrading. I took a 24" apart pretty quickly. Once you're inside everything is so simple and clean. But the only thing you'd really change would be RAM and HDD only.

in terms of the GPU, i could never get a straight answer as to how much it actually helps in PS CS5. but other than ram and the cpu, a ssd would help a lot as well.

Gpu helps in zooming in and out. Not sure if they've added any additional acceleration yet.
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Skip the triple screen set up and save a bunch of money.

GPU acceleration is available for PS CS4+ I believe.

http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/404/kb404898.html

so for a user who plays zero 3D games, what's a good GPU for CS5? a 6950? GTX460? is the choice solely based on OpenGL performance?

regardless of which GPU you select, make sure you don't skimp out on the case/fan and PSU (pick one similar to Manic's suggestions). removable filters, directional airflow, and quietness is very important imo. that's why an i7 can be had from Dell for $799 at times, while building one can cost even more but you're using brand name components with >1 yr warranty -> lifetime limited warranty, and you won't be stuck with crappy components. but that's an entirely different discussion.

Something like a GTX460 would be overkill. Any ~$1-200 ATI or Nvidia card should be more than enough.

well it can be future-proof for CS6 haha ... or can it?

Here's a full list of GPU enabled features in CS5

for those interested, here are some CPU-related benchmarks so you can compare between platforms and generations of processors. couldn't find any on GPU's tho.